He set out on his way once more. However, although he had not left his life in the fontis, he seemed to have left his strength behind him there. That supreme effort had exhausted him.
His lassitude was now such that he was obliged to pause for breath every three or four steps, and lean against the wall. Once he was forced to seat himself on the banquette in order to alter Marius’ position, and he thought that he should have to remain there.
But if his vigor was dead, his energy was not. He rose again. He walked on desperately, almost fast, proceeded thus for a hundred paces, almost without drawing breath, and suddenly came in contact with the wall.
He had reached an elbow of the sewer, and, arriving at the turn with head bent down, he had struck the wall. He raised his eyes, and at the extremity of the vault, far, very far away in front of him, he perceived a light.
This time it was not that terrible light; it was good, white light. It was daylight. Jean Valjean saw the outlet. A damned soul, who, in the midst of the furnace, should suddenly perceive the outlet of Gehenna, would experience what Jean Valjean felt.
It would fly wildly with the stumps of its burned wings towards that radiant portal. Jean Valjean was no longer conscious of fatigue, he no longer felt Marius’ weight, he found his legs once more of steel, he ran rather than walked.
As he approached, the outlet became more and more distinctly defined. It was a pointed arch, lower than the vault, which gradually narrowed, and narrower than the gallery, which closed in as the vault grew lower. The tunnel ended like the interior of a funnel; a faulty construction,