They talked to him about it for one day; it was a moment, a flash,
as though a window had suddenly been opened upon the destiny of
those things whom he had loved; then all closed again. He heard
nothing more forever. Nothing from them ever reached him again;
he never beheld them; he never met them again; and in the continuation
of this mournful history they will not be met with any more.

Towards the end of this fourth year Jean Valjean's turn to escape
arrived. His comrades assisted him, as is the custom in that sad place.
He escaped. He wandered for two days in the fields at liberty,
if being at liberty is to be hunted, to turn the head every instant,
to quake at the slightest noise, to be afraid of everything,--of a
smoking roof, of a passing man, of a barking dog, of a galloping horse,
of a striking clock, of the day because one can see, of the night
because one cannot see, of the highway, of the path, of a bush,
of sleep. On the evening of the second day he was captured.
He had neither eaten nor slept for thirty-six hours. The maritime
tribunal condemned him, for this crime, to a prolongation of his
term for three years, which made eight years. In the sixth year
his turn to escape occurred again; he availed himself of it,
but could not accomplish his flight fully. He was missing at
roll-call. The cannon were fired, and at night the patrol found
him hidden under the keel of a vessel in process of construction;
he resisted the galley guards who seized him. Escape and rebellion.
This case, provided for by a special code, was punished by an addition
of five years, two of them in the double chain. Thirteen years.
In the tenth year his turn came round again; he again profited by it;
he succeeded no better. Three years for this fresh attempt.
Sixteen years. Finally, I think it was during his thirteenth year,
he made a last attempt, and only succeeded in getting retaken at