: Victor Hugo
: Les Miserables
: Seltzer Books
: 9781455389827
: 1
: CHF 0.70
:
: Erzählende Literatur
: English
: 1791
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB

According to Wikipedia: 'Les Misérables is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century. In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its original French title, which can be translated from the French as The Miserables, The Wretched, The Miserable Ones, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, or The Victims. Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, the novel follows the lives and interactions of several characters, focusing on the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption.'

CHAPTER II  PRUDENCE COUNSELLED TO WISDOM.


 

 That evening, the Bishop of D----, after his promenade through the town, remained shut up rather late in his room.  He was busy over a great work on Duties, which was never completed, unfortunately.  He was carefully compiling everything that the Fathers and the doctors have said on this important subject.  His book was divided into two parts:  firstly, the duties of all; secondly, the duties of each individual, according to the class to which he belongs.  The duties of all are the great duties.  There are four of these.  Saint Matthew points them out:  duties towards God (Matt. vi.); duties towards one's self (Matt. v.  29, 30); duties towards one's neighbor (Matt. vii.  12); duties towards animals (Matt. vi.  20, 25). As for the other duties the Bishop found them pointed out and prescribed elsewhere:  to sovereigns and subjects, in the Epistle to the Romans; to magistrates, to wives, to mothers, to young men, by Saint Peter; to husbands, fathers, children and servants, in the Epistle to the Ephesians; to the faithful, in the Epistle to the Hebrews; to virgins, in the Epistle to the Corinthians.  Out of these precepts he was laboriously constructing a harmonious whole, which he desired to present to souls.

 

At eight o'clock he was still at work, writing with a good deal of inconvenience upon little squares of paper, with a big book open on his knees, when Madame Magloire entered, according to her wont, to get the silver-ware from the cupboard near his bed.  A moment later, the Bishop, knowing that the table was set, and that his sister was probably waiting for him, shut his book, rose from his table, and entered the dining-room.

 

The dining-room was an oblong apartment, with a fireplace, which had a door opening on the street (as we have said), and a window opening on the garden.

 

Madame Magloire was, in fact, just putting the last touches to the table.

 

As she performed this service, she was conversing with Mademoiselle Baptistine.

 

A lamp stood on the table; the table was near the fireplace.  A wood fire was burning there.

 

One can easily picture to one's self these two women, both of whom were over sixty years of age.  Madame Magloire small, plump, vivacious; Mademoiselle Baptistine gentle, slender, frail, somewhat taller than her brother, dressed in a gown of puce-colored silk, of the fas