Jun 15, 2025
Round 2, Matchup 82: III.viii.10 vs V.ix.3
Which chapter title do you prefer?
Licensed Cab Fare: Two Francs an Hour
A Pen is Heavy to Him Who Lifted Fauchelevent’s Cart
Voting ended onJun 22, 2025
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from South Africa
seen from Singapore
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Brazil
seen from Yemen
seen from Malaysia
seen from Tunisia
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from China
Round 2, Matchup 82: III.viii.10 vs V.ix.3
Which chapter title do you prefer?
Licensed Cab Fare: Two Francs an Hour
A Pen is Heavy to Him Who Lifted Fauchelevent’s Cart
Valjean is fading, growing weaker by the hour, and sensing that the end is near, he makes preparations for his final moments. It’s agonizing to witness the decline of this once strong man. Hugo offers a poignant glimpse of Valjean through his own eyes as he gazes into the mirror, it’s a sad spectacle.
He finally used the Bishop’s candlesticks, likely for the first time in his life. Previously, he had kept them as a memento. In this aspect, Valjean reminds me of people from my grandmother’s generation who saved their best possessions 'for the death.'
And then, there’s his letter to Cosette. I wonder how sincere he is in praising Marius as 'excellent.' I'm curious what Cosette would infer from learning that her husband was the one who made her father “go away” and why he was right. I suspect it might remain a mystery to her. Also, I'm unsure whether Valjean's explanation of the black jet production was solely to clarify the cleanliness of his money or if he intended to pass down his invention to the next generation.
The title alone indicates that this chapter will be sad as Valjean’s sadness saps all of his strength. Everything in this chapter speaks of death, and it’s not even subtle; Hugo explicitly says Valjean looks like he will die even beyond his references to his growing weakness.
This passage is particularly painful:
“He was in that condition, the last phase of dejection, in which sorrow no longer flows; it is coagulated, so to speak; there is something on the soul like a clot of despair.”
I mock Hugo a lot, but he really knows how to describe grief.
Valjean’s letter explains the bead-making process he developed in Montreuil-sur-Mer. On the one hand, it’s moving to know that he made this colossal effort for Cosette’s sake, using the last of his energy to ensure that she has access to her fortune. On the other, it’s very frustrating that his last message to his daughter isn’t an explanation of himself, but a business message. And watching him succumb to yet another level of despair at the end hurts.
Brickclub 5.9.3 “A Pen Is Heavy to Him Who Lifted Fauchelevent’s Cart”
It’s awful. Valjean is dying, all his strength is gone, and the description of his face has aged 30 years almost overnight. Even alone in the apartment he’s trying to self-efface--he’s had his bed moved to the front room because he doesn’t want to take up more space than that. And he’s weak enough here that it’s become clear there isn’t any coming back from this.
He lights the candlesticks, a thing I’m not sure we’ve ever seen him actually do before. Which feels part and parcel with his tendency to treat important objects as dead relics of the past rather than part of the future, just like Cosette’s childhood mourning clothes, which he also has out. The text says the candles he lights are like the candles in a room where someone is dead.
It’s holy. But I don’t think this was the only holy use they could have had.
Fun, terrible fact: You know how this chapter ends with “At that moment there was a knock at the door”? I once bought a misprinted copy of Les Mis (FMA, I think) where the book cut off after this chapter. That was the last line.
Valjean’s awful letter is meant to be a fakeout, I think--and I think that’s telling. He starts by sounding like he’s going to set the record straight (albeit very deferentially) about how Marius is mistaken about a couple of things.
He sounds like he’s about to tell Cosette the truth.
Cosette, I bless you. I am going to explain something to you. Your husband was quite right in giving me to understand that I ought to leave; while there is some mistake in what he believed, he was right. He is very good. Always love him dearly when I am dead. Monsieur Pontmercy, always love my darling child. Cosette, this paper will be found, this is what I want to tell you,
It sounds like the introduction to everything I want from him? He’s speaking to Cosette directly, at LAST. He’s finally coming clean to the person who most needs to know what the hell just happened to her life.
...And then, of course, he starts explaining, garbled, without context, how to make glass jet jewelry. He really just wants to prove Cosette’s money is hers so Marius will let her keep it.
It’s meant to be a disappointing fakeout, I’m very sure of that. I’m less sure, of course, that Hugo is anywhere near being with me on Cosette deserving to know about his past and her own--but I’m pretty sure this letter is meant to sound like it was about to tell her at least enough to clear up what happened between him and Marius.
And it matters that his last address is to Cosette, not to her husband. I don’t know what it means because Hugo is super weird about Cosette, but it feels important. The chapter even references how he’s by the same mirror where her blotter blabbed her secrets to him--and it feels almost like a hint of an idea that the two of them might be better at communicating through writing than they were out loud. It also feels like mirror associations we’ve had before, like the mirror for testing the breath of the dead which Simplice used to show him his hair had turned white. That mirror foreshadowed the death of Fantine, and this one foreshadows Valjean’s own.
That Valjean flinches and can’t go through with telling the story... it’s hard to call it a failure, he’s sick and his rambling is a symptom of illness, among other things, but it’s meant to be a sign of the sheer wrongness of the place where he is. He’s reduced to believing the only thing that matters justifying his monetary worth to people with more money and power than he he has, the same way Fantine did at the depth of her despair and illness, because that’s always how misérables are judged.
Round 2, Matchup 100: V.i.12 vs V.ix.3
Which chapter title do you prefer?
Disorder Upholds Order
A Pen is Heavy to Him Who Lifted Fauchelevent’s Cart
V.ix.3 Une plume pèse à qui soulevait la charrette Fauchelevent
Which is your favorite translation of this chapter title?
A Pen is Heavy to Him Who Lifted Fauchelevent’s Cart
A Pen Is Too Heavy For the Man Who Lifted Fauchelevent's Cart
A Pen Is Heavy To the Man Who Lifted the Fauchelevent’s Cart
The Pen is Heavy For Him Who Lifted Fauchelevent's Cart
A Feather Crushes the Man Who Lifted Fauchelevent's Cart
A Quill Feels Heavy to the Man who Lifted Faucheleven's Cart
Denny’s got “The Weight of a Quill-Pen”.
Round 1, Matchup 208: V.ix.1 vs V.ix.3
Which chapter title do you prefer?
Pity for the Unhappy, But Indulgence for the Happy
A Pen is Heavy to Him Who Lifted Fauchelevent’s Cart