Prologue: What Have I Done? Lyrics - The Original 1985 London Cast Recording - Les Miserables

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! 

[He tears up his yellow ticket-of-leave]