And if he let go his hold?
Then the abyss.
Thus he took sad council with his thoughts.
Or, to speak more correctly, he fought; he kicked furiously internally, now against his will, now against his conviction.
Happily for Jean Valjean that he had been able to weep. That relieved him, possibly.
But the beginning was savage. A tempest, more furious than the one which had formerly driven him to Arras, broke loose within him.
The past surged up before him facing the present; he compared them and sobbed.
The silence of tears once opened, the despairing man writhed.
He felt that he had been stopped short.
Alas! in this fight to the death between our egotism and our duty, when we thus retreat step by step before our immutable ideal, bewildered, furious, exasperated at having to yield, disputing the ground, hoping for a possible flight, seeking an escape, what an abrupt and sinister resistance does the foot of the wall offer in our rear!
To feel the sacred shadow which forms an obstacle!
The invisible inexorable, what an obsession!
Then, one is never done with conscience.
Make your choice, Brutus; make your choice, Cato.
It is fathomless, since it is God. One flings into that well the labor of one''s whole life, one flings in one''s fortune, one flings in one''s riches, one flings in one''s success, one flings in one''s liberty or fatherland, one flings in one''s well-being, one flings in one''s repose, one flings in one''s joy! More! more! more!