by Victor Hugo
“That’s not all there is to talk about,” interrupted Cosette. “I am coming. Do you want me here?”
And, passing resolutely through the door, she came into the parlour. She was dressed in a full white morning gown, with a thousand folds and with wide sleeves which, starting from the neck, fell to her feet. There are in the golden skies of old Gothic pictures such charming robes for angels to wear.
She viewed herself from head to foot in a large glass, then exclaimed with an explosion of ineffable ecstasy:
“Once there was a king and a queen. Oh! how happy I am!”
So saying, she made a reverence to Marius and to Jean Valjean.
“There,” said she, “I am going to install myself by you in an arm-chair; we breakfast in half an hour, you shall say all you wish to; I know very well that men must talk, I shall be very good.”
Marius took her arm, and said to her lovingly:
“We are talking business.”
“By the way,” answered Cosette, “I have opened my window, a flock of pierrots [sparrows or masks] have just arrived in the garden. Birds, not masks. It is Ash Wednesday to-day; but not for the birds.”
“I tell you that we are talking business; go, my darling Cosette, leave us a moment. We are talking figures. It will tire you.”
“You have put on a charming cravat this morning, Marius. You are very coquettish, monsieur. It will not tire me.”
“I assure you that it will tire you.”
“No. Because it is you. I shall not understand you, but I will listen to you. When we hear voices that we love, we need not understand the words they say.To be here together is all that I want. I shall stay with you; pshaw!”
“You are my darling Cosette! Impossible.”
“Impossible!”
“Yes.”
“Very well,” replied Cosette. “I would have told you the news. I would have told you that grandfather is still asleep, that your aunt is at mass, that the chimney in my father Fauchelevent’s room smokes, that Nicolette has sent for the sweep, that Toussaint and Nicolette have had a quarrel already, that Nicolette makes fun of Toussaint’s stuttering. Well, you shall know nothing. Ah! it is impossible! I too, in my turn, you shall see, monsieur, I will say: it is impossible. Then who will be caught? I pray you, my darling Marius, let me stay here with you two.”
“I swear to you that we must be alone.”
“Well, am I anybody?”
Jean Valjean did not utter a word. Cosette turned towards him. “In the first place, father, I want you to come and kiss me. What are you doing there, saying nothing, instead of taking my part? who gave me such a father as that? You see plainly that I am very unfortunate in my domestic affairs. My husband beats me. Come, kiss me this instant.”
Jean Valjean approached.
Cosette turned towards Marius. “You, sir, I make faces at you.”
Then she offered her forehead to Jean Valjean.
Jean Valjean took a step towards her.
Cosette drew back.
“Father, you are pale. Does your arm hurt you?”
“It is well,” said Jean Valjean.
“Have you slept badly?”
“No.”
“Are you sad?”
“No.”
“Kiss me. If you are well, if you sleep well, if you are happy, I will not scold you.”
And again she offered him her forehead.
Jean Valjean kissed that forehead, upon which there was a celestial reflection.
“Smile.”
Jean Valjean obeyed. It was the smile of a spectre.
“Now defend me against my husband.”
“Cosette!—” said Marius.
“Get angry, father. Tell him that I must stay. You can surely talk before me. So you think me very silly. It is very astonishing then what you are saying! business, putting money in a bank, that is a great affair. Men play the mysterious for nothing. I want to stay. I am very pretty this morning. Look at me, Marius.”
And with an adorable shrug of the shoulders and an inexpressibly exquisite pout, she looked at Marius. It was like a flash between these two beings. That somebody was there mattered little.
“I love you!” said Marius.
“I adore you!” said Cosette.
And they fell irresistibly into each other’s arms.
“Now,” resumed Cosette, readjusting a fold of her gown with a little triumphant pout, “I shall stay.”
“What, no,” answered Marius, in a tone of entreaty, “we have something to finish.”
“No, still?”
Marius assumed a grave tone of voice:
“I assure you, Cosette, that it is impossible.”
“Ah! you put on your man’s voice, monsieur. Very well, I’ll go. You, father, you have not supported me. Monsieur my husband, monsieur my papa, you are tyrants. I am going to tell grandfather on you. If you think that I shall come back and talk nonsense to you, you are mistaken. I am proud. I wait for you now, you will see that it is you who will get bored without me. I am going away, very well.”
And she went out.
Two seconds later, the door opened again, her fresh rosy face passed once more between the two folding doors, and she cried to them:
“I am very angry.”
The door closed again and the darkness returned.
It was like a stray sunbeam which, without suspecting it, should have suddenly traversed the night.
Marius made sure that the door was well closed.
“Poor Cosette!” murmured he, “when she knows——”
At these words, Jean Valjean trembled in every limb. He fixed upon Marius a bewildered eye.
“Cosette! Oh, yes, it is true, you will tell this to Cosette. That is right. Stop, I had not thought of that. People have the strength for some things, but not for others. Monsieur, I beseech you, I entreat you, Monsieur, give me your most sacred word, do not tell her. Is it not enough that you know it yourself? I could have told it by myself without being forced to it, I would have told it to the universe, to all the world, that would be nothing to me. But she, she doesn’t know what it is, it would appall her. A convict, why! you would have to explain it to her, to tell her: It is a man who has been in the galleys. She saw the chain pass by one day. Oh, my God!”
He sank into an arm-chair and hid his face in both hands. He could not be heard, but by the shaking of his shoulders it could be seen that he was weeping. Silent tears, terrible tears.
There is a stifling in the sob. A sort of convulsion seized him, he bent over upon the back of the arm-chair as if to breathe, letting his arms hang down and allowing Marius to see his face bathed in tears, and Marius heard him murmur so low that his voice seemed to come from a bottomless depth: “Oh! would that I could die!”
“Don’t worry,” said Marius, “I will keep your secret for myself alone.”
And, less softened perhaps than he should have been, but obliged for an hour past to familiarise himself with a fearful surprise, seeing by degrees a convict superimposed before his eyes upon M. Fauchelevent, possessed little by little of this dismal reality, and led by the natural tendency of the position to determine the distance which had just been put between this man and himself, Marius added:
“It is impossible that I should not say a word to you of the trust which you have so faithfully and so honestly restored. That is an act of probity. It is just that a recompense should be given you. Fix the sum yourself, it shall be counted out to you. Do not be afraid to fix it very high.”
“I thank you, monsieur,” answered Jean Valjean gently.
He remained thoughtful a moment, passing the end of his forefinger over his thumb-nail mechanically, then he raised his voice:
“It is all nearly finished. There is one thing left——”
“What?”
Jean Valjean had as it were a supreme hesitation, and, voiceless, almost breathless, he faltered out rather than said:
“Now that you know, do you think, monsi
eur, you who are the master, that I ought not to see Cosette again?”
“I think that would be best,” answered Marius coldly.
“I shall not see her again,” murmured Jean Valjean.
And he walked towards the door.
He placed his hand upon the knob, the latch yielded, the door started, Jean Valjean opened it wide enough to enable him to pass out, stopped a second motionless, then shut the door, and turned towards Marius.
He was no longer pale, he was livid. There were no longer tears in his eyes, but a sort of tragical flame. His voice had again become strangely calm.
“But, monsieur,” said he, “if you are willing, I will come and see her. I assure you that I desire it very much. If I had not clung to seeing Cosette, I should not have made the avowal which I have made, I should have gone away; but wishing to stay in the place where Cosette is and to continue to see her, I was compelled in honour to tell you all. You follow my reasoning, do you not? that is a thing which explains itself. You see, for nine years past, I have had her near me. We lived first in that ruin on the boulevard, then in the convent, then near the Luxembourg Gardens. It was there that you saw her for the first time. You remember her blue plush hat. We were afterwards in the neighborhood of the Invalides where there was a grating and a garden. Rue Plumet. I lived in a little back-yard where I heard her piano. That was my life. We never left each other. That lasted nine years and some months. I was like her father, and she was my child. I don’t know whether you understand me, Monsieur Pontmercy, but from the present time, to see her no more, to speak to her no more, to have nothing more, that would be hard. If you do not think it wrong, I will come from time to time to see Cosette. I should not come often. I would not stay long. You might say I should be received in the little low room. On the ground floor. I would willingly come in by the back door, which is for the servants, but that would excite wonder, perhaps. It is better, I suppose, that I should enter by the usual door. Monsieur, indeed, I would really like to see Cosette a little still. As rarely as you please. Put yourself in my place, it is all that I have. And then, we must take care. If I should not come at all, it would have a bad effect, it would be thought singular. For instance, what I can do, is to come in the evening, at nightfall.”
“You will come every evening,” said Marius, “and Cosette will expect you.”
“You are kind, monsieur,” said Jean Valjean.
Marius bowed to Jean Valjean, happiness conducted despair to the door, and these two men separated.
2
THE OBSCURITIES WHICH A REVELATION MAY CONTAIN
MARIUS was completely unhinged.
The kind of repulsion which he had always felt for the man with whom he saw Cosette was now explained. There was something strangely enigmatic in this person, of which his instinct had warned him. This enigma was the most hideous of disgraces, the galleys. This M. Fauchelevent was the convict Jean Valjean.
To suddenly find such a secret in the midst of one’s happiness is like the discovery of a scorpion in a nest of turtle-doves.
Was the happiness of Marius and Cosette condemned henceforth to this fellowship? Was that a foregone conclusion? Did the acceptance of this man form a part of the marriage which had been consummated? Was there nothing more to be done?
Had Marius espoused the convict also?
As always happens in changes of view of this kind, Marius questioned himself whether he had not some fault to find with himself? Had he been wanting in perception? Had he been wanting in prudence? Had he been involuntarily stupefied? A little, perhaps. Had he entered, without enough precaution in clearing up its surroundings, upon this love adventure which had ended in his marriage with Cosette? He determined—it is thus, by a succession of determinations by ourselves in regard to ourselves, that life improves us little by little—he determined the chimerical and visionary side of his nature, a sort of interior cloud peculiar to many organisations, and which, in paroxysms of passion and grief, dilates, the temperature of the soul changing, and pervades the entire man, to such an extent as to make him nothing more than a consciousness steeped in a fog. We have more than once indicated this characteristic element of Marius’ individu ality. He recollected that, in the infatuation of his love, in the Rue Plumet, during those six or seven ecstatic weeks, he had not even spoken to Cosette of that drama of the Gorbeau den in which the victim had taken the very strange course of silence during the struggle, and of escape after it. How had he managed not to speak of it to Cosette? Yet it was so near and so frightful. How had he managed not even to name the Thenardiers to her, and, particularly, the day that he met Eponine? He had great difficulty now in explaining to himself his former silence. He did account for it, however. He recalled his stupor, his intoxication for Cosette, love absorbing everything, that uplifting of one by the other into the ideal, and perhaps also, as the imperceptible quantity of reason mingled with this violent and charming state of the soul, a vague and dull instinct to hide and to abolish in his memory that terrible affair with which he dreaded contact, in which he wished to play no part, which he shunned, and in regard to which he could be neither narrator nor witness without being accuser. Besides, those few weeks had been but a flash; they had had time for nothing, except to love. Finally, everything being weighed, turned over, and examined, if he had told the story of the Gorbeau ambush to Cosette, if he had named the Thénardiers to her, what would have been the consequences, if he had even discovered Jean Valjean was a convict, would that have changed him, Marius? Would that have changed her, Cosette? Would he have shrunk back? Would he have adored her less? Would he the less have married her? No. Would it have changed anything in what had taken place? No. Nothing then to regret, nothing to reproach himself with. All was well. There is a God for these drunkards who are called lovers. Blind, Marius had followed the route which he would have chosen had he seen clearly. Love had bandaged his eyes, to lead him where? To Paradise.
But this paradise was henceforth complicated with an infernal accompaniment.
The former repulsion of Marius towards this man, towards this Fauchelevent become Jean Valjean, was now mingled with horror.
In this horror, we must say, there was some pity, and also a certain astonishment.
This robber, this twice-convicted robber, had restored a trust. And what a trust? Six hundred thousand francs. He was alone in the secret of the trust. He might have kept all, he had given up all.
Moreover, he had revealed his condition of his own accord. Nothing obliged him to do so. If it were known who he was, it was through himself. There was more in that avowal than the acceptance of humiliation, there was the acceptance of peril. To a condemned man a mask is not a mask, but a shelter. He had renounced that shelter. A false name is security; he had thrown away this false name. He could, he, a galley-slave, have hidden himself for ever in an honourable family; he had resisted this temptation. And from what motive? from conscientious scruples. He had explained it himself with the irresistible accent of reality. In short, whatever this Jean Valjean might be, he had incontestably an awakened conscience. There was in him some mysterious regeneration begun; and, according to all appearance, for a long time already the scruple had been master of the man. Such paroxysms of justice and goodness do not belong to vulgar natures. An awakening of conscience is greatness of soul.
Jean Valjean was sincere. This sincerity, visible, palpable, unquestionable, evident even by the grief which it caused him, rendered investigation useless and gave authority to all that this man said. Here, for Marius, a strange inversion of situations. What came from M. Fauchelevent? distrust. What flowed from Jean Valjean? confidence.
The trust honestly surrendered, the probity of the avowal, that was good. It was like a break in the cloud, but the cloud again became black.
Confused as Marius’ recollections were, some shadow of them returned to him.
What was the exact nature of that affair in the Jondrette garret? Why, on the arrival of the police, did this man, in
stead of making his complaint, make his escape? Here Marius found the answer. Because this man was a fugitive from justice in breach of ban.
Another question: Why had this man come into the barricade? For now Marius saw that reminiscence again distinctly, reappearing in these emotions like sympathetic ink before the fire. This man was in the barricade. He did not fight there. What did he come there for? Before this question a spectre arose, and made response. Javert. Marius recalled perfectly to mind at this hour the fatal sight of Jean Valjean dragging Javert bound outside the barricade, and he again heard the frightful pistol-shot behind the corner of the little Rue Mondétour.hc There was, probably, hatred between the spy and this galley-slave. The one cramped the other. Jean Valjean had gone to the barricade to avenge himself. He had arrived late. He knew probably that Javert was a prisoner there. The Corsican vendetta has penetrated into certain lower depths and is their law; it is so natural that it does not astonish souls half turned back towards the good; and these hearts are so constituted that a criminal, in the path of repentance, may be scrupulous in regard to robbery and not be so in regard to vengeance. Jean Valjean had killed Javert. At least, that seemed evident.
Finally, a last question: but to this no answer. This question Marius felt like a sting. How did it happen that Jean Valjean’s existence had touched Cosette’s so long? What was this gloomy game of providence which had placed this child in contact with this man? Are coupling chains then forged on high also, and does it please God to pair the angel with the demon? Can then a crime and an innocence be room-mates in the mysterious galleys of misery? Who had been able to bind the lamb to the wolf, and, a thing still more incomprehensible, attach the wolf to the lamb? For the wolf loved the lamb, for the savage being adored the frail being, for, during nine years, the angel had had the monster for a support. Cosette’s childhood and youth, her coming to the day, her maidenly growth towards life and light, had been protected by this monstrous devotion. Here, the questions exfoliated, so to speak, into innumerable enigmas, abyss opened at the bottom of abyss, and Marius could no longer contemplate Jean Valjean without dizziness. What then was this man-precipice?hd
