What Have I Done (Valjean's Soliloquy) Lyrics

ValjeanWhat have I done?Sweet Jesus, what have I done?Become a thief in the nightBecome a dog on the runAnd have I fallen so farAnd is the hour so lateThat 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 goI missed it twenty long years agoMy life was a war that could never be wonThey gave me a number and murdered ValjeanWhen they chained me and left me for deadJust for stealing a mouthful of bread Yet why did I allow that manTo touch my soul and teach me love?He treated me like any otherHe gave me his trustHe called me brotherMy life he claims for God aboveCan such things be?For I had come to hate this worldThis world which had always hated meTake 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 backBeneath the lash, upon the rackInstead he offers me my freedom,I feel my shame inside me like a knifeHe told me that I have a soul,How does he know?What spirit came to move my life?Is there another way to go?I am reaching, but I fallAnd the night is closing inAnd I stare into the voidTo the whirlpool of my sinI'll escape now from the worldFrom the world of Jean ValjeanJean Valjean is nothing nowAnother story must begin! [He tears up his yellow ticket-of-leave.]