Claude-Michel Schönberg - (Valjean's Soliloquy) What Have I Done? lyrics

[VALJEAN] 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 murdered Valjean When they chained me and left me for dead Just for stealing 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 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 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! [He tears up his yellow ticket-of-leave.]