Les Misérables, v. 2

It is enough that such a convent is possible to make it my duty to take it into account.

This is the reason that in the preceding book I have spoken of a convent in a tone of respect. Putting aside the Middle Ages, putting aside Asia, reserving the consideration of the historical and political question from the purely philosophical point of view, outside of the necessities of militant politics, upon the condition that the monastery should be wholly voluntary, and should shut up only those who freely consent, I should always regard the claustral community with attentive and on some accounts reverend gravity. Where the community is, there is the commune; where the commune is, there is human right. The monastery is the result of the formula: Equality, Fraternity. Oh, how great is Liberty! What a glorious transfiguration! Liberty is all that is needed to transform the monastery into the republic.

Let us go on.

But these men or these women, who are behind these four walls, they wear sackcloth, they are equal, they call each other brother. Very well; but is there anything else that they do?

Yes.

What?

They look into the darkness, they fall upon their knees, and they clasp their hands.

What does that mean?

CHAPTER V

PRAYER

They pray.

To whom?

To God.

To pray to God, – what does this mean?

Is there an infinite power outside of us? Is this infinite power a unity, immanent and enduring, – necessarily material, because it is infinite, and if it lacked matter, in so far it would be circumscribed; necessarily intelligent, because it is infinite, and if it lacked intelligence, again it would be limited? Does this infinite power awaken in us the idea of the essence of things, while we can only ascribe to ourselves the idea of existence? In other words, is it not the Absolute of which we are the Relative?

While there is an infinite power outside of us, is there not an infinite power within us? Do not these two infinites (what a fearful plural!) rest one upon the other? Does not the second infinite depend upon the first? Is it not its mirror, its reflection, its echo, an abyss concentric with another abyss? Is this second infinite also intelligent? Does it think? Does it love? Has it a will? If both these infinites are intelligent, each of them has volition, and there is an Ego in the infinite above, as there is an Ego in the infinite below. The Ego in the one below is the soul; the Ego in the one above is God.

To bring by thought the infinite below in contact with the infinite above is called praying.

Let us take nothing from the human spirit; to suppress anything is wrong. Let us regenerate and transform it. Some of man's faculties are directed toward the Unknown, – thought, revery, prayer. The Unknown is an ocean. What is conscience? It is the mariner's compass of the Unknown. Thought, revery, prayer, these are great mysterious rays; let us respect them. Whither tend these grand radiations of the soul? Into the darkness; that is to say, to the light.

The grandeur of democracy is in its denying nothing and abjuring nothing of humanity. Next to the right of man comes the right of the soul.

To crush out fanaticism, and to reverence the infinite, such is the law. Let us not be content to prostrate ourselves under the tree of Creation, and to contemplate its immense branches full of stars. We have a duty, – to work for the human soul, to distinguish between mystery and miracle; to worship the incomprehensible and reject the absurd; to admit as inexplicable only what we must; to make faith more healthy, to remove from religion the superstitions that encumber it; to brush the cobwebs from the image of God.

CHAPTER VI

ABSOLUTE GOODNESS OF PRATER

As to the manner of prayer, all are good, provided that they are sincere. Turn your book upside down, and be in the infinite.

There is, as we know, a philosophy which denies the infinite. There is also a philosophy, in pathological classification, which denies the sun; this philosophy is called blindness.

To set up as a source of truth a sense which we lack is the consummate assurance of a blind man.

The strange part of it lies in the lofty, superior, and pitying airs which this groping philosophy takes on in the presence of the philosophy which sees God. You fancy you hear the mole exclaim, "How I pity the poor men with their sun!"

There are some eminent and able atheists, we admit. These at bottom being brought back to the truth by their very ability, are not sure that they are atheists; it is scarcely more than a matter of definition with them; and at any rate, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they bear unconscious witness to His existence.

We hail in them the philosopher, while we deny relentlessly their philosophy.

Let us go on.

It is wonderful, too, to see how easily they amuse themselves with words, A metaphysical school of the North, a little impregnated with fog, thought that it was making a revolution in the human understanding when it replaced the word "Force" by the word "Will."

To say "the plant wills" instead of "the plant grows;" this would amount to something, if they added "the universe wills," Why? Because it would lead to this: the plant wills, then it has a self; the universe wills, then it has a God.

To us, however, who, unlike this school, reject nothing a priori, a will in the plant, which this school admits, seems more difficult to admit than a will in the universe, which this school denies.

To deny the will of the infinite, that is to say, God, is impossible without denying the infinite. This we have demonstrated.

The denial of the infinite leads straight to nihilism. Everything becomes "a conception of the mind."

With nihilism no argument is possible; for the logical nihilist doubts the existence of his opponent in the discussion, and is not quite sure that he exists himself.

From his point of view it may be that his own existence is only a "conception of his mind."

He does not see, however, that all that he has denied he admits in the lump by merely using this word "mind."

In short, no way is left open for thought by a philosophy which makes everything end in the mono-syllable "No."

To "No," there is but one answer, "Yes."

Nihilism has no range.

There is no nothing. Zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing.

Man lives by affirmation even more than by bread.

To see and point out the way is not enough. Philosophy ought to be a living force; it ought to have for end and aim the amelioration of mankind. Socrates ought to enter into Adam, and produce Marcus Aurelius; in other words, turn the man of selfish enjoyment into the wise and good man. Change Eden into the Lyceum. Knowledge ought to be a stimulant. To enjoy life, what a poor aim, what a mean ambition! The brute enjoys. To think, that is the true triumph of the soul.

To hold out thought to quench men's thirst, to give to all men as an elixir the idea of God, to make conscience and knowledge fraternize in them, and by this mysterious partnership to make them just, – this is the work for real philosophy. Morality is a blossoming of truths. Thought leads to action. The absolute ought to be practical. The ideal must be brought into such form that it can be breathed, drunk, and eaten by the human soul. The ideal is the very one to say, "Take, eat; this is my body, this is my blood." Knowledge is a holy communion. Thus it ceases to be a sterile love of knowledge to become the one and sovereign means of human advancement, and from philosophy it is exalted to religion.

Philosophy ought not to be an arch built over mystery, the better to look down on it, merely as a convenience for curiosity.

Postponing to another time the development of this thought, we content ourselves now with saying that we understand neither man as the point of departure nor progress as the goal, without these two motive forces, faith and love.

Progress is the goal, the ideal is the type.

What is the ideal? It is God.

Ideal, absolute, perfection, infinite, – all mean the same.

CHAPTER VII

CARE TO BE EXERCISED IN CONDEMNING

History and philosophy have eternal duties which are at the same time simple duties. To oppose Caiaphas as a high priest, Draco as a judge, Trimalcion as a law-giver, Tiberius as an emperor, – that is a duty simple, direct, and clear, and gives no room for doubt. But the right to live apart, even with its objections and its abuse, must be demonstrated and handled carefully; monasticism is a human problem.

In speaking of convents, these homes of error but of innocence, of wanderings from the true path but of good intentions, of ignorance but of devotion, of torture but of martyrdom, we must almost always say yes and no.

A convent is a contradiction: its aim, salvation; its means, sacrifice. The convent is supreme selfishness having as its result supreme abnegation.

To abdicate in order to reign seems to be the motto of monasticism.

In the convent, they suffer in order to enjoy. They take out a letter of credit on death. They discount in earthly night the light of heaven. In the convent hell is endured in advance of the heirship to paradise.

The taking of the veil or the frock is a suicide recompensed by eternity.

Mockery on such a subject does not seem to us to be in place. Everything there is serious, the good as well as the bad.

The just man frowns, but never sneers at it We can sympathize with indignation, but not with malignity.

CHAPTER VIII

FAITH, LAW

A few words more. We blame the Church when it is steeped in intrigues. We scorn the spiritual when it is not in accord with the temporal; but we honor the thoughtful man wherever we find him.

We bow to the man who kneels.

A faith of some kind is necessary to man. Alas for him who believes nothing!

We are not necessarily idle because we are absorbed. Labor may be invisible as well as visible.

To reflect is to labor; to think is to act.

The folded arms labor, the clasped hands work. The gaze directed to heaven is a labor.

Thales stayed immovable for four years. He founded philosophy.

In our opinion, monks are not drones, and hermits are not idlers.

To think of the future life is a serious business.

Without withdrawing at all from the position which we have just taken, we believe that a continual reminder of the tomb is good for the living. On this point the priest and the philosopher agree. We must die. The Trappist Abbé replies to Horace.

To mix with his life some presence of the tomb is the law of the wise man; and it is also the law of the recluse. Here recluse and wise man agree.

There is such a thing as material growth; we are glad of it. There is also such a thing as moral grandeur; we insist upon it.

Thoughtless and hasty spirits say: "What is the use of these figures motionless by the side of mystery? What purpose do they serve? What good do they do?"

Alas! In presence of the darkness which envelops us, and which awaits us, not knowing what will become of us in the dispersion of all things, we answer, "There is no work more sublime, perhaps, than that which these souls are doing." And we add, "There is, perhaps, no work more useful."

Those who always pray are needed for those who never pray.

In our opinion, it all depends on the amount of thought that enters into the prayer.

Leibnitz in prayer, this is grand. Voltaire in adoration, this is sublime. Deo erexit Voltaire.

We are on the side of religion against religions.

We believe in the worthlessness of supplications and the sublimity of worship.

Besides, at this moment through which we are passing, a moment which luckily will not leave its imprint upon the nineteenth century, at this hour when so many men have the forehead low and the soul far from lofty, among so many beings whose code is selfish enjoyment, and who are taken up with material things, ephemeral and shapeless, he who exiles himself seems to us worthy of veneration.

The monastery is a renunciation. Mistaken sacrifice is still sacrifice. To mistake for duty a serious error, this has its noble side.

Taken by itself ideally, and looking on all sides of truth until we have exhausted impartially all its aspects, the monastery and still more the convent for women, – for in our society woman is the greatest sufferer, and her protest appears in this exile of the cloister, – the convent for women has undeniably a certain grandeur.

This cloistered life so austere and so sad, some of whose features we have pointed out, is not life, for it is not liberty; it is not the tomb, for it is not lasting. It is the weird place from which is seen as from the crest of a high mountain on one side the abyss in which we now are, on the other, the abyss in which we shall be; it is a narrow and misty boundary which separates two worlds, cast into light and into shadow by both at a time, where the weak ray of life blends with the flickering ray of death; it is the penumbra of the tomb.

While we do not believe as these women do, we live like them by faith; and we have never been able to think, without a kind of terror, religious and tender, without a sort of pity mixed with envy, of these devoted creatures, trembling and trusting, these souls humble and proud, who dare to live on the very border of mystery, waiting between the world which is closed, and heaven which is not yet open, faced toward the light which they do not see, having only the consolation of thinking that they know where it is, longing for the gulf and the unknown, with eyes fixed upon the motionless darkness, kneeling, distracted, stupefied, shuddering, half lifted at times by the deep breathing of eternity.

BOOK VIII

CEMETERIES TAKE WHAT IS GIVEN THEM

CHAPTER I

HOW TO GET INTO A CONVENT

It was into this house that Jean Valjean had fallen from heaven, as Fauchelevent said. He had climbed the garden-wall which formed the angle of the Rue Polonceau; the hymn of angels which he heard in the middle of the night was the nuns chanting matins; the hall which he had caught a glimpse of in the darkness was the chapel; the phantom he had seen stretched out on the ground was the phantom making reparation; and the bell which had so strangely surprised him was the gardener's bell fastened to Fauchelevent's knee. So soon as Cosette was in bed Jean Valjean and Fauchelevent supped on a glass of wine and a lump of cheese before a good blazing log; then, as the only bed in the cottage was occupied by Cosette, each threw himself on a truss of straw. Before closing his eyes Jean Valjean said, "I must stop here henceforth", and this remark trotted about Fauchelevent's head all night In fact, neither of them slept; Jean Valjean, feeling himself discovered and Javert on his track, understood that he and Cosette were lost if they entered Paris. Since the new blast of wind had blown him into this convent Jean Valjean had but one thought, that of remaining in it. Now, for a wretch in his position, this convent was at once the most dangerous and the safest place, – the most dangerous, because as no man was allowed to enter it, if he were discovered it would be a crime, and Jean Valjean would only take one step from the convent to the prison; the safest, because if he succeeded in remaining in it who would come to seek him there? Inhabiting an impossible spot was salvation.

On his side, Fauchelevent racked his brains. He began by declaring to himself that he understood nothing. How was M. Madeleine, in spite of all the surrounding walls, here? And convent walls cannot be passed at a stride. How was he here with a child? People do not scale a perpendicular wall with a child in their arms. Who was this child? Where did they both come from? Since Fauchelevent had been in the convent he had received no news from M – , and did not know what had occurred there. Father Madeleine had that look which discourages questioning, and moreover Fauchelevent said to himself, "A saint is not to be cross-questioned." It was only from a few words which escaped Jean Valjean that the gardener fancied he could come to the conclusion that M. Madeleine had probably been made bankrupt by the hard times, and was pursued by his creditors; or else he was compromised in a political affair and was in hiding, which idea did not displease Fauchelevent, because, like most of the peasants in the north of France, he was a stanch Bonapartist. M. Madeleine had chosen the convent as his asylum, and it was simple that he should wish to remain there. But the inexplicable thing, to which Fauchelevent constantly recurred and which addled his brains, was that M. Madeleine was here, and here with this child. Fauchelevent saw them, touched them, spoke to them, and did not believe it. The gardener was stumbling among conjectures and saw nothing clear but this, – "M. Madeleine saved my life." This sole certainty was sufficient, and decided him; he said to himself, "It is my turn now." He added in his conscience, "M. Madeleine did not deliberate long when he had to get under the cart to save me," and he decided upon saving M. Madeleine. He, however, asked himself several questions, to which he gave divers answers. "After what he did for me, should I save him, if he were a robber? All the same. If he were an assassin, would I save him? All the same. Since he is a saint, shall I save him? All the same."

What a problem it was, though, to enable him to remain in the convent! Still, Fauchelevent did not recoil before this almost chimerical attempt; this poor Picard peasant, who had no other ladder but his devotion, his good-will, and a small stock of old rustic craft, this time turned to a generous purpose, undertook to scale the impossibilities of the convent, and the rough escarpments of the rule of St. Benedict. Fauchelevent was an old man, who had been during life selfish, and who, at the end of his days, limping, infirm, and taking no interest in the world, found it pleasant to be grateful, and seeing a virtuous action to be done, he flung himself upon it like a man who, on the point of death, lays his hand on a glass of good wine which he had never tasted, and eagerly drinks it off. We may add, that the air which he had been breathing for some years in this convent had destroyed his personality, and had eventually rendered some good deed a necessity for him. He, therefore, formed the resolution of devoting himself for M. Madeleine. We have just called him a "poor Picard peasant;" the qualification is correct but incomplete. At the present stage of our story a little physiological examination of Father Fauchelevent becomes useful. He was a peasant, but he had been a notary, which added chicanery to his cunning and penetration to his simplicity. Having, through various reasons, failed in his business, he descended from a notary to be a carter and day-laborer; but in spite of the oaths and lashes necessary for horses, as it seems, something of the notary had clung to him. He had some natural wit; he did not say "I are" or "I has;" he could converse, which was a rare thing in a village, and the other peasants used to say of him, "He talks exactly like a gentleman in a hat." Fauchelevent in fact belonged to that species which the impertinent and light vocabulary of the last century qualified as "a bit of a rustic and a bit of a townsman, pepper and salt." Fauchelevent, though sorely tried, and much worn by fate, a sort of poor old threadbare soul, was still a man to act on the first impulse, and spontaneously, – a precious quality which prevents a man from ever being wicked. His defects and vices, for he had such, were on the surface, and altogether his physiognomy was one of those which please the observer. His old face had none of those ugly wrinkles on the top of the forehead which signify wickedness or stupidity. At daybreak, after thinking enormously, Father Fauchelevent opened his eyes and saw M. Madeleine sitting on his truss of straw, and looking at the sleeping Cosette; Fauchelevent sat up too, and said, —

"Now that you are here, how will you manage to get in?" This remark summed up the situation, and aroused Jean Valjean from his reverie. The two men held counsel.

"In the first place," said Fauchelevent, "you must begin by not setting foot outside this cottage, neither you nor the little one. One step in the garden, and we are done."

"That is true."

"Monsieur Madeleine," Fauchelevent continued, "you have arrived at a very lucky moment, I ought to say a very unhappy one, for one of our ladies is dangerously ill. In consequence of this, folk will not look much this way. It seems that she is dying, and the forty hours' prayers are being said. The whole community is aroused, and that occupies them. The person who is on the point of going off is a saint. In fact, though, we are all saints here; the only difference between them and me is that they say 'our cell,' and I say 'my cottage.' There will be a service for the dying, and then the service for the dead. For to-day we shall be all quiet here; but I do not answer for to-morrow."

"Still," Jean Valjean observed, "this cottage is retired; it is hidden by a sort of ruin; there are trees, and it cannot be seen from the convent."

"And I may add that the nuns never approach it."

"Well?" Jean Valjean asked.

The interrogation that marked this "well" signified "I fancy that we can remain concealed here," and it was to this interrogation that Fauchelevent replied:

"There are the little ones."

"What little ones?" Jean Valjean asked.

As Fauchelevent opened his mouth to answer, a stroke rang out from a bell.

"The nun is dead," he said, "that is the knell."

And he made Jean Valjean a sign to listen. A second stroke rang out.

"It is the passing bell, Monsieur Madeleine. The bell will go on so minute after minute for twenty-four hours, till the body leaves the church. You see they play about; at recreations they need only lose a ball, and in spite of the prohibition, they will come and look for it here and ransack everything. Those cherubs are little devils."

"Who?" Jean Valjean asked.

"The little ones; I can tell you that you would soon be discovered. They would cry out, 'Why, it's a man!' But there is no danger to-day, for there will be no recreation. The day will be spent in prayer. You hear the bell, as I told you, one stroke a minute; – it is the knell."

"I understand, Father Fauchelevent, they are boarders."

And Jean Valjean thought to himself:

"It is a chance for educating Cosette."

Fauchelevent exclaimed, —

"By Job, I should think they are boarders! They would sniff around you, and then run away. To be a man here is to have the plague, as you can see; a bell is fastened to my paw as if I were a wild beast."

Jean Valjean reflected more and more deeply. "This convent would save us," he muttered, and then added aloud, —

"Yes, the difficulty is to remain."

"No," said Fauchelevent, "it is to go out."

Jean Valjean felt the blood rush back to his heart.

"Go out?"

"Yes, Monsieur Madeleine, in order to come in, you must go out."

And, after waiting till a knell had died out in air, Fauchelevent continued, —

"You must not be found here like that. Where do you come from? For me, you fall from heaven because I know you, but the nuns require that people should come in by the front door."

All at once a complicated ringing of another bell could be heard.

"Ah!" said Fauchelevent, "the vocal mothers are being summoned to a Chapter, – a Chapter is always held when any one dies. She died at daybreak, and they generally die at daybreak. But can't you go out by the way that you came in? Come, – I don't want to ask you a question, – but where did you come in?"

Jean Valjean turned pale: the mere idea of going back to that formidable street made him tremble. Come out of a forest full of tigers, and once out of it just imagine a friend advising you to go in again. Jean Valjean figured to himself the police still searching in the quarter, the agents watching, vedettes everywhere, frightful fists stretched out toward his collar, and Javert, perhaps, in a corner lurking for his prey.

"Impossible!" he said. "Suppose, Father Fauchelevent, that I really fell from above."

"Why, I believe it," Fauchelevent continued; "you need not tell me so. Well, there is another peal; it is to tell the porter to go and warn the municipal authorities that they should send and inform the physician of the dead, so that he may come and see there is a dead woman here. All that is the ceremony of dying. The good ladies are not very fond of such visits, for a doctor believes in nothing; he raises the veil, and sometimes raises something else. What a hurry they have been in to warn the doctor this time! What is up, I wonder? Your little girl is still asleep; what is her name?"