# Forms Assumed by Suffering During Sleep explained — Les Misérables

> Chapter companion for Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.

## What happens

At three in the morning, after five hours of restless walking, Jean Valjean falls into a chair and experiences a haunting nightmare. In the dream, he wanders through a desolate plain and a silent town where every door is open but every corner hides a mute, earthen-faced man. A horseman passes without speaking, his brother disappears, and a crowd of silent figures eventually surrounds him, one declaring that he has been dead for a long time. He wakes cold and disoriented, sees a carriage outside, and learns that a tilbury has arrived for him—ordered under the name Scaufflaire—which he reluctantly acknowledges.

## Themes in this chapter

### Suffering and Sacrifice

Valjean's sleepless wandering and the nightmare's imagery of death and isolation reflect his inner torment and the psychological weight of his past.

### The Human Condition and Fate

The dream's surreal, inescapable silence and the final pronouncement of being 'dead' explore existential dread and the inescapable consequences of one's choices.

## Character check-ins

### Jean Valjean

Experiences a vivid, oppressive nightmare after a sleepless night; wakes to find a carriage sent by Scaufflaire awaiting him.

### Master Scaufflaire

Mentioned as the person who supposedly ordered the tilbury that arrives at dawn.

## Key lines

> Whither are you going! Do you not know that you have been dead this long time?

Where are you going? Don't you realize you've been dead for ages?

_The climactic line of Valjean's nightmare, confronting him with a sense of spiritual or moral death._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/les_miserables_se/chapters/iv-forms-assumed-by-suffering-during-sleep
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/les_miserables_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/les_miserables_se/chapters