es.
One can consent to it for the first hour; one seats oneself on the throne of glowing iron, one places on one''s head the crown of hot iron, one accepts the globe of red hot iron, one takes the sceptre of red hot iron, but the mantle of flame still remains to be donned, and comes there not a moment when the miserable flesh revolts and when one abdicates from suffering?
At length, Jean Valjean entered into the peace of exhaustion.
He weighed, he reflected, he considered the alternatives, the mysterious balance of light and darkness.
Should he impose his galleys on those two dazzling children, or should he consummate his irremediable engulfment by himself? On one side lay the sacrifice of Cosette, on the other that of himself.
At what solution should he arrive?
What decision did he come to?
What resolution did he take?
What was his own inward definitive response to the unbribable interrogatory of fatality?
What door did he decide to open?
Which side of his life did he resolve upon closing and condemning?
Among all the unfathomable precipices which surrounded him, which was his choice?
What extremity did he accept? To which of the gulfs did he nod his head?
His dizzy revery lasted all night long.
He remained there until daylight, in the same attitude, bent double over that bed, prostrate beneath the enormity of fate, crushed, perchance, alas! with clenched fists, with arms outspread at right angles, like a man crucified who has been un-nailed, and flung face down on the earth.