Valjean's Soliloquy

What have I done sweet Jesu
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, murdered Valjean
When the 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 had 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
As 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!