said he.

He stirred the live coals with one of the candlesticks.

A minute more, and they were both in the fire.

At that moment it seemed to him that he heard a voice within him
shouting: "Jean Valjean! Jean Valjean!"

His hair rose upright: he became like a man who is listening to some
terrible thing.

"Yes, that's it! finish!" said the voice. "Complete what you are about!
Destroy these candlesticks! Annihilate this souvenir! Forget the Bishop!
Forget everything! Destroy this Champmathieu, do! That is right! Applaud
yourself! So it is settled, resolved, fixed, agreed: here is an old man
who does not know what is wanted of him, who has, perhaps, done nothing,
an innocent man, whose whole misfortune lies in your name, upon whom
your name weighs like a crime, who is about to be taken for you, who
will be condemned, who will finish his days in abjectness and horror.
That is good! Be an honest man yourself; remain Monsieur le Maire;
remain honorable and honored; enrich the town; nourish the indigent;
rear the orphan; live happy, virtuous, and admired; and, during this
time, while you are here in the midst of joy and light, there will be a
man who will wear your red blouse, who will bear your name in ignominy,
and who will drag your chain in the galleys. Yes, it is well arranged
thus. Ah, wretch!"

The perspiration streamed from his brow. He fixed a haggard eye on the
candlesticks. But that within him which had spoken had not finished. The
voice continued:--

"Jean Valjean, there will be around you many voices, which will make a
great noise, which will talk very loud, and which will bless you, and
only one which no one will hear, and which will curse you in the dark.
Well! listen, infamous man! All those benedictions will fall back before
they reach heaven, and only the malediction will ascend to God."

This voice, feeble at first, and which had proceeded from the most
obscure depths of his conscience, had gradually become startling and
formidable, and he now heard it in his very ear. It seemed to him that
it had detached itself from him, and that it was now speaking outside
of him. He thought that he heard the last words so distinctly, that he
glanced around the room in a sort of terror.

"Is there any one here?" he demanded aloud, in utter bewilderment.

Then he resumed, with a laugh which resembled that of an idiot:--

"How stupid I am! There can be no one!"

There was some one; but the person who was the