He went on:--
"You have suffered much, poor mother.
Oh! do not complain; you now have the dowry of the elect.
It is thus that men are transformed into angels.
It is not their fault they do not know how to go to work otherwise.
You see this hell from which you have just emerged is the first form of heaven.
It was necessary to begin there."
He sighed deeply.
But she smiled on him with that sublime smile in which two teeth were lacking.
That same night, Javert wrote a letter.
The next morning be posted it himself at the office of M. sur M. It was addressed to Paris, and the superscription ran:
