Les Miserables

which we use to dry clothes in, is fifteen
feet high, eighteen feet square, and has a ceiling, once painted and
gilded, with beams like those of your house. This was covered with
canvas during the time it was used as a hospital; and then we have
wainscoating of the time of our grandmothers. But it is my own room
which you ought to see. Madame Magloire has discovered beneath at
least ten thicknesses of paper some pictures, which, though not
good, are quite endurable. Telemachus received on horseback, by
Minerva, is one; and then again, he is in the gardens- I forget
their name; another is where the Roman ladies resorted for a single
night. I could say much more; I have Romans, men and women [here a
word is illegible], and all their retinue. Madame Magloire has
cleaned it all, and this summer she is going to repair some little
damages, and varnish it, and my room will be a veritable museum. She
also found in a corner of the storehouse two pier tables of antique
style; they asked two crowns of six livres to regild them, but it is
far better to give that to the poor; besides that they are very
ugly, and I much prefer a round mahogany table.
{FANTINE|BOOK_1ST|IX ^paragraph 5}
"I am always happy: my brother is so good: he gives all he has to
the poor and sick. We are full of cares: the weather is very severe in
the winter, and one must do something for those who lack. We at
least are warmed and lighted, and you know those are great comforts.
"My brother has his peculiarities; when he talks he says that a
bishop ought to be thus. Just think of it that the door is never
closed. Come in who will, he is at once my brother's guest; he fears
nothing, not even in the night; he says that is his form of bravery.
"He wishes me not to fear for him, nor that Madame Magloire
should; he exposes himself to every danger, and prefers that we should
not even seem to be aware of it; one must know how to understand him.
"He goes out in the rain, walks through the water, travels in
winter, he has no fear of darkness, or dangerous roads, or of those he
may meet.
"Last year he went all alone into a district infested with
robbers. He would not take us. He was gone a fortnight, and when he
came back, though we had thought him dead, nothing had happened to
him, and he was quite well. He said: 'See, how they have robbed me!'
And he opened a trunk in which he had the jewels of the Embrun
Cathedral which the robbers had given him.
{FANTINE|BOOK_1ST|IX ^paragraph 10}
"Upon that occasion, on the return, I could not keep from scolding
him a little, taking care only to speak while the carriage made a
noise, so that no one could hear