Even if you are not a big reader, the unabridged version of Les Miserables is worth three-fold every minute it takes to digest its 1,463 glorious pages. I give you the following short passage in support of this claim (and I know Charlie Pardue is with me on this one). Though it fits impeccably within the gigantic narrative, it also stands on its own.
...he (the bishop) had his own strange way of judging things. I suspect he acquired it from the Gospels.
In a salon one day he heard an account of a criminal case about to be tried. A miserable man - because of love for a woman and the child she had borne him - had been making counterfeit coins, his real money was gone. At that time counterfeiting was still punished by death. The woman was arrested for passing the first piece he had made. She was held prisoner, but there was no proof against her lover. She alone could testify against him, and lose him through her confession. She denied his guilt. They insisted, but she was obstinate in her denial. At that point, the king's state prosecutor devised a shrewd plan. He maintained that her lover was unfaithful and by means of fragments of letters skillfully put together succeeded in persuading the unfortunate woman that she had a rival and that the man had deceived her. Inflamed with jealousy, she denounced her lover, confessed everything and proved his guilt. He was to be tried in a few days, at Aix, with his accomplice and his conviction was certain. The story was told and retold, and everybody was delighted by the magistrate's cleverness. Bringing jealousy into play, he had truth to light by means of anger, and justice had sprung from revenge. The bishop listened to all this in silence. When it was finished he asked, "Where are this man and this woman to be tried?"
"At the Superior Court."
"And where is the king's prosecutor to be tried?"
Read up those of you carrying out this "war on terror."
1 comment:
Seriously.
The best book ever.
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