Valjean's Soliloquy

What have I done? Sweet Jesus, what have I done?

Become a thief in the night, become a dog on the run

Have I fallen so far and is the hour so late?

That nothing remains but the cry of my hate

The cries in the dark that nobody hears

Here where I stand at the turning of the years

If there's another way to go

I missed it twenty long years ago

My life was a war that could never be won

They gave me a number and they murdered Valjean

When they chained me and left me for dead

Just for stealin' a mouthful of bread

Yet why did I allow this man

To touch my soul and teach me love?

He treated me like any other

He gave me his trust, he called me brother

My life he claims for God above, can such things be?

For I had come to hate the world

This world that always hated me

Take an eye for an eye

Turn your heart into stone

This is all I have lived for

This is all I have known

One word from him and I'd be back

Beneath the lash, upon the rack

Instead he offers me my freedom

I feel my shame inside me like a knife

He told me that I have a soul

How does he know?

What spirit comes to move my life

Is there another way to go?

I am reachin', but I fall and the night is closin' in

As I stare into the void, to the whirlpool of my sin

I'll escape now from that world, from the world of Jean Valjean

Jean Valjean is nothing now, another story must begin