all those solemn vows to himself, to the most sacred duty, to the most venerated text! Should he ignore his father’s testament, or allow the perpetration of a crime! On the one hand, it seemed to him that he heard “his Ursule” supplicating for her father and on the other, the colonel commending Thénardier to his care. He felt that he was going mad. His knees gave way beneath him. And he had not even the time for deliberation, so great was the fury with which the scene before his eyes was hastening to its catastrophe. It was like a whirlwind of which he had thought himself the master, and which was now sweeping him away. He was on the verge of swooning.
In the meantime, Thénardier, whom we shall henceforth call by no other name, was pacing up and down in front of the table in a sort of frenzy and wild triumph.
He seized the candle in his fist, and set it on the chimneypiece with so violent a bang that the wick came near being extinguished, and the tallow bespattered the wall.