Kabanata Kabanata 353 · THE SEVENTH CIRCLE AND THE EIGHTH HEAVEN

The days that follow weddings are solitary. People respect the

meditations of the happy pair. And also, their tardy slumbers, to some

degree. The tumult of visits and congratulations only begins later on.

On the morning of the 17th of February, it was a little past midday

when Basque, with napkin and feather-duster under his arm, busy in

setting his antechamber to rights, heard a light tap at the door. There

had been no ring, which was discreet on such a day. Basque opened the

door, and beheld M. Fauchelevent. He introduced him into the

drawing-room, still encumbered and topsy-turvy, and which bore the air

of a field of battle after the joys of the preceding evening.

“_Dame_, sir,” remarked Basque, “we all woke up late.”

“Is your master up?” asked Jean Valjean.

“How is Monsieur’s arm?” replied Basque.

“Better. Is your master up?”

“Which one? the old one or the new one?”

“Monsieur Pontmercy.”

“Monsieur le Baron,” said Basque, drawing himself up.

A man is a Baron most of all to his servants. He counts for something

with them; they are what a philosopher would call, bespattered with the

title, and that flatters them. Marius, be it said in passing, a

militant republican as he had proved, was now a Baron in spite of

himself. A small revolution had taken place in the family in connection

with this title. It was now M. Gillenormand who clung to it, and Marius

who detached himself from it. But Colonel Pontmercy had written: “My

son will bear my title.” Marius obeyed. And then, Cosette, in whom the

woman was beginning to dawn, was delighted to be a Baroness.

“Monsieur le Baron?” repeated Basque. “I will go and see. I will tell

him that M. Fauchelevent is here.”

“No. Do not tell him that it is I. Tell him that some one wishes to

speak to him in private, and mention no name.”

“Ah!” ejaculated Basque.

“I wish to surprise him.”

“Ah!” ejaculated Basque once more, emitting his second “ah!” as an

explanation of the first.

And he left the room.

Jean Valjean remained alone.

The drawing-room, as we have just said, was in great disorder. It

seemed as though, by lending an ear, one might still hear the vague

noise of the wedding. On the polished floor lay all sorts of flowers

which had fallen from garlands and head-dresses. The wax candles,

burned to stumps, added stalactites of wax to the crystal drops of the

chandeliers. Not a single piece of furniture was in its place. In the

corners, three or four armchairs, drawn close together in a circle, had

the appearance of continuing a conversation. The whole effect was

cheerful. A certain grace still lingers round a dead feast. It has been

a happy thing. On the chairs in disarray, among those fading flowers,

beneath those extinct lights, people have thought of joy. The sun had

succeeded to the chandelier, and made its way gayly into the

drawing-room.

Several minutes elapsed. Jean Valjean stood motionless on the spot

where Basque had left him. He was very pale. His eyes were hollow, and

so sunken in his head by sleeplessness that they nearly disappeared in

their orbits. His black coat bore the weary folds of a garment that has

been up all night. The elbows were whitened with the down which the

friction of cloth against linen leaves behind it.

Jean Valjean stared at the window outlined on the polished floor at his

feet by the sun.

There came a sound at the door, and he raised his eyes.

Marius entered, his head well up, his mouth smiling, an indescribable

light on his countenance, his brow expanded, his eyes triumphant. He

had not slept either.

“It is you, father!” he exclaimed, on catching sight of Jean Valjean;

“that idiot of a Basque had such a mysterious air! But you have come

too early. It is only half past twelve. Cosette is asleep.”

That word: “Father,” said to M. Fauchelevent by Marius, signified:

supreme felicity. There had always existed, as the reader knows, a

lofty wall, a coldness and a constraint between them; ice which must be

broken or melted. Marius had reached that point of intoxication when

the wall was lowered, when the ice dissolved, and when M. Fauchelevent

was to him, as to Cosette, a father.

He continued: his words poured forth, as is the peculiarity of divine

paroxysms of joy.

“How glad I am to see you! If you only knew how we missed you

yesterday! Good morning, father. How is your hand? Better, is it not?”

And, satisfied with the favorable reply which he had made to himself,

he pursued:

“We have both been talking about you. Cosette loves you so dearly! You

must not forget that you have a chamber here, We want nothing more to

do with the Rue de l’Homme Armé. We will have no more of it at all. How

could you go to live in a street like that, which is sickly, which is

disagreeable, which is ugly, which has a barrier at one end, where one

is cold, and into which one cannot enter? You are to come and install

yourself here. And this very day. Or you will have to deal with

Cosette. She means to lead us all by the nose, I warn you. You have

your own chamber here, it is close to ours, it opens on the garden; the

trouble with the clock has been attended to, the bed is made, it is all

ready, you have only to take possession of it. Near your bed Cosette

has placed a huge, old, easy-chair covered with Utrecht velvet and she

has said to it: ‘Stretch out your arms to him.’ A nightingale comes to

the clump of acacias opposite your windows, every spring. In two months

more you will have it. You will have its nest on your left and ours on

your right. By night it will sing, and by day Cosette will prattle.

Your chamber faces due South. Cosette will arrange your books for you,

your Voyages of Captain Cook and the other,—Vancouver’s and all your

affairs. I believe that there is a little valise to which you are

attached, I have fixed upon a corner of honor for that. You have

conquered my grandfather, you suit him. We will live together. Do you

play whist? you will overwhelm my grandfather with delight if you play

whist. It is you who shall take Cosette to walk on the days when I am

at the courts, you shall give her your arm, you know, as you used to,

in the Luxembourg. We are absolutely resolved to be happy. And you

shall be included in it, in our happiness, do you hear, father? Come,

will you breakfast with us to-day?”

“Sir,” said Jean Valjean, “I have something to say to you. I am an

ex-convict.”

The limit of shrill sounds perceptible can be overleaped, as well in

the case of the mind as in that of the ear. These words: “I am an

ex-convict,” proceeding from the mouth of M. Fauchelevent and entering

the ear of Marius overshot the possible. It seemed to him that

something had just been said to him; but he did not know what. He stood

with his mouth wide open.

Then he perceived that the man who was addressing him was frightful.

Wholly absorbed in his own dazzled state, he had not, up to that

moment, observed the other man’s terrible pallor.

Jean Valjean untied the black cravat which supported his right arm,

unrolled the linen from around his hand, bared his thumb and showed it

to Marius.

“There is nothing the matter with my hand,” said he.

Marius looked at the thumb.

“There has not been anything the matter with it,” went on Jean Valjean.

There was, in fact, no trace of any injury.

Jean Valjean continued:

“It was fitting that I should be absent from your marriage. I absented

myself as much as was in my power. So I invented this injury in order

that I might not commit a forgery, that I might not introduce a flaw

into the marriage documents, in order that I might escape from

signing.”

Marius stammered.

“What is the meaning of this?”

“The meaning of it is,” replied Jean Valjean, “that I have been in the

galleys.”

“You are driving me mad!” exclaimed Marius in terror.

“Monsieur Pontmercy,” said Jean Valjean, “I was nineteen years in the

galleys. For theft. Then, I was condemned for life for theft, for a

second offence. At the present moment, I have broken my ban.”

In vain did Marius recoil before the reality, refuse the fact, resist

the evidence, he was forced to give way. He began to understand, and,

as always happens in such cases, he understood too much. An inward

shudder of hideous enlightenment flashed through him; an idea which

made him quiver traversed his mind. He caught a glimpse of a wretched

destiny for himself in the future.

“Say all, say all!” he cried. “You are Cosette’s father!”

And he retreated a couple of paces with a movement of indescribable

horror.

Jean Valjean elevated his head with so much majesty of attitude that he

seemed to grow even to the ceiling.

“It is necessary that you should believe me here, sir; although our

oath to others may not be received in law . . .”

Here he paused, then, with a sort of sovereign and sepulchral

authority, he added, articulating slowly, and emphasizing the

syllables:

“. . . You will believe me. I the father of Cosette! before God, no.

Monsieur le Baron Pontmercy, I am a peasant of Faverolles. I earned my

living by pruning trees. My name is not Fauchelevent, but Jean Valjean.

I am not related to Cosette. Reassure yourself.”

Marius stammered:

“Who will prove that to me?”

“I. Since I tell you so.”

Marius looked at the man. He was melancholy yet tranquil. No lie could

proceed from such a calm. That which is icy is sincere. The truth could

be felt in that chill of the tomb.

“I believe you,” said Marius.

Jean Valjean bent his head, as though taking note of this, and

continued:

“What am I to Cosette? A passer-by. Ten years ago, I did not know that

she was in existence. I love her, it is true. One loves a child whom

one has seen when very young, being old oneself. When one is old, one

feels oneself a grandfather towards all little children. You may, it

seems to me, suppose that I have something which resembles a heart. She

was an orphan. Without either father or mother. She needed me. That is

why I began to love her. Children are so weak that the first comer,

even a man like me, can become their protector. I have fulfilled this

duty towards Cosette. I do not think that so slight a thing can be

called a good action; but if it be a good action, well, say that I have

done it. Register this attenuating circumstance. To-day, Cosette passes

out of my life; our two roads part. Henceforth, I can do nothing for

her. She is Madame Pontmercy. Her providence has changed. And Cosette

gains by the change. All is well. As for the six hundred thousand

francs, you do not mention them to me, but I forestall your thought,

they are a deposit. How did that deposit come into my hands? What does

that matter? I restore the deposit. Nothing more can be demanded of me.

I complete the restitution by announcing my true name. That concerns

me. I have a reason for desiring that you should know who I am.”

And Jean Valjean looked Marius full in the face.

All that Marius experienced was tumultuous and incoherent. Certain

gusts of destiny produce these billows in our souls.

We have all undergone moments of trouble in which everything within us

is dispersed; we say the first things that occur to us, which are not

always precisely those which should be said. There are sudden

revelations which one cannot bear, and which intoxicate like baleful

wine. Marius was stupefied by the novel situation which presented

itself to him, to the point of addressing that man almost like a person

who was angry with him for this avowal.

“But why,” he exclaimed, “do you tell me all this? Who forces you to do

so? You could have kept your secret to yourself. You are neither

denounced, nor tracked nor pursued. You have a reason for wantonly

making such a revelation. Conclude. There is something more. In what

connection do you make this confession? What is your motive?”

“My motive?” replied Jean Valjean in a voice so low and dull that one

would have said that he was talking to himself rather than to Marius.

“From what motive, in fact, has this convict just said ‘I am a

convict’? Well, yes! the motive is strange. It is out of honesty. Stay,

the unfortunate point is that I have a thread in my heart, which keeps

me fast. It is when one is old that that sort of thread is particularly

solid. All life falls in ruin around one; one resists. Had I been able

to tear out that thread, to break it, to undo the knot or to cut it, to

go far away, I should have been safe. I had only to go away; there are

diligences in the Rue Bouloy; you are happy; I am going. I have tried

to break that thread, I have jerked at it, it would not break, I tore

my heart with it. Then I said: ‘I cannot live anywhere else than here.’

I must stay. Well, yes, you are right, I am a fool, why not simply

remain here? You offer me a chamber in this house, Madame Pontmercy is

sincerely attached to me, she said to the armchair: ‘Stretch out your

arms to him,’ your grandfather demands nothing better than to have me,

I suit him, we shall live together, and take our meals in common, I

shall give Cosette my arm . . . Madame Pontmercy, excuse me, it is a

habit, we shall have but one roof, one table, one fire, the same

chimney-corner in winter, the same promenade in summer, that is joy,

that is happiness, that is everything. We shall live as one family. One

family!”

At that word, Jean Valjean became wild. He folded his arms, glared at

the floor beneath his feet as though he would have excavated an abyss

therein, and his voice suddenly rose in thundering tones:

“As one family! No. I belong to no family. I do not belong to yours. I

do not belong to any family of men. In houses where people are among

themselves, I am superfluous. There are families, but there is nothing

of the sort for me. I am an unlucky wretch; I am left outside. Did I

have a father and mother? I almost doubt it. On the day when I gave

that child in marriage, all came to an end. I have seen her happy, and

that she is with a man whom she loves, and that there exists here a

kind old man, a household of two angels, and all joys in that house,

and that it was well, I said to myself: ‘Enter thou not.’ I could have

lied, it is true, have deceived you all, and remained Monsieur

Fauchelevent. So long as it was for her, I could lie; but now it would

be for myself, and I must not. It was sufficient for me to hold my

peace, it is true, and all would go on. You ask me what has forced me

to speak? a very odd thing; my conscience. To hold my peace was very

easy, however. I passed the night in trying to persuade myself to it;

you questioned me, and what I have just said to you is so extraordinary

that you have the right to do it; well, yes, I have passed the night in

alleging reasons to myself, and I gave myself very good reasons, I have

done what I could. But there are two things in which I have not

succeeded; in breaking the thread that holds me fixed, riveted and

sealed here by the heart, or in silencing some one who speaks softly to

me when I am alone. That is why I have come hither to tell you

everything this morning. Everything or nearly everything. It is useless

to tell you that which concerns only myself; I keep that to myself. You

know the essential points. So I have taken my mystery and have brought

it to you. And I have disembowelled my secret before your eyes. It was

not a resolution that was easy to take. I struggled all night long. Ah!

you think that I did not tell myself that this was no Champmathieu

affair, that by concealing my name I was doing no one any injury, that

the name of Fauchelevent had been given to me by Fauchelevent himself,

out of gratitude for a service rendered to him, and that I might

assuredly keep it, and that I should be happy in that chamber which you

offer me, that I should not be in any one’s way, that I should be in my

own little corner, and that, while you would have Cosette, I should

have the idea that I was in the same house with her. Each one of us

would have had his share of happiness. If I continued to be Monsieur

Fauchelevent, that would arrange everything. Yes, with the exception of

my soul. There was joy everywhere upon my surface, but the bottom of my

soul remained black. It is not enough to be happy, one must be content.

Thus I should have remained Monsieur Fauchelevent, thus I should have

concealed my true visage, thus, in the presence of your expansion, I

should have had an enigma, thus, in the midst of your full noonday, I

should have had shadows, thus, without crying ‘’ware,’ I should have

simply introduced the galleys to your fireside, I should have taken my

seat at your table with the thought that if you knew who I was, you

would drive me from it, I should have allowed myself to be served by

domestics who, had they known, would have said: ‘How horrible!’ I

should have touched you with my elbow, which you have a right to

dislike, I should have filched your clasps of the hand! There would

have existed in your house a division of respect between venerable

white locks and tainted white locks; at your most intimate hours, when

all hearts thought themselves open to the very bottom to all the rest,

when we four were together, your grandfather, you two and myself, a

stranger would have been present! I should have been side by side with

you in your existence, having for my only care not to disarrange the

cover of my dreadful pit. Thus, I, a dead man, should have thrust

myself upon you who are living beings. I should have condemned her to

myself forever. You and Cosette and I would have had all three of our

heads in the green cap! Does it not make you shudder? I am only the

most crushed of men; I should have been the most monstrous of men. And

I should have committed that crime every day! And I should have had

that face of night upon my visage every day! every day! And I should

have communicated to you a share in my taint every day! every day! to

you, my dearly beloved, my children, to you, my innocent creatures! Is

it nothing to hold one’s peace? is it a simple matter to keep silence?

No, it is not simple. There is a silence which lies. And my lie, and my

fraud and my indignity, and my cowardice and my treason and my crime, I

should have drained drop by drop, I should have spit it out, then

swallowed it again, I should have finished at midnight and have begun

again at midday, and my ‘good morning’ would have lied, and my ‘good

night’ would have lied, and I should have slept on it, I should have

eaten it, with my bread, and I should have looked Cosette in the face,

and I should have responded to the smile of the angel by the smile of

the damned soul, and I should have been an abominable villain! Why

should I do it? in order to be happy. In order to be happy. Have I the

right to be happy? I stand outside of life, sir.”

Jean Valjean paused. Marius listened. Such chains of ideas and of

anguishes cannot be interrupted. Jean Valjean lowered his voice once

more, but it was no longer a dull voice—it was a sinister voice.

“You ask why I speak? I am neither denounced, nor pursued, nor tracked,

you say. Yes! I am denounced! yes! I am tracked! By whom? By myself. It

is I who bar the passage to myself, and I drag myself, and I push

myself, and I arrest myself, and I execute myself, and when one holds

oneself, one is firmly held.”

And, seizing a handful of his own coat by the nape of the neck and

extending it towards Marius:

“Do you see that fist?” he continued. “Don’t you think that it holds

that collar in such a wise as not to release it? Well! conscience is

another grasp! If one desires to be happy, sir, one must never

understand duty; for, as soon as one has comprehended it, it is

implacable. One would say that it punished you for comprehending it;

but no, it rewards you; for it places you in a hell, where you feel God

beside you. One has no sooner lacerated his own entrails than he is at

peace with himself.”

And, with a poignant accent, he added:

“Monsieur Pontmercy, this is not common sense, I am an honest man. It

is by degrading myself in your eyes that I elevate myself in my own.

This has happened to me once before, but it was less painful then; it

was a mere nothing. Yes, an honest man. I should not be so if, through

my fault, you had continued to esteem me; now that you despise me, I am

so. I have that fatality hanging over me that, not being able to ever

have anything but stolen consideration, that consideration humiliates

me, and crushes me inwardly, and, in order that I may respect myself,

it is necessary that I should be despised. Then I straighten up again.

I am a galley-slave who obeys his conscience. I know well that that is

most improbable. But what would you have me do about it? it is the

fact. I have entered into engagements with myself; I keep them. There

are encounters which bind us, there are chances which involve us in

duties. You see, Monsieur Pontmercy, various things have happened to me

in the course of my life.”

Again Jean Valjean paused, swallowing his saliva with an effort, as

though his words had a bitter after-taste, and then he went on:

“When one has such a horror hanging over one, one has not the right to

make others share it without their knowledge, one has not the right to

make them slip over one’s own precipice without their perceiving it,

one has not the right to let one’s red blouse drag upon them, one has

no right to slyly encumber with one’s misery the happiness of others.

It is hideous to approach those who are healthy, and to touch them in

the dark with one’s ulcer. In spite of the fact that Fauchelevent lent

me his name, I have no right to use it; he could give it to me, but I

could not take it. A name is an _I_. You see, sir, that I have thought

somewhat, I have read a little, although I am a peasant; and you see

that I express myself properly. I understand things. I have procured

myself an education. Well, yes, to abstract a name and to place oneself

under it is dishonest. Letters of the alphabet can be filched, like a

purse or a watch. To be a false signature in flesh and blood, to be a

living false key, to enter the house of honest people by picking their

lock, never more to look straightforward, to forever eye askance, to be

infamous within the _I_, no! no! no! no! no! It is better to suffer, to

bleed, to weep, to tear one’s skin from the flesh with one’s nails, to

pass nights writhing in anguish, to devour oneself body and soul. That

is why I have just told you all this. Wantonly, as you say.”

He drew a painful breath, and hurled this final word:

“In days gone by, I stole a loaf of bread in order to live; to-day, in

order to live, I will not steal a name.”

“To live!” interrupted Marius. “You do not need that name in order to

live?”

“Ah! I understand the matter,” said Jean Valjean, raising and lowering

his head several times in succession.

A silence ensued. Both held their peace, each plunged in a gulf of

thoughts. Marius was sitting near a table and resting the corner of his

mouth on one of his fingers, which was folded back. Jean Valjean was

pacing to and fro. He paused before a mirror, and remained motionless.

Then, as though replying to some inward course of reasoning, he said,

as he gazed at the mirror, which he did not see:

“While, at present, I am relieved.”

He took up his march again, and walked to the other end of the

drawing-room. At the moment when he turned round, he perceived that

Marius was watching his walk. Then he said, with an inexpressible

intonation:

“I drag my leg a little. Now you understand why!”

Then he turned fully round towards Marius:

“And now, sir, imagine this: I have said nothing, I have remained

Monsieur Fauchelevent, I have taken my place in your house, I am one of

you, I am in my chamber, I come to breakfast in the morning in

slippers, in the evening all three of us go to the play, I accompany

Madame Pontmercy to the Tuileries, and to the Place Royale, we are

together, you think me your equal; one fine day you are there, and I am

there, we are conversing, we are laughing; all at once, you hear a

voice shouting this name: ‘Jean Valjean!’ and behold, that terrible

hand, the police, darts from the darkness, and abruptly tears off my

mask!”

Again he paused; Marius had sprung to his feet with a shudder. Jean

Valjean resumed:

“What do you say to that?”

Marius’ silence answered for him.

Jean Valjean continued:

“You see that I am right in not holding my peace. Be happy, be in

heaven, be the angel of an angel, exist in the sun, be content

therewith, and do not trouble yourself about the means which a poor

damned wretch takes to open his breast and force his duty to come

forth; you have before you, sir, a wretched man.”

Marius slowly crossed the room, and, when he was quite close to Jean

Valjean, he offered the latter his hand.

But Marius was obliged to step up and take that hand which was not

offered, Jean Valjean let him have his own way, and it seemed to Marius

that he pressed a hand of marble.

“My grandfather has friends,” said Marius; “I will procure your

pardon.”

“It is useless,” replied Jean Valjean. “I am believed to be dead, and

that suffices. The dead are not subjected to surveillance. They are

supposed to rot in peace. Death is the same thing as pardon.”

And, disengaging the hand which Marius held, he added, with a sort of

inexorable dignity:

“Moreover, the friend to whom I have recourse is the doing of my duty;

and I need but one pardon, that of my conscience.”

At that moment, a door at the other end of the drawing-room opened

gently half way, and in the opening Cosette’s head appeared. They saw

only her sweet face, her hair was in charming disorder, her eyelids

were still swollen with sleep. She made the movement of a bird, which

thrusts its head out of its nest, glanced first at her husband, then at

Jean Valjean, and cried to them with a smile, so that they seemed to

behold a smile at the heart of a rose:

“I will wager that you are talking politics. How stupid that is,

instead of being with me!”

Jean Valjean shuddered.

“Cosette! . . .” stammered Marius.

And he paused. One would have said that they were two criminals.

Cosette, who was radiant, continued to gaze at both of them. There was

something in her eyes like gleams of paradise.

“I have caught you in the very act,” said Cosette. “Just now, I heard

my father Fauchelevent through the door saying: ‘Conscience . . . doing

my duty . . .’ That is politics, indeed it is. I will not have it.

People should not talk politics the very next day. It is not right.”

“You are mistaken. Cosette,” said Marius, “we are talking business. We

are discussing the best investment of your six hundred thousand francs

. . .”

“That is not it at all,” interrupted Cosette. “I am coming. Does

anybody want me here?”

And, passing resolutely through the door, she entered the drawing-room.

She was dressed in a voluminous white dressing-gown, with a thousand

folds and large sleeves which, starting from the neck, fell to her

feet. In the golden heavens of some ancient gothic pictures, there are

these charming sacks fit to clothe the angels.

She contemplated herself from head to foot in a long mirror, then

exclaimed, in an outburst of ineffable ecstasy:

“There was once a King and a Queen. Oh! how happy I am!”

That said, she made a curtsey to Marius and to Jean Valjean.

“There,” said she, “I am going to install myself near you in an

easy-chair, we breakfast in half an hour, you shall say anything you

like, I know well that men must talk, and I will be very good.”

Marius took her by the arm and said lovingly to her:

“We are talking business.”

“By the way,” said Cosette, “I have opened my window, a flock of

pierrots has arrived in the garden,—Birds, not maskers. To-day is

Ash-Wednesday; but not for the birds.”

“I tell you that we are talking business, go, my little Cosette, leave

us alone for a moment. We are talking figures. That will bore you.”

“You have a charming cravat on this morning, Marius. You are very

dandified, monseigneur. No, it will not bore me.”

“I assure you that it will bore you.”

“No. Since it is you. I shall not understand you, but I shall listen to

you. When one hears the voices of those whom one loves, one does not

need to understand the words that they utter. That we should be here

together—that is all that I desire. I shall remain with you, bah!”

“You are my beloved Cosette! Impossible.”

“Impossible!”

“Yes.”

“Very good,” said Cosette. “I was going to tell you some news. I could

have told you that your 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 chimney-sweep, that Toussaint and Nicolette

have already quarrelled, that Nicolette makes sport of Toussaint’s

stammer. Well, you shall know nothing. Ah! it is impossible? you shall

see, gentlemen, that I, in my turn, can say: It is impossible. Then who

will be caught? I beseech you, my little Marius, let me stay here with

you two.”

“I swear to you, that it is indispensable that we should be alone.”

“Well, am I anybody?”

Jean Valjean had not uttered a single word. Cosette turned to him:

“In the first place, father, I want you to come and embrace me. What do

you mean by not saying anything instead of taking my part? who gave me

such a father as that? You must perceive that my family life is very

unhappy. My husband beats me. Come, embrace me instantly.”

Jean Valjean approached.

Cosette turned toward Marius.

“As for you, I shall make a face at you.”

Then she presented her brow to Jean Valjean.

Jean Valjean advanced a step toward her.

Cosette recoiled.

“Father, you are pale. Does your arm hurt you?”

“It is well,” said Jean Valjean.

“Did you sleep badly?”

“No.”

“Are you sad?”

“No.”

“Embrace me if you are well, if you sleep well, if you are content, I

will not scold you.”

And again she offered him her brow.

Jean Valjean dropped a kiss upon that brow whereon rested a celestial

gleam.

“Smile.”

Jean Valjean obeyed. It was the smile of a spectre.

“Now, defend me against my husband.”

“Cosette! . . .” ejaculated Marius.

“Get angry, father. Say that I must stay. You can certainly talk before

me. So you think me very silly. What you say is astonishing! business,

placing money in a bank a great matter truly. Men make mysteries out of

nothing. I am very pretty this morning. Look at me, Marius.”

And with an adorable shrug of the shoulders, and an indescribably

exquisite pout, she glanced at Marius.

“I love you!” said Marius.

“I adore you!” said Cosette.

And they fell irresistibly into each other’s arms.

“Now,” said Cosette, adjusting a fold of her dressing-gown, with a

triumphant little grimace, “I shall stay.”

“No, not that,” said Marius, in a supplicating tone. “We have to finish

something.”

“Still no?”

Marius assumed a grave tone:

“I assure you, Cosette, that it is impossible.”

“Ah! you put on your man’s voice, sir. That is well, I go. You, father,

have not upheld me. Monsieur my father, monsieur my husband, you are

tyrants. I shall go and tell grandpapa. If you think that I am going to

return and talk platitudes to you, you are mistaken. I am proud. I

shall wait for you now. You shall see, that it is you who are going to

be bored without me. I am going, it is well.”

And she left the room.

Two seconds later, the door opened once more, her fresh and rosy head

was again thrust between the two leaves, and she cried to them:

“I am very angry indeed.”

The door closed again, and the shadows descended once more.

It was as though a ray of sunlight should have suddenly traversed the

night, without itself being conscious of it.

Marius made sure that the door was securely closed.

“Poor Cosette!” he murmured, “when she finds out . . .”

At that word Jean Valjean trembled in every limb. He fixed on Marius a

bewildered eye.

“Cosette! oh yes, it is true, you are going to tell Cosette about this.

That is right. Stay, I had not thought of that. One has the strength

for one thing, but not for another. Sir, I conjure you, I entreat now,

sir, give me your most sacred word of honor, that you will not tell

her. Is it not enough that you should know it? I have been able to say

it myself without being forced to it, I could have told it to the

universe, to the whole world,—it was all one to me. But she, she does

not know what it is, it would terrify her. What, a convict! we should

be obliged to explain matters to her, to say to her: ‘He is a man who

has been in the galleys.’ She saw the chain-gang pass by one day. Oh!

My God!” . . . He dropped into an armchair and hid his face in his

hands.

His grief was not audible, but from the quivering of his shoulders it

was evident that he was weeping. Silent tears, terrible tears.

There is something of suffocation in the sob. He was seized with a sort

of convulsion, he threw himself against the back of the chair as though

to gain breath, letting his arms fall, and allowing Marius to see his

face inundated with tears, and Marius heard him murmur, so low that his

voice seemed to issue from fathomless depths:

“Oh! would that I could die!”

“Be at your ease,” said Marius, “I will keep your secret for myself

alone.”

And, less touched, perhaps, than he ought to have been, but forced, for

the last hour, to familiarize himself with something as unexpected as

it was dreadful, gradually beholding the convict superposed before his

very eyes, upon M. Fauchelevent, overcome, little by little, by that

lugubrious reality, and led, by the natural inclination of the

situation, to recognize the space which had just been placed between

that man and himself, Marius added:

“It is impossible that I should not speak a word to you with regard to

the deposit which you have so faithfully and honestly remitted. That is

an act of probity. It is just that some recompense should be bestowed

on you. Fix the sum yourself, it shall be counted out to you. Do not

fear to set it very high.”

“I thank you, sir,” replied Jean Valjean, gently.

He remained in thought for a moment, mechanically passing the tip of

his fore-finger across his thumb-nail, then he lifted up his voice:

“All is nearly over. But one last thing remains for me . . .”

“What is it?”

Jean Valjean struggled with what seemed a last hesitation, and, without

voice, without breath, he stammered rather than said:

“Now that you know, do you think, sir, you, who are the master, that I

ought not to see Cosette any more?”

“I think that would be better,” replied Marius coldly.

“I shall never see her more,” murmured Jean Valjean. And he directed

his steps towards the door.

He laid his hand on the knob, the latch yielded, the door opened. Jean

Valjean pushed it open far enough to pass through, stood motionless for

a second, then closed the door again and turned to Marius.

He was no longer pale, he was livid. There were no longer any tears in

his eyes, but only a sort of tragic flame. His voice had regained a

strange composure.

“Stay, sir,” he said. “If you will allow it, I will come to see her. I

assure you that I desire it greatly. If I had not cared to see Cosette,

I should not have made to you the confession that I have made, I should

have gone away; but, as I desired to remain in the place where Cosette

is, and to continue to see her, I had to tell you about it honestly.

You follow my reasoning, do you not? it is a matter easily understood.

You see, I have had her with me for more than nine years. We lived

first in that hut on the boulevard, then in the convent, then near the

Luxembourg. That was where you saw her for the first time. You remember

her blue plush hat. Then we went to the Quartier des Invalides, where

there was a railing on a garden, the Rue Plumet. I lived in a little

back court-yard, whence I could hear her piano. That was my life. We

never left each other. That lasted for nine years and some months. I

was like her own father, and she was my child. I do not know whether

you understand, Monsieur Pontmercy, but to go away now, never to see

her again, never to speak to her again, to no longer have anything,

would be hard. If you do not disapprove of it, I will come to see

Cosette from time to time. I will not come often. I will not remain

long. You shall give orders that I am to be received in the little

waiting-room. On the ground floor. I could enter perfectly well by the

back door, but that might create surprise perhaps, and it would be

better, I think, for me to enter by the usual door. Truly, sir, I

should like to see a little more of Cosette. As rarely as you please.

Put yourself in my place, I have nothing left but that. And then, we

must be cautious. If I no longer come at all, it would produce a bad

effect, it would be considered singular. What I can do, by the way, is

to come in the afternoon, when night is beginning to fall.”

“You shall come every evening,” said Marius, “and Cosette will be

waiting for you.”

“You are kind, sir,” said Jean Valjean.

Marius saluted Jean Valjean, happiness escorted despair to the door,

and these two men parted.