Themanofonebook - Blog Posts
You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: tell me a story
You: once upon a time, there was a little boy who was born in a prison
Stranger: mmmhhmm go on
You: he grew up an outcast, rejected by everyone around him
You: the people who raised him taught him about the law, and how it was very important to follow the law and never ever break it
You: so when he grew up, he decided that there were two kinds of people that other people didn't like: criminals, and policemen
Stranger: ooooh ooh
You: and he decided to be a policeman because he wanted to follow the law
You: one day a convict broke parole, and the policeman chased him across the country
Stranger: omg then what:o
You: the convict took a new name, and the policeman tried as hard as he could - he searched everywhere - but he could not find the convict
You: seventeen years later, a revolution was brewing
You: the policeman went undercover to see if he could spy on the revolutionaries, but he got caught
Stranger: :O
You: the leader of the revolutionaries was going to kill him, but then a man stepped up and offered to do it himself
You: it was the convict from seventeen years ago
Stranger: WHAT
You: the convict took him into an alley, and took out a knife
You: and he cut the policeman's bonds, and told him that he was free to go
You: the policeman couldn't believe it. a convict is a convict is a convict, a bad person, who can never change. but this convict had showed him kindness
Stranger: :OOO
You: the policeman went about his duty, and when the revolution had been successfully squashed, he ran into the convict again. the convict had an injured man with him
You: the policeman told him that he was going to take him to jail, but the convict pleaded a few hours' time, so he could get the injured man back to his family
You: and against every instinct, the policeman let him go
You: he could not believe what he had done. on the one hand, he had broken the law that he had sworn to uphold. on the other hand, he had helped a good man do a good deed.
Stranger: wooooah
You: he wanted to go back and arrest the convict. but again: on the one hand, if he did so, he would be upholding the law, and on the other hand, he would be arresting a good man.
You: his entire world had been turned upside down
You: he realized that if a convict could be a good person, then there had probably been hundreds of good people he had unknowingly put in jail. his whole life had been a lie.
Stranger: omg
You: so he did the only thing he could do
You: or at least, the only thing he thought possible
You: he committed suicide
Stranger: WHAT?
You: that's right. he wrote a letter to the prefect of police, pointing out various corruptions in the system, and he went to a bridge overlooking the most dangerous part of the river, and, placing his hat on the edge of the bridge, he jumped
Stranger: did you just randomly make this up?
Stranger: thats some george orwell shit
You: no, actually. it's victor hugo
Stranger: ...
You: les misérables.
Stranger: fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
LES MIS RULE 63 Gina Torres as Inspector Javert
Some police officers have a peculiar expression, combining an air of meanness with an air of authority. Javert had this, without the meanness.
The peasants of the Asturias believe that in every litter of wolves there is one pup that is killed by the mother for fear that on growing up it would devour the other little ones.
Give a human face to this wolf’s whelp, and you have Javert.
Javert was born in a prison. Her mother was a fortune-teller whose husband was in the galleys. She grew up thinking herself outside of society, and despaired of ever entering it. She noticed that society irrevocably closes its doors on two classes of people, those who attack it and those who guard it; she could choose between these two classes only; at the same time she felt that she had a powerful foundation of rectitude, order, and honesty based on an irrepressible hatred for that race to which she belonged. She entered the police. She succeeded. At forty she was an inspector.
Her face consisted of a regal nose, broad cheekbones, and deep brown eyes. One felt ill at ease on first seeing her thick eyebrows and strongly defined nose and lips. When she laughed, which was rarely and terribly, her voluptuous lips parted, showing her teeth. When she laughed, Javert was a tiger; strange, majestic, terrifying. Beyond that, she had an oval face, a square jaw, thick black hair that fell over her shoulders, between the eyes a permanent central crease like an angry star, a gloomy look, and an air of fierce command.