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_ 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 air, 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 arm-chairs, 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 Arme. 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 arm-chair: `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 any body 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 arm-chair 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." x 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. _
Read next: VOLUME V: BOOK SEVENTH - THE LAST DRAUGHT FROM THE CUP: CHAPTER II. The Obscurities Which a Revelation Can Contain
Read previous: VOLUME V: BOOK SIXTH - THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT: CHAPTER IV. The Immortal Liver
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