Site Review
Favourite Moments in the TAC Video
by Carol, in correspondence with Rose

 

My absolute favourite moment is the one following Fantine's death (...). I always remember when I read the book after having watched the video several times how it impressed me that PQ had got his stance and look just perfect. I know we have read different translations. I make no apologies for typing out the (rather long) paragraph from my copy (...):

 

"Javert was in heaven. Without being fully conscious of the fact, but still with a sense of his importance and achievement, he was at that moment the personification of justice, light and truth in their sublime task of stamping out evil. Behind him and around him, extending into infinite space, were authority and reason, the conscience of the law, the sentence passed, the public condemnation and all the stars in the firmament. He was the guardian of order, the lightning of justice, the vengeance of society, the mailed fist of the absolute, and he was bathed in glory. There was in his victory a vestige of defiance and conflict. Upright, arrogant and resplendent, he stood like the embodiment in a clear sky of the superhuman ferocity of the destroying angel, and the deed he was performing seemed to invest his clenched fist with the gleam of a fiery sword. He was setting his foot in righteous indignation upon crime, vice and rebellion, damnation, and hell, and was smiling with satisfaction as he did."

 

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