Is there anybody here?" asked he, aloud and in a startled voice. Then he continued with a laugh, which was like the laugh of an idiot: "What a fool I am! there cannot be anybody here."
There was One; but He who was there was not of such as the human eye can see.
He put the candlesticks on the mantel.
Alas! all his irresolutions were again upon him. He was no further advanced than when he began.
So struggled beneath its anguish this unhappy soul. Eighteen hundred years before this unfortunate man, the mysterious Being, in whom are aggregated all the sanctities and all the sufferings of humanity, He also, while the olive trees were shivering in the fierce breathe of the Infinite, had long put away from his hand the fearful chalice that appeared before him, dripping with shadow and running over with darkness, in the star-filled depths.
There was One; but He who was there was not of such as the human eye can see.
He put the candlesticks on the mantel.
Alas! all his irresolutions were again upon him. He was no further advanced than when he began.
So struggled beneath its anguish this unhappy soul. Eighteen hundred years before this unfortunate man, the mysterious Being, in whom are aggregated all the sanctities and all the sufferings of humanity, He also, while the olive trees were shivering in the fierce breathe of the Infinite, had long put away from his hand the fearful chalice that appeared before him, dripping with shadow and running over with darkness, in the star-filled depths.
( Victor Hugo )
[ Les Misérables ]
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