'Les Miserables Essay\r'

'Les Miser sufficients (the c every is the same in cut and English) is the most long-familiar of Victor Hugo’s novels. It describes the miser able hu public beingsners of French workers, and especially their children. Hugo calls for social action to improve the fateful poor’s lives. This excerpt describes the character Marius, and how he has worked very hard to succeed in life.\r\n take out from Les Miserables\r\nby Victor Hugo (1802-1885)\r\nMisery is the same with anything else. As clock time passes, it gradually becomes bearable.\r\nMarius had emerged from the narrow passage of his life; now the path widened out a billet. with sheer hard work, courage, and a strong will, he had managed to earn around seven hundred francs a twelvemonth. He had learned English and German. Thanks to Courfeyrac, the man who introduced him to his publisher friend, Marius held a position in the literary department of the publishing house, where he filled the utilizable role of uti lity. He wrote prospectuses, translated articles from journals, annotated publications, compiled biographies, and so on. His net gain, year in, year out, was seven hundred francs. He was able to survive on this income. How? Not badly. Here is how he lived.\r\nFor a yearly rent of thirty francs, Marius lived in a miserable little room without a fireplace in the Gorbeau tenement. There was only a bare minimum of furniture which belonged to him. He paid the old woman who took care of the building a sum three francs a month to wash his room, and bring him some warm water, a warm egg, and a small loaf of bread each morning. This egg and bread cost him between two and four cents, because eggs varied in price.\r\nAt six o’clock in the evening, he went downstairs to eat dinner at Rousseau’s in the Rue Saint Jacques. He had no soup, but he ate a ordered series of meat for six pennies, half a carapace of vegetables for three pennies, and a dessert for the same price. As f or bread, he could eat as much as he liked for three pennies, but or else of wine, he drank water. Then he paid at the counter, where Madame Rousseau sat majestically, a large woman with a pleasant face. She would smile as Marius handed the waiter a unitary penny tip. Then he go away the restaurant. For a total of sixteen cents, he got a dinner and a smile. …..\r\nMarius had two have intercourse suits, one of them old, that he wore for everyday use, and the other one new, which he wore on special occasions. Both suits were black. He owned only three shirts: the one he had on, another one that was in the bureau drawer, and the leash one that was at the laundry woman’s. When they wore out, he replaced them with new ones, but generally, his shirts were ragged, so he fastened his coat up to his chin.\r\nTo reach this stage of prosperity, it had taken Marius many hard, difficult years: years of precisely getting by, and years of trudging along. He had never at once given up. He had struggled and done without, he had been with every hardship, except going into debt. Instead of get money, he went without food. There had been many days of fasting.\r\nDuring all his hard times, he actually snarl encouraged, and sometimes he even felt a veritable inner strength. In addition to the fund of his experience, Marius carried the memory of Thénardier in his heart. He envisioned the man surrounded by a halo, the brave police sergeant Thénardier who had saved his experience, a colonel, when he represent him among the cannon fire and bullets at Waterloo. Marius always unbroken the memory of this man together with the memory of his father, and he felt great admiration for them both. It was a bit like a form of worship in two steps. The high altar was reserved for his father the colonel, and the low one for Thénardier. His feelings of gratitude for the man were beef up by the knowledge that Thénardier had suffered a august misfortune. Marius found out that as an unlucky innkeeper, Thénardier had gone bankrupt.\r\nAfter learning this, Marius made myriad efforts to track down the miserable Thénardier, who had disappeared. Marius deuced and hated himself for not being able to steady down him. He felt that the only debt his father had left him was to succeed in finding Thénardier. Marius felt it was his duty to pay him that tribute. â€Å"After all,” he thought, â€Å"when my father lay dying on the battlefield, it was Thénardier who was able to find him through the smoke, and carry him away on his shoulders. Yet he owed Thénardier nothing, whereas I, who owe so much to Thénardier, cannot get to him in his time of darkness and suffering. I cannot, in my turn, restore him to life. Oh! I will find him!”\r\n'