Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the eighteenth chapter of Les Miserables.

Come with us as we release one bite a day of one of your favorite classic novels, plays & short stories. Bree reads these classics like she reads to her daughter, one chapter a day. If you love books or audiobooks and want something to listen to as you're getting ready, driving to work, or as you're getting ready for bed, check out Bite at a Time Books!

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>> Speaker A: Take a look, in the book.

>> Speaker B: And let's see what we can

find.

Take it chapter by chapter.

>> Speaker A: One fight M at a time

so.

>> Speaker B: Many adventures and mountains

we can climb.

>> Speaker A: To give word for word, line by.

>> Speaker B: Line, one bite at a time.

>> Brie Carlisle: Welcome.

>> Brie Carlisle: To bite at a time books where we read you your favorite

classics one byte at a time. my name is Bre

Carlisle and I love to read and wanted to share

my passion with listeners like you. If you want

to know whats coming next and vote on upcoming

books, sign up for our

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behind the narration of the episodes were part

of the byte at a Time Books productions network. If

youd also like to hear what inspired your favorite classic

authors to write their novels and what was going

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while we try to keep the text as close to the original as

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to honor the marginalized communities whove identified the

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>> Brie Carlisle: Today well be continuing les miserable

by.

>> Brie Carlisle: Victor Hugo chapter

four details concerning the.

>> Brie Carlisle: Cheese dairies of Pontlier.

>> Brie Carlisle: Now, in order to convey an idea of what passed at

that table, we cannot do better than to transcribe here.

>> Brie Carlisle: A passage from one of Mademoiselle Baptist.

>> Brie Carlisle: Letters to Madame Bochevran, wherein the

conversation between the convict and the bishop is

described with ingenious minuteness.

>> Brie Carlisle: This man paid no attention to anyone

he ate with the veracity of a starving man.

However, after supper he said,

monsieur le.

>> Brie Carlisle: Cure of the good God, all this is far too good for

me, but I must say that the Carters, who would not

allow me to eat with them, keep a better table than you

do.

>> Brie Carlisle: Between ourselves, the remark rather shocked

me.

>> Brie Carlisle: My brother replied, they are more

fatigued than I. No, returned

the man. They have more money. You

are poor, I see that plainly. You cannot be

even a curate. Are you really a cure?

Ah, if the good God were but just, you certainly ought

to be a cure. The, good God is more

than just, said my brother.

>> Brie Carlisle: A moment later he added, monsieur,

>> Brie Carlisle: Jean Valjean, is it to Pontlier that you are

going with my road marked out for

me?

>> Brie Carlisle: I think that is what the man said. Then he went

on.

>> Brie Carlisle: I must be on my way by daybreak tomorrow.

Traveling is hard. If the nights are cold, the days are

hot. You are going to a good country,

said my brother. during the revolution, my family was

ruined. I took refuge in Franchcomte

at first, and there I lived for some time

by the toil of my hands. My will was

good. I found plenty to occupy me.

one has only to choose. There are paper

mills, tanneries, distilleries, oil

factories, watch factories on a large scale,

steel mills, copper works, 20 iron

foundries, at least four of which

situated at Lodz, at Chatellion, at

Adencourt, and at bear tolerably large.

>> Brie Carlisle: I think im not mistaken in saying that those are the names which

my brother mentioned. Then he interrupted himself and

addressed me.

>> Brie Carlisle: Have, we not some relatives in those parts, my dear sister,

I replied.

>> Brie Carlisle: We did have some, among others, M. De Lucenette,

who was captain of the.

>> Brie Carlisle: Gates at Pontlier under the old regime.

Yes, resumed my brother, but

in 93, one had no longer any

relatives. One had only ones arms.

I worked. They have, in the country of

Pontlier. Whither you are going, Monsieur Valjean?

A truly patriarchal and truly charming

industry, my sister. It is their cheese

dairies which they call fruitiers.

>> Brie Carlisle: Then my brother, while urging the man to eat,

explained to him with great what

these fruit tires of Pontlier were, that

they were divided into two the big

barns, which belong to the rich, and where there are 40 or

50 cows, which produce from seven to 8000

cheeses each summer, and the associated

fruitiers which belong to the poor.

These are the peasants of mid mountain who hold their cows

in common and share the proceeds.

>> Brie Carlisle: They engage with the services of a

cheesemaker, whom they call

Gorin. A gorin receives the milk of the

associates three times a day and marks

the quantity on a double tally. It is toward the

end of April that the work of the cheese dairies

begins. It is towards the middle of June that

the cheesemakers drive their cows to the mountains.

>> Brie Carlisle: The man recovered his animation. As he ate,

my brother made him drink that good mauves wine, which he does not

drink himself because he says that wine is expensive.

My brother imparted all these details with that easy

gaiety of his with which you are acquainted,

interspersing his words with graceful attentions to

me. He, recurred frequently to that comfortable trait of

gruen. As though he wished the man to understand,

without advising him directly and harshly,

that this would afford him a refuge. One

thing struck me. this man was what I have told

you. Well, neither during supper nor during

the entire evening. Did my brother utter a single word.

With the exception of a few words about Jesus when he

entered. Which could remind the man of what he

was. Nor of what my brother was. To all

appearances, it was an occasion for preaching him a little

sermon. And of impressing the bishop on the convict.

So that a mark of the passage might remain behind.

This might have appeared to anyone else who had this

unfortunate man in his hands. To afford a chance to

nourish his soul as well as his body, and to bestow

upon him some reproach seasoned with moralizing

and advice. Or a little commiseration. With an

exhortation to conduct himself better in the future.

My brother did not even ask him from what country he came,

nor what was his history. For in history theres

a fault. And my brother seemed to avoid everything which could

remind him of it. To such a point did he carry

it that at one time when my brother was speaking of the

mountaineers of Pontlier. Who exercised a gentle

labor near heaven, and who, he added, are happy because

they are innocent. He stopped short,

fearing lest in this remark there might have escaped

him something which might wound the man. By dint

of reflection. I think ive comprehended what was passing in my

brothers heart. He was thinking, no doubt, that

this man, whose name is Jean Valjean, had his

misfortune only too vividly present in his mind.

The best thing was to divert him from it and make him

believe, if only momentarily, that he was a

person like any other. By treating him just in his ordinary

way. Is not this indeed to understand

charity? Well? Is there not, dear madame,

something truly evangelical in this delicacy. Which

abstains from sermon, from moralizing, from

illusions. And its not the truest pity when

a man has a sore point not to touch it at all.

It has seemed to me that this might have been my brothers private

thought. In any case, what I can say is

that if he entertained all these ideas, he gave

no sign of them from beginning to end. Even to

me, he was the same as he is every evening. And he

slept with this Jean Valjean with the same air and in the same

manner in which he would have supped with Monsieur Geron les

provost. Or with the curate of the

parish. Towards the end, when he had reached the

figs there came a knock at the door. It was Mother

Jerbaud with her little one in her arms. My brother

kissed the child on the brow and borrowed 15 sous, which

I had about me to give to Mother Jerbaud. The man

was not paying much heed to anything then. He was

no longer talking, and he seemed very much

fatigued. After poor old Jerbaud had taken

her departure.

>> Brie Carlisle: My brother said grace.

>> Brie Carlisle: Then he turned to the man and.

>> Brie Carlisle: Said to him, you must be in great need of your

bed.

>> Brie Carlisle: Madame Magloire cleared the table very promptly.

I understood that we must retire in order to allow

this traveler to go.

>> Brie Carlisle: To sleep, and we both went upstairs.

>> Brie Carlisle: Nevertheless, I sent Madame Magloire down a moment later to

carry to the mans bed a goat skin from the black forest which was

in my room. The nights are frigid and that

keeps one warm. It is a pity that this skin

is old. All the hair is falling out.

My brother bought it while he was in Germany. Ah, at

Totlingen, near the sources of the Danube, as well as the

little ivory handled knife which I use at table.

Madame Magloire returned immediately. We, said our prayers in

the drawing room where we hang up the linen, and then we each

retired to our own chambers without saying a word to each

other.

Thank you for joining bite at a time books today while

we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Bree Carlisle, and I

hope you come back tomorrow for the next bite of,

le miserable.

>> Brie Carlisle: Dont forget to sign up for our

newsletter@byteadatimebooks.com, and

check out the shop. You can check out the show notes

or our website, biteadatimebooks.com,

for the rest of the links for our show. wed love to hear from you

on social media as well.

>> Speaker A: Take a look and look, and let's

see what we can find.

>> Speaker B: Take it chapter by chapter.

>> Speaker A: One.