Les Misérables Volume I Book 2 Chapter 4 - Details concerning the Cheese-Dairies of Pontarlier

In which a weary traveller named Jean Valjean is welcomed with quiet charity by a kindly curé, who converses gently about the pastoral industry of Pontarlier without probing into his guest’s troubled past. The evening passes with tender attentiveness and unspoken understanding, as the curé’s gentle hospitality offers a brief refuge from the harshness of the outside world.