Les Mis Letters 1.1.2 Monsieur Myriel Becomes Monseigneur Bienvenu
Just three days into his posting and he's like, "let's just swap my house for the hospital so they can have more space and a bigger garden" and I mean, he's right, but. Who else would do that?
It's probably the budding accountant in me (which is weird, since I hate math) but I'm a little in love with the bishop's household expenditure itemization. It's like "charity, charity, some more charity, and a bit left over for us, I guess." Also the way Madame Magloire had a teeny scrap of hope there for a hot second with the carriage expenses before Myriel crushed that too. (She clips coupons [well, the 19th century equivalent] and Baptistine always puts everything in the ledgers and between them they run a tight ship.)
After reading the Adam Gopnik introduction to the Rose translation, the last sentence makes me think of what he said about Hugo portraying humanity as more complicated than good and evil. And from the first chapter, what is said about people being equally influential as what they do. Are all these things true, or just what the town says about Myriel, or somewhere in between? I think it's either the first or the last and Hugo is reminding us not to take everything at face value. (That's never going to come up again...)
