In the sewer, Valjean refuses to rest, but he is encountering increasing difficulties. The ground is slippery. The low vault forces him to march bending over. Hunger and, above all, thirst torment him. In spite of his strength, the inevitable exhaustion begins to take its toll. At three o'clock, Valjean arrives at the outer sewer. There he is confronted by vital decisions. He has to choose among the several corridors that join at this point, and he picks the wider one. Then he must decide whether to go downhill or uphill. He prefers to descend, on the assumption that the downward march will lead him to the Seine. His luck serves him well and saves his life. The other direction would have taken him to a dead end or an inextricable jungle.
Shortly after, Valjean is forced to make a halt. He deposits Marius tenderly on a bank, feels his heart beating, and bandages his wounds as best he can. Then he contemplates Marius with inexpressible hatred. After reading the note in Marius' pocket giving instructions to deliver his body to his grandfather's, and eating a piece of bread he also finds there, Valjean resumes his march with Marius on his back. Night is falling and the openings are getting rarer. The obscurity proves to be a near disaster, for it camouflages dreadful traps known as "fontis," mud-holes in the ground of the corridors with all the dangers of quicksand. They hold for their victims a similar death, unexpected, lonely, inexorably slow. In addition, they have their own refinements: darkness, filth, fetidness. Sewers add degradation to the final agony.
