Jean Valjean had resumed his march and had not again paused. This march became more and more laborious. The average height of these vaults is calculated for the stature of a man, and he was forced to bend over, in order not to strike Marius against the vault. At every step he had to bend, then to rise, and to feel incessantly of the wall. The moisture of the stones furnished but poor supports. He stumbled along in the hideous dung-heap of the city. The gleams from the air-holes appeared only at long intervals, and were so wan that the full sunlight seemed like the light of the moon. Jean Valjean was both hungry and thirsty, especially thirsty, and this, like the sea, was a place full of water where a man cannot drink. His prodigious strength began to give way. Fatigue began to gain on him, and as his strength decreased, it made the weight of his burden increase. Marius, who was, perhaps, dead, weighed him down as inert bodies weigh. Between his legs he felt the rapid gliding of the rats. One of them bit him. From time to time a breath of fresh air reached him through a vent-hole and reanimated him.
It might have been three hours past midday when he reached the belt-sewer. He was astonished at this sudden widening. His outstretched hands could not reach the two walls. At the joining of four ways a less sagacious man would have remained undecided. Jean Valjean selected the broadest. But here the question again came up: should he descend or ascend. He thought that he must now gain the river at any risk. He turned to the left. It was well that he did so. If he had ascended the gallery he would have arrived, after a thousand efforts, at a wall. He would have been lost. In case of necessity other corridors might have led him to another outlet, but he would have had to be thoroughly familiar with that enormous madrepore. He knew nothing of that frightful drain. Had any one asked him in what he was, he would have answered: In the night. His instinct served him well. To descend was, in fact, possible safety.
A little further on he halted. He was extremely weary. A passably large air-hole furnished a light that was almost vivid. Jean Valjean, with the gentleness of a brother toward his wounded brother, deposited Marius on the banquette. Marius's blood-stained face appeared under the wan light like the ashes at the bottom of a tomb. His eyes were closed. His limbs were cold. Jean Valjean laid his hand upon Marius's breast. His heart was still beating. Jean Valjean tore up his shirt, bandaged the wounds, and stopped the flowing blood. Then he gazed at him with inexpressible hatred. On disarranging the garments he had found two things: a roll forgotten there the preceding evening, and a pocketbook. He ate the roll and opened the pocketbook. On the first page he found four lines. The young man's name, and an order to carry the body to his grandfather, at a house in the Marais. Jean Valjean read these four lines and remained for a moment absorbed, repeating the address in a low tone. He replaced the pocketbook. He had eaten. His strength had returned. He took Marius up once more upon his back and resumed his descent. Nothing told him what zone of the city he was traversing. Only the growing pallor of the pools of light indicated that the day would soon be over, and the rolling of vehicles overhead, having become intermittent, then having almost ceased, he concluded that he was approaching some solitary region. The gloom deepened around him. Nevertheless, he continued to advance, groping his way in the dark. Suddenly this darkness became terrible.
Coming Up in Chapter 333
He felt that he was entering the water, and that he no longer had a pavement under his feet, but only mud. It sometimes happens, on certain shores, that a man walking far from land suddenly notices that for several minutes past he has been walking with some difficulty.
