2150 Les Miserables
knot in the darkness? should he arrive at the inextricable
and the impassable? would Marius die there of hemorrhage
and he of hunger? should they end by both getting lost, and
by furnishing two skeletons in a nook of that night? He did
not know. He put all these questions to himself without re-
plying to them. The intestines of Paris form a precipice. Like
the prophet, he was in the belly of the monster.
All at once, he had a surprise. At the most unforeseen
moment, and without having ceased to walk in a straight
line, he perceived that he was no longer ascending; the wa-
ter of the rivulet was beating against his heels, instead of
meeting him at his toes. The sewer was now descending.
Why? Was he about to arrive suddenly at the Seine? This
danger was a great one, but the peril of retreating was still
greater. He continued to advance.
It was not towards the Seine that he was proceeding. The
ridge which the soil of Paris forms on its right bank emp-
ties one of its water-sheds into the Seine and the other into
the Grand Sewer. The crest of this ridge which determines
the division of the waters describes a very capricious line.
The culminating point, which is the point of separation of
the currents, is in the Sainte-Avoye sewer, beyond the Rue
Michelle-Comte, in the sewer of the Louvre, near the boule-
vards, and in the Montmartre sewer, near the Halles. It was
this culminating point that Jean Valjean had reached. He
was directing his course towards the belt sewer; he was on
the right path. But he did not know it.
Every time that he encountered a branch, he felt of its
angles, and if he found that the opening which presented