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_ They existed vaguely, frightened at their happiness. They did not notice
the cholera which decimated Paris precisely during that very month.
They had confided in each other as far as possible, but this
had not extended much further than their names. Marius had told
Cosette that he was an orphan, that his name was Marius Pontmercy,
that he was a lawyer, that he lived by writing things for publishers,
that his father had been a colonel, that the latter had been a hero,
and that he, Marius, was on bad terms with his grandfather who
was rich. He had also hinted at being a baron, but this had produced
no effect on Cosette. She did not know the meaning of the word.
Marius was Marius. On her side, she had confided to him that she
had been brought up at the Petit-Picpus convent, that her mother,
like his own, was dead, that her father's name was M. Fauchelevent,
that he was very good, that he gave a great deal to the poor,
but that he was poor himself, and that he denied himself everything
though he denied her nothing.
Strange to say, in the sort of symphony which Marius had lived
since he had been in the habit of seeing Cosette, the past,
even the most recent past, had become so confused and distant
to him, that what Cosette told him satisfied him completely.
It did not even occur to him to tell her about the nocturnal
adventure in the hovel, about Thenardier, about the burn,
and about the strange attitude and singular flight of her father.
Marius had momentarily forgotten all this; in the evening he did
not even know that there had been a morning, what he had done,
where he had breakfasted, nor who had spoken to him; he had songs
in his ears which rendered him deaf to every other thought;
he only existed at the hours when he saw Cosette. Then, as he
was in heaven, it was quite natural that he should forget earth.
Both bore languidly the indefinable burden of immaterial pleasures.
Thus lived these somnambulists who are called lovers.
Alas! Who is there who has not felt all these things? Why does
there come an hour when one emerges from this azure, and why does
life go on afterwards?
Loving almost takes the place of thinking. Love is an ardent
forgetfulness of all the rest. Then ask logic of passion if you will.
There is no more absolute logical sequence in the human heart than
there is a perfect geometrical figure in the celestial mechanism.
For Cosette and Marius nothing existed except Marius and Cosette.
The universe around them had fallen into a hole. They lived in a
golden minute. There was nothing before them, nothing behind.
It hardly occurred to Marius that Cosette had a father. His brain
was dazzled and obliterated. Of what did these lovers talk then?
We have seen, of the flowers, and the swallows, the setting sun and
the rising moon, and all sorts of important things. They had told
each other everything except everything. The everything of lovers
is nothing. But the father, the realities, that lair, the ruffians,
that adventure, to what purpose? And was he very sure that this
nightmare had actually existed? They were two, and they adored
each other, and beyond that there was nothing. Nothing else existed.
It is probable that this vanishing of hell in our rear is inherent
to the arrival of paradise. Have we beheld demons? Are there any?
Have we trembled? Have we suffered? We no longer know. A rosy cloud
hangs over it.
So these two beings lived in this manner, high aloft, with all
that improbability which is in nature; neither at the nadir nor at
the zenith, between man and seraphim, above the mire, below the ether,
in the clouds; hardly flesh and blood, soul and ecstasy from head
to foot; already too sublime to walk the earth, still too heavily
charged with humanity to disappear in the blue, suspended like atoms
which are waiting to be precipitated; apparently beyond the bounds
of destiny; ignorant of that rut; yesterday, to-day, to-morrow;
amazed, rapturous, floating, soaring; at times so light that they
could take their flight out into the infinite; almost prepared to soar
away to all eternity. They slept wide-awake, thus sweetly lulled.
Oh! splendid lethargy of the real overwhelmed by the ideal.
Sometimes, beautiful as Cosette was, Marius shut his eyes in
her presence. The best way to look at the soul is through closed eyes.
Marius and Cosette never asked themselves whither this was to lead them.
They considered that they had already arrived. It is a strange
claim on man's part to wish that love should lead to something. _
Read next: VOLUME IV: BOOK EIGHTH - ENCHANTMENTS AND DESOLATIONS: CHAPTER III. The Beginning of Shadow
Read previous: VOLUME IV: BOOK EIGHTH - ENCHANTMENTS AND DESOLATIONS: CHAPTER I. Full Light
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