Society, the State, by diminishing his hoard, had robbed him wholesale. Now it was the individual who was robbing him at retail.
Liberation is not deliverance.
One gets free from the galleys, but not from the sentence.
That is what happened to him at Grasse.
We have seen in what manner he was received at D----
BOOK SECOND--THE FALL
CHAPTER X
THE MAN AROUSED
As the Cathedral clock struck two in the morning, Jean Valjean awoke.
What woke him was that his bed was too good.
It was nearly twenty years since he had slept in a bed, and, although he had not undressed, the sensation was too novel not to disturb his slumbers.
He had slept more than four hours.
His fatigue had passed away. He was accustomed not to devote many hours to repose.
He opened his eyes and stared into the gloom which surrounded him; then he closed them again, with the intention of going to sleep once more.
When many varied sensations have agitated the day, when various matters preoccupy the mind, one falls asleep once, but not a second time. Sleep comes more easily than it returns.
This is what happened to Jean Valjean.
He could not get to sleep again, and he fell to thinking.
He was at one of those moments when the thoughts which one has in one's mind are troubled.