Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the twenty-first chapter of Les Miserables.

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

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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.

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

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>> Brie Carlisle: Values today well be

continuing.

Les Miserable by Victor Hugo

chapter seven the interior of

despair let us try

to say it. It is necessary that

society should look at these things because it is itself

which creates them. he was, as we have said, an

ignorant man, but he was not a fool.

The light of nature was ignited in him.

Unhappiness, which also possesses a clearness of vision

of its own, augmented the small amount of daylight

which existed in this mind beneath the

cudgel, beneath the chain, in the cell,

in hardship, beneath the burning sun of the

galleys, upon the plank bed of the convict,

he withdrew into his own consciousness and

meditated. He constituted himself the

tribunal. He began by putting himself on

trial. He recognized the fact that he was

not an innocent man, unjustly punished.

He admitted that he had committed an extreme and

blameworthy act, that that loaf of bread

would probably not have been refused to him had he asked for

it. That in any case, it would have

been better to wait until he could get it through compassion or through

work. That it is not an unanswerable argument to

say, can one wait when one is

hungry. That in the first place,

it is very rare for anyone to die of hunger

literally. Next. That

fortunately or unfortunately. Man, is so

constituted that he can suffer long and much,

both morally and physically, without dying.

That it is therefore necessary to have patience.

That that would even have been better for those poor little children.

That it had been an act of madness for him,

a miserable, unfortunate wretch. To take

society at large, violently by the collar. And

to imagine that one can escape from misery through theft.

That that is, in any case, a poor door through which

to escape from misery. Through which infamy enters.

In short, that he was in the wrong.

Then he asked himself whether he had been the only one

in fault in his fatal history. Whether it was not

a serious thing that he, a laborer out

of work. That he, an industrious man,

should have lacked bread. And whether the fault,

once committed and confessed a

chastisement. Had not been ferocious and

disproportioned. Whether there had not been more abuse

on the part of the law in respect to the penalty.

Than m there had been on the part of the culprit in respect to his

faultwhether there had not been an excess of

weights in one balance of the scale, in the one

which contains expiation. Whether the

overweight of the penalty. Was not equivalent to the annihilation

of the crime. And did not result in reversing the

situation. Of replacing the fault of the delinquent

by the fault of the repression. Of converting the

guilty man into the victim and the debtor into

the creditor. And arranging the law

definitively on the side of the man who had violated it.

Whether this penalty, complicated,

by successive aggravations for attempts at escape.

Had not ended in becoming a sort of outrage.

Perpetrated by the stronger upon the feebler.

A crime of society against the individual.

A crime which was being committed afresh every

day. A crime which had lasted 19

years. He asked himself whether human

society could have the right. To force its members to suffer equally.

In one case for its own unreasonable lack of

foresight. And in the other case, for

its pitiless foresight. And to seize a

poor man forever. Between a defect and an

excess, a default of work and an excess

of punishment. Whether it was not

outrageous for society to treat thus precisely those of

its members. Who were the least well endowed. In the division of

goods made by chance. And consequently,

the most deserving of consideration.

These questions put and answered. He

judged society and condemned it. He

condemned it to his hatred. He made it responsible

for the fate which he was suffering. And he said to himself that it

might be that one day he should not

hesitate to call it to account. He declared to

himself that there was no equilibrium between the harm which

he had caused and the harm which was being done to

him. He finally arrived at the conclusion that

his punishment was not, in

truth unjust, but that it

most assuredly was iniquitous.

Anger may be both foolish and absurd.

One can be irritated wrongfully. One is

exasperated only when there is some show of right on one side

at bottom. Jean Valjean felt

himself exasperated. And besides,

human society had done him nothing but harm.

He had never seen anything of it save that angry face which

it calls justice and which it shows to those whom

it strikes. Men had only touched him to bruise

him. Every contact with them had been a

blow. Never since his infancy, since

the days of his mother, of his sister, had he ever

encountered a friendly word and a kindly glance.

From suffering to suffering, he had gradually arrived at

the conviction that life is a war, and that

in this war, he was the conquered.

He had no other weapon than his hate. He

resolved to whet it in the galleys and to bear it away with him when he

departed. There was it too

long a school for the convicts, kept by

the ignorantan friars, where the most necessary

branches were taught. To those of the unfortunate men who had a mind

for them, he was of the number who had a

mind. He went to school at the age of 40

and learned to read, to write, to

cipher. He felt that to fortify his

intelligence was to fortify his hate.

In certain cases, education and

enlightenment can serve to eke out evil.

This is a sad thing to say. after having judged

society, which had caused his

unhappiness, he judged providence, which

had made society, and he condemned it also.

Thus, during 19 years of torture and

slavery, this soul mounted and at the same time

fell. Light entered it on one

side and darkness on the other. Jean

Valjean had not, as we

have seen, an evil nature. He was still

good when he arrived at the galleys. He there

condemned society and felt that he was becoming

wicked. He there condemned providence and was

conscious that he was becoming impious.

It is difficult not to indulge in meditation at this

point. Does human nature thus

change utterly and from top to bottom?

Can the man, created good by God, be rendered wicked by

man? Can the soul be completely made over by

fate and become evil? Fate,

being evil, can the heart become

misshapen and contract incurable

deformities and infirmities. Under the oppression of

a disproportionate unhappiness. As the vertebral

column beneath too low a vault. Is

there not in every human soul?

Was there not in the soul of Jean Valjean in particular.

A first spark, a divine

element, incorruptible in this world,

immortal in the other, which good can

develop, fan, ignite

and make to glow with splendor. And which evil can never

wholly extinguish grave and, obscure

questions to the last of which every physiologist

would probably have responded. No. And that

without hesitation. Had he beheld at

Toulon. During the hours of repose. Which

were for Jean Valjean hours of reverie,

this gloomy galley slave seated

with folded arms upon the bar of some capstan. With

the end of his chain thrust into his pocket to prevent its

dragging, serious, silent

and thoughtful. A pariah of the laws which

regarded the man with wrath, condemned by

civilization. And regarding heaven with severity.

Certainly, and we make no attempt to dissimulate the

fact. The observing physiologist would

have beheld an irremediable misery.

He would perchance have pitied this sick man

of the laws making, but he would not

have even essayed any treatment.

>> Brie Carlisle: He would have turned aside his gaze.

>> Brie Carlisle: From the caverns of which he would have caught a glimpse within this

soul. And like Dante at the portals of hell,

he would have effaced from this existence. The word which the finger of

God. Has nevertheless inscribed

upon the brow of every man. Hope,

was this state of his soul. Which

we have attempted to analyze. As perfectly

clear to Jean Valjean as we have tried to render it for those

who read us. Did Jean Valjean

distinctly perceive after their formation.

And had he seen distinctly during the process of their

formation. All the elements of which his moral

misery was composed? Had this

rough and unlettered man gathered a perfectly clear

perception. Of the succession of ideas. Through which

he had by degrees mounted. And descended. To

the lugubrious aspects. Which had for

so many years formed the inner horizon of his

spirit? Was he conscious of all that passed

within him. And of all that was working there?

That is something which we do not presume to

state. It is something which we do not even

believe. There was too much ignorance in

Jean Valjean, even after his misfortune,

to prevent much vagueness from still lingering there.

At times, he did not rightly know himself what

he felt. Jean Valjean was in the

shadows he suffered, in the

shadows he hated, in the shadows

one might have said that he hated in advance of

himself. He dwelt habitually

in the shadow, feeling his way like a blind man and a

dreamer. Only at intervals

there suddenly came to him from without and from

within, an access of wrath,

a surcharge of suffering, a livid and

rapid flash which illuminated his whole soul

and caused to appear abruptly all around him, in

front, behind, amid the gleams of a frightful

night, the hideous precipices and the somber

perspective of his destiny. The

flash passed. The night closed in

again. And where was he?

He no longer knew the

peculiarity of pains of this nature in

which that which is pitiless, that is to

say, that which is brutalizing, predominates,

is to transform a man little by little, by a sort

of stupid transfiguration into a wild

beast, sometimes into a ferocious

beast. Jean Valjean's successive

and obstinate attempts at escape would alone suffice to prove

the strange working of the law upon the human soul.

Jean Valjean would have renewed these attempts,

utterly useless and foolish as they were, as often

as the opportunity had presented itself, without

reflecting for an instant on the result,

nor on the experiences which he had already gone through,

he escaped impetuously, like the wolf who finds

his cage open. Instinct said to him,

flee. Reason would have said,

remain. But in the presence of so violent a

temptation, reason vanished. Nothing

remained but instinct. The beast

alone acted. When he was

recaptured, the fresh severities inflicted on him only

served to render him still more wild.

One detail which we must not omit is that he

possessed a physical strength which was not approached by a single one

of the denizens of the galleys. At

work at, paying out a cable or winding up a

capstan, Jean Valjean was worth four

men. He sometimes lifted and sustained

enormous weights on his back, and when the occasion

demanded it, he replaced that implement which is called a jack

screw and was formerly called Agiel

pride. Whence, we may remark in

passing, is derived from the name of the room, Montegrel,

near the Halles fish market in Paris.

His comrades had nicknamed him Jean the

jackscrew. Once, when they

were repairing the balcony of the town hall at Toulon,

one of those admirable caryatids of

Puget which support the balcony became

loosened and was on the point of falling.

Jean Valjean, who was present, supported the

caryatid with his shoulder and gave the workmen

time to arrive. His suppleness even

exceeded his strength. Certain convicts who were

forever dreaming of escape ended by making a

veritable science of force and skill combined.

It is the science of muscles. An entire

system of mysterious statics is daily practiced by

prisoners, men who are forever envious of the

flies and birds. To climb a vertical

surface and to find points of support where hardly

a projection was visible, was play to Jean

Valjean. An angle of the wall being

given with the tension of his back and legs,

with his elbows and his heels fitted into the unevenness of the

stone, he raised himself, as if by magic,

to the third story. He sometimes

mounted thus even to the roof of the galley prison.

He spoke but little. He laughed

not at all. An excessive emotion was

required to wring from him once or twice a

year. That lugubrious laugh of the convict, which is

like the echo of the laugh of a demon. To all

appearance, he seemed to be occupied in the constant

contemplation of something terrible. He

was absorbed, in fact,

athwart the unhealthy perceptions of an incomplete

nature and a crushed intelligence. He was

confusedly conscious that some monstrous thing was

resting on him in that obscure and waned

shadow within which he crawled. Each time that he

turned his neck and essayed to raise his glance,

he perceived with terror mingled with

rage, a sort of frightful accumulation of things

collecting and mounting above him beyond the

range of his vision. Laws,

prejudices, men and deeds

whose outlines escaped him, whose mass

terrified him, and which was nothing else than that

prodigious pyramid which we call civilization.

He distinguished here and there in that

swarming and formless mass now near

him, now afar off and on inaccessible

table lands, some groups, some

detail vividly illuminated.

Here, the galley sergeant and his cudgel,

there the gendarme in his sword yonder,

the mitred archbishop away at the top, like a

sort of sun, the emperor crowned and

dazzling. It seemed to him that

these distant splendors, far from dissipating

his knight, rendered it more funereal and more

black. All this

laws, prejudices, deeds,

men, things went and came above him over

his head, in accordance with the complicated and

mysterious movement which God imparts to civilization,

walking over him and crushing him with, I know

not what, peacefulness in its cruelty

and inexorability in its indifference.

Souls which have fallen to the bottom of all possible

misfortune, unhappy men, lost in

the lowest of those limbos at, which no one any longer

looks, who approved of the law, feel the

whole weight of this human society so

formidable for him who is without, so frightful

for him who is beneath, resting upon their heads.

In this situation, Jean Valjean

meditated and what could be the

nature of his meditation? If the grain of

millet beneath the millstone had thoughts, it would doubtless think

that same thing which Jean Valjean thought.

All these things, realities full

of specters, phantasmagories full of

realities, had eventually created for him a

sort of interior state which is almost

indescribable at times.

Amid, his convict toil, he paused.

He fell to thinking. His

reason, one and the same time riper and more

troubled than of yore, rose in

revolt. Everything which had happened to

him seemed to him absurd. Everything that

surrounded him seemed to him impossible.

He said to himself, it is a dream.

He gazed at the galley sergeant standing a few paces from

him. The galley sergeant seemed a phantom to

him. All of a sudden, the phantom dealt him

a blow with his cudgel. Visible nature

hardly existed for him. It would almost

be true to say that there existed for Jean Valjean neither

son, nor fine summer days,

nor radiant sky, nor fresh April

dawns. I know not what vent hole daylight

habitually illumined his soul. To

sum up, in conclusion, that

which can be summed up and translated into positive

results in all that we have just pointed out,

we will confine ourselves to the statement that in the course

of 19 years, Jean

Valjean, the inoffensive tree pruner of

faveroli, the formidable convict of Toulon,

had become capable, thanks to the manner in which

the galleys had molded him, of two sorts of

evil action. Firstly, of evil

action which was rapid, unpremeditated,

dashing, entirely instinctive in the nature of

reprisals for the evil which he had undergone.

Secondly, of evil action which was serious, grave,

consciously argued out and premeditated with

the false ideas which such a misfortune can

furnish. His deliberate deeds pass through

three successive phases which natures of a

certain stamp can alone traverse.

Reasoning will

perseverance he had for moving

causes his habitual wrath, bitterness of

soul, a profound sense of indignity is

suffered the reaction even against the

good, the innocent and the just, if there are

any such. The point of departure like

the point of arrival. For all his thoughts was

hatred of human law. That

hatred which, if it be not arrested in its

development by some providential incident,

becomes within a given time the

hatred of society, then the hatred of

the human race, then the hatred of

creation, and which manifests itself

by a vague, incessant and brutal desire to

do harm to some living being, no

matter whom it will be perceived

that it was not without reason that Jean

Valjean's passport described him as a very dangerous

man. From year to year, the

soul had dried away slowly, but with

fatal sureness. When the heart is dry, the eye is

dry. On his departure from the galleys,

it had been 19 years since he had shed a

tear.

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.

>> Brie Carlisle: Miserable, dont forget to

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

see what we can find.

Take it chapter by chapter. One.