Book Two: The Outcast (Part One: Fantine)
Chapter 1: End of a day's journey, pp. 71-80
A very dodgy-looking man comes into Digne in early October 1815, an hour before sunset. He seemed very tired and thirsty, and had come from the south. He went into the town hall, and then to a nice inn. He asked for a meal and a bed, and said he could pay for it, so the innkeeper agreed. But he sent a boy off to the town hall to find out about the stranger, and when he found out he threw the stranger - Jean Valjean - out. So Valjean wandered around the town for a bit, before trying another inn. This innkeeper also initially agreed to give him a bed and a meal, but then someone told him who Valjean was, so he got chucked out again. He tried at some random villager's house, who was also willing until he realised who Valjean was. He found a hut, but then realised it was a dog's kennel, and had to run from the dog. At about 8 he decided to sleep on a bench in the square, but a woman came along and advised him to knock on the bishop's door.
Chapter 2: Prudence urged upon wisdom, pp. 81-83
That evening the bishop was in his room working on a book about Christian duty, and then he went through for his tea. Mme Magloire started nagging him about locking the door for once, because of this dangerous vagabond that she’d heard about. She was in the middle of saying how ridiculous it was for the bishop to always invite in anyone who came to the door, when there was a knock at said door. “‘Come in,’ said the bishop.”
Chapter 3: The Heroism of Passive Obedience, 5.21-5.54% (Hapgood Translation from here on (and occasionally the French))
It's Valjean and no-one is surprised. He looks scary, Magloire and Baptistine are frightened (but then Baptistine looks at the bishop and that calms her down). Valjean straight away tells his story - how he's been looking for a place to stay but keeps getting turned away because he was a convict, got chased by a dog, etc. The Bishop tells Magloire to set another place and Valjean is like "what, didn't you hear me? look at my passport here (i learnt to read in the galleys) it says five years for what i did the rest because i tried to run". The Bishop tells Magloire to make the bed, and tells Valjean to sit down. Valjean is very pleased and excited and says he'll pay, says 'Oh, what a fine priest', and rambles a lot, including JUST HAPPENING to tell a story about a bishop. The Bishop tells Magloire to fetch the symbolic silver candlesticks, and the silver cutlery. They settle down to eat.
Chapter 4: Details Concerning the Cheese-Dairies of Pontarlier, 5.54-5.77%
Another letter Baptistine wrote to a friend, describing the dinner. Valjean said that carters had fancier food than the bishop. The bishop told Valjean all about the dairy farms (and a couple of other industries) near Pontarlier, how great they were. Not-so-subtly suggesting that he could find work there. He doesn't go at all preachy, and avoided mentioning anything to do with his (Valjean's) past altogether. Then they all went to bed.
Chapter 5: Tranquility, 5.77-5.88%
The bishop shows Valjean to bed, and on his way he sees the silver being put away. Valjean points out that it's a bit stupid of the bishop to let a potentially dangerous man sleep in his house like this, but the bishop's just like yeah sure whatever. Then he went for a quick walk in the garden, while Valjean went staight to sleep. The bishop went to bed at midnight, and so everyone was asleep.
Chapter 6: Jean Valjean, 5.88-6.23%
Jean Valjean woke up in the middle of the night. He was from a poor peasant family from Brie, didn't learn to read as a child, became a tree-pruner at Faverolles. Mum and dad (Jeanne Mathieu and Jean Valjean), both died when he was pretty young, so his older sister (Jeanne, FOR FUCK'S SAKE THIS IS RIDICULOUS) brought him up. Then her husband died when Valjean was 25, she was left with seven kids aged 8 to 1. So Valjean had to become a tree-pruner to support the family. Never fell in love, never had a "kind woman friend". Worked hard. His sister tended to nick the best bits out of his bowl while he was eating, and give them to her kids. One hard winter, in 1795, they had no bread at all, so on a Sunday evening Valjean broke a window to steal a loaf of bread from baker Maubert Isabeau, but Maubert heard and caught him. Valjean was a poacher, good with a gun, and that kind of counted against him at the trial. Sentenced to 5 years in the galleys. On 22 April 1796, he was put in chains in Bicetre, and then he went to Toulon, which took 27 days. Became number 24601. After a few years he had basically forgotten about his sister and his kids. He did once hear mention of her, about four years in: she was living a fairly shit life in Paris, with only her youngest kid, who was seven by this time and going to school. He tried to escape four times: after 4 years, after 6 years, after 10 years, and after 13 years. Each time 3-5 years were added to his sentence. He was released in October 1815, having served 19 years.
Chapter 7: The Interior of Despair, 6.23-6.73%
Valjean was ignorant but not stupid, and he did a lot of thinking while he was in prison. He mentally put himself on trial, and found himself guilty. But he also decided that society was more at fault that he was, and "condemned it to his hatred." He went to the school and learnt his 3 Rs, feeling that "to fortify his intelligence was to fortify his hate." He condemned Providence as well, tut tut says Hugo. He became almost like a wild beast. For example, his frequent escape attempts were instinctive, he didn't think about it rationally. Also he was really really strong, and very good at climbing. Over the course of the 19 years he became capable of evil actions, both instinctive and planned. "It will be perceived that it was not without reason that Jean Valjean's passport described him as a very dangerous man." "On his departure from the galleys it had been nineteen years since he had shed a tear." Aww
Chapter 8: Billows and Shadows, 6.73-6.87%
"A man overboard!" And the ship goess off, leaving him behind to suffer and struggle in the stormy sea. But, surprise! (not actually at all surprising) It's actually a metaphor! But at least Hugo doesn't make us work out for ourselves what it means: "The sea is the inexorable social night into which the penal law fling their condemned. The sea is the immensity of wretchedness. The soul, going down stream in this gulf, may become a corpse. Who shall resucitate it?" (spoiler alert: the bishop, in this case)
Chapter 9: New Troubles, 6.87-6.96%
When Valjean was told he was free, he could hardly believe it. But he quickly realised that life as a ex-convict wasn't all that free. Firstly, he had earned less than he'd expected from his 19 years of work, and felt himself robbed. He did a day's work at Grasse unloading bales, but when his employer found out he'd been in prison, he only gave him half pay. "One gets free from the galleys, but not from the sentence."
Chapter 10: The Man aroused, 6.96-7.16% (as it were)
At 2am, Valjean woke up - because his bed was too good. He hadn't slept in a bed for nearly twenty years, after all. He'd had more than four hours sleep, and was no longer tired. He tried to get back to sleep, but couldn't. He lay and thought about the silver for an hour. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and thought some more. Eventually he got up, and checked out an escape route through the garden. He took out a heavy candlestick from his bag and held it, and went to the door of the Bishop's room, which he found ajar.
Chapter 11: What he does, 7.16-7.40%
Valjean carefully pushes open the door, but the hinge squeaks and he freezes. No-one wakes up though, so he goes in. As he comes to the bed, moonlight falls on the bishop's face. Valjean stares at him for a while and is all scared and probably wondering again about what he should do. Then he suddenly leaps back into action. Goes to the cupboard, unlocks it, grabs the silverware, goes quickly back through the oratory and out the window, through the garden and over the wall.
Chapter 12: The Bishop works, 7.40-7.61%
The next morning the Bishop is chilling in the garden when Madame Magloire runs up and tells him the silver's gone missing, that Valjean must have stolen it. (though not before he makes a really bad joke to mess with her). Meanwhile the Bishop is sighing over a flower that got crushed as Valjean ran away. He says that it was wrong of him to have kept the silver for so long anyway, and that it belongs to the poor - and Valjean is a poor man. He says they can eat with wooden utensils just as happily. At breakfast Magloire gumbles to herself, which is fair enough really. There's a knock at the door, and in come four gendarmes, with Valjean. The Bishop says he's glad to see Valjean, and that he had forgotten the candlesticks the bishop had given him. Valjean is all: what the hell? So the gendarmes let him go, and the Bishop hands him the candlesticks. The gendarmes leave. "You must use this precious silver to become an honest man," says the Bishop (well ok not exactly but close enough). Valjean is too amazed and confused to respond. "I have bought your soul for God."
Chapter 13: Little Gervais, 7.61-8.16%
Valjean leaves town "as though he were fleeing from it" and wanders around at random all day. He doesn't know what his brain/emotions are doing. He smells flowers, and it reminds him of his childhood for the first time in ages. At sunset, he sits down behind a bush in the middle of nowhere, near a path. Along the path comes a boy of about ten, singing and playing catch with some coins, one of which is a forty-sou piece. When he's next to Valjean's bush (shut up) however, he drops this coin, and it rolls towards Valjean, who puts his foot on it. The kid sees Valjean, and asks for his money back. Valjean asks his name (it's Petit Gervais) and then tells him to go away. The kid keeps asking, and tries to shake Valjean and move his foot, but Valjean doesn't seem to hear him. Petit Gervais keeps making a fuss until Valjean tells him again to piss off, at which point he runs off and cries. Valjean stands and stares at the ground for a while, then gets himself ready to keep walking. Then he catches sight of the coin, and is shocked. He chases after Petit Gervais, shouting his name, but to no avail. He comes across a priest, gives him 20 francs for the poor, and asks if he's seen Gervais. He hasn't. Valjean tells the priest to arrest him as a thief. The priest is alarmed and rides away. Valjean continues running about, looking and calling. Eventually he collapses onto a rock and cries "Je suis un misérable!" Hurrah, it's the title. And he weeps for the first time in 19 years. He decides that if he wants to be good he must be like an angel, and if he remains evil he would be like a monster. Those are the only options available to him now. Why did he rob Gervais? He had been changed by the Bishop, but there was some lasting instinct which carried out the theft, while the mind was thinking about other things. But then when he started paying attention again, he was horrified by what he had done. "he had done a thing of which he was no longer capable." But this terrible action did have teh effect of helping him sort out his thoughts. He had some sort of vision, of his own terrible face beside the shining light that was the Bishop. The image of the Bishop "grew great and resplendent in his eyes" while that of Jean Valjean shrank and vanished. The Bishop "filled the whole soul of this wretched man with a magnificent radiance" "remplissait tout l'âme de ce misèrable d'un rayonnement magnifique." He sobbed "with more weakness than a woman", thank you Hugo. At about three in the morning Valjean was kneeling outside the Bishop's door, as if praying.