At his age, after having been what he was! If he were only young again! but to be addressed in his old age as "thou" by any one who pleased; to be searched by the convict-guard; to receive the galley-sergeant''s cudgellings; to wear iron-bound shoes on his bare feet; to have to stretch out his leg night and morning to the hammer of the roundsman who visits the gang; to submit to the curiosity of strangers, who would be told:
"That man yonder is the famous Jean Valjean, who was mayor of M. sur M."; and at night, dripping with perspiration, overwhelmed with lassitude, their green caps drawn over their eyes, to remount, two by two, the ladder staircase of the galleys beneath the sergeant''s whip. Oh, what misery!
Can destiny, then, be as malicious as an intelligent being, and become as monstrous as the human heart?
And do what he would, he always fell back upon the heartrending dilemma which lay at the foundation of his revery:
"Should he remain in paradise and become a demon?
Should he return to hell and become an angel?"
What was to be done?
Great God! what was to be done?
The torment from which he had escaped with so much difficulty was unchained afresh within him.
His ideas began to grow confused once more; they assumed a kind of stupefied and mechanical quality which is peculiar to despair.