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_ As Cosette read, she gradually fell into thought. At the very moment
when she raised her eyes from the last line of the note-book,
the handsome officer passed triumphantly in front of the gate,--
it was his hour; Cosette thought him hideous.
She resumed her contemplation of the book. It was written in the
most charming of chirography, thought Cosette; in the same hand,
but with divers inks, sometimes very black, again whitish,
as when ink has been added to the inkstand, and consequently on
different days. It was, then, a mind which had unfolded itself there,
sigh by sigh, irregularly, without order, without choice,
without object, hap-hazard. Cosette had never read anything like it.
This manuscript, in which she already perceived more light than
obscurity, produced upon her the effect of a half-open sanctuary.
Each one of these mysterious lines shone before her eyes and inundated
her heart with a strange radiance. The education which she had
received had always talked to her of the soul, and never of love,
very much as one might talk of the firebrand and not of the flame.
This manuscript of fifteen pages suddenly and sweetly revealed
to her all of love, sorrow, destiny, life, eternity, the beginning,
the end. It was as if a hand had opened and suddenly flung upon
her a handful of rays of light. In these few lines she felt
a passionate, ardent, generous, honest nature, a sacred will,
an immense sorrow, and an immense despair, a suffering heart,
an ecstasy fully expanded. What was this manuscript? A letter.
A letter without name, without address, without date, without signature,
pressing and disinterested, an enigma composed of truths, a message
of love made to be brought by an angel and read by a virgin,
an appointment made beyond the bounds of earth, the love-letter of
a phantom to a shade. It was an absent one, tranquil and dejected,
who seemed ready to take refuge in death and who sent to the absent love,
his lady, the secret of fate, the key of life, love. This had been
written with one foot in the grave and one finger in heaven.
These lines, which had fallen one by one on the paper, were what
might be called drops of soul.
Now, from whom could these pages come? Who could have penned them?
Cosette did not hesitate a moment. One man only.
He!
Day had dawned once more in her spirit; all had reappeared.
She felt an unheard-of joy, and a profound anguish. It was he! he
who had written! he was there! it was he whose arm had been thrust
through that railing! While she was forgetful of him, he had found
her again! But had she forgotten him? No, never! She was foolish
to have thought so for a single moment. She had always loved him,
always adored him. The fire had been smothered, and had smouldered
for a time, but she saw all plainly now; it had but made headway,
and now it had burst forth afresh, and had inflamed her whole being.
This note-book was like a spark which had fallen from that other soul
into hers. She felt the conflagration starting up once more.
She imbued herself thoroughly with every word of the manuscript:
"Oh yes!" said she, "how perfectly I recognize all that! That is
what I had already read in his eyes." As she was finishing it
for the third time, Lieutenant Theodule passed the gate once more,
and rattled his spurs upon the pavement. Cosette was forced
to raise her eyes. She thought him insipid, silly, stupid,
useless, foppish, displeasing, impertinent, and extremely ugly.
The officer thought it his duty to smile at her.
She turned away as in shame and indignation. She would gladly
have thrown something at his head.
She fled, re-entered the house, and shut herself up in her
chamber to peruse the manuscript once more, to learn it by heart,
and to dream. When she had thoroughly mastered it she kissed
it and put it in her bosom.
All was over, Cosette had fallen back into deep, seraphic love.
The abyss of Eden had yawned once more.
All day long, Cosette remained in a sort of bewilderment.
She scarcely thought, her ideas were in the state of a tangled
skein in her brain, she could not manage to conjecture anything,
she hoped through a tremor, what? vague things. She dared make
herself no promises, and she did not wish to refuse herself anything.
Flashes of pallor passed over her countenance, and shivers ran through
her frame. It seemed to her, at intervals, that she was entering
the land of chimaeras; she said to herself: "Is this reality?"
Then she felt of the dear paper within her bosom under her gown,
she pressed it to her heart, she felt its angles against her flesh;
and if Jean Valjean had seen her at the moment, he would have shuddered
in the presence of that luminous and unknown joy, which overflowed
from beneath her eyelids.--"Oh yes!" she thought, "it is certainly he!
This comes from him, and is for me!"
And she told herself that an intervention of the angels,
a celestial chance, had given him back to her.
Oh transfiguration of love! Oh dreams! That celestial chance,
that intervention of the angels, was a pellet of bread tossed
by one thief to another thief, from the Charlemagne Courtyard
to the Lion's Ditch, over the roofs of La Force. _
Read next: VOLUME IV: BOOK FIFTH - THE END OF WHICH DOES NOT RESEMBLE THE BEGINNING: CHAPTER VI. Old People are made to go out opportunely
Read previous: VOLUME IV: BOOK FIFTH - THE END OF WHICH DOES NOT RESEMBLE THE BEGINNING: CHAPTER IV. A Heart beneath a Stone
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