one
begins to behold the stars of the tomb?

While he was meditating, Toussaint entered. Jean Valjean rose and asked
her:--

"In what quarter is it? Do you know?"

Toussaint was struck dumb, and could only answer him:--

"What is it, sir?"

Jean Valjean began again: "Did you not tell me that just now that there
is fighting going on?"

"Ah! yes, sir," replied Toussaint. "It is in the direction of
Saint-Merry."

There is a mechanical movement which comes to us, unconsciously, from
the most profound depths of our thought. It was, no doubt, under
the impulse of a movement of this sort, and of which he was hardly
conscious, that Jean Valjean, five minutes later, found himself in the
street.

Bareheaded, he sat upon the stone post at the door of his house. He
seemed to be listening.

Night had come.

CHAPTER II--THE STREET URCHIN AN ENEMY OF LIGHT

How long did he remain thus? What was the ebb and flow of this tragic
meditation? Did he straighten up? Did he remain bowed? Had he been
bent to breaking? Could he still rise and regain his footing in his
conscience upon something solid? He probably would not have been able to
tell himself.

The street was deserted. A few uneasy bourgeois, who were rapidly
returning home, hardly saw him. Each one for himself in times of peril.
The lamp-lighter came as usual to light the lantern which was situated
precisely opposite the door of No. 7, and then went away. Jean Valjean
would not have appeared like a living man to any one who had examined
him in that shadow. He sat there on the post of his door, motionless as
a form of ice. There is congealment in despair. The alarm bells and
a vague and stormy uproar were audible. In the midst of all these
convulsions of the bell mingled with the revolt, the clock of Saint-Paul
struck eleven, gravely and without haste; for the tocsin is man; the
hour is God. The passage of the hour produced no effect on Jean Valjean;
Jean Valjean did not stir. Still, at about that moment, a brusque report
burst forth in the direction of the Halles, a second yet more violent
followed; it was probably that attack on the barricade in the Rue de la
Chanvrerie which we have just seen repulsed by Marius. At this double
discharge, whose fury seemed augmented by the stupor of the night, Jean
Valjean started; he rose, turning towards the quarter whence the noise
proceeded; then he fell back upon the post again, folded his arms, and
his head slowly sank