Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the one hundred sixty-seventh chapter of Les Miserables.

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>> Brie Carlisle: Take a look, in the book and let's see

what we can find

to take it

chapter by chapter one fight

at a time

so many adventures and mountains

we can climb

take it word for word, line by

line, one bite at a time.

>> Brie Carlisle: Welcome to.

>> Brie Carlisle: Byte at a time books, where we read you your favorite

classics one byte at a time. my name is Bree

Carlisle and I love to read and wanted to share

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>> Brie Carlisle: Values today well be

continuing.

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

chapter eight two do not make a

pair we have just spoken

of Monsieur de Lenormand's two daughters. They

had come into the world ten years apart. In

their youth they had borne very little resemblance to each other,

either in character or countenance, and had also

been as little like sisters to each other as possible.

The youngest had a charming soul, which turned towards

all that belongs to the light, was occupied with

flowers, with verses, with music

which fluttered away into glorious space,

enthusiastic, ethereal, and was wedded

from her very youth an ideal to a vague

and heroic figure. The elder had

also her chimera. She espied in the azure

some very wealthy purveyor, a contractor,

a splendidly stupid husband, a million

made man, and even a prefect. The

receptions of the prefecture, an usher in the antechamber with

a chain on his neck, official balls

the harangues of the town hall to be Madame le

prefete all this had created a whirlwind

in her imagination. Thus

the two sisters strayed, each in her own

dream. At the epoch when they were young girls,

both had wings, the one like an

angel, the other like a goose.

No ambition is ever fully realized here

below. At least, no paradise

becomes terrestrial. In our day. The younger wedded

the man of her dreams, but she died. The elder did

not marry at all. At the moment when she makes

her entrance into this history which we are relating, she

was an antique virtue, an incombustible

prude with one of the sharpest noses and one of

the most obtuse minds that it is possible to see

a characteristic detail. Outside

of her immediate family, no one had ever known her first

name. She was called Mademoiselle Gillenormand the

Elder. In the matter of Cant,

Mademoiselle Gillenormand could have given points to amiss.

Her modesty was carried to the other extreme of blackness.

She cherished a frightful memory of her life.

One day a man had beheld her garter.

Age had only served to accentuate this pitiless

modesty. Her gamp was never

sufficiently opaque and never ascended sufficiently

high. She multiplied clasps and

pins where no one would have dreamed of looking.

The peculiarity of prudery is to place all

the more sentinels in proportion as the fortress is, the less

menaced. Nevertheless,

let him who can explain these antique mysteries of

innocence. She allowed an officer of the

lancers, her grand nephew named

Theodule, to embrace her without displeasure.

In spite of this favored lancer, the label

prude, under which we have classed her suited her to

absolute perfection. Mademoiselle

Gillenormand was a sort of twilight soul.

Prudery is a demi virtue and a demi vice.

To Prudery she added bigotry. Well,

assorted lining. She belonged to the society of

the Virgin, wore a white veil. On certain

festivals, mumbled special

orisons, revered the holy blood,

venerated the Sacred Heart, remained for hours

in contemplation before Roko Gesuit altar in a

chapel which was inaccessible to the rank and file of the

faithful, and there allowed her soul to

soar among little clouds of marble and through great

rays of gilded wood. She had a chapel

friend, an ancient virgin like herself, named

Mademoiselle Vibois, who was a positive

blockhead and beside whom Mademoiselle

Gillenormand had the pleasure of being an eagle.

Beyond the Agnes day and Ave

Maria, Mademoiselle Vibois had

no knowledge of anything except of the different ways

of making preserves. Mademoiselle

Vibois, perfect in her style, was the ermine

of stupidity without a single spot of intelligence.

Let us say it plainly. Mademoiselle Gillenormand had

gained rather than lost as she grew older.

This is the case with passive natures. She had

never been malicious, which is relative

kindness. And then years wear away the

angles and the softening which comes with time

had come to her. She was melancholy with an

obscure sadness of which she did not herself know the secret.

There breathed from her whole person the stupor of a life that was

finished and which had never had a beginning.

She kept house for her father. Monsieur

Gillenormand had his daughter near him, as we have seen, that

Monsignor Bienvenue had his sister with him.

These households, comprised of an old man and an old

spinster, are not rare and always have the touching

aspect of two weaknesses leaning on each other for

support. There was also in this

house between this elderly spinster and

this old man, a child, a

little boy who was always trembling and mute in the presence

of Monsieur Gillenormand. M.

Gillenormand never addressed the child except in a severe

voice and sometimes with uplifted

cane. Here, sir. Rascal, scoundrel.

Come here. Answer me, you scamp. Just let me see you, you

good for nothing. Etcetera, etcetera.

He idolized him. This was

his grandson. We shall meet with this child

again later on.

Thank you for joining bite at a time books today while we

wrote a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlisle and I hope

you come back tomorrow for the next bite of

Les Miserables.

>> 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, biteadatatimebooks.com, for

the rest of the links for our show. Wed love to

hear from you on social media as well.

>> Brie Carlisle: Hm

Take a look and a broken let's

see what we can find

take it chapter by chapter one

night at a time

so many adventures and

mountains we can climb

line by line, one bite at a time.