#lm 1.2.11

[secretmellowblog]

I know that PTSD didn’t exist yet as a formal diagnosis in the 19th century, but the way Valjean has a panic attack when he makes a small noise and becomes certain that he’ll be Arrested and Taken Back To Prison (even though he hasn’t actually done anything yet)….is very painful? And it also resembles the way Cosette’s trauma will cause her to react around loud noises later on.

Madame Thenardier is described as having “the voice of a cop,” and Cosette often goes into panic at the sound of it. But like Valjean, Cosette doesn’t need for Madame Thenardier to literally be in the room for her to imagine that she’s there, imagine that she can hear her, and begin to panic at the idea of being punished. And like Valjean, Cosette still has those moments of panic even after she’s been freed.

The parallels are really so stark?

Valjean panicking at the sound of an opening door, certain that the police will be there in moments even though he’s logically “safe” and “free” from prison:

Jean Valjean shuddered. The noise of the hinge rang in his ears with something of the piercing and formidable sound of the trump of the Day of Judgment.

In the fantastic exaggerations of the first moment he almost imagined that that hinge had just become animated, and had suddenly assumed a terrible life, and that it was barking like a dog to arouse every one, and warn and to wake those who were asleep. He halted, shuddering, bewildered, and fell back from the tips of his toes upon his heels. He heard the arteries in his temples beating like two forge hammers, and it seemed to him that his breath issued from his breast with the roar of the wind issuing from a cavern. It seemed impossible to him that the horrible clamor of that irritated hinge should not have disturbed the entire household, like the shock of an earthquake; the door, pushed by him, had taken the alarm, and had shouted; the old man would rise at once; the two old women would shriek out; people would come to their assistance; in less than a quarter of an hour the town would be in an uproar, and the gendarmerie on hand. For a moment he thought himself lost.

And then Cosette later on, after she’s she’s living with Valjean and “free” from the Thenardiers:

All at once a heavily laden carrier’s cart, which was passing along the boulevard, shook the frail bed, like a clap of thunder, and made it quiver from top to bottom.

“Yes, madame!” cried Cosette, waking with a start, “here I am! here I am!”

And she sprang out of bed, her eyes still half shut with the heaviness of sleep, extending her arms towards the corner of the wall.

“Ah! mon Dieu, my broom!” said she.

But yeah it’s interesting how many different ways trauma manifests in Les Mis— especially Valjean’s trauma, which is so deep and complex and affects every aspect of his life. He has moments of sudden raw paranoia/panic, like this….but also difficulty sleeping (as we’ve seen already), difficulty eating, and difficulty talking to other people. He also (which we’ve seen a bit already) has a tendency to “lose his grip” on reality and do things unconsciously/automatically in a state of numb fear, without fully understanding where is or who he is or what he’s doing (which is such a big Thing for him as a character that I’ll probably write another post on it.)

It’s like, the 19 years in prison (and the limitations imposed on ex-convicts) still weren’t Valjean’s entire sentence— the severe horrific emotional trauma of those nineteen years will last for the rest of his life.

[lmchaptertitlebracket]

I.ii.11 Ce qu’il fait

What He Does: Wilbour, Hapgood, Donougher

What He Did: Wraxall, Walton, Denny

What He Does Next: FMA, Rose

[coralreeferband]

Denny

Fahnstock/MacAfee

[cliozaur]

This chapter marks a fascinating shift in Hugo's storytelling. As Valjean enters the moonlit room and finds the bishop slumbering peacefully (I wish I could sleep as soundly), time seems to warp and stretch. We linger with Valjean, trapped in the quiet intensity of the moment. The sleeping bishop, an embodiment of innocence and vulnerability, casts a potent spell on the hardened ex-convict.

Yet, Hugo keeps us guessing. Is Valjean touched? Astonished? Contemptuous? The author meticulously dissects the scene, revealing every detail of the tableau without betraying a hint of Valjean's inner turmoil. "No one could have told what was passing within him, not even himself." This deliberate opacity sets the stage for our enduring relationship with Valjean – a hermetic figure whose motivations remain perpetually shrouded in enigma.

The rest of the chapter reflects this tension between introspection and action. We remain suspended in Valjean's internal struggle, only to be jolted back to a normal pace as he makes his escape with the silver. This final burst of movement punctuates the preceding stillness, leaving us breathless and pondering the ramifications of his choice.

[dolphin1812]

The animal imagery in this chapter is fascinating. We start off with Valjean as a cat: somewhat sneaky and furtive, but also gentle (” He pushed it gently with the tip of his finger, lightly, with the furtive and uneasy gentleness of a cat which is desirous of entering.”). His gentleness is, in part, tied to stealth, but it also seems to come from his continued indecision. Even though Valjean is moving, which suggests that he will steal, Hugo repeatedly mentions his inner turmoil and how confused he feels, especially when he sees the bishop sleeping peacefully. I especially like the line about Valjean “hesitating between the two abysses,—the one in which one loses one’s self and that in which one saves one’s self.” An abyss raises the idea of “falling,” which, in a Christian sense, is typically associated with evil (some definitions for the word “abyss” even mention Hell). Yet here, both the “good” and “bad” option contain an abyss. I’m not entirely sure how to interpret it, but to return to the drowning imagery from earlier, perhaps it relates to dying/losing oneself to be reborn in a way one can’t return from? Valjean doesn’t seem to be very hopeful at this point, so perhaps he feels that stealing here (while justified in the broad societal sense he’s described) seals his fate as an outsider, especially since he’s harming the only person who’s helped him. Thus, he’ll be trapped in an “abyss” for stealing, but he also would lose his self-definition - his anger at society - if he didn’t do it.

Although Valjean’s made up his mind to steal in some ways by leaving his room, in reality, he still has chances to return. And of course, his fear of being caught heightens his anxiety. Yet once he’s stolen the silver, he becomes “like a tiger.” No longer linked to a tame feline, he also stops caring about noise, which adds to the image of wildness associated with a tiger. To an extent, the tiger reflects his strength over his caution here. While the “cat” describes his stealth, the tiger describes how he leaps over a wall. As a larger animal, tigers are stronger, so this makes sense to an extent. But I think the domesticated aspect is particularly intriguing. Cats can be indoor animals, accustomed to life around people. Even when living outside, they can return to homes without much trouble. Tigers, however, are completely wild. In making his decision to steal, Valjean moves himself from in between society and “the wild” (as a cat) to definitively in the wild.

Another interesting image: the hinge that “was barking like a dog to arouse every one, and warn and to wake those who were asleep.” This is the second time we’ve seen Valjean struggle with a dog (literally the first time, metaphorically now). Of course, the first time mainly highlighted how Valjean was treated as inhuman. But dogs are, in some ways, the ultimate domesticated animal. They do not only live with people outdoors or indoors like cats, but are trusted to protect the interests of people - like the guard dog the hinge represents here. Dogs, then, can represent how Valjean is outside of society through being dehumanized, but they also are the ones who guard/enforce the rules of society itself.

Spoilers below:

Seeing the dog imagery this early on is especially interesting given the images around Javert, who combines both aspects of dogs: he’s part of the dehumanizing system of prisons from birth, but he also guards society (while not being part of it because of the former reason). 

[pureanonofficial]

LES MIS LETTERS IN ADAPTATION - What He Does, LM 1.2.11 (Les Miserables 1967)

No one could have told what was passing within him, not even himself. In order to attempt to form an idea of it, it is necessary to think of the most violent of things in the presence of the most gentle. Even on his visage it would have been impossible to distinguish anything with certainty. It was a sort of haggard astonishment. He gazed at it, and that was all. But what was his thought? It would have been impossible to divine it. What was evident was, that he was touched and astounded. But what was the nature of this emotion?

His eye never quitted the old man. The only thing which was clearly to be inferred from his attitude and his physiognomy was a strange indecision. One would have said that he was hesitating between the two abysses,—the one in which one loses one’s self and that in which one saves one’s self. He seemed prepared to crush that skull or to kiss that hand.

[katenepveu]

The audiobook likely enhanced this, but yesterday and today's Les Mis Letters (1.2.10 and 1.2.11, "The Man Wakes Up" and "What He Does Next") were genuinely tense for me. Again: I know very little about the plot of this book! But I have discerned that Hugo can do detailed psychological realism and blatant deck-stacking, and I don't have a feel yet for the ways he's likely to have those interact.

Also, the drawn-out descriptions were both effective in themselves, and resolved so wonderfully with the crashingly abrupt ending to the second chapter.

Anyway: good stuff.

[aux-barricades]

Also I bet Baptistine and Magloire woke up in horror but decided to keep quiet in their rooms.

An annotated version of the end of today's Les Mis Letters chapter:

the first thing which presented itself to him was the basket of silverware; he seized it*, traversed the chamber with long strides, without taking any precautions and without troubling himself about the noise**, gained the door, re-entered the oratory***, opened the window, seized his cudgel, bestrode the window-sill of the ground floor****, put the silver into his knapsack*****, threw away the basket, crossed the garden******, leaped over the wall like a tiger*******, and fled.

*clang, clatter **rattle clang clang ***clatter clatter ****clatter clang rattle *****CLATTER CLATTER CLANK CLANK CLANK ******clankclankclankclankclankclank *******kaCLANK

[persefoneshalott]

lm 1.2.11 where cat vs dog starts with cat valjean scared of dogs (javert) /j

[meta-squash]

Brick Club 1.2.11 “What He Does Next”

Valjean’s weird sort of panic attack here interesting to me because of how he treats his fear. He genuinely is terrified at the sound of the door hinge. But he thinks of it both as a trumpet on judgement day and as a barking dog. The hinge is both a damning judge and a tattletale.

And yet he barely moves. He trembles but he doesn’t flinch or retreat or hyperventilate or anything. He freezes for several long minutes and has an internal freakout but that’s it. He thinks he’s screwed, that he’s going to be caught, but he doesn’t run or even ready his miner’s drill as a weapon; it’s like he’s terrified but also totally resigned to that fact that if he gets caught, he’s just going to go back to the bagne. Recidivism, again, like he really can’t think of any other option because none have ever been presented to him.

(I just googled the trip hammer out of curiosity and learned that its successor the drop hammer was patented in 1842 and rendered it mostly obsolete so props to Hugo for also staying within the timeline bounds in his metaphorical references as well.)

My biblical knowledge, as I’ve mentioned before, is severely lacking, but I know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Hugo likens Valjean’s stillness to the pillar of salt, which seems to me to be referencing this entire sequence as Valjean “looking back at Sodom” as he returns to the same sort of actions that put him in prison in the first place. He has this chance to escape his old life in Toulon, but here he is looking back, both in remembering Brevet in the previous chapter, and now returning to old actions. But, unlike Lot’s wife, Valjean is spared because he refrains from violence, and perhaps because, due to the presence of the bishop, he’s able to be pardoned.

The intense contrast between Valjean’s inner turmoil and the “deep calm” that fills the bedroom feels like a motif that is consistently returned to re: Valjean and the bishop. Any time Valjean is freaking out, he seems to invoke the memory of Myriel and calm down a little bit. Also, in the same paragraph, Hugo describes various common objects scattered about Myriel’s room which, to Valjean in the darkness are “indistinct, confused forms,” as thought Valjean is so unaccustomed to regular life at this point that he can’t distinguish objects that, even in the dark, might have been recognizable to other people.

(I’m mildly stuck on the fact that the bishop doesn’t take off his pastoral ring when he sleeps. Does he wake up with little square marks on his face?)

Honestly I’m loving the contrast between Valjean, who fell asleep fully clothed on top of the sheets of the bed and slept only four hours, and Myriel, who is asleep peacefully, under the covers--but he is also nearly completely dressed. While Valjean was completely dressed due to discomfort, Myriel is dressed to keep himself comfortable.

Hugo and his magical soul light. In fact, he barely falls short of straight up going “THIS IS IMPORTANT TO THE STORY AND ALSO VALJEAN AND ALSO YOU SO PAY ATTENTION IT’S SYMBOLISM.” As Valjean nears the bed, suddenly the sky clears and Myriel is bathed in light. Hugo nearly makes him saintly, except that he clarifies that this halo was “mild and veiled in an inexpressible twilight.” This makes Valjean’s later veneration of Myriel really interesting to me. We, the audience, know that Myriel has flaws. Valjean doesn’t know this. Valjean will forever think of Myriel in that divine, halo-like light; he doesn’t notice the twilight or the mildness of the halo, only that a halo is there.

“The moral world has no spectacle more powerful than this: a troubled, restless conscience on the verge of committing a crime, contemplating the sleep of a just man.” Also a motif we see a lot in the Brick: someone on the verge of doing something, contemplating the person or people on the opposite end of morality.

Again, Valjean’s thoughts are unknown, even to him. Hugo does this a lot; despite Valjean being the main character of the novel, Hugo obscures so much of his thoughts, either by describing his actions rather than what’s going on in his head, or by straight up saying “yeah, Valjean has no idea what he’s thinking about, so I’m not gonna tell you either.” It’s a weird thing for an omniscient narrator to do with his main character.

Hugo continues the white/black, yes/no motif that he started with the “alternative light and shade” from the last chapter. Valjean is now standing on the precipice of morality. I also very much like that he points out that intense emotion is hard to read: “He seemed ready to either crack this skull or kiss this hand.”

This first part of this chapter is so slow. Valjean creeping through the house, standing stock still for long minutes after the hinge creaks, standing there staring at the sleeping bishop for who knows how long, plus the last chapter’s hour-long meditation on the silver. And then suddenly, everything speeds up, and in one paragraph-long sentence, Valjean steals the silver and escapes.

Hugo precedes this paragraph with an image of the crucifix above the mantel, stretching its arms out “with a benediction for one and a pardon for the other.” Another moment of choice. Valjean has the chance for pardon here, but he doesn’t accept it. Of course he doesn’t, because he has no concept of what’s on the other side. This “free life” he’s been given is still nothing but misery for him. He’s been abused and judged and insulted so much, and disillusioned with the idea of a life after prison, and his concept of religion is in general pretty negative. He doesn’t have a way to imagine a pardon actually sticking, a good deed without conditions, an interaction that doesn’t sour with the realization of what he is. So he grabs the silver and runs, because that’s what his instincts tell him, and at this point it’s the only thing he trusts.

[fremedon]

Brickclub I.2.8 - I.2.11

Catching up on last week’s brickclub posts; have some stray thoughts:

I.2.8, “Deep Waters, Dark Shadows”: The introduction of the Man Overboard motif that’s going to recur throughout the book. What struck me this time is how the images of depths and precipices have been layered into the previous few chapters--in the philosophical questions the bishop avoids, and then more ominously, in the previous chapter’s image of the pyramid of society towering over Valjean.

And here again we have the image of the sky as inverted abyss that’s going to show up in Valjean’s and Javert’s crises of conscience: “He feels buried by the two infinities together, the ocean and the sky, the one a tomb, the other a shroud.”

I.2.9, “New Grievances”: I liked @everyonewasabird‘s observation that this chapter’s plunge from grand metaphor to the details of petty wage theft is designed to put the reader in the position of Society, sailing on--if precisely how many sous Valjean has been shorted bores you, you are part of the problem. It is not the last time Hugo will try to wring a reaction he’s just problematized out of the reader.

I.2.10, “The Man Wakes Up���: The contrast between awareness of mundane, even boring detail and grand imagery continues, though, in the mind of Jean Valjean. For the first time, we’re fully in his viewpoint, in the story’s present; it’s taken us almost a hundred pages to get here--through flashback, through omniscient observation of Valjean, and through the bishop, whose own POV sections were much more distant, less physically immediate. This is the first time our viewpoint as readers has been fully embodied. 

H/t to whoever it was in the Watchalong Discord the other week who pointed out that Valjean’s intrusive visual memory of the checkered pattern of Brevet’s suspender sounds like migraine aura, which Hugo suffered from.

H/t to the Les Miserables Reading Companion podcast for pointing out that the iron miner’s drill Valjean picks up is, in French, a miner’s candlestick.

I.2.11, “What He Does Next”: I hardly have anything to say about this chapter; it’s too good. I’ve read the Brick all the way through ten times, and I must have browsed this chapter many more times, and I’m still always in suspense, as though this might be the time Valjean puts the silver back and goes back to bed.

And Hugo’s descriptions of light and shadow are always so evocative--pulling a lot of metaphorical weight, but also exquisitely well-observed and well-described.

[secretmellowblog]

"(Valjean) pushed (the door) gently with the tip of his finger, lightly, with the furtive and uneasy gentleness of a cat which is desirous of entering..."

Valjean:

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 1.2.11 ‘What he did’

The pacing and suspense is incredible: the three careful pushes on the door, the final terrifying creak, the breathless pause--then we resume slowly moving forward, without knowing to what end.

It really could be murder. We don’t know.

And the grotesque meets the sublime here, and Hugo very much wants us to know it.

Valjean continues to be so morally and emotionally in flux in these early days. Once again, his change isn’t one moment--he’s conflicted before, during, and after the bishop.

And we the readers have seen what Valjean hasn’t: that Myriel, though genuinely good, is fallible, and he too has been at the receiving end of grace from a light he didn’t understand. Only, with Myriel, there’s no question of his own agency: he knowingly welcomed revelation instead of having it thrust on him.

Valjean chooses to be honest when he comes into the house, he chooses to step back from violence here, and he recognizes the sublime in the bishop. The transformation happens because he’s wavering at a crossroads and ready for it. It's his transformation, not a thing done to him.

And later, Javert is going to make the same misattribution. He’s going to see the gradual character shifts he’s been going through for this entire book as a single moment and the fault of a single man.

They might both end up so much better off if they could acknowledge their transformations as their own.

[pilferingapples]

Les Mis 365 1.2.11

Okay so on the one hand this is a beautiful chapter and I think Hugo's really spot on with the emotional turmoil and I totally buy the conflict here!

On the other: THE LIGHTING SYMBOLISM I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING. 

I always forget how close Valjean really is to *murder*, here, and not just theft.  And I shouldn't, because he's looking at both acts as part of the same act. It's not about profit--that's a surface motive at best-- it's about revenge against society, and possibly against God (I think it might be a sort of protest, too, a statement that he won't let the wrong against him be forgotten for, as he sees it, the price of a dinner and a night in clean sheets).  Valjean no more wants to hurt the Bishop as a person than he really plans to get money out of the theft (seriously, there is no PLAN here)-- the plate and the Bishop are, in this crime scheme, just symbols. Proxies to hurt. 

But while the silver is, after all, really a form of wealth and yes, arguably practical to take, the Bishop is not at all just a form of authority or in any way an actual threat. He's been kind, he's not a danger. And still Valjean is sort of considering murder when he first goes into the Bishop's room. 

...And then THE LIGHT OF HOLINESS SHINES DOWN ON THE BISHOP AND CALLS TO THE DIVINE IN THE CRIMINAL'S SOUL. 

And okay, my own EXTREME  AMUSEMENT at the Hugo-brand subtlety aside, it does of course say a lot about how far gone Valjean is and isn't in this moment that he can't kill a helpless old man, even when he's dissociating like whoa, even when he's specifically looking for payback. 

But he can totally take place settings out of a cabinet! And...run all clattery away. VALJEAN YOU ARE SO BAD AT THIS. 

[pureanonofficial]

LES MIS LETTERS IN ADAPTATION - What He Does, LM 1.2.11 (Les Miserables 1925)

At the moment when the ray of moonlight superposed itself, so to speak, upon that inward radiance, the sleeping Bishop seemed as in a glory. It remained, however, gentle and veiled in an ineffable half-light. That moon in the sky, that slumbering nature, that garden without a quiver, that house which was so calm, the hour, the moment, the silence, added some solemn and unspeakable quality to the venerable repose of this man, and enveloped in a sort of serene and majestic aureole that white hair, those closed eyes, that face in which all was hope and all was confidence, that head of an old man, and that slumber of an infant.

There was something almost divine in this man, who was thus august, without being himself aware of it.

Jean Valjean was in the shadow, and stood motionless, with his iron candlestick in his hand, frightened by this luminous old man. Never had he beheld anything like this. This confidence terrified him. The moral world has no grander spectacle than this: a troubled and uneasy conscience, which has arrived on the brink of an evil action, contemplating the slumber of the just.

That slumber in that isolation, and with a neighbor like himself, had about it something sublime, of which he was vaguely but imperiously conscious.

[akallabeth-joie]

#oh no!!!! 😭😭😂#Valjean is. not very good at being a criminal#it’s weird how good he gets at it later?#but in these early chapters he’s not very good at pulling heists#tragic#Les mis#Les mis letters#lm 1.2.11 via @secretmellowblog

I really need to keep this in mind when reading his later exploits, because 1) you are both absolutely right that he’s not amazing at the heists, and 2) that really increases the dramatic tension over ‘JVJ has really awesome rogue skills.’

An annotated version of the end of today's Les Mis Letters chapter:

the first thing which presented itself to him was the basket of silverware; he seized it*, traversed the chamber with long strides, without taking any precautions and without troubling himself about the noise**, gained the door, re-entered the oratory***, opened the window, seized his cudgel, bestrode the window-sill of the ground floor****, put the silver into his knapsack*****, threw away the basket, crossed the garden******, leaped over the wall like a tiger*******, and fled.

*clang, clatter **rattle clang clang ***clatter clatter ****clatter clang rattle *****CLATTER CLATTER CLANK CLANK CLANK ******clankclankclankclankclankclank *******kaCLANK