by Victor Hugo
M. Gillenormand, without manifesting it in any way, noticed that Marius, since he had been brought home and restored to consciousness, had not once said to him “father.” He did not say monsieur, it is true; but he found means to say neither the one nor the other, by a certain manner of turning his sentences.
A crisis was evidently approaching.
As it almost always happens in similar cases, Marius, in order to try himself, skirmished before offering battle. This is called feeling the ground. One morning it happened that M. Gillenormand, over a newspaper which had fallen into his hands, spoke lightly of the Convention and discharged a royalist epiphonema upon Danton, Saint Just, and Robespierre. “The men of ‘93 were giants,” said Marius, sternly. The old man was silent, and did not whisper for the rest of the day.
Marius, who had always present to his mind the inflexible grandfather of his early years, saw in this silence an intense concentration of anger, augured from it a sharp conflict, and increased his preparations for combat in the inner recesses of his thought.
He determined that in case of refusal he would tear off his bandages, dislocate his shoulder, lay bare and open his remaining wounds, and refuse all nourishment. His wounds were his ammunition. To have Cosette or to die.
He waited for the favourable moment with the crafty patience of the sick.
That moment came.
2 (3)
MARIUS ATTACKS
ONE DAY M. Gillenormand, while his daughter was putting in order the vials and the cups upon the marble top of the bureau, bent over Marius and said to him in his most tender tone:
“Do you see, my darling Marius, in your place I would eat meat now rather than fish. A fried sole is excellent to begin a convalescence, but, to put the sick man on his legs, it takes a good cutlet.”
Marius, nearly all whose strength had returned, gathered it together, sat up in bed, rested his clenched hands on the sheets, looked his grandfather in the face, assumed a terrible air, and said:
“This leads me to say something to you.”
“What is it?”
“It is that I wish to marry.”
“Foreseen,” said the grandfather. And he burst out laughing.
“How foreseen?”
“Yes, foreseen. You shall have her, your lassie.”
Marius, astounded, and overwhelmed by the dazzling burst of happiness, trembled in every limb.
M. Gillenormand continued:
“Yes, you shall have her, your handsome, pretty little girl. She comes every day in the shape of an old gentleman to inquire after you. Since you were wounded, she has passed her time in weeping and making lint. I have made inquiry. She lives in the Rue de l‘Homme Armé, Number Seven. Ah, we are ready! Ah! you want her! Well, you shall have her. That catches you. You had arranged your little plot; you said to yourself: I am going to make it known bluntly to that grandfather, to that mummy of the Regency and of the Directory, to that old beau, to that Dorante become a Géronte; he has had his levities too, himself, and his amours, and his grisettes, and his Cosettes; he has had his skirts, he has had his wings, he has eaten his spring bread; he must remember it well. We shall see. Battle. Ah! you take the bull by the horns. That is good. I propose a cutlet, and you answer: ‘A propos, I wish to marry.’ That is what I call a transition. Ah! you had reckoned upon some bickering. You didn’t know that I was an old coward. What do you say to that? You are spited. To find your grandfather still more stupid than yourself, you didn’t expect that, you lose the argument which you were to have made to me, monsieur advocate; it is provoking. Well, it is all the same, rage. I do what you wish, that shuts you up, idiot. Listen. I have made inquiries, I am sly too; she is charming, she is modest, the lancer is not true, she has made heaps of lint, she is a jewel, she worships you; if you had died, there would have been three of us; her bier would have accompanied mine. I had a strong notion, as soon as you were better, to plunk her right at your bedside, but it is only in romances that they introduce young girls unceremoniously to the side of the couch of the pretty wounded men who interest them. That does not do. What would your aunt have said? You have been quite naked three-quarters of the time, my goodman. Ask Nicolette, who has not left you a minute, if it was possible for a woman to be here. And then what would the doctor have said? That doesn’t cure a fever, a pretty girl. Finally, it is all right; don’t let us talk any more about it, it is said, it is done, it is fixed; take her. Such is my ferocity. Do you see, I saw that you did not love me; I said: What is there that I can do, then, to make this animal love me? I said: Hold on! I have my little Cosette under my hand; I will give her to him, he must surely love a little then, or let him tell why. Ah! you thought that the old fellow was going to storm, to make a gruff voice, to cry No, and to lift his cane upon all this dawn. Not at all. Cosette, so be it; Love, so be it; I ask nothing better. Monsieur, take the trouble to marry. Be happy, my dear child.”
This said, the old man burst into sobs.
And he took Marius’ head, and he hugged it in both arms against his old breast, and they both began to weep. That is one of the forms of supreme happiness.
“Father!” exclaimed Marius.
“Ah! you love me then!” said the old man.
There was an ineffable moment. They choked and could not speak.
At last the old man stammered:
“Come! the ice is broken. He has called me ‘Father.’”
Marius released his head from his grandfather’s arms, and said softly:
“But, father, now that I am well, it seems to me that I could see her.”
“Foreseen again, you shall see her to-morrow.”
“Father!”
“What?”
“Why not to-day?”
“Well, to-day. Here goes for to-day. You have called me ‘Father,’ three times, it is well worth that. I will see to it. She shall be brought to you. Foreseen, I tell you. This has already been put into verse.
3 (4)
MADEMOISELLE GILLENORMAND AT LAST THINKS IT NOT IMPROPER THAT MONSIEUR FAUCHELEVENT SHOULD COME IN WITH SOMETHING UNDER HIS ARM
COSETTE and Marius saw each other again.
What the interview was, we will not attempt to tell. There are things which we should not undertake to paint; the sun is of the number.
The whole family, including Basque and Nicolette, were assembled in Marius’ room when Cosette entered.
She appeared on the threshold; it seemed as if she were in a cloud.
Just at that instant the grandfather was about to blow his nose; he stopped short, holding his nose in his handkerchief, and looking at Cosette above it:
“Adorable!” he exclaimed.
Then he blew his nose with a loud noise.
Cosette was intoxicated, enraptured, startled, in Heaven. She was as frightened as one can be by happiness. She stammered, quite pale, quite red, wishing to throw herself into Marius’ arms, and not daring to. Ashamed to show her love before all those people. We are pitiless towards happy lovers; we stay there when they have the strongest desire to be alone. They, however, have no need at all of society.
With Cosette and behind her had entered a man with white hair, grave, smiling nevertheless, but with a vague and poignant smile. This was “Monsieur Fauchelevent;” this was Jean Valjean.
He was very well dressed, as the porter had said, in a new black suit, with a white cravat.
The porter was a thousand miles from recognising in this correct bourgeois, in this probable notary, the frightful corpse-bearer who had landed at his door on the night of the 7th of June, ragged, muddy, hideous, haggard, his face masked by blood and dirt, supporting the fainting Marius in his arms; still his porter’s scent was awakened. When M. Fauchelevent had arrived with Cosette, the porter could not help confiding this remark to his wife: “I don’t know why I always imagine that I have seen that face somewhere.”
Monsieur Fauchelevent, in Marius’ room, stayed near the door, as if apart. He had under his arm a package simi
lar in appearance to an octavo volume, wrapped in paper. The paper of the envelope was greenish, and seemed mouldy.
“Does this gentleman always have books under his arm like that?” asked Mademoiselle Gillenormand, who did not like books, in a low voice of Nicolette.
“Well,” answered M. Gillenormand, who had heard her, in the same tone, “he is a scholar. What then? is it his fault? Monsieur Boulard, whom I knew, never went out without a book, he neither, and always had an old volume against his heart, like that.”
And bowing, he said, in a loud voice:
“Monsieur Tranchelevent—”
Father Gillenormand did not do this on purpose, but inattention to proper names was an aristocratic way he had.
“Monsieur Tranchelevent, I have the honour of asking of you for my grandson, Monsieur the Baron Marius Pontmercy, the hand of mademoiselle.”
Monsieur Tranchelevent bowed.
“It is done,” said the grandfather.
And, turning towards Marius and Cosette, with arms extended in blessing, he cried:
“Permission to adore each other.”
They did not make him say it twice. It was all the same! The cooing began. They talked low, Marius leaning on his long chair, Cosette standing near him. “Oh, my God!” murmured Cosette, “I see you again! It is you! it is you! To have gone to fight like that! But why? It is horrible. For four months I have been dead. Oh, how naughty it is to have been in that battle! What had I done to you? I pardon you, but you won’t do it again. Just now, when they came to tell us to come, I thought again I should die, but it was of joy. I was so sad! I did not take time to dress myself; I must look like a fright. What will your relatives say of me, to see me with a collar all wrinkled? But speak now! You let me do all the talking. We are still in the Rue de l‘Homme Armé. Your shoulder, that was terrible. They told me they could put their fist into it. And then they have cut your flesh with scissors. That is frightful. I have cried; I have no eyes left. It is strange that anybody can suffer like that. Your grandfather has a very kind appearance. Don’t disturb yourself; don’t rest on your elbow; take care, you will hurt yourself. Oh, how happy I am! So our trouble is all over! I am very silly. I wanted to say something to you that I have forgotten completely. Do you love me still? We live in the Rue de l’Homme Armé. There is no garden. I have been making lint all the time. Here, monsieur, look, it is your fault, my fingers are callous.”
“Angel!” said Marius.
Angel is the only word in the language which cannot be worn out. No other word would resist the pitiless use which lovers make of it.
Then, as there were spectators, they stopped, and did not say another word, contenting themselves with touching each other’s hands very gently.
M. Gillenormand turned towards all those who were in the room and cried:
“Why don’t you talk loud, the rest of you? Make a noise, behind the scenes. Come, a little uproar, the devil! so that these children can chatter at their ease.”
And, approaching Marius and Cosette, he said to them very low:
“Say tu. Don’t let us bother you.”
Aunt Gillenormand witnessed with amazement this irruption of light into her aged interior. This amazement was not at all aggressive; it was not the least in the world the scandalised and envious look of an owl upon two ringdoves; it was the dull eye of a poor innocent girl of fifty-seven; it was incomplete life beholding that triumph, love.
“Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder,” said her father to her, “I told you plainly that this would happen.”
He remained silent a moment and added:
“Behold the happiness of others.”
Then he turned towards Cosette:
“How pretty she is! how pretty she is! She is a Greuze.gx You are going to have her all alone to yourself then, rascal! Ah! my rogue, you have a narrow escape from me, you are lucky, if I were not fifteen years too old, we would cross swords for who should have her.
“She is exquisite, this darling. She is a masterpiece, this Cosette. She is a very little girl and a very great lady. She will be only a baroness, that is stooping,she was born a marchioness. Hasn’t she lashes for you? My children, fix it well in your noddles that you are in the right of it. Love one another. Be foolish about it. Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God. Adore each other. Only,” added he, suddenly darkening, ”what a misfortune! This is what I am thinking of! More than half of what I have is in annuity; as long as I live, it’s all well enough, but after my death, twenty years from now, ah! my poor children, you will not have a sou. Your beautiful white hands, Madame the Baroness, will do the devil the honour to pull him by the tail.“gy
“Mademoiselle Euphrasie Fauchelevent has six hundred thousand francs.”
It was Jean Valjean’s voice.
He had not yet uttered a word, nobody seemed even to remember that he was there, and he stood erect and motionless behind all these happy people.
“How is Mademoiselle Euphrasie in question?” asked the grandfather, startled.
“That is me,” answered Cosette.
“Six hundred thousand francs!” resumed M. Gillenormand.
“Less fourteen or fifteen thousand francs, perhaps,” said Jean Valjean.
And he laid on the table the package which Aunt Gillenormand had taken for a book.
Jean Valjean opened the package himself; it was a bundle of banknotes. They ran through them, and they counted them. There were five hundred bills of a thousand francs, and a hundred and sixty-eight of five hundred. In all, five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs.
“That is a good book,” said M. Gillenormand.
“Five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs!” murmured the aunt.
“This arranges things very well, does it not, Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder?” resumed the grandfather. “This devil of a Marius, he has found you a grisette millionaire on the tree of dreams! Then trust in the love-making of young folks nowadays! Students find studentesses with six hundred thousand francs. Chérubin works better than Rothschild.”
“Five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs!” repeated Mademoiselle Gillenormand in an undertone. “Five hundred and eighty-four! you might call it six hundred thousand, indeed!”
As for Marius and Cosette, they were looking at each other during this time; they paid little attention to this incident.
4 (5)
DEPOSIT YOUR MONEY RATHER IN SOME FOREST THAN WITH SOME LAWYERgz
THE READER has doubtless understood, without it being necessary to explain at length, that Jean Valjean, after the Champmathieu affair, had been able, thanks to his first escape for a few days to come to Paris, and to withdraw the sum made by him, under the name of Monsieur Madeleine, at M—sur M——, from Laffitte’s in time; and that, in the fear of being recaptured, which happened to him, in fact, a short time after, he had concealed and buried that sum in the forest of Montfermeil, in the place called the Blaru grounds. The sum, six hundred and thirty thousand francs, all in bank-notes, was of small bulk, and was contained in a box; but to preserve the box from moisture he had placed it in an oaken chest, full of chestnut shavings. In the same chest, he had put his other treasure, the bishop’s candlesticks. It will be remembered that he carried away these candlesticks when he escaped from M——sur M—. The man perceived one evening, for the first time, by Boulatruelle, was Jean Valjean.—Afterwards, whenever Jean Valjean was in need of money, he went to the Blaru glade for it. Hence the absences of which we have spoken. He had a pickaxe somewhere in the bushes, in a hiding-place known only to himself. When he saw Marius convalescent, feeling that the hour was approaching when this money might be useful, he had gone after it; and it was he again whom Boulatruelle saw in the wood, but this time in the morning, and not at night. Boulatruelle inherited the pickaxe.
The real sum was five hundred and eighty-four thousand five hundred francs. Jean Valjean took out five hundred francs for himself. “We will see afterwards,” thought he.
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The difference between this sum and the six hundred and thirty thousand francs withdrawn from Laffitte’s represented the expenses of ten years, from 1823 to 1833. The five years spent in the convent had cost only five thousand francs.
Jean Valjean put the two silver candlesticks upon the mantel, where they shone, to Toussaint’s great admiration.
Moreover, Jean Valjean knew that he was delivered from Javert. It had been mentioned in his presence, and he had verified the fact in the Moniteur, which published it, that an inspector of police, named Javert, had been found drowned under a washerwoman’s boat between the Pont au Change and Pont Neuf, and that a paper left by this man, otherwise irreproachable and highly esteemed by his chiefs, led to a belief that he had committed suicide during a fit of mental aberration. “In fact,” thought Jean Valjean, “since having me in his power, he let me go, he must already have been crazy.”
5 (6)
THE TWO OLD MEN DO EVERYTHING, EACH IN HIS OWN WAY, THAT COSETTE MAY BE HAPPY
ALL the preparations were made for the marriage. The physician being consulted said that it might take place in February. This was in December. Some ravishing weeks of perfect happiness rolled away.
The least happy, was not the grandfather. He would remain for a quarter of an hour at a time gazing at Cosette.
“The wonderful pretty girl!” he exclaimed. “And her manners are so sweet and so good. It is of no use to say my love my heart, she is the most charming girl that I have ever seen in my life. Besides, she will have virtues for you sweet as violets. She is a grace, indeed! You can but live nobly with such a creature. Marius, my boy, you are a baron, you are rich, don’t pettifog, I beg of you.”
Cosette and Marius had passed abruptly from the grave to paradise. There had been but little caution in the transition, and they would have been stunned if they had not been dazzled.
