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finally come to believe himself incapable of a malevolent
feeling, experienced moments when Marius was present,
in which he thought he was becoming savage and ferocious
once more, and he felt the old depths of his soul, which had
formerly contained so much wrath, opening once more and
rising up against that young man. It almost seemed to him
that unknown craters were forming in his bosom.
What! he was there, that creature! What was he there
for? He came creeping about, smelling out, examining, try-
ing! He came, saying: ‘Hey! Why not?’ He came to prowl
about his, Jean Valjean’s, life! to prowl about his happiness,
with the purpose of seizing it and bearing it away!
Jean Valjean added: ‘Yes, that’s it! What is he in search
of? An adventure! What does he want? A love affair! A love
affair! And I? What! I have been first, the most wretched
of men, and then the most unhappy, and I have traversed
sixty years of life on my knees, I have suffered everything
that man can suffer, I have grown old without having been
young, I have lived without a family, without relatives, with-
out friends, without life, without children, I have left my
blood on every stone, on every bramble, on every mile-post,
along every wall, I have been gentle, though others have
been hard to me, and kind, although others have been ma-
licious, I have become an honest man once more, in spite
of everything, I have repented of the evil that I have done
and have forgiven the evil that has been done to me, and at
the moment when I receive my recompense, at the moment
when it is all over, at the moment when I am just touch-
ing the goal, at the moment when I have what I desire, it