Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the sixty-second 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 and let's see

what we can find.

Take it chapter by chapter. One

fight 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 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

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

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>> Brie Carlisle: Values today well be

continuing les miserable by

Victor Hugo chapter

eight an entrance by favor

although I did not suspect the fact

the mayor of M sur m enjoyed a sort of

celebrity for the space of seven

years, his reputation for virtue had filled the whole of Bas

Boulunai. It had eventually passed the

confines of a small district and had been spread

abroad through two or three neighboring departments.

Besides the service which he had rendered to the chief town by

resuscitating the black jet industry, there

was not one out of the 140 communes of the

arrondissement of M sur M, which was not indebted to

him for some benefit. He had even at

need contrived to aid and multiply the industries of other

arrondissements. It was thus that he

had, when occasion offered, supported with

his credit and his funds the linen factory at

Bulnan, the flax spinning industry at

frivent, and the hydraulic manufacture of cloth

at Bubis Circanchi.

Everywhere the name of Monsieur Madeleine was pronounced with

veneration Arras and Douai envied

the happy little town of Mserim. Its mayor,

the councilor of the Royal Court of Douai, who was

presiding over this session of the assizes, of Arras,

was acquainted in common with the rest of the

world with this name, which was so

profoundly and universally honored.

When the usher discreetly opened the door

which connected the council chamber with the courtroom,

bent over the back of the presidents armchair and handed him

the paper on which was inscribed the line which we have just perused,

adding, the gentleman desires to be

present at the trial. The president, with

a quick and deferential movement, seized a

pen and wrote a few words at the bottom of the paper and

returned it to the usher, saying, admit him.

The unhappy man whose history were relating had

remained near the door of the hall in the same place

and the same attitude in which the usher had left him.

M in the midst of his reverie, he heard someone

saying to him, will Monsieur do me the honor

to follow me? It was the same usher who had

turned his back upon him but a moment

previously, and, who was now bowing to the earth before

him at the same time. The usher handed him the

paper. He unfolded it, and as he

chanced to be near the light, he could read it.

The president of the court of assizes presents his respects

to Monsieur Madeleine. He crushed the paper in

his hand as though those words contained for him a strange and

bitter aftertaste. He followed the

usher. A few minutes later, he found

himself alone in a sort of wainscoted cabinet of

severe aspect, lighted by two wax

candles placed upon a table with a green cloth.

The last words of the usher, who had just quitted him, still rang

in his ears. Monsieur, you are now in the council

chamber. Youve only to turn the copper handle of yonder

door and you will find yourself in the courtroom behind the presidents

chair. These words were

mingled in his thoughts with a vague memory of narrow

corridors and dark staircases which he had recently

traversed. The usher had left him

alone. The supreme moment had

arrived. He sought to collect his faculties,

but could not. It is

chiefly at the moment when there is the greatest

need for attaching them to the painful realities of life,

that the threads of thought snap within the brain.

He was in the very place where the judges deliberated

and condemned with stupid tranquility. he

surveyed this peaceful and terrible apartment where

so many lives had been broken, which was

soon to ring with his name and which his

fate was at that moment traversing.

He stared at the wall. Then he

looked at himself wondering that it should be that

chamber and that it should be he. He had

eaten nothing for four and 20 hours. He was

worn out by the jolts of the cart, but he was not

conscious of it. It seemed to him that he felt

nothing. He approached a black frame

which was suspended on the wall and which

contained under glass an ancient autograph

letter of Jean Nicolas Pash, mayor of Paris

and minister, and dated through

an error, no doubt, the 9 June of the year

two, and in which Pash forwarded to the

commune the list of ministers and deputies held in arrest by

them. Any spectator who had chanced

to see him at that moment and who had watched him would

have imagined, doubtless, that.

>> Brie Carlisle: This letter struck him m as very.

>> Brie Carlisle: Curious, for he did not take his eyes from it

and he read it two or three times. He read it

without paying any attention to it, and

unconsciously he was thinking of

Fantine and Cosette. As he

dreamed. He turned round and his eyes fell

upon the brass knob of the door which separated him from the court of

assizes. He had almost forgotten that

door. His glance, calm at

first, paused there, remained fixed on that

brass handle. Then it grew terrified, and

little by little became impregnated with fear.

Beads of perspiration burst forth among his hair and

trickled down upon his temples. At a certain

moment he made that indescribable gesture of a sort of

authority mingled with rebellion which is intended to

convey and which does so well convey.

Pard you who compels me to this.

Then he wheeled briskly round, caught sight of

the door through which he had entered in front of him, went

to it, opened it and passed out.

He was no longer in that chamber. He

was outside in a corridor, a

long, narrow corridor, broken by

steps and gratings, making all sorts of

angles, lighted here and there by lanterns similar

to the night taper of invalids. The corridor through

which he had approached. He breathed,

he listened. Not a sound in

front, not a sound behind him.

And he fled as though pursued. When he

had turned many angles in this corridor, he still

listened. The same silence

reigned, and there was the same darkness around

him. He was out of breath,

he staggered, he leaned against the wall. The

stone was cold, the perspiration lay ice cold on

his brow. He straightened himself up with a

shiver. Then

there, alone in the darkness, trembling with

cold, and with something else too, perchance he

meditated. He had meditated all night

long. He had meditated all the

day. He heard within him but one

voice which said, alas,

a quarter of an hour passed thus. At

length, he bowed his head, sighed with

agony, dropped his arms, and retraced his

steps. He walked slowly and as

though crushed. It seemed as though someone had

overtaken him in his flight and was leading him back.

He re entered the council chamber. The first thing

he caught sight of was the knob of the door.

This knob, which was round and of polished brass,

shone like a terrible star for him. He gazed at

it as a lamb might gaze into the eyes of a tiger.

He could not take his eyes from it.

From time to time, he advanced a step and approached

the door. Had he listened, he would have heard the

sound of the adjoining hall, like a sort of confused murmur.

But he did not listen. And he did not

hear. Suddenly, without himself

knowing how it happened, he found himself near the

door. He grasped the knob

convulsively. The door

opened. He was in the

courtroom.

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 Brie 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@biteautotimebooks.com comma and

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

or our website, byteadittimebooks.com,

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

to hear from you on social media as well.

>> Speaker A: By line, one bite at a time.