Will you read it? I know how to read, I do. I learned in the galleys. There is a school there for those who care for it. See, here is what they have put in the passport: ‘Jean Valjean, a liberated convict, native of’—, you don’t care about that, ‘has been nineteen years in the galleys; five years for burglary; fourteen years for having attempted four times to escape. This man is very dangerous.’ There you have it! Everybody has thrust me out; will you take me in? Is this an inn? Can you give me something to eat, and a place to sleep? Have you a stable?”

“Madame Magloire,” said the bishop, “put some sheets on the bed in the alcove.”

We have already described the kind of obedience yielded by these two women.

Madame Magloire went out to fulfil her orders.

The bishop turned to the man:

“Monsieur, sit down and warm yourself: we are going to take supper presently, and your bed will be made ready while you sup.”

At last the man quite understood; his face, the expression of which till then had been gloomy and hard, now expressed stupefaction, doubt, and joy, and became absolutely wonderful. He began to stutter like a madman.

“True? What! You will keep me? You won’t drive me away? A convict! You call me Monsieur and don’t say ‘Get out, dog!’ as everybody else does. I thought that you would send me away, so I told first off who I am. Oh! The fine woman who sent me here! I shall have a supper! A bed like other people with mattress and sheets—a bed! It is nineteen years that I have not slept on a bed. You are really willing that I should stay? You are good people! Besides I have money: I will pay well. I beg your pardon, Monsieur Innkeeper, what is your name? I will pay all you say. You are a fine man. You are an innkeeper, an’t you?”

“I am a priest who lives here,” said the bishop.

“A priest,” said the man. “Oh, noble priest! Then you do not ask any money? You are the cure, an’t you? the cure of this big church? Yes, that’s it. How stupid I am, I didn’t notice your skull cap.”

While he was talking, the bishop shut the door, which he had left wide open.

Madame Magloire brought in an extra place setting.

“Madame Magloire,” said the bishop, “put this plate as near the fire as you can.” Then turning towards his guest, he added: “The night wind is raw in the Alps; you must be cold, monsieur.”

Every time he said this word monsieur, with his gently solemn, and heartily hospitable voice, the man’s countenance lighted up. Monsieur to a convict, is a glass of water to a man dying of thirst at sea. Ignominy thirsts for respect.

“The lamp,” said the bishop, “gives a very poor light.”

Madame Magloire understood him, and going to his bedchamber, took from the mantel the two silver candlesticks, lighted the candles, and placed them on the table.

“Monsieur Curé,” said the man, “you are good; you don’t despise me. You take me into your house; you light your candles for me, and I hav‘n’t hid from you where I come from, and how unfortunate I am.”

The bishop, who was sitting near him, touched his hand gently and said: “You need not tell me who you are. This is not my house; it is the house of Christ. It does not ask any comer whether he has a name, but whether he has an affliction. You are suffering; you are hungry and thirsty; be welcome. And do not thank me; do not tell me that I take you into my house. This is the home of no man, except him who needs an asylum. I tell you, who are a traveller, that you are more at home here than I; whatever is here is yours. What need have I to know your name? Besides, before you told me, I knew it.”

The man opened his eyes in astonishment:

“Really? You knew my name?”

“Yes,” answered the bishop, “your name is my brother.”

“Stop, stop, Monsieur Curé,” exclaimed the man. “I was famished when I came in, but you are so kind that now I don’t know what I am; that is all gone.”

The bishop looked at him again and said:

“You have seen much suffering?”

“Oh, the red smock, the ball and chain, the plank to sleep on, the heat, the cold, the work, the guards, the beatings, the double chain for nothing, solitary confinement for a word—even when sick in bed, the chain. Dogs, dogs are better off! Nineteen years! And I am forty-six, and now a yellow passport. That is all.”

“Yes,” answered the bishop, “you have left a place of suffering. But listen, there will be more joy in heaven over the tears of a repentant sinner, than over the white robes of a hundred good men. If you are leaving that sorrowful place with hate and anger against men, you are worthy of compassion; if you leave it with goodwill, gentleness, and peace, you are better than any of us.”

Meantime Madame Magloire had served up supper; it consisted of soup made of water, oil, bread, and salt, a little pork, a scrap of mutton, a few figs, a green cheese, and a large loaf of rye bread. She had, without asking, added to the usual dinner of the bishop a bottle of fine old Mauves wine.

The bishop’s countenance was lighted up with this expression of pleasure, peculiar to hospitable natures.