The impression which he had formerly experienced when falling from the wall into the convent recurred to him. Only, what he was carrying today was not Cosette; it was Marius. He could barely hear the formidable tumult in the wine-shop, taken by assault, like a vague murmur overhead.
The Intestine of the Leviathan
The Land Impoverished by the Sea
Paris casts twenty-five millions yearly into the water. And this without metaphor. How, and in what manner? Day and night. With what object? With no object. With what intention? With no intention. Why? For no reason. By means of what organ? By means of its intestine. What is its intestine? The sewer.
Twenty-five millions is the most moderate approximative figure which the valuations of special science have set upon it.