I am the only one here who sees the matter clearly, and I am telling you the truth.
God, who is on high, looks down on what I am doing at this moment, and that suffices.
You can take me, for here I am: but I have done my best; I concealed myself under another name; I have become rich; I have become a mayor; I have tried to re-enter the ranks of the honest.
It seems that that is not to be done. In short, there are many things which I cannot tell.
I will not narrate the story of my life to you; you will hear it one of these days. I robbed Monseigneur the Bishop, it is true; it is true that I robbed Little Gervais; they were right in telling you that Jean Valjean was a very vicious wretch.
Perhaps it was not altogether his fault.
Listen, honorable judges! a man who has been so greatly humbled as I have has neither any remonstrances to make to Providence, nor any advice to give to society; but, you see, the infamy from which I have tried to escape is an injurious thing; the galleys make the convict what he is; reflect upon that, if you please. Before going to the galleys, I was a poor peasant, with very little intelligence, a sort of idiot; the galleys wrought a change in me.
I was stupid; I became vicious:
I was a block of wood; I became a firebrand.
Later on, indulgence and kindness saved me, as severity had ruined me.
But, pardon me, you cannot understand what I am saying.
You will find at my house, among the ashes in the fireplace, the forty-sou piece which I stole, seven years ago, from little Gervais.
I have nothing farther to add; take me. Good God! the district-attorney shakes his head; you say, 'M. Madeleine has gone mad!' you do not believe me! that is distressing.
Do not, at least, condemn this man!
What! these men do not recognize me! I wish Javert were here; he would recognize me."
Nothing can reproduce the sombre and kindly melancholy of tone which accompanied these words.
He turned to the three convicts, and said:--
"Well, I recognize you; do you remember, Brevet?"
He paused, hesitated for an instant, and said:--
"Do you remember the knitted suspenders with a checked pattern which you wore in the galleys?"