ake them slip over one's own precipice without their perceiving it,
one has not the right to let one's red blouse drag upon them, one has no
right to slyly encumber with one's misery the happiness of others. It is
hideous to approach those who are healthy, and to touch them in the dark
with one's ulcer. In spite of the fact that Fauchelevent lent me his
name, I have no right to use it; he could give it to me, but I could not
take it. A name is an _I_. You see, sir, that I have thought somewhat, I
have read a little, although I am a peasant; and you see that I
express myself properly. I understand things. I have procured myself an
education. Well, yes, to abstract a name and to place oneself under it
is dishonest. Letters of the alphabet can be filched, like a purse or a
watch. To be a false signature in flesh and blood, to be a living false
key, to enter the house of honest people by picking their lock, never
more to look straightforward, to forever eye askance, to be infamous
within the _I_, no! no! no! no! no! It is better to suffer, to bleed, to
weep, to tear one's skin from the flesh with one's nails, to pass nights
writhing in anguish, to devour oneself body and soul. That is why I have
just told you all this. Wantonly, as you say."

He drew a painful breath, and hurled this final word:

"In days gone by, I stole a loaf of bread in order to live; to-day, in
order to live, I will not steal a name."

"To live!" interrupted Marius. "You do not need that name in order to
live?"

"Ah! I understand the matter," said Jean Valjean, raising and lowering
his head several times in succession.

A silence ensued. Both held their peace, each plunged in a gulf of
thoughts. Marius was sitting near a table and resting the corner of his
mouth on one of his fingers, which was folded back. Jean Valjean was
pacing to and fro. He paused before a mirror, and remained motionless.
Then, as though replying to some inward course of reasoning, he said, as
he gazed at the mirror, which he did not see:

"While, at present, I am relieved."

He took up his march again, and walked to the other end of the
drawing-room. At the moment when he turned round, he perceived that
Marius was watching his walk. Then he said, with an inexpressible
intonation:

"I drag my leg a little. Now you understand why!"

Then he turned fully round towards Marius:

"And now, sir, imagine this: I have said nothing, I have remained
Monsieur Fauchelevent, I have