n Valjean as we have tried to render it for
those who read us? Did Jean Valjean distinctly perceive, after their
formation, and had he seen distinctly during the process of their
formation, all the elements of which his moral misery was composed? Had
this rough and unlettered man gathered a perfectly clear perception of
the succession of ideas through which he had, by degrees, mounted and
descended to the lugubrious aspects which had, for so many years, formed
the inner horizon of his spirit? Was he conscious of all that passed
within him, and of all that was working there? That is something
which we do not presume to state; it is something which we do not even
believe. There was too much ignorance in Jean Valjean, even after his
misfortune, to prevent much vagueness from still lingering there. At
times he did not rightly know himself what he felt. Jean Valjean was in
the shadows; he suffered in the shadows; he hated in the shadows; one
might have said that he hated in advance of himself. He dwelt habitually
in this shadow, feeling his way like a blind man and a dreamer. Only, at
intervals, there suddenly came to him, from without and from within, an
access of wrath, a surcharge of suffering, a livid and rapid flash which
illuminated his whole soul, and caused to appear abruptly all around
him, in front, behind, amid the gleams of a frightful light, the hideous
precipices and the sombre perspective of his destiny.

The flash passed, the night closed in again; and where was he? He no
longer knew. The peculiarity of pains of this nature, in which
that which is pitiless--that is to say, that which is
brutalizing--predominates, is to transform a man, little by little, by
a sort of stupid transfiguration, into a wild beast; sometimes into a
ferocious beast.

Jean Valjean's successive and obstinate attempts at escape would alone
suffice to prove this strange working of the law upon the human soul.
Jean Valjean would have renewed these attempts, utterly useless and
foolish as they were, as often as the opportunity had presented itself,
without reflecting for an instant on the result, nor on the experiences
which he had already gone through. He escaped impetuously, like the wolf
who finds his cage open. Instinct said to him, "Flee!" Reason would have
said, "Remain!" But in the presence of so violent a temptation, reason
vanished; nothing remained but instinct. The beast alone acted. When
he was recaptured, the fresh severities