Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the ninety-seventh chapter of Les Miserables.

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>> Speaker A: Take a look, in the book and let's see

what we can find.

Take it chapter by chapter. One

fight M at a time

so many adventures and

mountains we can climb

to give word for word, line by

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

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>> Brie Carlisle: Values today well be

continuing.

Les miserables by Victor Hugo

chapter five the little one all

alone as ah, the

thenardier hostelry was in that part of the village which

is near the church. It was to spring in the

forest in the direction of Chells that Cosette was obliged to go

for her water. She did not glance at the

display of a single other merchant so long as

she was in Bollinger Lane and in the neighborhood of the

church. The lighted stalls illuminated the

road, but soon the

last light from the last stall vanished.

The poor child found herself in the dark.

She plunged into it

only as a certain emotion

overcame her. She made as much motion as

possible with the handle of the bucket as she walked along.

This made a noise which afforded her company.

The, further she went, the denser the darkness became.

There was no one in the streets. However,

she did encounter a woman who turned around on

seeing her and stood still, muttering between her

teeth, where can that child be going? Is

it a werewolf child. Then the woman

recognized Cosette. Well, said she,

its the lark. In this

manner, Cosette traversed the labyrinth of tortuous and

deserted streets. Which terminate in the village of

Montfermeil, on the side of Chelles.

So long as she had the houses or even the walls.

Only on both sides of her path. She proceeded

with tolerable boldness. From time

to time, she caught the flicker of a candle through the crack of a

shutter. This was light and

life. There were people there.

And it reassured her. But in

proportion as, she advanced, her pace slackened

mechanically, as it were. When she had passed the

corner of the last house, Cosette paused.

It had been hard to advance further than the last stall.

It became impossible to proceed further than the last

house. She set her bucket on the

ground, thrust her hand into her

hair. And began slowly to scratch her head.

A, gesture peculiar to children when terrified

and undecided. What to do? It was

no longer Montfermeier. It was the

open fields, black and desert.

Space was before her. She gazed in despair at

that darkness. Where there was no longer anyone.

Where there were beasts, where there were specters.

Possibly she took a good look and

heard the beasts walking on the grass. And she distinctly

saw specters moving in the trees.

Then she seized her bucket again.

Fear had lent her audacity. Bah.

said she, I will tell them that there was no more

water. And she resolutely re entered

Montremeille. Hardly had, she gone a

hundred paces. When she paused

and began to scratch her head again.

Now it was the thenardier who appeared to her. With her hideous

hyena mouth and wrath flashing in her

eyes. The child cast a

melancholy glance before her and behind her.

What was she to do? What was to become

of her? Where was she to go?

In front of her was the specter of the thenardier.

Behind her all the phantoms of the night and of the

forest. It was before the thenardier

that she recoiled. She resumed her path

to the spring and began to run. She emerged from

the village. She entered the forest at a run. No longer

looking at or listening to anything.

She only paused in her course when her breath failed

her. But she did not halt in her

advance. She went straight before her in

desperation, as, she ran.

She felt like crying. The

nocturnal quivering of the forest surrounded her

completely. She no longer thought.

She no longer saw the immensity of

night was facing this tiny creature.

On the one hand, all shadow. On the other,

an atom. It was only seven or eight

minutes walk from the edge of the woods to the spring.

Cosette knew the way through, having gone over it many

times in daylight. Strange to say,

she did not get lost. A remnant of

instinct guided her vaguely, but she did not turn

her eyes either to right or to left, for fear

of seeing things in the branches and in the brushwood.

In this manner she reached the spring.

It was a narrow natural basin, hollowed

out by the water in a clay soil about

2ft deep, surrounded with moss, and with

those tall crimped grasses which are called Henry forst

frills and paved with several large

stones. A brook ran out of

it with a tranquil little noise.

Cosette did not take time to breathe. It was

very dark, but she was in the habit of coming to this

spring. She felt with her left hand in the dark for a

young oak which leaned over the spring and which

usually served to support her, found one of

its branches, clung to it, bent

down, and plunged the bucket in the water.

She was in a state of such violent excitement that her strength

was trebled while thus bent

over. She did not notice that the pocket of her apron had emptied

itself into the spring. The 15 su

piece fell into the water. Cosette

neither saw nor heard it fall.

She drew out the bucket, nearly full, and set it on the

grass. That done, she

perceived that she was worn out with fatigue. She

would have liked to set out again at once, but the effort required to fill the

bucket had been such that she found it impossible to take a

step. She was forced to sit

down. She dropped on the grass

and remained crouching there. She shut

her eyes. Then she opened them again

without knowing why, but because she could not do

otherwise. The agitated water in the

bucket beside her was describing circles which resembled

tin serpents.

Overhead the sky was covered with vast black

clouds which were like masses of smoke.

The tragic mask of shadow seemed to bend vaguely over

the child. Jupiter was setting in

the depths. The child

stared with bewildered eyes at this great star with

which she was unfamiliar and which terrified her.

The planet was in fact

very near the horizon and was

traversing a dense layer of mist which imparted to it a

horrible ruddy hue. The

mist, gloomily empurpled,

magnified the star. One would

have called it a luminous wound.

A cold wind was blowing from the plain.

The forest was dark. Not a leaf was

moving. There were none of the vague fresh gleams

of summertide. Great boughs

uplifted themselves in frightful, wise,

slender and misshapen bushes whistled in the clearings.

The tall grasses undulated like eels under the

north wind. The nettles seemed to

twist. Long arms furnished with claws in search of

prey. Some bits of dry heather

tossed by the breeze, flew rapidly by. And had

the air of fleeing in terror. Before something which was coming

after. On all sides.

There were lugubrious stretches.

The darkness was bewildering.

Man requires light. Whoever buries

himself in the opposite of day. Feels his heart contract.

When the eye sees black, the heart sees

trouble. In an eclipse, in the night,

in the city opacity. There is anxiety, even for

the stoutest of hearts. No one

walks alone in the forest at night. Without trembling

shadows and trees. Two

formidable densities. A chimerical

reality appears in the indistinct depths.

The inconceivable is outlined a few paces

distant from you. With a spectral clearness

one beholds. Floating either in

space or in ones own brain. One

knows not what vague and intangible thing.

Like the dreams of sleeping flowers.

There are fierce attitudes on the horizon.

One inhales the effluvia of the great black

void. One is afraid to glance behind him.

Yet desirous of doing so.

The cavities of night. Things

grown haggard, taciturn

profiles which vanish when one advances.

Obscure dishevelments, irritated

tufts, livid pulls. The lugubrious

reflected in the funereal. The sepulchre

immensity of silence.

Unknown but possible beings.

Bendings of mysterious branches.

Alarming torsos of trees.

Long handfuls of quivering plants.

Against all this, one has no protection.

There is no hardihood which does not shudder.

And which does not feel the vicinity of anguish.

One is conscious of something hideous.

As though ones soul were becoming amalgamated with the

darkness. This penetration of

the shadows is indescribably sinister. In the case of a

child, forests are

apocalypses. And the beating of the wings

of a tiny soul. Produces a sound of agony. Beneath their

monstrous vault. Without

understanding her sensations. Cosette was conscious

that she was seized upon that black enormity of

nature. It was no longer terror

alone which was gaining possession of her.

It was something more terrible even than that

terror. She

shivered. There are no words

to express the strangeness of that shiver. Which chilled her to the very

bottom of her heart. Her eye grew

wild. She thought, She felt

that she should not be able to refrain from returning there. At the same

hour on the morrow.

Then, by a sort of instinct, she began to count

aloud.

1234.

And so on up to ten. In order to escape

from that singular state. Which she did not understand.

But, which terrified her, and when she had

finished, she began again.

This restored her to a true perception of the things about

her. Her hands, which she had wet

in drawing the water, felt cold.

She rose, her terror,

unnatural and unquenchable terror, had

returned. She had but one thought

now to flee at full speed through the

forest, across the fields, to the houses,

to the windows, to the lighted candles.

Her glance fell upon the water which stood before her.

Such was the fright which the thenardier

inspired in her that she dared not flee without that

bucket of water. She seized the

handle with both hands.

She could hardly lift the pail in this

manner. She advanced a dozen paces, but the bucket was

full, it was heavy.

She was forced to set it on the ground once more.

She took breath for an instant, then

lifted the handle of the bucket again and resumed her march,

proceeding a little further this time,

but again was obliged to pause.

After some seconds of repose, she set out

again. She walked bent forward with

drooping head, like an old woman.

The weight of the bucket strained and stiffened her thin

arms. The iron handle completed the benumbing

and freezing of her wet and tiny hands.

She was forced to halt from time to time,

and each time that she did so,

the cold water which splashed from the pail fell on her bare

legs. This took place

in the depths of a forest at night,

in winter, far from all human sight.

She was a child of eight. No one but

God saw that sad thing at the moment. And her

mother, no doubt. Alas, for there are

things that make the dead open their eyes in their graves.

She panted with a sort of painful

rattle. Sobs contracted her

throat, but she dared not

weep. So afraid was she

of the thenardier, even at a distance. It

was her custom to imagine the thenardier always present.

However, she could not make much headway in that manner,

and she went on very slowly, in spite

of diminishing the length of her stops and of walking as

long as possible between them. She reflected

with anguish that it would take her more than an hour to return to

Montfermeil in this manner, and that the thenardier would

beat her. This anguish

was mingled with her terror at being alone in the woods at night.

She was worn out with fatigue and had not yet emerged from the

forest on arriving near an old

chestnut tree with which she was acquainted,

made a last halt, longer, than the rest,

in order that she might get well rested.

Then she summoned up all her strength,

picked up her bucket again, and

courageously resumed her march.

But the poor little desperate creature could not refrain from

crying. Oh, my God.

My God.

At that moment, she suddenly

became conscious that her bucket no longer weighed anything at

all. A hand, which seemed to her

enormous, had just seized the handle and lifted it

vigorously. She raised

her head. A large black form,

straight and erect, was walking beside her through the darkness.

It was a man who had come up behind her and

whose approach she had not heard. This

man, without uttering a word, had seized the handle of the

bucket which she was carrying. There

are instincts for all the encounters of life.

The child was not afraid.

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.

>> Brie Carlisle: I hope you come back tomorrow,

>> Brie Carlisle: For the next bite of Le

Miserable.

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

newsletter@biteattitimebooks.com and

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

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