Prologue: What Have I Done?

What have I done
Sweet Jesus, what have I done
Become a thief in the night
Become a dog on the run
And 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 murdered Valjean
When they chained me and left me for dead
Just for stealing a mouthful of bread.

Yet why did I allow that 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 reaching, but I fall
And the night is closing in
And I stare into the void
To the whirlpool of my sin
I'll escape now from the world
From the world of Jean Valjean
Jean Valjean is nothing now
Another story must begin!