The Jean Valjean of Writers

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The Jean Valjean of writers

THERE are writers without whom the history of literature is inconceivable. There are those without whom history itself is inconceivable. Victor Hugo is among their number.

In his novel Les Miserables, there is a significant episode in which Jean Valjean, a former convict known for his prodigious strength, who has carefully concealed his criminal past and made a new life for himself as a "respectable, honest man', witnesses an accident in which a man is trapped under a cart. With a superhuman effort Jean Valjean lifts the cart to release the victim knowing that in doing so he will betray his true identity. If my memory from childhood days, when I read the novel, serves me correctly, it is at this moment that Police Inspector Javert, who for years has been on the track of Valjean, knows that at last he has found his man.