112. I Would Like Some Diagrams, Please

Part II, Book 5, Chapter 4

Fumbling for a Way Out

I have decided that Hugo really, really needs diagrams for this book. I don’t mean illustrations—we need straight-up diagrams. In the same way that Hugo took great pains to describe how the battle lines for the Battle of Waterloo formed the shape of the letter A, Hugo here provides a technically detailed description of the wall and building that Valjean finds himself pinned against on the dead-end street. I guess we need to know the dimensions he’s working with, but it would be so much easier with a diagram!!

I’m following along reasonably well but the specificity of the physical layout is hard to picture, especially when Hugo uses street names as reference points. I don’t know these streets, man!

So Valjean, trapped between a dead end and a poorly hidden guy, is up against this one big gloomy building that has an outer wall and appears to have two gates. As a very well-seasoned fugitive, Valjean is attracted to this building because it looks pretty abandoned, and thus could be an ideal hideout, although as he’s a guy trapped on a dead-end street, beggars really can’t be choosers.

I briefly went looking on the internet for any illustrations that provided the exact layout so I could better visualize the situation, and found this:

Which appears to be an illustration by Fortuné Louis Méaulle, from a historical edition of the novel, and is indeed somewhat helpful.

So the obvious problem before him is how to get into said building; his first idea is to climb the pipes on the outside of the wall (which you can see in the illustration), but the pipes aren’t secure enough, and anyway that side of the house is lit by the moonlight so he’d be seen by the lookout. Also he couldn’t get up there with Cosette anyway, so that plan is scuppered.

So he approaches the two gates of the building; the first is a carriage gate which turns out to be boarded up on both sides, so that’s a no-go. The second gate turns out to not even be a gate, but is instead just a bunch of boards nailed to a solid wall.

AND THAT’S WHERE THE CHAPTER ENDS. Hugo is killing me! I can’t stop there! Will my beloved man who is secretly a cat find a way into this building before Javert catches him? I MUST KNOW!!!