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Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

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www.MelbourneObserver.com.au Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, July 3, 2013 - 5

efforts to escape.The old man did not appear to notice it, and heldboth his arms with one hand, with the sovereignindifference of absolute force.The old man’s revery lasted for some time, then,looking steadily at Montparnasse, he addressedto him in a gentle voice, in the midst of the dark-ness where they stood, a solemn harangue, ofwhich Gavroche did not lose a single syllable:—“My child, you are entering, through indolence,on one of the most laborious of lives. Ah! Youdeclare yourself to be an idler! prepare to toil.There is a certain formidable machine, have youseen it? It is the rolling-mill. You must be on yourguard against it, it is crafty and ferocious; if itcatches hold of the skirt of your coat, you will bedrawn in bodily. That machine is laziness. Stopwhile there is yet time, and save yourself! Other-wise, it is all over with you; in a short time youwill be among the gearing. Once entangled, hopefor nothing more. Toil, lazybones! there is no morerepose for you! The iron hand of implacable toilhas seized you. You do not wish to earn your liv-ing, to have a task, to fulfil a duty! It bores you tobe like other men? Well! You will be different.Labor is the law; he who rejects it will find ennuihis torment. You do not wish to be a workingman,you will be a slave. Toil lets go of you on one sideonly to grasp you again on the other. You do notdesire to be its friend, you shall be its negro slave.Ah! You would have none of the honest weari-ness of men, you shall have the sweat of thedamned. Where others sing, you will rattle in yourthroat. You will see afar off, from below, othermen at work; it will seem to you that they areresting. The laborer, the harvester, the sailor, theblacksmith, will appear to you in glory like theblessed spirits in paradise. What radiance sur-rounds the forge! To guide the plough, to bind thesheaves, is joy. The bark at liberty in the wind,what delight! Do you, lazy idler, delve, drag on,roll, march! Drag your halter. You are a beast ofburden in the team of hell! Ah! To do nothing isyour object. Well, not a week, not a day, not anhour shall you have free from oppression. You willbe able to lift nothing without anguish. Everyminute that passes will make your muscles crack.What is a feather to others will be a rock to you.The simplest things will become steep acclivi-ties. Life will become monstrous all about you.To go, to come, to breathe, will be just so manyterrible labors. Your lungs will produce on youthe effect of weighing a hundred pounds. Whetheryou shall walk here rather than there, will becomea problem that must be solved. Any one who wantsto go out simply gives his door a push, and therehe is in the open air. If you wish to go out, youwill be obliged to pierce your wall. What doesevery one who wants to step into the street do?He goes down stairs; you will tear up your sheets,little by little you will make of them a rope, thenyou will climb out of your window, and you willsuspend yourself by that thread over an abyss, andit will be night, amid storm, rain, and the hurri-cane, and if the rope is too short, but one way ofdescending will remain to you, to fall. To drophap-hazard into the gulf, from an unknown height,on what? On what is beneath, on the unknown.Or you will crawl up a chimney-flue, at the riskof burning; or you will creep through a sewer-pipe, at the risk of drowning; I do not speak of theholes that you will be obliged to mask, of thestones which you will have to take up and replacetwenty times a day, of the plaster that you willhave to hide in your straw pallet. A lock presentsitself; the bourgeois has in his pocket a key madeby a locksmith. If you wish to pass out, you willbe condemned to execute a terrible work of art;you will take a large sou, you will cut it in twoplates; with what tools? You will have to inventthem. That is your business. Then you will hol-low out the interior of these plates, taking greatcare of the outside, and you will make on the edgesa thread, so that they can be adjusted one uponthe other like a box and its cover. The top andbottom thus screwed together, nothing will be sus-pected. To the overseers it will be only a sou; toyou it will be a box. What will you put in thisbox? A small bit of steel. A watch-spring, in whichyou will have cut teeth, and which will form asaw. With this saw, as long as a pin, and con-cealed in a sou, you will cut the bolt of the lock,you will sever bolts, the padlock of your chain,and the bar at your window, and the fetter on yourleg. This masterpiece finished, this prodigy ac-complished, all these miracles of art, address,skill, and patience executed, what will be yourrecompense if it becomes known that you are theauthor?

with difficulty restrained a scream. A momentlater one of these men was underneath the other,groaning, struggling, with a knee of marble uponhis breast. Only, it was not just what Gavrochehad expected. The one who lay on the earth wasMontparnasse; the one who was on top was theold man. All this took place a few paces distantfrom Gavroche.The old man had received the shock, had returnedit, and that in such a terrible fashion, that in atwinkling, the assailant and the assailed had ex-changed roles.“Here’s a hearty veteran!” thought Gavroche.He could not refrain from clapping his hands. Butit was applause wasted. It did not reach the com-batants, absorbed and deafened as they were, eachby the other, as their breath mingled in thestruggle.Silence ensued. Montparnasse ceased hisstruggles. Gavroche indulged in this aside: “Canhe be dead!”The goodman had not uttered a word, nor givenvent to a cry. He rose to his feet, and Gavrocheheard him say to Montparnasse:—“Get up.”Montparnasse rose, but the goodman held him fast.Montparnasse’s attitude was the humiliated andfurious attitude of the wolf who has been caughtby a sheep.Gavroche looked on and listened, making an ef-fort to reinforce his eyes with his ears. He wasenjoying himself immensely.He was repaid for his conscientious anxiety inthe character of a spectator. He was able to catchon the wing a dialogue which borrowed from thedarkness an indescribably tragic accent. Thegoodman questioned, Montparnasse replied.“How old are you?”“Nineteen.”“You are strong and healthy. Why do you notwork?”“It bores me.”“What is your trade?”“An idler.”“Speak seriously. Can anything be done for you?What would you like to be?”“A thief.”A pause ensued. The old man seemed absorbedin profound thought. He stood motionless, and didnot relax his hold on Montparnasse.Every moment the vigorous and agile young ruf-fian indulged in the twitchings of a wild beastcaught in a snare. He gave a jerk, tried a crook ofthe knee, twisted his limbs desperately, and made

It was a cat-nap, with one eye open. While hedozed, Gavroche kept on the watch.The twilight pallor of the sky blanched the earth,and the lane formed a livid line between two rowsof dark bushes.All at once, in this whitish band, two figures madetheir appearance. One was in front, the other somedistance in the rear.“There come two creatures,” muttered Gavroche.The first form seemed to be some elderly bour-geois, who was bent and thoughtful, dressed morethan plainly, and who was walking slowly becauseof his age, and strolling about in the open eveningair.The second was straight, firm, slender. It regu-lated its pace by that of the first; but in the volun-tary slowness of its gait, suppleness and agilitywere discernible. This figure had also somethingfierce and disquieting about it, the whole shapewas that of what was then called an elegant; thehat was of good shape, the coat black, well cut,probably of fine cloth, and well fitted in at thewaist. The head was held erect with a sort ofrobust grace, and beneath the hat the pale profileof a young man could be made out in the dimlight. The profile had a rose in its mouth. Thissecond form was well known to Gavroche; it wasMontparnasse.He could have told nothing about the other, ex-cept that he was a respectable old man.Gavroche immediately began to take observa-tions.One of these two pedestrians evidently had aproject connected with the other. Gavroche waswell placed to watch the course of events. Thebedroom had turned into a hiding-place at a veryopportune moment.Montparnasse on the hunt at such an hour, in sucha place, betokened something threatening.Gavroche felt his gamin’s heart moved with com-passion for the old man.What was he to do? Interfere? One weaknesscoming to the aid of another! It would be merelya laughing matter for Montparnasse. Gavrochedid not shut his eyes to the fact that the old man,in the first place, and the child in the second,would make but two mouthfuls for that redoubt-able ruffian eighteen years of age.While Gavroche was deliberating, the attack tookplace, abruptly and hideously. The attack of thetiger on the wild ass, the attack of the spider onthe fly. Montparnasse suddenly tossed away hisrose, bounded upon the old man, seized him bythe collar, grasped and clung to him, and Gavroche

●●●●● Victor Hugo

One evening, little Gavroche had had nothing toeat; he remembered that he had not dined on thepreceding day either; this was becoming tiresome.He resolved to make an effort to secure somesupper. He strolled out beyond the Salpetriere intodeserted regions; that is where windfalls are tobe found; where there is no one, one always findssomething. He reached a settlement which ap-peared to him to be the village of Austerlitz.In one of his preceding lounges he had noticedthere an old garden haunted by an old man and anold woman, and in that garden, a passable apple-tree. Beside the apple-tree stood a sort of fruit-house, which was not securely fastened, andwhere one might contrive to get an apple. Oneapple is a supper; one apple is life. That whichwas Adam’s ruin might prove Gavroche’s salva-tion. The garden abutted on a solitary, unpavedlane, bordered with brushwood while awaiting thearrival of houses; the garden was separated fromit by a hedge.Gavroche directed his steps towards this garden;he found the lane, he recognized the apple-tree,he verified the fruit-house, he examined the hedge;a hedge means merely one stride. The day wasdeclining, there was not even a cat in the lane,the hour was propitious. Gavroche began the op-eration of scaling the hedge, then suddenly paused.Some one was talking in the garden. Gavrochepeeped through one of the breaks in the hedge.A couple of paces distant, at the foot of the hedgeon the other side, exactly at the point where thegap which he was meditating would have beenmade, there was a sort of recumbent stone whichformed a bench, and on this bench was seated theold man of the garden, while the old woman wasstanding in front of him. The old woman was grum-bling. Gavroche, who was not very discreet, lis-tened.“Monsieur Mabeuf!” said the old woman.“Mabeuf!” thought Gavroche, “that name is aperfect farce.”The old man who was thus addressed, did not stir.The old woman repeated:—“Monsieur Mabeuf!”The old man, without raising his eyes from theground, made up his mind to answer:—“What is it, Mother Plutarque?”“Mother Plutarque!” thought Gavroche, “anotherfarcical name.”Mother Plutarque began again, and the old manwas forced to accept the conversation:—“The landlord is not pleased.”“Why?”“We owe three quarters rent.”“In three months, we shall owe him for four quar-ters.”“He says that he will turn you out to sleep.”“I will go.”“The green-grocer insists on being paid. She willno longer leave her fagots. What will you warmyourself with this winter? We shall have no wood.”“There is the sun.”“The butcher refuses to give credit; he will notlet us have any more meat.”“That is quite right. I do not digest meat well. Itis too heavy.”“What shall we have for dinner?”“Bread.”“The baker demands a settlement, and says, ‘nomoney, no bread.’”“That is well.”“What will you eat?”“We have apples in the apple-room.”“But, Monsieur, we can’t live like that withoutmoney.”“I have none.”The old woman went away, the old man remainedalone. He fell into thought. Gavroche becamethoughtful also. It was almost dark.The first result of Gavroche’s meditation was, thatinstead of scaling the hedge, he crouched downunder it. The branches stood apart a little at thefoot of the thicket.“Come,” exclaimed Gavroche mentally, “here’sa nook!” and he curled up in it. His back wasalmost in contact with Father Mabeuf’s bench.He could hear the octogenarian breathe.Then, by way of dinner, he tried to sleep.

BOOK IV - SUCCOUR FROM BELOW

MAY TURN OUT BE

SUCCOUR FROM ON HIGH

CHAPTER II

MOTHER PLUTARQUE FINDS NO DIFFI-

CULTY IN EXPLAINING A PHENOMENON

Continued From Last Week

Continued on Page 16

Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, July 3, 2013


From Page 15 Her father was standing on the grass-plot below.“I have waked you for the purpose of reassuringyou,” said he; “look, there is your shadow withthe round hat.”And he pointed out to her on the turf a shadowcast by the moon, and which did indeed, bear con-siderable resemblance to the spectre of a manwearing a round hat. It was the shadow producedby a chimney-pipe of sheet iron, with a hood,which rose above a neighboring roof.Cosette joined in his laughter, all her lugubrioussuppositions were allayed, and the next morning,as she was at breakfast with her father, she mademerry over the sinister garden haunted by the shad-ows of iron chimney-pots.Jean Valjean became quite tranquil once more;as for Cosette, she did not pay much attention tothe question whether the chimney-pot was reallyin the direction of the shadow which she had seen,or thought she had seen, and whether the moonhad been in the same spot in the sky.She did not question herself as to the peculiarityof a chimney-pot which is afraid of being caughtin the act, and which retires when some one looksat its shadow, for the shadow had taken the alarmwhen Cosette had turned round, and Cosette hadthought herself very sure of this. Cosette’s seren-ity was fully restored. The proof appeared to herto be complete, and it quite vanished from hermind, whether there could possibly be any onewalking in the garden during the evening or atnight.A few days later, however, a fresh incident oc-curred.

to filter gradually, drop by drop, into that soul,which was so virgin and so young. Was the firewholly extinct there? Or was it merely that lay-ers of ashes had formed? The truth is, that shehardly felt the painful and burning spot any longer.One day she suddenly thought of Marius: “Why!”said she, “I no longer think of him.”That same week, she noticed a very handsomeofficer of lancers, with a wasp-like waist, a deli-cious uniform, the cheeks of a young girl, a swordunder his arm, waxed mustaches, and a glazedschapka, passing the gate. Moreover, he had lighthair, prominent blue eyes, a round face, was vain,insolent and good-looking; quite the reverse ofMarius. He had a cigar in his mouth. Cosettethought that this officer doubtless belonged to theregiment in barracks in the Rue de Babylone.On the following day, she saw him pass again.She took note of the hour.From that time forth, was it chance? she saw himpass nearly every day.The officer’s comrades perceived that there was,in that “badly kept” garden, behind that maliciousrococo fence, a very pretty creature, who wasalmost always there when the handsome lieuten-ant,— who is not unknown to the reader, andwhose name was Theodule Gillenormand,—passed by.“See here!” they said to him, “there’s a little crea-ture there who is making eyes at you, look.”“Have I the time,” replied the lancer, “to look atall the girls who look at me?”This was at the precise moment when Marius wasdescending heavily towards agony, and was say-ing: “If I could but see her before I die!”— Hadhis wish been realized, had he beheld Cosette atthat moment gazing at the lancer, he would nothave been able to utter a word, and he would haveexpired with grief.Whose fault was it? No one’s.Marius possessed one of those temperamentswhich bury themselves in sorrow and there abide;Cosette was one of those persons who plunge intosorrow and emerge from it again.Cosette was, moreover, passing through that dan-gerous period, the fatal phase of feminine reveryabandoned to itself, in which the isolated heart ofa young girl resembles the tendrils of the vinewhich cling, as chance directs, to the capital of amarble column or to the post of a wine-shop: Arapid and decisive moment, critical for every or-phan, be she rich or poor, for wealth does not pre-vent a bad choice; misalliances are made in veryhigh circles, real misalliance is that of souls; andas many an unknown young man, without name,without birth, without fortune, is a marble col-umn which bears up a temple of grand sentimentsand grand ideas, so such and such a man of theworld satisfied and opulent, who has polishedboots and varnished words, if looked at not out-side, but inside, a thing which is reserved for hiswife, is nothing more than a block obscurelyhaunted by violent, unclean, and vinous passions;the post of a drinking-shop.What did Cosette’s soul contain? Passion calmedor lulled to sleep; something limpid, brilliant,troubled to a certain depth, and gloomy lowerdown. The image of the handsome officer wasreflected in the surface. Did a souvenir linger inthe depths?— Quite at the bottom?— Possibly.Cosette did not know.A singular incident supervened.

It could not be her father, he was absent; it couldnot be Toussaint, she was in bed, and it was teno’clock at night.She stepped to the shutter of the drawing-room,which was closed, and laid her ear against it.It seemed to her that it was the tread of a man,and that he was walking very softly.She mounted rapidly to the first floor, to her ownchamber, opened a small wicket in her shutter,and peeped into the garden. The moon was at thefull. Everything could be seen as plainly as byday.There was no one there.She opened the window. The garden was abso-lutely calm, and all that was visible was that thestreet was deserted as usual.Cosette thought that she had been mistaken. Shethought that she had heard a noise. It was a hallu-cination produced by the melancholy and mag-nificent chorus of Weber, which lays open beforethe mind terrified depths, which trembles beforethe gaze like a dizzy forest, and in which one hearsthe crackling of dead branches beneath the un-easy tread of the huntsmen of whom one catchesa glimpse through the twilight.She thought no more about it.Moreover, Cosette was not very timid by nature.There flowed in her veins some of the blood ofthe bohemian and the adventuress who runs bare-foot. It will be remembered that she was more ofa lark than a dove. There was a foundation ofwildness and bravery in her.On the following day, at an earlier hour, towardsnightfall, she was strolling in the garden. In themidst of the confused thoughts which occupiedher, she fancied that she caught for an instant asound similar to that of the preceding evening, asthough some one were walking beneath the treesin the dusk, and not very far from her; but she toldherself that nothing so closely resembles a stepon the grass as the friction of two branches whichhave moved from side to side, and she paid noheed to it. Besides, she could see nothing.She emerged from “the thicket”; she had still tocross a small lawn to regain the steps.The moon, which had just risen behind her, castCosette’s shadow in front of her upon this lawn,as she came out from the shrubbery.Cosette halted in alarm.Beside her shadow, the moon outlined distinctlyupon the turf another shadow, which was particu-larly startling and terrible, a shadow which had around hat.It was the shadow of a man, who must have beenstanding on the border of the clump of shrubbery,a few paces in the rear of Cosette.She stood for a moment without the power tospeak, or cry, or call, or stir, or turn her head.Then she summoned up all her courage, and turnedround resolutely.There was no one there.She glanced on the ground. The figure had disap-peared.She re-entered the thicket, searched the cornersboldly, went as far as the gate, and found nothing.She felt herself absolutely chilled with terror. Wasthis another hallucination? What! Two days insuccession! One hallucination might pass, but twohallucinations? The disquieting point about it was,that the shadow had assuredly not been a phan-tom. Phantoms do not wear round hats.On the following day Jean Valjean returned.Cosette told him what she thought she had heardand seen. She wanted to be reassured and to seeher father shrug his shoulders and say to her: “Youare a little goose.”Jean Valjean grew anxious.“It cannot be anything,” said he.He left her under some pretext, and went into thegarden, and she saw him examining the gate withgreat attention.During the night she woke up; this time she wassure, and she distinctly heard some one walkingclose to the flight of steps beneath her window.She ran to her little wicket and opened it. In pointof fact, there was a man in the garden, with alarge club in his hand. Just as she was about toscream, the moon lighted up the man’s profile. Itwas her father. She returned to her bed, saying toherself: “He is very uneasy!”Jean Valjean passed that night and the two suc-ceeding nights in the garden. Cosette saw himthrough the hole in her shutter.On the third night, the moon was on the wane,and had begun to rise later; at one o’clock in themorning, possibly, she heard a loud burst of laugh-ter and her father’s voice calling her:—“Cosette!”She jumped out of bed, threw on her dressing-gown, and opened her window.

The dungeon. There is your future. What preci-pices are idleness and pleasure! Do you know thatto do nothing is a melancholy resolution? To livein idleness on the property of society! to be use-less, that is to say, pernicious! This leads straightto the depth of wretchedness. Woe to the man whodesires to be a parasite! He will become vermin!Ah! So it does not please you to work? Ah! Youhave but one thought, to drink well, to eat well, tosleep well. You will drink water, you will eat blackbread, you will sleep on a plank with a fetterwhose cold touch you will feel on your flesh allnight long, riveted to your limbs. You will breakthose fetters, you will flee. That is well. You willcrawl on your belly through the brushwood, andyou will eat grass like the beasts of the forest.And you will be recaptured. And then you willpass years in a dungeon, riveted to a wall, grop-ing for your jug that you may drink, gnawing at ahorrible loaf of darkness which dogs would nottouch, eating beans that the worms have eatenbefore you. You will be a wood-louse in a cellar.Ah! Have pity on yourself, you miserable youngchild, who were sucking at nurse less than twentyyears ago, and who have, no doubt, a mother stillalive! I conjure you, listen to me, I entreat you.You desire fine black cloth, varnished shoes, tohave your hair curled and sweet-smelling oils onyour locks, to please low women, to be handsome.You will be shaven clean, and you will wear ared blouse and wooden shoes. You want rings onyour fingers, you will have an iron necklet on yourneck. If you glance at a woman, you will receivea blow. And you will enter there at the age oftwenty. And you will come out at fifty! You willenter young, rosy, fresh, with brilliant eyes, andall your white teeth, and your handsome, youthfulhair; you will come out broken, bent, wrinkled,toothless, horrible, with white locks! Ah! my poorchild, you are on the wrong road; idleness is coun-selling you badly; the hardest of all work is thiev-ing. Believe me, do not undertake that painful pro-fession of an idle man. It is not comfortable tobecome a rascal. It is less disagreeable to be anhonest man. Now go, and ponder on what I havesaid to you. By the way, what did you want ofme? My purse? Here it is.”And the old man, releasing Montparnasse, put hispurse in the latter’s hand; Montparnasse weighedit for a moment, after which he allowed it to slidegently into the back pocket of his coat, with thesame mechanical precaution as though he had sto-len it.All this having been said and done, the goodmanturned his back and tranquilly resumed his stroll.“The blockhead!” muttered Montparnasse.Who was this goodman? The reader has, no doubt,already divined.Montparnasse watched him with amazement, ashe disappeared in the dusk. This contemplationwas fatal to him.While the old man was walking away, Gavrochedrew near.Gavroche had assured himself, with a sidelongglance, that Father Mabeuf was still sitting on hisbench, probably sound asleep. Then the gaminemerged from his thicket, and began to crawl af-ter Montparnasse in the dark, as the latter stoodthere motionless. In this manner he came up toMontparnasse without being seen or heard, gen-tly insinuated his hand into the back pocket of thatfrock-coat of fine black cloth, seized the purse,withdrew his hand, and having recourse once moreto his crawling, he slipped away like an adderthrough the shadows. Montparnasse, who had noreason to be on his guard, and who was engagedin thought for the first time in his life, perceivednothing. When Gavroche had once more attainedthe point where Father Mabeuf was, he flung thepurse over the hedge, and fled as fast as his legswould carry him.The purse fell on Father Mabeuf’s foot. This com-motion roused him.He bent over and picked up the purse.He did not understand in the least, and opened it.The purse had two compartments; in one of themthere was some small change; in the other lay sixnapoleons.M. Mabeuf, in great alarm, referred the matter tohis housekeeper.“That has fallen from heaven,” said MotherPlutarque.


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BOOK FIFTH.— THE END OF WHICH DOES

NOT RESEMBLE THE BEGINNING

CHAPTER I

SOLITUDE AND THE

BARRACKS COMBINED

Cosette’s grief, which had been so poignant andlively four or five months previously, had, with-out her being conscious of the fact, entered uponits convalescence. Nature, spring, youth, love forher father, the gayety of the birds and flowers,caused something almost resembling forgetfulness

CHAPTER II

COSETTE’S APPREHENSIONS

During the first fortnight in April, Jean Valjeantook a journey. This, as the reader knows, hap-pened from time to time, at very long intervals.He remained absent a day or two days at the ut-most. Where did he go? No one knew, not evenCosette. Once only, on the occasion of one of thesedepartures, she had accompanied him in a hack-ney-coach as far as a little blind-alley at the cor-ner of which she read: Impasse de la Planchette.There he alighted, and the coach took Cosette backto the Rue de Babylone. It was usually when moneywas lacking in the house that Jean Valjean tookthese little trips.So Jean Valjean was absent. He had said: “I shallreturn in three days.”That evening, Cosette was alone in the drawing-room. In order to get rid of her ennui, she hadopened her piano-organ, and had begun to sing,accompanying herself the while, the chorus fromEuryanthe: “Hunters astray in the wood!” whichis probably the most beautiful thing in all thesphere of music. When she had finished, she re-mained wrapped in thought.All at once, it seemed to her that she heard thesound of footsteps in the garden.

CHAPTER III

ENRICHED WITH COMMENTARIES

BY TOUSSAINT

In the garden, near the railing on the street, therewas a stone bench, screened from the eyes of thecurious by a plantation of yoke-elms, but whichcould, in case of necessity, be reached by an armfrom the outside, past the trees and the gate.One evening during that same month of April, JeanValjean had gone out; Cosette had seated herselfon this bench after sundown. The breeze wasblowing briskly in the trees, Cosette was medi-tating; an objectless sadness was taking posses-sion of her little by little, that invincible sadnessevoked by the evening, and which arises, perhaps,who knows, from the mystery of the tomb whichis ajar at that hour.Perhaps Fantine was within that shadow.Cosette rose, slowly made the tour of the garden,walking on the grass drenched in dew, and sayingto herself, through the species of melancholy som-nambulism in which she was plunged: “Really,one needs wooden shoes for the garden at thishour. One takes cold.”She returned to the bench.As she was about to resume her seat there, sheobserved on the spot which she had quitted, a tol-erably large stone which had, evidently, not beenthere a moment before.Cosette gazed at the stone, asking herself what itmeant. All at once the idea occurred to her thatthe stone had not reached the bench all by itself,that some one had placed it there, that an arm hadbeen thrust through the railing, and this idea ap-peared to alarm her. This time, the fear was genu-ine; the stone was there. No doubt was possible;she did not touch it, fled without glancing behindher, took refuge in the house, and immediatelyclosed with shutter, bolt, and bar the door-likewindow opening on the flight of steps. She inquiredof Toussaint:—“Has my father returned yet?”“Not yet, Mademoiselle.”[We have already noted once for all the fact thatToussaint stuttered. May we be permitted to dis-pense with it for the future. The musical notationof an infirmity is repugnant to us.]Jean Valjean, a thoughtful man, and given to noc-turnal strolls, often returned quite late at night.“Toussaint,” went on Cosette, “are you careful tothoroughly barricade the shutters opening on thegarden, at least with bars, in the evening, and toput the little iron things in the little rings that closethem?”“Oh! be easy on that score, Miss.”Toussaint did not fail in her duty, and Cosette waswell aware of the fact, but she could not refrainfrom adding:—“It is so solitary here.”“So far as that is concerned,” said Toussaint, “itis true. We might be assassinated before we hadtime to say ouf! And Monsieur does not sleep inthe house, to boot.

www.MelbourneObserver.com.au Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, July 3, 2013 - Page 17

Victoria Pictorial Melbourne ShopsHistoric Photo Collection

●●●●● The Mutual Store, before the fire. 1891●●●●● Croft’s Store, 94 Elizabeth St, Melbourne.

●●●●● Steele and Co store, Swanston St, Melbourne

●●●●● Coles Store Christmas decoration. 1957. ●●●●● AIF Recruitment window. Henry Bucks store. Melbourne.

●●●●● Foys Department Store, decorated for Olympics. 1956. ●●●●● Father Christmas on Foys building. 1959.

●●●●● Broadway shoe store, Melbourne

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KINSHIP TOURS

Page 20 - Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, July 3, 2013 www.MelbourneObserver.com.au

■ In my Nanna’s day, that someone wasEmmeline Pankhurst – and one day soon, youand I will talk about the Suffragette Movementin England and what a remarkable womanEmmeline was. But that’s another story.

The fact remains that even here in Austra-lia, in this wonderful country of ours, women hadto wait until 1903 to be allowed to vote – and eventhen, there were conditions imposed.

Well no, Hannah, boys couldn’t vote either,but the difference is they could vote as soon asthey came of age – and girls couldn’t. It didn’tmatter how smart the girls were or how muchthey understood. They were seen as inferior.

No, of course you’re not, Livvy. But the worldis still waking up to things like that.

And it’s for that very reason I want to talk toyou about Julia Gillard, our first female PrimeMinister of Australia, because for me she is oneof ‘the someones’ who in this era, was born tohelp the world’s women overcome some of itsignorance.

She dared to challenge the notion that womenare not capable of holding the highest office inthe land – even though many people saw her asinferior.

This honour did not come easily to Julia norwithout its cost, even at the very beginning of hertenure. You see, Julia was shy!

Livvy, do you remember how you used to feelreally shy about meeting new people? It was awfulwasn’t it … really hard … and you just wanted torun or hide behind Dad?

Well Julia as a child was like that too. But thereally hard part for Julia was that she didn’t evercompletely overcome that sense of shyness. Sheexcelled at school, became a lawyer and enteredpolitics with her fierce intellect – and still re-mained shy.

And here she was – the most important politi-cal figure in the land having to meet new peopleevery day, some from far away countries – andstill feeling painfully shy.

But she did it. Although from humble begin-nings herself with no sense of a ‘Born-to-Rule’mentality, Julia greeted people with grace, dig-nity and humility and hid her shyness as best shecould.

One day, darlings, we’ll discuss the politicalreasons of how and why Julia became our firstfemale Prime Minister.

There are many reasons and they are variedand some of them extremely controversial. Youknow that I, like your parents, want you both tobe free to develop your own opinions about ev-erything that concerns you and the events that aretaking place in the world as you grow up; eventsthat will impact on your freedom, your beliefs

and your rights.And no doubt one day – hopefully in school,

you will study the political implications of the riseand fall of Prime Minister Julia Gillard andmake up your own minds about the rights andwrongs of it.

But there is no doubt in my mind that as youstudy the history of events in the political life ofPrime Minister Julia Gillard, you will see thatmany people (including your Nanna) have causeto believe that as a woman, she endured, throughthe Press, the Parliament and the Public, themost horrendous and consistent barrage of bully-ing, ridicule and misogyny – unparalleled in Aus-tralian history.

But first I really want you to consider Juliaas a person. A human being – a female one – withreal blood flowing through her veins; with thoughtsand feelings and desires and attachments just likethe rest of us.

Of course she didn’t do what everyone wanted.Who does? And of course she made mistakes.Who doesn’t?

Yes – she had a strong Australian accent.(I’ve never actually heard her voice darlings, but as a lip-reader whenever I saw her face to faceon television I could see by the movement of her

mouth that, yes she strangled a few vowels – butthen, there’s a highly acclaimed female inter-viewer on the ABC whose vowels are constantlyput to death far more ferociously.)

Yes, she chose to remain childless – as manyother women do – but Julia was publicly ridi-culed for it. She was labelled by at least one manas ‘deliberately barren’, while others made sug-gestions on radio and television about how shemight be dealt with – suggestions that you are notquite old enough yet to understand.

Yes, she chose to live in an unmarried statewith her partner – as countless other women do –but was then attacked for her morals.

And you can but imagine what those who fol-lowed the Religion-of-Anything-but-Tolerancemade of her Atheism.

As a woman with red hair she chose her clothesand her glasses accordingly – always meticulouslygroomed but pronounced ‘frumpy’ or ‘maidenAuntish’ by her detractors.

Even her poor nose was mocked. One day Ishall tell you about a male Prime Minister of thepast, one Paul Keating, but I doubt I’ll ever beable to relate to you what I think he’d have doneto the perpetrators had his nose been mocked.

If she fell over, it was because of her poorchoice of shoes. And if she stood for hours an-swering inane questions it was because she lackedthe nous to sit down.

But did that make it right that while enduringthe death of her most beloved father , a second-rate, has-been, shock-jock radio announcer couldsay in a speech that Julia Gillard’s father haddied of shame … because of her?

Can you imagine anything more viciously cruelLivvy? Hannah?

But endure it she did. Month after month shestoically endured what many women have saidwould have driven them out of their minds.

Forget that she had negotiating skills to makea butterfly befriend an elephant.

Forget that she could rattle off details of themost complicated sections of everybody’s port-folios, because she was on top of her game.

Forget that she made an historic speech in aparliamentary sitting against misogyny that re-sounded around the world and back again withover one million hits.

Forget the hundreds of pieces of legislation shepushed through whilst leg-roped by a Hung Par-liament.

Forget the considerable and historic reformsthat she introduced to Education (Gonski), Dis-ability (NDIS), Welfare (Pensions), IT(NBN) and Climate Change (Price on Car-bon) – to name but a few.

Julia Gillard had become the Leader of the

Pack, putting up with everything herdetractorsthrew at her – physically (a sandwichcomes to mind), mentally and spiritually – andmany men and women could not cope with thatfact.

Julia became the magnet for ignorance, hate,bigotry and sexism – rearing their brave heads nohigher than 1 centimetre out of the hole from whichthey hid – and she largely slapped them down,perhaps unknowingly invoking the metaphysicaltruth that negative qualities disappear in the faceof courage.

She had courage in spades and fearlessness,resilience and Stateswomanlike qualities. And ontop of that, an intellectual ability that infuriatedthose who could not understand it, could not countpast eleventy, or could not agree with her politics,her gender or both.

History will come to show that after enduringthree years of unprecedented attacks, Julia wasultimately bullied out of office, to the shame andembarrassment of all of us with half a decent bonein our bodies.

Some say on one side it was for the sake ofwinning the next election and on the other sidethat it was because she was, well, a woman – andany or all of that may well prove to be true.

Darlings, Julia is no longer the Prime Minis-ter of Australia, but she is a woman whom I andmany fellow Australians and indeed spectatorsaround the world have grown to admire and re-spect and yes, love.

She is the pioneer of women holding High Of-fice in this country and as such will inspire gen-erations of young women from any background tobe brave, meet challenges and show that they tooare the equals of any men.

And as I, your Nanna, a disabled pensioner,express my thanks and gratitude to Julia Gillardfor her dedicated work and sacrifice – I’d likeyou to reserve any judgement of her, until you area bit older and can think about her achievementsfor yourselves, as so many have refused to do.

May she go on from strength to strength andfind peace and happiness in whatever she choosesto do from here – be it in Australia or anywherein the world.

Julia Gillard’s legacy of reform will live onand this country will thank her. She has stirredour collective consciousness. She has not onlymade it clear that women have issues particularto women, which should be controlled by women,not men – but she has paved the way for the nextfemale Prime Minister… and the next…and thenext…

Who knows, Livvy or Hannah, that could beyou!

- All love, Nanna.

Nancy CatoNancy Cato

●●●●● From Page 10

Girls, let me tell you the story about JuliaObserver

Melbourne

Opinion

ObserverMelbourne

News

●●●●● Starring in Cinderella at Her Majesty’s Theatre are Rhiannon Stevens as Dorothy, BelindaPaterson as Madame Haughty and Tess Duddy as Naomi. See Observer Showbiz for details.

●●●●● Bangarra is launchg Kinship.Photo: Greg Barrett

■ Internationally acclaimed Ban-garra Dance Theatre has created atheatrical experience by award-win-ning choreographer Stephen Page setto tour Victoria and Hobart.

Kinship brings together two ofBangarra’s most loved dance works.

The first section will feature Brolga,originally presented as part of the iconicBangarra production Corroboree.

The second work will be ID, origi-nally performed in the acclaimed pro-duction, Belong.

Kinship will tour Victoria startingat the Geelong Performing ArtsCentre on August 15.

The tour will then move on toDandenong, Mildura, Warragul,Sale, Frankston and Nunawadingbefore concluding with shows inHobart on September 12 and 13.

Brolga is a creation story inspiredby the totemic systems in AustralianAboriginal culture, where every per-son is assigned a creature totem relatedto their clan. ID investigates what itmeans to be Aborigine in the 21st cen-tury, asking important questions ofidentity.

Performing as part of the ensembleis Bangarra’s artist in residence,North East Arnhem Land, KathyBalngayngu Marika.


Healthy Living


Victoria Pictorial Historic Photo Collection

●●●●● Last Melbourne cable tram. Bourke St, near McPherson’s ●●●●● St Kilda Rd, Melbourne. 1982.

●●●●● Collins Street, Melbourne. 1955 ●●●●● Elizabeth Street, looking north. 1900.

●●●●● Opening tram, Deepdene to St Kilda. 1913. ●●●●● Digging up the old cable tramway, St Kilda Rd. 1925.

●●●●● Collins St, looking west from Swanston St. 1898. ●●●●● St Kilda. Late 1950s?


Travel Extra

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Witch-doctor on track to rail success

Vintage proves Lucky Number 13

ObserverMelbourne

Travellers’ Good Buys

ObserverMelbourne Wines & Liqueurs

withDavidEllis

withDavidEllis

■ Most blokes dream at some stageof owning a train, something for a table-top maybe, or if really lucky, to runaround the garage walls.

But for Leon Plutsick, dreaming ofowning his own train meant going onestep further than most. Growing up inSouth Africa and with a dad in the min-ing industry, Leon constantly confrontedmighty hissing steam engines andgrowling, grimy diesels hauling stringsof coal wagons seemingly kilometreslong, or shiny passenger carriages thatappeared to stretch forever into a shim-mering mirage-like distance.

And when he decided he would gethis own train, he knew just what hewanted. Now a successful entrepreneurwith numerous business interests un-der his belt, he told business partnerGeorge Milaras of his vision; andGeorge liked it so much he evenstumped-up to join Leon in buying histrain.

But no table-top or garage wall job.Rather a fair-dinkum, life-size train tocarry tourists into the many spectacu-lar attractions of Southern Africa, bothwell-known and lesser-known. Andrather than go off for advice from busi-ness advisors, accountants or other pro-fessionals, Leon and George went in-stead to someone they had more faithin.

A witch-doctor, one who after peer-ing into her personal inner sanctum anddoing whatever else witch-doctors do,

■ 2012 proved Lucky Number 13 forCumulus Estate Wines in the Orangeregion of Central Western NSW, withits Rolling label seeing its first-ever redusing grenache and mourvedre fruitfrom vineyards planted back in 1999.

Until then the two varieties had beenused in the making of rosé wines underCumulus’ Luna Rosa label, withWinemaker Debbie Lauritz saying thatwhile she had great faith in the qualityof the grenache and mourvedre, neithersomehow quite hit the mark for thequality she was seeking for red wineproduction.

But that changed dramatically in2012 with everything coming togetherperfectly, and Debbie blending the twowith shiraz into Rolling’s first-everGSM – 48 per cent grenache, 40 percent shiraz and 12 per cent mouvedre,a wonderfully fruit-driven wine withmore-ish cherry and dark fruit flavoursand nice notes of spice.

GSM is becoming increasing popu-lar in Australia as a gutsy yet easilyquaffable wine, and this 2012 Rollingat $18.95 is interesting in that it did notundergo any oak maturation, allowingthe pure fruit flavours to come to thefore.

A nice one to enjoy this time of yearwith braised lamb shanks over potatomash.

One to note■ If you are one who likes to em-brace a good semillon sauvignonblanc over a long and leisurely sea-food lunch, Western Australia’sKillerby has released a classic Mar-garet River example under itsKillerby Merchant Trader label.

Although purchased in 2008 byFerngrove Wines – WesternAustralia’s third largest maker –Killerby has maintained its small-winery philosophies and techniques,and its 2011 Merchant TraderSemillon Sauvignon Blanc is full offresh Margaret River varietalpassionfruit and grassy flavours,zesty lemon and a long cleansing fin-ish.

At a recommended $20, a greatdrop to match with barbecuedseafoods or a cold seafood platter.

Pictured■ Perfect this time of year withbraised lamb shanks and potatomash.

■ What better with barbecuedseafoods or a cold seafood platter?

We’re archived on http://v intnews.com

came back with the answer that, Yes,their train would be a success. But onlyif they called it Shongololo, after a lo-cal millipede whose long body hasscores of little legs that forever worktogether to get it along its slow-mov-ing journey as quickly as possible.

And which, she foresaw, would bereflected in the Shongololo Express,that with the lots of little things com-bining in and around it, would cover itswinding rail journeys as quickly as pos-sible as well.

So call it Shongololo Express theydid, launching in 1995 and running itsuccessfully until 2000 when they soldout to concentrate on other individualbusiness interests. But Leon could neverquite get “his” train out of heart norhead, and in 2007 he made an offer tobuy it back from the investor he’d soldit to.

The rest, as they say, is history.Shongololo is now Leon Plutsick’s life,love and passion, and he spends fourmonths every year travelling to hismajor customer markets (Australianumber one, followed by Canada andGermany) promoting it, and riding thetrain whenever he can to ensure all isas he believes it should be, and refin-ing where he believes it’s not.

And for those fortunate enough totravel aboard the Shongololo it is a re-warding experience, with yesteryearpolished teak-wood dining, lounge, barand sleeping carriages having appoint-ments that make for a delightful remi-nisce back to a time when train travelwas leisurely, unhurried and genteel.

A kind of Good Life, shoe-hornedinto the confines of narrow-gauge rail.Shongololo currently has four 13-to-16day itineraries embracing the best ofSouth Africa and its Winelands,Kimberley, South Drakensbergs,KwaZulu-Natal, and Kruger and otherNational Parks, and further afield fas-cinating Zululand, Swaziland,Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia,Botswana, Namibia and Zanzibar…with others, Leon hints, in the pipeline.

And rewardingly, rather than jam-ming guests onto local coaches withother tourists for daily sightseeing,Shongololo carries its own Mercedes-Benz air-conditioned mini-vans, so thatwith the train travelling mostly at nightwhile guests sleep, these make forwonderfully personalised sightseeingtours led daily by the train’s ownonboard professional driver/guides(most of whom have been with Leonsince the re-emergence of Shongololoin 2007.)

And with a choice of two such toursincluded daily in the train’s price (andothers available through other operatorsat optional cost,) it provides for diversesightseeing and adventures a-plenty.

In our case, this included amongstnumerous others, riding the cable carup Cape Town’s Table Mountain, tast-ing the product of the Winelands, get-ting up-close with the animals for threedays in Kruger and other NationalParks, visiting villages and remotetowns and communities, the KimberleyDiamond Mine, King Shaka’s RoyalHunting Grounds, seeing the homes ofNelson Mandela and ArchbishopDesmond Tutu, and an escorted tourthrough Soweto whose 1976 riots werethe catalyst for the eventual disman-tling of South Africa’s apartheid laws.

More details from Bench Interna-tional toll-free 1300AFRICA orwww.benchinternational.com.au

NEXT WEEK: IndulgingShongololo’s yesteryear ambi-ences.

●●●●● Africa elephants crossing road, Kruger

Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, July 3, 2013 - Page 93www.MelbourneObserver.com.au


From Page 16 she saw all plainly now; it had but made head-way, and now it had burst forth afresh, and hadinflamed her whole being. This note-book was likea spark which had fallen from that other soul intohers. She felt the conflagration starting up oncemore.She imbued herself thoroughly with every wordof the manuscript: “Oh yes!” said she, “how per-fectly I recognize all that! That is what I had al-ready read in his eyes.” As she was finishing itfor the third time, Lieutenant Theodule passed thegate once more, and rattled his spurs upon thepavement. Cosette was forced to raise her eyesShe thought him insipid, silly, stupid, useless, fop-pish, displeasing, impertinent, and extremely uglyThe officer thought it his duty to smile at her.She turned away as in shame and indignation. Shewould gladly have thrown something at his headShe fled, re-entered the house, and shut herselfup in her chamber to peruse the manuscript oncemore, to learn it by heart, and to dream. Whenshe had thoroughly mastered it she kissed it andput it in her bosom.All was over, Cosette had fallen back into deep,seraphic love. The abyss of Eden had yawned oncemore.All day long, Cosette remained in a sort of bewil-derment. She scarcely thought, her ideas were inthe state of a tangled skein in her brain, she couldnot manage to conjecture anything, she hopedthrough a tremor, what? vague things. She daredmake herself no promises, and she did not wishto refuse herself anything. Flashes of pallor passedover her countenance, and shivers ran through herframe. It seemed to her, at intervals, that she wasentering the land of chimaeras; she said to her-self: “Is this reality?” Then she felt of the dearpaper within her bosom under her gown, shepressed it to her heart, she felt its angles againsther flesh; and if Jean Valjean had seen her at themoment, he would have shuddered in the pres-ence of that luminous and unknown joy, whichoverflowed from beneath her eyelids.—“Oh yes!”she thought, “it is certainly he! This comes fromhim, and is for me!”And she told herself that an intervention of theangels, a celestial chance, had given him back toher.Oh transfiguration of love! Oh dreams! That ce-lestial chance, that intervention of the angels, wasa pellet of bread tossed by one thief to anotherthief, from the Charlemagne Courtyard to theLion’s Ditch, over the roofs of La Force.

ity of their own. They are prevented from seeingeach other, they cannot write to each other; theydiscover a multitude of mysterious means to cor-respond. They send each other the song of the birds,the perfume of the flowers, the smiles of chil-dren, the light of the sun, the sighings of thebreeze, the rays of stars, all creation. And whynot? All the works of God are made to serve love.Love is sufficiently potent to charge all nature withits messages.Oh Spring! Thou art a letter that I write to her.The future belongs to hearts even more than itdoes to minds. Love, that is the only thing thatcan occupy and fill eternity. In the infinite, theinexhaustible is requisite.Love participates of the soul itself. It is of thesame nature. Like it, it is the divine spark; like it,it is incorruptible, indivisible, imperishable. It isa point of fire that exists within us, which is im-mortal and infinite, which nothing can confine,and which nothing can extinguish. We feel it burn-ing even to the very marrow of our bones, and wesee it beaming in the very depths of heaven.Oh Love! Adorations! voluptuousness of twominds which understand each other, of two heartswhich exchange with each other, of two glanceswhich penetrate each other! You will come to me,will you not, bliss! strolls by twos in the solitudes!Blessed and radiant days! I have sometimesdreamed that from time to time hours detachedthemselves from the lives of the angels and camehere below to traverse the destinies of men.God can add nothing to the happiness of those wholove, except to give them endless duration. Aftera life of love, an eternity of love is, in fact, anaugmentation; but to increase in intensity even theineffable felicity which love bestows on the souleven in this world, is impossible, even to God.God is the plenitude of heaven; love is the pleni-tude of man.You look at a star for two reasons, because it isluminous, and because it is impenetrable. Youhave beside you a sweeter radiance and a greatermystery, woman.All of us, whoever we may be, have our respi-rable beings. We lack air and we stifle. Then wedie. To die for lack of love is horrible. Suffoca-tion of the soul.When love has fused and mingled two beings in asacred and angelic unity, the secret of life hasbeen discovered so far as they are concerned; theyare no longer anything more than the two bound-aries of the same destiny; they are no longer any-thing but the two wings of the same spirit. Love,soar.On the day when a woman as she passes beforeyou emits light as she walks, you are lost, youlove. But one thing remains for you to do: to thinkof her so intently that she is constrained to thinkof you.What love commences can be finished by Godalone.True love is in despair and is enchanted over aglove lost or a handkerchief found, and eternity isrequired for its devotion and its hopes. It is com-posed both of the infinitely great and the infinitelylittle.If you are a stone, be adamant; if you are a plant,be the sensitive plant; if you are a man, be love.Nothing suffices for love. We have happiness, wedesire paradise; we possess paradise, we desireheaven.Oh ye who love each other, all this is contained inlove. Understand how to find it there. Love hascontemplation as well as heaven, and more thanheaven, it has voluptuousness.“Does she still come to the Luxembourg?” “No,sir.” “This is the church where she attends mass,is it not?” “She no longer comes here.” “Doesshe still live in this house?” “She has movedaway.” “Where has she gone to dwell?”“She did not say.”What a melancholy thing not to know the addressof one’s soul!Love has its childishness, other passions have theirpettinesses. Shame on the passions which belittleman! Honor to the one which makes a child ofhim!There is one strange thing, do you know it? I dwellin the night. There is a being who carried off mysky when she went away.Oh! would that we were lying side by side in thesame grave, hand in hand, and from time to time,in the darkness, gently caressing a finger,— thatwould suffice for my eternity!Ye who suffer because ye love, love yet more. Todie of love, is to live in it.Love. A sombre and starry transfiguration ismingled with this torture. There is ecstasy inagony.

Oh joy of the birds! It is because they have neststhat they sing.Love is a celestial respiration of the air of para-dise.Deep hearts, sage minds, take life as God hasmade it; it is a long trial, an incomprehensiblepreparation for an unknown destiny. This destiny,the true one, begins for a man with the first stepinside the tomb. Then something appears to him,and he begins to distinguish the definitive. Thedefinitive, meditate upon that word. The livingperceive the infinite; the definitive permits itselfto be seen only by the dead. In the meanwhile,love and suffer, hope and contemplate. Woe, alas!to him who shall have loved only bodies, forms,appearances! Death will deprive him of all. Tryto love souls, you will find them again.I encountered in the street, a very poor young manwho was in love. His hat was old, his coat wasworn, his elbows were in holes; water trickledthrough his shoes, and the stars through his soul.What a grand thing it is to be loved! What a fargrander thing it is to love! The heart becomesheroic, by dint of passion. It is no longer com-posed of anything but what is pure; it no longerrests on anything that is not elevated and great.An unworthy thought can no more germinate init, than a nettle on a glacier. The serene and loftysoul, inaccessible to vulgar passions and emotions,dominating the clouds and the shades of this world,its follies, its lies, its hatreds, its vanities, its mis-eries, inhabits the blue of heaven, and no longerfeels anything but profound and subterraneanshocks of destiny, as the crests of mountains feelthe shocks of earthquake.If there did not exist some one who loved, the sunwould become extinct.

But fear nothing, Miss, I fasten the shutters uplike prisons. Lone women! That is enough to makeone shudder, I believe you! Just imagine, what ifyou were to see men enter your chamber at nightand say: ‘Hold your tongue!’ and begin to cut yourthroat. It’s not the dying so much; you die, for onemust die, and that’s all right; it’s the abominationof feeling those people touch you. And then, theirknives; they can’t be able to cut well with them!Ah, good gracious!”“Be quiet,” said Cosette. “Fasten everything thor-oughly.”Cosette, terrified by the melodrama improvisedby Toussaint, and possibly, also, by the recollec-tion of the apparitions of the past week, whichrecurred to her memory, dared not even say toher: “Go and look at the stone which has beenplaced on the bench!” for fear of opening the gar-den gate and allowing “the men” to enter. Shesaw that all the doors and windows were care-fully fastened, made Toussaint go all over thehouse from garret to cellar, locked herself up inher own chamber, bolted her door, looked underher couch, went to bed and slept badly. All nightlong she saw that big stone, as large as a moun-tain and full of caverns.At sunrise,— the property of the rising sun is tomake us laugh at all our terrors of the past night,and our laughter is in direct proportion to our ter-ror which they have caused,— at sunrise Cosette,when she woke, viewed her fright as a nightmare,and said to herself: “What have I been thinkingof? It is like the footsteps that I thought I heard aweek or two ago in the garden at night! It is likethe shadow of the chimney-pot! Am I becoming acoward?” The sun, which was glowing throughthe crevices in her shutters, and turning the dam-ask curtains crimson, reassured her to such anextent that everything vanished from her thoughts,even the stone.“There was no more a stone on the bench thanthere was a man in a round hat in the garden; Idreamed about the stone, as I did all the rest.”She dressed herself, descended to the garden, ranto the bench, and broke out in a cold perspiration.The stone was there.But this lasted only for a moment. That which isterror by night is curiosity by day.“Bah!” said she, “come, let us see what it is.”She lifted the stone, which was tolerably large.Beneath it was something which resembled a let-ter. It was a white envelope. Cosette seized it.There was no address on one side, no seal on theother. Yet the envelope, though unsealed, was notempty. Papers could be seen inside.Cosette examined it. It was no longer alarm, itwas no longer curiosity; it was a beginning of anxi-ety.Cosette drew from the envelope its contents, alittle notebook of paper, each page of which wasnumbered and bore a few lines in a very fine andrather pretty handwriting, as Cosette thought.Cosette looked for a name; there was none. Towhom was this addressed? To her, probably, sincea hand had deposited the packet on her bench.From whom did it come? An irresistible fascina-tion took possession of her; she tried to turn awayher eyes from the leaflets which were tremblingin her hand, she gazed at the sky, the street, theacacias all bathed in light, the pigeons flutteringover a neighboring roof, and then her glance sud-denly fell upon the manuscript, and she said toherself that she must know what it contained.This is what she read.


CHAPTER IV

A HEART BENEATH A STONE

The reduction of the universe to a single being,the expansion of a single being even to God, thatis love.Love is the salutation of the angels to the stars.How sad is the soul, when it is sad through love!What a void in the absence of the being who, byherself alone fills the world! Oh! how true it isthat the beloved being becomes God. One couldcomprehend that God might be jealous of this hadnot God the Father of all evidently made creationfor the soul, and the soul for love.The glimpse of a smile beneath a white crapebonnet with a lilac curtain is sufficient to causethe soul to enter into the palace of dreams.God is behind everything, but everything hidesGod. Things are black, creatures are opaque. Tolove a being is to render that being transparent.Certain thoughts are prayers. There are momentswhen, whatever the attitude of the body may be,the soul is on its knees.Parted lovers beguile absence by a thousand chi-merical devices, which possess, however, a real-

CHAPTER V

COSETTE AFTER THE LETTER

As Cosette read, she gradually fell into thought.At the very moment when she raised her eyesfrom the last line of the note-book, the handsomeofficer passed triumphantly in front of the gate,—it was his hour; Cosette thought him hideous.She resumed her contemplation of the book. Itwas written in the most charming of chirography,thought Cosette; in the same hand, but with diversinks, sometimes very black, again whitish, aswhen ink has been added to the inkstand, and con-sequently on different days. It was, then, a mindwhich had unfolded itself there, sigh by sigh, ir-regularly, without order, without choice, withoutobject, hap-hazard. Cosette had never read any-thing like it. This manuscript, in which she al-ready perceived more light than obscurity, pro-duced upon her the effect of a half-open sanctu-ary. Each one of these mysterious lines shonebefore her eyes and inundated her heart with astrange radiance. The education which she hadreceived had always talked to her of the soul, andnever of love, very much as one might talk of thefirebrand and not of the flame. This manuscriptof fifteen pages suddenly and sweetly revealed toher all of love, sorrow, destiny, life, eternity, thebeginning, the end. It was as if a hand had openedand suddenly flung upon her a handful of rays oflight. In these few lines she felt a passionate, ar-dent, generous, honest nature, a sacred will, animmense sorrow, and an immense despair, a suf-fering heart, an ecstasy fully expanded. What wasthis manuscript? A letter. A letter without name,without address, without date, without signature,pressing and disinterested, an enigma composedof truths, a message of love made to be broughtby an angel and read by a virgin, an appointmentmade beyond the bounds of earth, the love-letterof a phantom to a shade. It was an absent one,tranquil and dejected, who seemed ready to takerefuge in death and who sent to the absent love,his lady, the secret of fate, the key of life, love.This had been written with one foot in the graveand one finger in heaven. These lines, which hadfallen one by one on the paper, were what mightbe called drops of soul.Now, from whom could these pages come? Whocould have penned them?Cosette did not hesitate a moment. One man only.He!Day had dawned once more in her spirit; all hadreappeared. She felt an unheard-of joy, and a pro-found anguish. It was he! he who had written! hewas there! it was he whose arm had been thrustthrough that railing! While she was forgetful ofhim, he had found her again! But had she forgot-ten him? No, never! She was foolish to havethought so for a single moment. She had alwaysloved him, always adored him. The fire had beensmothered, and had smouldered for a time, but

CHAPTER VI

OLD PEOPLE ARE MADE

TO GO OUT OPPORTUNELY

When evening came, Jean Valjean went out;Cosette dressed herself. She arranged her hair inthe most becoming manner, and she put on a dresswhose bodice had received one snip of the scis-sors too much, and which, through this slope, per-mitted a view of the beginning of her throat, andwas, as young girls say, “a trifle indecent.” It wasnot in the least indecent, but it was prettier thanusual. She made her toilet thus without knowingwhy she did so.Did she mean to go out? No.Was she expecting a visitor? No.At dusk, she went down to the garden. Toussaintwas busy in her kitchen, which opened on the backyard.She began to stroll about under the trees, thrust-ing aside the branches from time to time with herhand, because there were some which hung verylow.In this manner she reached the bench.The stone was still there.She sat down, and gently laid her white hand onthis stone as though she wished to caress and thankit.All at once, she experienced that indefinable im-pression which one undergoes when there is someone standing behind one, even when she does notsee the person.She turned her head and rose to her feet.It was he.His head was bare. He appeared to have grownthin and pale. His black clothes were hardly dis-cernible. The twilight threw a wan light on hisfine brow, and covered his eyes in shadows. Be-neath a veil of incomparable sweetness, he hadsomething about him that suggested death andnight. His face was illuminated by the light of thedying day, and by the thought of a soul that is tak-ing flight.He seemed to be not yet a ghost, and he was nolonger a man.


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Observer Crossword Solution No 38

cient street of the Petit–Musc which afforded herthe opportunity of changing her evil repute intogood odor. The reader will remember the greatepidemic of croup which ravaged the river dis-tricts of the Seine in Paris thirty-five years ago,and of which science took advantage to makeexperiments on a grand scale as to the efficacy ofinhalations of alum, so beneficially replaced atthe present day by the external tincture of iodine.During this epidemic, the Magnon lost both herboys, who were still very young, one in the morn-ing, the other in the evening of the same day. Thiswas a blow. These children were precious to theirmother; they represented eighty francs a month.These eighty francs were punctually paid in thename of M. Gillenormand, by collector of hisrents, M. Barge, a retired tip-staff, in the Rue duRoi-deSicile. The children dead, the income wasat an end. The Magnon sought an expedient. Inthat dark free-masonry of evil of which she formeda part, everything is known, all secrets are kept,and all lend mutual aid. Magnon needed two chil-dren; the Thenardiers had two. The same sex, thesame age. A good arrangement for the one, a goodinvestment for the other. The little Thenardiersbecame little Magnons. Magnon quitted the Quaides Celestins and went to live in the RueClocheperce. In Paris, the identity which bindsan individual to himself is broken between onestreet and another.The registry office being in no way warned, raisedno objections, and the substitution was effectedin the most simple manner in the world. Only, theThenardier exacted for this loan of her children,ten francs a month, which Magnon promised topay, and which she actually did pay. It is unnec-essary to add that M. Gillenormand continued toperform his compact. He came to see the chil-dren every six months. He did not perceive thechange. “Monsieur,” Magnon said to him, “howmuch they resemble you!”Thenardier, to whom avatars were easy, seizedthis occasion to become Jondrette. His two daugh-ters and Gavroche had hardly had time to discoverthat they had two little brothers. When a certaindegree of misery is reached, one is overpoweredwith a sort of spectral indifference, and one re-gards human beings as though they were spec-tres. Your nearest relations are often no more foryou than vague shadowy forms, barely outlinedagainst a nebulous background of life and easilyconfounded again with the invisible.

To Be Continued Next Week

full of smoke; lightnings darted between his lips;his ideas vanished; it seemed to him that he wasaccomplishing some religious act, and that he wascommitting a profanation. Moreover, he had notthe least passion for this lovely woman whoseforce he felt against his breast. He was besidehimself with love.She took his hand and laid it on her heart. He feltthe paper there, he stammered:—“You love me, then?”She replied in a voice so low that it was no longeranything more than a barely audible breath:—“Hush! Thou knowest it!”And she hid her blushing face on the breast of thesuperb and intoxicated young man.He fell upon the bench, and she beside him. Theyhad no words more. The stars were beginning togleam. How did it come to pass that their lipsmet? How comes it to pass that the birds sing,that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that Mayexpands, that the dawn grows white behind theblack trees on the shivering crest of the hills?A kiss, and that was all.Both started, and gazed into the darkness withsparkling eyes.They felt neither the cool night, nor the cold stone,nor the damp earth, nor the wet grass; they lookedat each other, and their hearts were full ofthoughts. They had clasped hands unconsciously.She did not ask him, she did not even wonder,how he had entered there, and how he had madehis way into the garden. It seemed so simple toher that he should be there!From time to time, Marius’ knee touched Cosette’sknee, and both shivered.At intervals, Cosette stammered a word. Her soulfluttered on her lips like a drop of dew on a flower.Little by little they began to talk to each other.Effusion followed silence, which is fulness. Thenight was serene and splendid overhead. Thesetwo beings, pure as spirits, told each other every-thing, their dreams, their intoxications, their ec-stasies, their chimaeras, their weaknesses, howthey had adored each other from afar, how theyhad longed for each other, their despair when theyhad ceased to see each other. They confided toeach other in an ideal intimacy, which nothingcould augment, their most secret and most mys-terious thoughts. They related to each other, withcandid faith in their illusions, all that love, youth,and the remains of childhood which still lingered

about them, suggested to their minds. Their twohearts poured themselves out into each other insuch wise, that at the expiration of a quarter of anhour, it was the young man who had the younggirl’s soul, and the young girl who had the youngman’s soul. Each became permeated with theother, they were enchanted with each other, theydazzled each other.When they had finished, when they had told eachother everything, she laid her head on his shoul-der and asked him:—“What is your name?”“My name is Marius,” said he. “And yours?”“My name is Cosette.”

He had flung away his hat in the thicket, a fewpaces distant.Cosette, though ready to swoon, uttered no cry.She retreated slowly, for she felt herself attracted.He did not stir. By virtue of something ineffableand melancholy which enveloped him, she feltthe look in his eyes which she could not see.Cosette, in her retreat, encountered a tree andleaned against it. Had it not been for this tree, shewould have fallen.Then she heard his voice, that voice which shehad really never heard, barely rising above therustle of the leaves, and murmuring:—“Pardon me, here I am. My heart is full. I couldnot live on as I was living, and I have come. Haveyou read what I placed there on the bench? Doyou recognize me at all? Have no fear of me. It isa long time, you remember the day, since youlooked at me at the Luxembourg, near the Gladi-ator. And the day when you passed before me? Itwas on the 16th of June and the 2d of July. It isnearly a year ago. I have not seen you for a longtime. I inquired of the woman who let the chairs,and she told me that she no longer saw you. Youlived in the Rue de l’Ouest, on the third floor, inthe front apartments of a new house,— you seethat I know! I followed you. What else was therefor me to do? And then you disappeared. I thoughtI saw you pass once, while I was reading the news-papers under the arcade of the Odeon. I ran afteryou. But no. It was a person who had a bonnetlike yours. At night I came hither. Do not be afraid,no one sees me. I come to gaze upon your win-dows near at hand. I walk very softly, so that youmay not hear, for you might be alarmed. The otherevening I was behind you, you turned round, I fled.Once, I heard you singing. I was happy. Did itaffect you because I heard you singing throughthe shutters? That could not hurt you. No, it is notso? You see, you are my angel! Let me comesometimes; I think that I am going to die. If youonly knew! I adore you. Forgive me, I speak toyou, but I do not know what I am saying; I mayhave displeased you; have I displeased you?”“Oh! my mother!” said she.And she sank down as though on the point of death.He grasped her, she fell, he took her in his arms,he pressed her close, without knowing what hewas doing. He supported her, though he was tot-tering himself. It was as though his brain were

Page 94 - Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, July 3, 2013 www.MelbourneObserver.com.au

J U V E N I L E M A R S H A L S S H U F F L E S A B R A D I N G

E O Y I F S E Y E A G L E L A G P O B N A

E U C A L Y P T E A S E D O F F O C C U P I E D P L A Y A C T S

R A O S P E D T R T E M P T T D A B E T S U S

S A L I N E O A V O C A D O U O U T D O O R A A S T R A Y

L L E P S O M R N V I L E R E U N A R K S R S

I M P L O R E X M E N T H E C E G R E T S U N A T I V E S

A W I G N I T E E O R C H I D S X M I D A I R S X

I N V I T E S D M I A O W H N T I A R A I T U N E F U L

A L S I O R L E A F I E R M R B L C A

S C U L P T O R S I S S U E R T I N S E T L I F E S T Y L E

W S A P E A R L R E A L I G N M E T E L L I N

E V E N T F U L P S A L M S D A G R E E N E C Y L I N D E R

D D R L P V U F E L L S E R A W M D A

I N C L I N E R E E N T E R S S Y R I N G E S H E M M I N G

S A O N O T A R A U A N N E P I L E E S E

H E R E T I C I D I O T M I N E D S A N T O E A R T H E D

R M T E N T S N I M P N R O E C O V A L S R L

O N S P E C E E G G O N I D A H O R A Y O N P P L A Z A S

I T H E A P E E G O S L M A T E R E P E E W T

R E T Y P E N A S P S W H I S P E R R A C Y O C A L L E D

E E A S I D E T T N N E C O H W R I T S I A

I D E A S E T A R R A G O N R E L A P S E S T P L A I D

C N T H I R D T O O E T A L S P I S T E N D

H E Y D A Y T W I N G A B R A H A M A N T E O U N E A S Y

X H E C H O O E L L A M S P I N R A N O N M U

S P R A I N A I N A N E N O O K S M E D A L E N O B O D Y

E B A L L I N N G O D E O R B E A D D L E E A

E L L I P S E H O C H I A M B E R I N F E R E L U D I N G

X E R M A T A E R G A T B E G O O F N N R

P L A C E B O B E S T O W E D M E D I O C R E T W A D D L E

A R V N I T N D A Z E D N T S W W O A

N O N F A T A L T H R A S H T X I G L O O S P I C A D O R S

D E I D A S I A O V A T I O N R U E D N R R E

S H R I L L E S T P L E A S B C F E A S T R E G R E S S E S

O N E H B T T E A C A K E M I I E T N

I M P E A C H L O C H R E S N R O B I N B M A R A U D S

E X H E R E I N I S T E T S O N L G A B L E S B L

B R O A D E R T E N C A S E R M O D E M S L N O B B L E D

U C R E F E R U N S W A M I E E B E G U N E S

U N I T E S R O I L I E S T C T E E N A G E R S A D I S M

N N V M A U L L M T H E F T P T N O A H B D O

M A D W O M A N E P I L O G U E L I V E B A I T M A N H O L E S

E I K L C D F N B A R O N N X G M T O E S

T R A P E Z E S H A Y F E V E R E G G S H E L L Y E A R S D A Y

BOOK SIXTH.— LITTLE GAVROCHE

CHAPTER I

THE MALICIOUS PLAYFULNESS

OF THE WIND

Since 1823, when the tavern of Montfermeil wason the way to shipwreck and was being graduallyengulfed, not in the abyss of a bankruptcy, but inthe cesspool of petty debts, the Thenardier pairhad had two other children; both males. That madefive; two girls and three boys.Madame Thenardier had got rid of the last two,while they were still young and very small, withremarkable luck.Got rid of is the word. There was but a mere frag-ment of nature in that woman. A phenomenon, bythe way, of which there is more than one exampleextant. Like the Marechale de La Mothe–Houdancourt, the Thenardier was a mother to herdaughters only. There her maternity ended. Herhatred of the human race began with her own sons.In the direction of her sons her evil dispositionwas uncompromising, and her heart had a lugu-brious wall in that quarter. As the reader has seen,she detested the eldest; she cursed the other two.Why? Because. The most terrible of motives, themost unanswerable of retorts — Because. “I haveno need of a litter of squalling brats,” said thismother.Let us explain how the Thenardiers had succeededin getting rid of their last two children; and evenin drawing profit from the operation.The woman Magnon, who was mentioned a fewpages further back, was the same one who hadsucceeded in making old Gillenormand supportthe two children which she had had. She lived onthe Quai des Celestins, at the corner of this an-

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