When the boy starts, Javert closes his ears. He knows literally nothing about poetry, and does not intend to start learning now.

It goes on.

And goes on.

And goes on, and while he does his best to remain entirely impassive, inside he is trying to ignore the feeling that comes when an endless drone sandpapers itself across his eardrums, over and over and over again.

He had started to draw the outline of Bahorel's profile. By the time Prouvaire is at the start of the third sonnet, he has the poet in a courtroom in front of a judge. By the start of the sixth, there is a guillotine waiting for him in the background.