英文名著分集阅读 维克多·雨果《悲惨世界》part1

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

单词提示

1.misery 苦难 2.bishop 主教 3.candlestick 蜡烛台

原文

Chapter 1: Jean Valjean

It is the year 1796, and the people of France are hungry; not the rich people, of course, they have food, they have warm clothes, they have beautiful houses; no, it is the poor people of France. Jean Valjean is one of these poor people. He is a young man, big, strong, and a good worker, but he has no work. He cannot find work, and he is hungry. He lives with his sister in the village of Bree, her husband is dead and she has seven children. It is a cold, hard winter and there is no food in the house, no bread. Nothing and seven children. Jean Valjean is a good man; he is not a thief. But how can a man just sit there when his sister's children cry all night because they are hungry? What can a man do? He leaves his house at night and goes down the village night. He puts his hand through the window of the bakery. “Crash!”,he takes a loaf of bread and he runs. He runs fast, but other people run faster. France is not kind to poor people. France send Jean Valjean to prison for five years. After four years, he escapes. They find him and bring him back. They give him six more years. Once again, he escapes, and two days later they find him and they give him another eight years,19 years in prison for a loaf of bread. In 1815, when he leaves prison, Jean Valjean is a different man. Prison changes people. Years of misery, years of back breaking work,years of cruel prison guards, these things change a man once. There was love in Jean Valjean's heart, now there is only hate. One evening in October in the year 1815,there was a knock on the door of the Bishop of Denya's house. “Come in”, said the bishop. The bishop was a kind man. Everyone in the town of Denya knew that poor people, hungry people, miserable people, they all came to the door of the bishop's house. The bishop's sister looked at the man at the door that night, and she was afraid. “Look at him,” she whispered to the bishop, “he is a big man and a dangerous one. He carries a yellow card, so he was once a prisoner, a bad man.” But the bishop did not listen. “Come in, my friend,” he said to the man at the door, “come in, you must eat dinner with us and sleep in a warm bed tonight.” The man stared at the bishop. “My name is Jean Valjean,” he said, “I was a prisoner in Toulon for 19 years. Here is my yellow card, see, people everywhere shut their doors in my face, but not you, why not?” “Because my friend, in the eyes of God, you are my brother,”said the bishop smiling, “So come in and sit by our fire.” The bishop turned to his sister, “Now sister, our friend Jean Valjean needs a good dinner. Bring out the silver dinner plates. It's a special night tonight.” “Not the silver plates,” whispered the bishop's sister. Her eyes went quickly to Jean Valjean, then back to the bishop's face. “Yes, the silver plates,” said the bishop, “and the silver candlesticks, too. The church has these beautiful things, but they are for our visitors, and our visitor tonight must have only the best.” And so, Jean Valjean sat down with the bishop and his sister, and ate from silver plates. He ate hungrily. It was his first good meal for weeks. “You're a good man,” he said to the bishop, “perhaps the only good man in France.” But Valjean could not take his eyes away from the silver plates. After the meal, the bishop's sister put the silver plates away, and Valjean's eyes watched. He saw the place, and he remembered it in the night, in his warm bed in the bishop's house. He thought about the plates, they were big,heavy, so much silver in them. “I can sell those plates,” he thought, “for just one of them. I can eat well for months.” 19 years in prison is a long time, and 19 hard years change a man. By morning, Valjean was a long way from the bishop's house. But how do you carry big silver plates? How do you hide them? People in Denya began to whisper. “Did you see him? That big man carrying six silver plat