the sense of duty

The satisfaction of at last getting hold of Jean Valjean caused all that was in his soul to
appear in his countenance. The depths having been stirred up, mounted to the surface. The
humiliation of having, in some slight degree, lost the scent, and of having indulged, for a
few moments, in an error with regard to Champmathieu, was effaced by pride at having so well
and accurately divined in the first place, and of having for so long cherished a just
instinct. Javert's content shone forth in his sovereign attitude. The deformity of triumph
overspread that narrow brow. All the demonstrations of horror which a satisfied face can
afford were there.

Javert was in heaven at that moment. Without putting the thing clearly to himself, but with
a confused intuition of the necessity of his presence and of his success, he, Javert,
personified justice, light, and truth in their celestial function of crushing out evil.
Behind him and around him, at an infinite distance, he had authority, reason, the case
judged, the legal conscience, the public prosecution, all the stars; he was protecting
order, he was causing the law to yield up its thunders, he was avenging society, he was
lending a helping hand to the absolute, he was standing erect in the midst of a glory. There
existed in his victory a remnant of defiance and of combat. Erect, haughty, brilliant, he
flaunted abroad in open day the superhuman bestiality of a ferocious archangel. The terrible
shadow of the action which he was accomplishing caused the vague FLASH of the social sword
to be visible in his clenched fist; happy and indignant, he held his heel upon crime, vice,
rebellion, perdition, hell; he was radiant, he exterminated, he smiled, and there was an
incontestable grandeur in this monstrous Saint Michael.

Javert, though frightful, had nothing ignoble about him.

Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the sense of duty, are things which may become
hideous when wrongly directed; but which, even when hideous, remain grand: their majesty,
the majesty peculiar to the human conscience, clings to them in the midst of horror; they
are virtues which have one vice,--error. The honest, pitiless joy of a fanatic in the full
flood of his atrocity preserves a certain lugubriously venerable radiance. Without himself
suspecting the fact, Javert in his formidable happiness was to be pitied, as is every
ignorant man who triumphs. Nothing could be so poignant and so terrible as this face,
wherein was displayed all that may be designated as the evil of the good.

on the point of dying

"No, sister, I must see her. I may, perhaps, be in haste."

The nun did not appear to notice this word "perhaps," which communicated an obscure and singular sense to the words of the mayor's speech. She replied, lowering her eyes and her voice respectfully:--

"In that case, she is asleep; but Monsieur le Maire may enter."

He made some remarks about a door which shut badly, and the noise of which might awaken the sick woman; then he entered Fantine's chamber, approached the bed and drew aside the curtains. She was asleep. Her breath issued from her breast with that tragic sound which is peculiar to those maladies, and which breaks the hearts of mothers when they are watching through the night beside their sleeping child who is condemned to death. But this painful respiration hardly troubled a sort of ineffable serenity which overspread her countenance, and which transfigured her in her sleep. Her pallor had become whiteness; her cheeks were crimson; her long golden lashes, the only beauty of her youth and her virginity which remained to her, palpitated, though they remained closed and drooping. Her whole person was trembling with an indescribable unfolding of wings, all ready to open wide and bear her away, which could be felt as they rustled, though they could not be seen. To see her thus, one would never have dreamed that she was an invalid whose life was almost despaired of. She resembled rather something on the point of soaring away than something on the point of dying.

The branch trembles when a hand approaches it to pluck a flower, and seems to both withdraw and to offer itself at one and the same time. The human body has something of this tremor when the instant arrives in which the mysterious fingers of Death are about to pluck the soul.

M. Madeleine remained for some time motionless beside that bed, gazing in turn upon the sick woman and the crucifix, as he had done two months before, on the day when he had come for the first time to see her in that asylum. They were both still there in the same attitude-- she sleeping, he praying; only now, after the lapse of two months, her hair was gray and his was white.

The sister had not entered with him. He stood beside the bed, with his finger on his lips, as though there were some one in the chamber whom he must enjoin to silence.

She opened her eyes, saw him, and said quietly, with a smile:--

"And Cosette?"

Fantine's eyes

Fantine's eyes beamed and filled her whole face with light. She clasped her hands with an
expression which contained all that is possible to prayer in the way of violence and
tenderness.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "bring her to me!"

Touching illusion of a mother! Cosette was, for her, still the little child who is carried.

"Not yet," said the doctor, "not just now. You still have some fever. The sight of your
child would agitate you and do you harm. You must be cured first."

She interrupted him impetuously:--

"But I am cured! Oh, I tell you that I am cured! What an ass that doctor is! The idea! I
want to see my child!"

"You see," said the doctor, "how excited you become. So long as you are in this state I
shall oppose your having your child. It is not enough to see her; it is necessary that you
should live for her. When you are reasonable, I will bring her to you myself."

two or three days

He uttered the word indifferently, and as though his mind were on something else.

The sister felt chilled by something strange of which she caught a glimpse in all this.

He inquired:--

"Can I see her?"

"Is not Monsieur le Maire going to have her child brought back to her?" said the sister, hardly venturing to put the question.

"Of course; but it will take two or three days at least."

"If she were not to see Monsieur le Maire until that time," went on the sister, timidly, "she would not know that Monsieur le Maire had returned, and it would be easy to inspire her with patience; and when the child arrived, she would naturally think Monsieur le Maire had just come with the child. We should not have to enact a lie."

M. Madeleine seemed to reflect for a few moments; then he said with his calm gravity:--

broad daylight

"Yes," responded the sister; "but now, Mr. Mayor, she will see you and will not see her child. What shall we say to her?"

He reflected for a moment.

"God will inspire us," said he.

"But we cannot tell a lie," murmured the sister, half aloud.

It was broad daylight in the room. The light fell full on M. Madeleine's face. The sister chanced to raise her eyes to it.

"Good God, sir!" she exclaimed; "what has happened to you? Your hair is perfectly white!"

"White!" said he.

Sister Simplice had no mirror. She rummaged in a drawer, and pulled out the little glass which the doctor of the infirmary used to see whether a patient was dead and whether he no longer breathed. M. Madeleine took the mirror, looked at his hair, and said:--

"Well!"

me expressly from Montfermeil

The poor mother bowed her head.

"I beg your pardon, doctor, I really beg your pardon. Formerly I should never have spoken as
I have just done; so many misfortunes have happened to me, that I sometimes do not know what
I am saying. I understand you; you fear the emotion. I will wait as long as you like, but I
swear to you that it would not have harmed me to see my daughter. I have been seeing her; I
have not taken my eyes from her since yesterday evening. Do you know? If she were brought to
me now, I should talk to her very gently. That is all. Is it not quite natural that I should
desire to see my daughter, who has been brought to me expressly from Montfermeil? I am not
angry. I know well that I am about to be happy. All night long I have seen white things, and
persons who smiled at me. When Monsieur le Docteur pleases, he shall bring me Cosette. I
have no longer any fever; I am well. I am perfectly conscious that there is nothing the
matter with me any more; but I am going to behave as though I were ill, and not stir, to
please these ladies here. When it is seen that I am very calm, they will say, `She must have
her child.'"

M. Madeleine was sitting on a chair beside the bed. She turned towards him; she was making a
visible effort to be calm and "very good," as she expressed it in the feebleness of illness
which resembles infancy, in order that, seeing her so peaceable, they might make no
difficulty about bringing Cosette to her. But while she controlled herself she could not
refrain from questioning M. Madeleine.

"Did you have a pleasant trip, Monsieur le Maire? Oh! how good you were to go and get her
for me! Only tell me how she is. Did she stand the journey well? Alas! she will not
recognize me. She must have forgotten me by this time, poor darling! Children have no
memories. They are like birds. A child sees one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow,
and thinks of nothing any longer. And did she have white linen? Did those Thenardiers keep
her clean? How have they fed her? Oh! if you only knew how I have suffered, putting such
questions as that to myself during all the time of my wretchedness. Now, it is all past. I
am happy. Oh, how I should like to see her! Do you think her pretty, Monsieur le Maire? Is
not my daughter beautiful? You must have been very cold in that diligence! Could she not be
brought for just one little instant? She might be taken away directly afterwards. Tell me;
you are the master; it could be so if you chose!"

A COUNTER-BLOW

CHAPTER I IN WHAT MIRROR M. MADELEINE CONTEMPLATES HIS HAIR



the day had begun to dawn. Fantine had passed a sleepless and feverish night, filled with happy visions; at daybreak she fell asleep. Sister Simplice, who had been watching with her, availed herself of this slumber to go and prepare a new potion of chinchona. The worthy sister had been in the laboratory of the infirmary but a few moments, bending over her drugs and phials, and scrutinizing things very closely, on account of the dimness which the half-light of dawn spreads over all objects. Suddenly she raised her head and uttered a faint shriek. M. Madeleine stood before her; he had just entered silently.

"Is it you, Mr. Mayor?" she exclaimed.

He replied in a low voice:--

"How is that poor woman?"

"Not so bad just now; but we have been very uneasy."

She explained to him what had passed: that Fantine had been very ill the day before, and that she was better now, because she thought that the mayor had gone to Montfermeil to get her child. The sister dared not question the mayor; but she perceived plainly from his air that he had not come from there.

"All that is good," said he; "you were right not to undeceive her."

inquiring for the mayor

He had come in a simple way, had made a requisition on the neighboring post for a corporal
and four soldiers, had left the soldiers in the courtyard, had had Fantine's room pointed
out to him by the portress, who was utterly unsuspicious, accustomed as she was to seeing
armed men inquiring for the mayor.

On arriving at Fantine's chamber, Javert turned the handle, pushed the door open with the
gentleness of a sick-nurse or a police spy, and entered.

Properly speaking, he did not enter. He stood erect in the half-open door, his hat on his
head and his left hand thrust into his coat, which was buttoned up to the chin. In the bend
of his elbow the leaden head of his enormous cane, which was hidden behind him, could be
seen.

Thus he remained for nearly a minute, without his presence being perceived. All at once
Fantine raised her eyes, saw him, and made M. Madeleine turn round.

The instant that Madeleine's glance encountered Javert's glance, Javert, without stirring,
without moving from his post, without approaching him, became terrible. No human sentiment
can be as terrible as joy.

It was the visage of a demon who has just found his damned soul.

session of the court

The messenger himself was a very clever member of the police, who, in two words, informed
Javert of what had taken place at Arras. The order of arrest, signed by the district-
attorney, was couched in these words: "Inspector Javert will apprehend the body of the Sieur
Madeleine, mayor of M. sur M., who, in this day's session of the court, was recognized as
the liberated convict, Jean Valjean."

Any one who did not know Javert, and who had chanced to see him at the moment when he
penetrated the antechamber of the infirmary, could have divined nothing of what had taken
place, and would have thought his air the most ordinary in the world. He was cool, calm,
grave, his gray hair was perfectly smooth upon his temples, and he had just mounted the
stairs with his habitual deliberation. Any one who was thoroughly acquainted with him, and
who had examined him attentively at the moment, would have shuddered. The buckle of his
leather stock was under his left ear instead of at the nape of his neck. This betrayed
unwonted agitation.

Javert was a complete character, who never had a wrinkle in his duty or in his uniform;
methodical with malefactors, rigid with the buttons of his coat.

That he should have set the buckle of his stock awry, it was indispensable that there should
have taken place in him one of those emotions which may be designated as internal
earthquakes.

sighing of

"One, two, three, four--she is seven years old. In five years she will have a white veil,
and openwork stockings; she will look like a little woman. O my good sister, you do not know
how foolish I become when I think of my daughter's first communion!"

She began to laugh.

He had released Fantine's hand. He listened to her words as one listens to the sighing of
the breeze, with his eyes on the ground, his mind absorbed in reflection which had no
bottom. All at once she ceased speaking, and this caused him to raise his head mechanically.
Fantine had become terrible.

She no longer spoke, she no longer breathed; she had raised herself to a sitting posture,
her thin shoulder emerged from her chemise; her face, which had been radiant but a moment
before, was ghastly, and she seemed to have fixed her eyes, rendered large with terror, on
something alarming at the other extremity of the room.

"Good God!" he exclaimed; "what ails you, Fantine?"

She made no reply; she did not remove her eyes from the object which she seemed to see. She
removed one hand from his arm, and with the other made him a sign to look behind him.

He turned, and beheld Javert.

full speed

Immediately after Champmathieu had been set at liberty, the district-attorney shut himself
up with the President. They conferred "as to the necessity of seizing the person of M. Le
Maire of M. sur M." This phrase, in which there was a GREat deal of of, is the district-
attorney's, written with his own hand, on the minutes of his report to the attorney-general.
His first emotion having passed off, the President did not offer many objections. Justice
must, after all, take its course. And then, when all was said, although the President was a
kindly and a tolerably intelligent man, he was, at the same time, a devoted and almost an
ardent royalist, and he had been shocked to hear the Mayor of M. sur M. say the Emperor, and
not Bonaparte, when alluding to the landing at Cannes.

The order for his arrest was accordingly despatched. The district-attorney forwarded it to
M. sur M. by a special messenger, at full speed, and entrusted its execution to Police
Inspector Javert.

The reader knows that Javert had returned to M. sur M. Immediately after having given his
deposition.

Javert was just getting out of bed when the messenger handed him the order of arrest and the
command to produce the prisoner.

see my daughter

She stretched out her arm to enjoin silence about her, held her breath, and began to listen
with rapture.

There was a child playing in the yard--the child of the portress or of some work-woman. It
was one of those accidents which are always occurring, and which seem to form a part of the
mysterious stage-setting of mournful scenes. The child--a little girl-- was going and
coming, running to warm herself, laughing, singing at the top of her voice. Alas! in what
are the plays of children not intermingled. It was this little girl whom Fantine heard
singing.

"Oh!" she resumed, "it is my Cosette! I recognize her voice."

The child retreated as it had come; the voice died away. Fantine listened for a while
longer, then her face clouded over, and M. Madeleine heard her say, in a low voice: "How
wicked that doctor is not to allow me to see my daughter! That man has an evil countenance,
that he has."

But the smiling background of her thoughts came to the front again. She continued to talk to
herself, with her head resting on the pillow: "How happy we are going to be! We shall have a
little garden the very first thing; M. Madeleine has promised it to me. My daughter will
play in the garden. She must know her letters by this time. I will make her spell. She will
run over the grass after butterflies. I will watch her. Then she will take her first
communion. Ah! When will she take her first communion?"

She began to reckon on her fingers.

Montfermeil is quite pretty

He took her hand. "Cosette is beautiful," he said, "Cosette is well. You shall see her soon;
but calm yourself; you are talking with too much vivacity, and you are throwing your arms
out from under the clothes, and that makes you cough."

In fact, fits of coughing interrupted Fantine at nearly every word.

Fantine did not murmur; she feared that she had injured by her too passionate lamentations
the confidence which she was desirous of inspiring, and she began to talk of indifferent
things.

"Montfermeil is quite pretty, is it not? People go there on pleasure parties in summer. Are
the Thenardiers prosperous? There are not many travellers in their parts. That inn of theirs
is a sort of a cook-shop."

M. Madeleine was still holding her hand, and gazing at her with anxiety; it was evident that
he had come to tell her things before which his mind now hesitated. The doctor, having
finished his visit, retired. Sister Simplice remained alone with them.

But in the midst of this pause Fantine exclaimed:--

"I hear her! mon Dieu, I hear her!"

This is what had taken place

the half-hour after midnight had just struck when M. Madeleine quitted the Hall of Assizes
in Arras. He regained his inn just in time to set out again by the mail-wagon, in which he
had engaged his place. A little before six o'clock in the morning he had arrived at M. Sur
M., and his first care had been to post a letter to M. Laffitte, then to enter the infirmary
and see Fantine.

However, he had hardly quitted the audience hall of the Court of Assizes, when the district
-attorney, recovering from his first shock, had taken the word to deplore the mad deed of
the honorable mayor of M. sur M., to declare that his convictions had not been in the least
modified by that curious incident, which would be explained thereafter, and to demand, in
the meantime, the condemnation of that Champmathieu, who was evidently the real Jean
Valjean. The district-attorney's persistence was visibly at variance with the sentiments of
every one, of the public, of the court, and of the jury. The counsel for the defence had
some difficulty in refuting this harangue and in establishing that, in consequence of the
revelations of M. Madeleine, that is to say, of the real Jean Valjean, the aspect of the
matter had been thoroughly altered, and that the jury had before their eyes now only an
innocent man. Thence the lawyer had drawn some epiphonemas, not very fresh, unfortunately,
upon judicial errors, etc., etc.; the President, in his summing up, had joined the counsel
for the defence, and in a few minutes the jury had thrown Champmathieu out of the case.

Nevertheless, the district-attorney was bent on having a Jean Valjean; and as he had no
longer Champmathieu, he took Madeleine.

The Elves

A shoemaker, through no fault of his own, had become so poor that he had only leather enough for a single pair of shoes. He cut them out one evening, then went to bed, intending to finish them the next morning. Having a clear conscience, he went to bed peacefully, commended himself to God, and fell asleep. The next morning, after saying his prayers, he was about to return to his work when he found the shoes on his workbench, completely finished. Amazed, he did not know what to say. He picked up the shoes in order to examine them more closely. They were so well made that not a single stitch was out of place, just as if they were intended as a masterpiece. A customer soon came by, and he liked the shoes so much that he paid more than the usual price for them.
　　The shoemaker now had enough money to buy leather for two pairs of shoes. That evening he cut them out, intending to continue his work the next morning with good cheer. But he did not need to do so, because when he got up they were already finished. Customers soon bought them, paying him enough that he now could buy leather for four pairs of shoes. Early the next morning he found the four pairs finished. And so it continued; whatever he cut out in the evening was always finished the following morning. He now had a respectable income and with time became a wealthy man.
At first the girl did not know what she should do, but finally they convinced her to accept. It would not be right, they said, to decline such an invitation.
　　Three elves came and led her to a hollow mountain where the little people lived. Everything there was small, but more ornate and splendid than can be described. The new mother was lying in a bed of ebony decorated with pearl buttons. The covers were embroidered with gold. The cradle was made of ivory, and the bathtub of gold. The girl stood in as godmother, and then wanted to go back home, but the elves asked her fervently to stay with them for three days. She to do so, and the time passed pleasantly and joyfully. The little people did everything to make her happy.
　　Finally she wanted to return home. They filled her pockets with gold and led her outside the mountain. She arrived home. Wanting to begin her work, she picked up the broom that was still standing in the corner and started to sweep. Then some strange people came out of the house and asked her who she was and what she was doing there. It was not three days, as she thought, that she had spent in the mountain with the little men, but rather seven years. In the meantime her former employers had died.

How I Learn Chinese

Over the years I’ve gotten quite a few questions about this to learn chinese, so I thought I’d write a series of entries that explain everything. I’d like to stress from the beginning that the method I used is not going to work for everybody. It’s not “the right method.” It’s simply the method I used. This post will focus on my formal education in the States.

I decided to start learning Chinese while I was an exchange student in Japan. When I went to Japan I was still a microbiology major. I had to write an essay about why I wanted to go to Japan in order to get into the program, and among my reasons I listed all the advances the Japanese were making in biotechnology, which led to my belief that knowing Japanese would help me as a scientist. It was while I was in Japan that I decided I would abandon microbiology altogether to go the linguistics route. At that point I made a lot of practical decisions which would set the course that I’m still on now.

I don’t remember what all the stimuli were for the decisions I made that night, but I recall vividly the intense excitement for my new course of action. That high made me surer than I’d ever been about what career path I wanted to take.

The important thing was that I knew before I went to China what my weaknesses were. I didn’t realize how profoundly those weaknesses would impact my attempts at communication. But more on that in the next post in this series.

Fortunately I found the chinese-online by chance. It’s never too late to learn a novel study meothod. Via the means of learn chinese online, my spoken Chinese were improved greatly. Great thanks to Chinese Online!