7 74 Les Miserables
as yet no leaves on the trees, and spend the remainder of
the night.
Time was passing; he must act quickly.
He felt over the carriage door, and immediately recog-
nized the fact that it was impracticable outside and in.
He approached the other door with more hope; it was
frightfully decrepit; its very immensity rendered it less sol-
id; the planks were rotten; the iron bands—there were only
three of them—were rusted. It seemed as though it might be
possible to pierce this worm-eaten barrier.
On examining it he found that the door was not a door; it
had neither hinges, cross-bars, lock, nor fissure in the mid-
dle; the iron bands traversed it from side to side without
any break. Through the crevices in the planks he caught a
view of unhewn slabs and blocks of stone roughly cemented
together, which passers-by might still have seen there ten
years ago. He was forced to acknowledge with consternation
that this apparent door was simply the wooden decoration
of a building against which it was placed. It was easy to tear
off a plank; but then, one found one’s self face to face with
a wall.