Literature is one of my favorite art forms, but I will admit that with some exceptions, I rarely retain anything but a hazy sense of plot of a novel in the years after finishing it. What does tend to stick more firmly in my mind is a good character. The weaving of words into the fabric of a character so believable that they take on the sense of a living, breathing being is for me one of the most singular and miraculous acts of artistic magic imaginable. I recently picked up a copy of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, which has been on my reading list for a long time. Having finished the first book of part one, I am struck by the care and nuance with which Hugo paints his portrait of Bishop Myriel, whose character appeals to me on a deep emotional level. In the work of a lesser writer, Myriel might have been a stale, one-dimensional symbol for an impossibly idealistic compassion. But Hugo presents the reader with a far more subtle portrait, brilliantly layering anecdotes—some of which show his foibles and failings—and carefully observed details about Myriel’s way of living and to lend him a very convincing human depth.
Hugo initially devotes many pages to anecdotes demonstrating the bishop’s humbleness, gentle heartedness, and selflessness. The reader learns that the bishop has donated his palace to the nearby overcrowded hospital and taken up residence in the old hospital building, that he gives nearly all of his sizable income to charities, that he wears simple clothing until it becomes tattered and does not travel in a lavish carriage, that he keeps no lock on the door of his home and owns nothing of value save a few items of silver tableware. The reader sees the bishop visiting the ailing and condemned, even when lesser priests have turned away from these tasks. In short, Hugo presents a man living an unostentatatious, kind, and gentle life, fully devoted to his role of comforting the afflicted.
These anecdotes are themselves worthy of praise for the care with which Hugo renders them, but his subtlety and excellence in characterizing the bishop are perhaps nowhere better displayed than in Myriel’s visit to the dying revolutionary who has been ostracized by the community. Here the reader begins to see a different side of the bishop. Hugo describes Myriel’s past prejudicial wavering about whether to visit the man, noting the bishop’s distaste for his preconceived notion of the revolutionary. “[The idea of visiting the man,] natural enough at first glance, upon consideration seemed to [Myriel] strange and impossible, even repellent. For in his heart the bishop shared the general feeling, and, without his fully realizing it, the former revolutionary inspired him the kind of repugnance, bordering on hatred, which is best expressed by the word ‘estrangement.’” This inner subconscious bias on the bishop’s part adds a new layer to his character, and it sets the stage for a difficult internal transformation when, after hearing news of the revolutionary’s imminent demise, Myriel finally overcomes his aversion and visits the man.
Myriel goes into the meeting with a guarded and even unfriendly attitude. He refuses to take the dying man’s hand when the latter extends it. He even acknowledges to himself that he '“was less moved than he should have been” and that he “could not feel the presence of God in this manner of dying.” He is also somewhat insulted that the dying man addresses him with the less formal “Monsieur” rather than “Monseigneur,” though in other contexts, he laughed when addressed so formally. In Myriel’s mind “a revolutionary [was] little better than an outlaw and even beyond the law of charity.” These thoughts make it clear that Myriel is no caricature of saintliness. Hugo is showing the reader a man drawn by his own prejudice to act in a way which seems unworthy of someone who is otherwise gentle, benign, and compassionate.
This failure of Myriel’s compassion is magnified by the fact that Hugo is continually sympathetic in his portrayal of the revolutionary. He notes the dying man’s appearance of health and capacity for endurance. “In the clarity of his gaze, the firmness of voice, and the vigorous movement of his shoulders there was something that defied death... [He] seemed to be dying because he wished to die. There was a sense of liberation in his agony.” There is irony in the fact that the bishop, who presumably came to ease this man’s transition from this life, finds himself bound by his own frailty, while the dying man is vigorous and free. When the bishop speaks, his words betray his hostility and his inability to extend his compassion to the revolutionary. “You are to be congratulated… At least you did not vote for the death of the king.” These words come from a small place, a place of contraction in the bishop. They are spoken from a part of his mind that is still controlled by anger and fear and has not yet been liberated by the love which characterizes so many of his other actions. Hugo again emphasizes the irony of the scene by noting the dying man’s refusal to take umbrage at this barb. “The old man appeared to disregard the acid implications of the words ‘at least.’“ It is almost as if the revolutionary has taken on the role of the wise man in the face of the bishop’s pettiness. But Hugo is not merely toppling an idol. His more subtle purpose becomes apparent over the course of the ensuing debate about the moral justification of the French Revolution and the Republic.
In that conversation, Hugo brilliantly overlays two distinct but closely related narratives. On one level, he describes a debate about deep questions of morality between two men with seemingly opposing views. But on another level, the conversation represents Myriel performing the difficult spiritual work of struggling to move beyond his own prejudices. Myriel never ceases to argue from his own worldview, but in the end it is he whose position changes as he transcends the narrow confines established by his own preconceptions. At times in the conversation, he is able to realize that there are deeper truths to the ideas of the man he perceives to be his adversary. When the bishop suggests that the revolutionary government may have ruled with knowledge, but did so without conscience, he is astounded by the revolutionary’s response that “Conscience is the amount of inner knowledge we possess.” He is able to consider this idea deeply despite his preconceptions about its source. Myriel never yields his position entirely, however. He continues to push back and ask probing questions. He brings up the Terror, but when the revolutionary describes it as the thunderclap of a storm that had gathered over the course of 1500 years of suffering at the hands of an arbitrary tyranny, Hugo notes that Myriel “felt, perhaps without admitting it to himself, that these words had gone home.” Here again, the Bishop’s opposition leads to an internal movement — it is Myriel who is changed by the responses, rather than the revolutionary by the questions.
This pattern continues as the conversation turns to the question of the sufferings of the innocent under the Ancien Régime and the revolutionary government. The Bishop raises the question of the death of the 10 year old grandson of Louis XV, to which the revolutionary responds by mentioning the brutal public execution of the innocent brother of a famous brigand. When Myriel objects to the mentioning of the brigand’s name in the same sentence with that of Louis XV, the revolutionary begins to sermonize: “Monsieur le Pretre…you do not care for the cruder aspects of truth. Christ cared…When he said, ‘Suffer them to come unto me’ he made no distinction between the children…Innocence wears its own crown, Monsieur; it needs no added dignity; it is as sublime in rags as in royal robes.” The bishop concedes the point, and the revolutionary continues to drive home his victory: “Are we weeping for all innocents, all martyrs, all children, whether low-born or of high estate? Then I weep with you…I will weep with you for the children of kings if you will weep with me for the children of the people…But equally! And if the balance is to be tilted either way it must be on the side of the people, for they have suffered longer.'“ The bishop cannot gainsay the revolutionary’s insistence on the equality of all innocent suffering in the eyes of God, and the point resonates with him deeply despite his preconceived hostility to its source.
That the revolutionary’s words have deeply impacted the bishop is amply demonstrated by the change in the bishop’s temperament. Despite his earlier hostility, the bishop does not react with anger when the revolutionary abandons his moral high ground and unjustly suggests that the bishop has parked his stately carriage out of earshot in order to feign modesty. When the revolutionary insistently asks, “who are you?” The bishop quotes a psalm: “I am a worm and no man.” To the revolutionary’s scoffing remark, “A worm in a carriage!” the bishop replies calmly that even if the revolutionary were right, regardless of riches, compassion is a virtue and clemency a duty. But the revolutionary catches himself and apologizes after his brief ad hominem against the bishop’s supposed life of luxury. The apology seems to establish a parity between the two men, and they resume their discussion about the moral justifications of the revolution.
While the bishop has certainly opened up significantly since the start of their meeting, he still has not abandoned his position. He again asserts that the year 1793 (the first year of the Terror) was “beyond all forgiveness,” asking, “What have you to say to Marat applauding the guillotine?” The revolutionary’s responds by pointing to similar brutalities carried out under the Ancien Régime and by arguing that “[t]he Revolution, considered as a whole, was an immense human affirmation of which, alas, the year 1793 was a denial.” Hugo tells the reader that “He did not know, the man of the people, that one by one he had broken down the bishop’s defenses.” The debate has been for Myriel a deeply lived human experience of difficult and incremental spiritual growth. But one last holdout remains in the bishop. He plays his final card: “ Progress must believe in God. The good cannot be served by impiety. An atheist is an evil leader of the human race.” Precisely at this moment it becomes clear that the revolutionary’s death is beginning to overtake him, and his next words, directed to heaven, strike home with far more impact than any direct response to the bishop’s objection could have done: “Thou who art Perfection! Thou who alone exist.” Hugo notes that “The bishop was inexpressibly moved.”
The dying revolutionary’s outburst of faith draws the bishop back to himself. “He had come there as a priest. His mood of extreme aloofness had changed by degrees to one of deep emotion.” He is now in a fitting spiritual state to hear the man’s last testament, which aligns more with the bishop’s worldview than the latter ever could have imagined at the start of the interview. The passage is worthy of quotation at length:
‘My lord bishop,’ he said, speaking with a slowness that was perhaps due more to the dignity of the spirit than to failing strength, ‘I have passed my life in meditation, study, and contemplation. I was sixty when my country summoned me to take part in her affairs. I obeyed the summons. There were abuses and I fought against them, tyrannies and I destroyed them, rights and principles and I assured them. Our country was invaded and I defended it; France was threatened and I offered her my life. I was never rich; now I am poor. I was among the masters of the State, and the Treasury vaults were so filled with wealth that we had to buttress the walls lest they collapse under the weight of gold and silver; but I dined in Poverty Street at twenty-two sous a head. I succored the oppressed and consoled the suffering. I tore up the altar-cloths, it is true; but it was to bind our country’s wounds. I have always striven for the advance of mankind towards the light, and sometimes I have resisted progress that was without mercy. I have on occasion protected my rightful adversaries, your fellow-priests. At Peteghem in Flanders, on the spot where the Merovingian kings once had their summer palace, there is an Urbanist convent, the Abbaye de Sainte-Claire on Beaulieu, which I saved from destruction in 1793. I have done my duty, and what good I could, so far as was in my power. And I have been hounded and persecuted, mocked and defamed, cursed and proscribed. I have long known that many people believe they have the right to despise me, and that for the ignorant crowd I wear the face of the damned. I have accepted the isolation of hatred, hating no one. Now at the age of eighty-eight I am on the point of death. What do you ask of me?
This triumphant final assertion of a man who knows in his own heart that he has lived a worthy life despite all the malice directed at him completely shatters the last vestiges of the prejudice which had chained the bishop’s mind upon his arrival. Myriel is overcome, and in answer to the revolutionary’s final question, he responds, “Your blessing,” falling to his knees. When, after a time, the bishop finally raises his head, he sees a look of grandeur on the dead man’s face.
In the wake of this remarkable interview, the bishop, “deeply absorbed in thought,” returns home and spends the night in prayer. When questioned by the curious about the nature of the interview, he merely points to the sky, but Hugo imparts a sense of the effect of the experience through other means. He notes that “[t]hereafter [Myriel’s] tenderness and solicitude for the defenseless and suffering were redoubled” and that “[i]t would be impossible to say that the passing of that spirit in his presence, and the reflection of that lofty conscience upon his own, went for nothing in his own striving for perfection.” It is clear that the bishop has accomplished a rare, difficult, and admirable feat. He went into the interview with the revolutionary with a closed mind and heart, recoiling from what he considered an odious presence. But over the course of his conversation with the man, he struggles within himself, and by listening deeply he is able to overcome his own prejudices. The bishop is profoundly transformed and affirmed in his own devotion to his life’s work of providing succor to suffering. Hugo has provided a window into the development of a man’s spirit, sparing the reader no details of the bishop’s initial narrowness of mind. Using words, Hugo has created a living, breathing human with real feelings, frustrations, blind spots, and aspirations. He has bridged the gap between words on a page and the human heart. This is true art. If the the bishop’s initial coldness was a somewhat disappointing failure of spirit, by the end of the interview, the reader’s admiration for Myriel is deepened.
For me there is something deeply appealing about Hugo’s portrayal of the bishop, especially as I watch our American democratic experiment descend deeper into a seemly irreconcilable political divide and dysfunction. It has become difficult to imagine constructive dialog across the political aisle among common people in the United States. I do not want to try to analyze the antecedents of this communication breakdown here, but I will say that Hugo’s carefully crafted portrait of Myriel makes me acutely aware of how rarely the difficult work of listening to our supposed adversaries is undertaken by common people in America today. Our politicians often stoke these resentments for their own gain, and many Americans have fallen victim to this hyperpartisan rhetoric, which has moved American political discourse into the realm of tribalism. This effect is magnified by the ironically isolating influence of information technology in our private lives. We self-segregate our digital world on political lines. and where we do meet in digital spaces, the conflict quickly becomes vitriolic. While many have been taken in by the deceptive practices of those politicians who wish to perpetuate this divide for their own aggrandizement, I do not think that the sway of these opportunist demagogues could ever outweigh the force of interpersonal connection if we could just turn off our televisions and make the effort to meet with and listen to people different from ourselves.
My point here is not a partisan one. I merely wish to say that the world needs people to sit down and listen to each other in good faith. If we undertake this difficult task of listening, we may be surprised by the results. Myriel goes into his interview with the dying revolutionary in a hostile state of mind, but he does not close his mind off entirely when the man speaks. That sliver of openness gradually allows the bridging of a gap between two seemingly irreconcilable positions, and in the end the revolutionary has a profound positive influence on the bishop despite their differences. I think we would all do well to strive for this sort of engagement with other people in good faith. Reconciliation through deep listening is not easy, but it has the power to transform our lives deeply.
Note: all quotations are drawn from the Penguin Classics edition of Les Misérables translated by Norman Denny.