"How right I was in not believing that story of the lancer!" Father Gillenormand said to himself aside.
Cosette had never been more affectionate to Jean Valjean, and she was in unison with Father Gillenormand; while he built up joy in aphorisms and maxims, she exhaled love and beauty like a perfume. Happiness wishes everybody to be happy. She found again in speaking to Jean Valjean inflections of her voice of the time when she was a little girl, and caressed him with a smile. A banquet had been prepared in the dining-room; an illumination à giorno is the necessary seasoning of a great joy, and mist and darkness are not accepted by the happy. They do not consent to be black: night, yes; darkness, no; and if there be no sun, one must be made. The dining-room was a furnace of gay things; in the centre, above the white glistening tables, hung a Venetian chandelier, with all sorts of colored birds, blue, violet, red, and green, perched among the candles; round the chandelier were girandoles, and on the walls were mirrors with three and four branches; glasses, crystal, plate, china, crockery, gold, and silver, all flashed and rejoiced. The spaces between the candelabra were filled up with bouquets, so that where there was not a light there was a flower. In the anteroom three violins and a flute played some of Haydn's quartettes. Jean Valjean had seated himself on a chair in the drawing-room, behind the door, which, being thrown back, almost concealed him. A few minutes before they sat down to table Cosette gave him a deep courtesy, while spreading out her wedding-dress with both hands, and with a tenderly mocking look asked him,—
"Father, are you satisfied?"
"Yes," said Jean Valjean, "I am satisfied."
"Well, then, laugh."
Jean Valjean began laughing. A few minutes later Basque came in to announce that dinner was on the table. The guests, preceded by M. Gillenormand, who gave his arm to Cosette, entered the dining-room, and collected round the table in the prescribed order. There was a large easy-chair on either side of the bride, one for M. Gillenormand, the other for Jean Valjean. M. Gillenormand seated himself, but the other chair remained empty. All looked round for Monsieur Fauchelevent, but he was no longer there, and M. Gillenormand hailed Basque:
"Do you know where M. Fauchelevent is?"
"Yes, sir, I do," Basque replied. "Monsieur Fauchelevent requested me to tell you, sir, that his hand pained him, and that he could not dine with M. le Baron and Madame la Baronne. He therefore begged to be excused, but would call to-morrow. He has just left."
This empty chair momentarily chilled the effusion of the wedding feast; but though M. Fauchelevent was absent M. Gillenormand was there, and the grandfather shone for two. He declared that M. Fauchelevent acted rightly in going to bed early if he were in pain, but that it was only a small hurt. This declaration was sufficient; besides, what is a dark corner in such a submersion of joy? Cosette and Marius were in one of those egotistic and blessed moments when people possess no other faculty than that of perceiving joy; and then M. Gillenormand had an idea, "By Jupiter! this chair is empty; come hither, Marius; your aunt, though she has a right to it, will permit you; this chair is for you; it is legal, and it is pretty,—Fortunatus by the side of Fortunata." The whole of the guests applauded. Marius took Jean Valjean's place by Cosette's side, and things were so arranged that Cosette, who had at first been saddened by the absence of Jean Valjean, ended by being pleased at it. From the moment when Marius was the substitute, Cosette would not have regretted God. She placed her little white-satin-slippered foot upon Marius's foot. When the easy-chair was occuppied, M. Fauchelevent was effaced, and nothing was wanting. Five minutes later all the guests were laughing from one end of the table to the other, with all the forgetfulness of humor. At dessert M. Gillenormand rose, with a glass of champagne in his hand, only half full, so that the trembling of ninety-two years might not upset it, and proposed the health of the new-married couple.
"You will not escape from two sermons," he exclaimed: "this morning you had the curé's, and this evening you will have grandpapa's. Listen to me, for I am going to give you some advice: Adore each other. I do not beat round the bush, but go straight to the point; be happy. There are no other sages in creation but the turtle-doves. Philosophers say, Moderate your joys; but I say, Throw the bridle on the neck of your joys. Love like fiends, be furious. The philosophers babble, and I should like to thrust their philosophy down their throats for them. Can we have too many perfumes, too many open rose-buds, too many singing nightingales, too many green leaves, and too much dawn in life? Can we love too much? Can we please one another too much? Take care, Estelle, you are too pretty! Take care, Némorin, you are too handsome! What jolly nonsense! Can people enchant each other, tease each other, and charm each other too much? Can they be too loving? Can they be too happy? Moderate your joys,—oh, stuff! Down with the philosophers, for wisdom is jubilation. Do you jubilate? Let us jubilate; are we happy because we are good, or are we good because we are happy? Is the Sancy diamond called the Sancy because it belonged to Harlay de Sancy, or because it weighs one hundred and six carats? I do not know; and life is full of such problems: the important thing is to have the Sancy and happiness. Let us be happy without quibbling. Let us blindly obey the sun. What is the sun? It is love; and when I say love, I mean woman. Ah, ah! woman is an omnipotence. Ask that demagogue, Marius, if he is not the slave of that little she-tyrant, Cosette, and willingly so, the coward? Woman! There is not a Robespierre who can stand; but woman reigns. I am now only a royalist of that royalty. What is Adam? The royalty of Eve. There is no '89 for Eve. There was the royal sceptre surmounted by the fleur-de-lys, there was the imperial sceptre surmounted by a globe, there was Charlemagne's sceptre of iron, and the sceptre of Louis the Great, which was of gold. The Revolution twisted them between its thumb and forefinger like straws. It is finished, it is broken, it lies on the ground,—there is no sceptre left. But just make a revolution against that little embroidered handkerchief which smells of patchouli! I should like to see you at it. Try it. Why is it solid? Because it is a rag. Ah! you are the nineteenth century. Well, what then? We were the eighteenth, and were as foolish as you. Do not suppose that you have made any tremendous change in the world because your gallant-trusser is called cholera-morbus, and your bourrée the cachucha. After all, woman must always be loved, and I defy you to get out of that. These she-devils are our angels. Yes, love, woman, and a kiss form a circle from which I defy you to issue, and for my own part I should be very glad to enter it again. Who among you has seen the star Venus, the great coquette of the abyss, the Celimène of ocean, rise in infinite space, appeasing everything below her, and looking at the waves like a woman? The ocean is a rude Alcestis; and yet, however much he may growl, when Venus appears he is forced to smile. That brute-beast submits, and we are all thus. Anger, tempest, thunder-bolts, foam up to the ceiling. A woman comes upon the stage, a star rises, and you crawl in the dust. Marius was fighting six months ago, and is marrying to-day, and that is well done. Yes, Marius, yes, Cosette, you are right. Exist bravely one for the other, make us burst with rage because we cannot do the same, and idolize each other. Take in both your beaks the little straws of felicity which lie on the ground, and make of them a nest for life. By Jove! to love, to be loved,—what a great miracle when a man is young! Do not suppose that you invented it. I too have dreamed, and thought, and sighed. I too have had a moonlit soul. Love is a child six thousand years of age, and has a right to a long white beard. Methuselah is a baby by the side of Cupid. Sixty centuries back man and woman got out of the scrape by loving. The devil, who is cunning, took to hating man; but man, who is more cunning still, took to loving woman. In this way he did himself more good than the devil did him harm. That trick was discovered simultaneously with the terrestrial paradise. My friends, the invention is old, but it is brand new. Take advantage of it; be Daphnis and Chloe while waiting till you are Baucis and Philemon. Manage so that when you are together you may want for nothing, and that Cosette may be the sun for Marius, and Marius the universe for Cosette. Cosette, let your fine weather be your husband's smiles. Marius, let your wife's tears be the rain, and mind that it never does rain in your household. You have drawn the good number in the lottery, love in the sacrament. You have the prize number, so keep it carefully under lock and key. Do not squander it. Adore each other, and a fig for the rest. Believe what I tell you, then, for it is good sense, and good sense cannot deceive. Be to one another a religion, for each man has his own way of adoring God. Saperlotte! the best way of adoring God is to love one's wife. I love you! that is my catechism; and whoever loves is orthodox. The oath of Henri IV. places sanctity between guttling and intoxication. Ventre Saint Gris! I do not belong to the religion of that oath, for woman is forgotten in it, and that surprises me on the part of Henri IV.'s oath. My friends, long live woman! I am old, so people say; but it is amazing how disposed I feel to be young. I should like to go and listen to the bagpipes in the woods. These children, who succeed in being beautiful and satisfied, intoxicate me. I am quite willing to marry if anybody will have me. It is impossible to imagine that God has made us for anything else than this,—to idolize, to purr, to strut, to be a pigeon, to be a cock, to caress our lovers from morning till night, to admire ourselves in our little wife, to be proud, to be triumphant, and to swell. Such is the object of life. That, without offence, is what we thought in our time, when we were young men. Ah! vertu-bamboche! what charming women there were in those days! what ducks! I made my ravages among them. Then love each other. If men and women did not love, I really do not see what use there would be in having a spring. And for my part, I would pray the good God to lock up all the fine things he shows us and take them back from us, and to return to his box the flowers, the birds, and the pretty girls. My children, receive an old man's blessing."
The evening was lively, gay, and pleasant; the sovereign good-humor of the grandfather gave the tone to the whole festivity, and each was regulated by this almost centenary heartiness. There was a little dancing and a good deal of laughter; it was a merry wedding, to which that worthy old fellow "Once on a time" might have been invited; however, he was present in the person of Father Gillenormand. There was a tumult and then a silence; the married couple disappeared. A little after midnight the Gillenormand mansion became a temple. Here we stop, for an angel stands on the threshold of wedding-nights, smiling, and with finger on lip; the mind becomes contemplative before this sanctuary in which the celebration of love is held. There must be rays of light above such houses, and the joy which they contain must pass through the walls in brilliancy, and vaguely irradiate the darkness. It is impossible for this sacred and fatal festival not to send a celestial radiance to infinitude. Love is the sublime crucible in which the fusion of man and woman takes place; the one being, the triple being, the final being, the human trinity issue from it. This birth of two souls in one must have emotion for the shadows. The lover is the priest, and the transported virgin feels an awe. A portion of this joy ascends to God. When there is really marriage, that is to say, when there is love, the ideal is mingled with it, and a nuptial couch forms in the darkness a corner of the dawn. If it was given to the mental eye to perceive the formidable and charming visions of higher life, it is probable that it would see the forms of night, the unknown winged beings, the blue wayfarers of the invisible, bending down round the luminous house, satisfied and blessing, pointing out to each other the virgin bride, who is gently startled, and having the reflection of human felicity on their divine countenances. If, at this supreme hour, the pair, dazzled with pleasure, and who believe themselves alone, were to listen, they would hear in their chamber a confused rustling of wings, for perfect happiness implies the guarantee of angels. This little obscure alcove has an entire heaven for its ceiling. When two mouths, which have become sacred by love, approach each other in order to create, it is impossible but that there is a tremor in the immense mystery of the stars above this ineffable kiss. These felicities are the real ones, there is no joy beyond their joys; love is the sole ecstasy, and all the rest weeps. To love or to have loved is sufficient; ask nothing more after that. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life, for love is a consummation.
CHAPTER III.
THE INSEPARABLE.
What had become of Jean Valjean? Directly after he had laughed in accordance with Cosette's request, as no one was paying any attention to him, Jean Valjean rose, and unnoticed reached the anteroom. It was the same room which he had entered eight months previously, black with mud and blood and gunpowder, bringing back the grandson to the grandfather. The old panelling was garlanded with flowers and leaves, the musicians were seated on the sofa upon which Marius had been deposited. Basque, in black coat, knee-breeches, white cravat, and white gloves, was placing wreaths of roses round each of the dishes which was going to be served up. Jean Valjean showed him his arm in the sling, requested him to explain his absence, and quitted the house. The windows of the dining-room looked out on the street, and Valjean stood for some minutes motionless in the obscurity of those radiant windows. He listened, and the confused sound of the banquet reached his ears; he heard the grandfather's loud and dictatorial voice, the violins, the rattling of plates and glasses, the bursts of laughter, and amid all these gay sounds he distinguished Cosette's soft, happy voice. He left the Rue des Filles du Calvaire and returned to the Rue de l'Homme Armé. In going home he went along the Rue St. Louis, the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine, and the Blancs Manteaux; it was a little longer, but it was the road by which he had been accustomed to come with Cosette during the last three months, in order to avoid the crowd and mud of the Rue Vieille du Temple. This road, which Cosette had passed along, excluded the idea of any other itinerary for him. Jean Valjean returned home, lit his candle, and went upstairs. The apartments were empty; not even Toussaint was in there now. Jean Valjean's footsteps made more noise in the rooms than usual. All the wardrobes were open; he entered Cosette's room, and there were no sheets on the bed. The pillow, without a case or lace, was laid on the blankets folded at the foot of the bed, in which no one was going to sleep again. All the small feminine articles to which Cosette clung had been removed; only the heavy furniture and the four walls remained. Toussaint's bed was also unmade, and the only one made which seemed to be expecting somebody was Jean Valjean's. Jean Valjean looked at the walls, closed some of the wardrobe drawers, and walked in and out of the rooms. Then he returned to his own room and placed his candle on the table; he had taken his arm out of the sling, and used it as if he were suffering no pain in it. He went up to his bed and his eyes fell—was it by accident or was it purposely?—on the inseparable of which Cosette had been jealous, the little valise which never left him. On June 4, when he arrived at the Rue de l'Homme Armé, he laid it on a table; he now walked up to this table with some eagerness, took the key out of his pocket, and opened the portmanteau. He slowly drew out the clothes in which, ten years previously, Cosette had left Montfermeil; first, the little black dress, then the black handkerchief, then the stout shoes, which Cosette could almost have worn still, so small was her foot; next the petticoat, then the apron, and lastly, the woollen stockings. These stockings, in which the shape of a little leg was gracefully marked, were no longer than Jean Valjean's hand. All these articles were black, and it was he who took them for her to Montfermeil. He laid each article on the bed as he took it out, and he thought and remembered. It was in winter, a very cold December; she was shivering under her rags, and her poor feet were quite red in her wooden shoes. He, Jean Valjean, had made her take off these rags and put on this mourning garb; the mother must have been pleased in her tomb to see her daughter wearing mourning for her, and above all, to see that she was well clothed and was warm. He thought of that forest of Montfermeil, he thought what the weather was, of the trees without leaves, of the wood without birds and the sky without sun; but no matter, it was charming. He arranged the little clothes on the bed, the handkerchief near the petticoat, the stockings along with the shoes, the apron by the side of the dress, and he looked at them one after the other. She was not much taller than that, she had her large doll in her arms, she had put her louis d'or in the pocket of this apron, she laughed, they walked along holding each other's hand, and she had no one but him in the world.
Then his venerable white head fell on the bed, his old stoical heart broke, his face was buried in Cosette's clothes, and had any one passed upstairs at that moment he would have heard frightful sobs.
CHAPTER IV.
IMMORTALE JECUR.
The old formidable struggle, of which we have already seen several phases, began again. Jacob only wrestled with the angel for one night. Alas! how many times have we seen Jean Valjean caught round the waist in the darkness by his conscience, and struggling frantically against it. An extraordinary struggle! At certain moments the foot slips, at others the ground gives way. How many times had that conscience, clinging to the right, strangled and crushed him! How many times had inexorable truth set its foot on his chest! How many times had he, felled by the light, cried for mercy! How many times had that implacable light, illumined within and over him by the Bishop, dazzled him when he wished to be blinded! How many times had he risen again in the contest, clung to the rock, supported himself by sophistry, and been dragged through the dust, at one moment throwing his conscience under him, at another thrown by it! How many times, after an equivocation, after the treacherous and specious reasoning of egotism, had he heard his irritated conscience cry in his ears, "Trickster! wretch!" How many times had his refractory thoughts groaned convulsively under the evidence of duty! What secret wounds he had, which he alone felt bleeding! What excoriations there were in his lamentable existence! How many times had he risen, bleeding, mutilated, crushed, enlightened, with despair in his heart and serenity in his soul! And though vanquished, he felt himself the victor, and after having dislocated, tortured, and broken him, his conscience, erect before him, luminous and tranquil, would say to him,—"Now go in peace!" What a mournful peace, alas! after issuing from such a contest.
This night, however, Jean Valjean felt that he was fighting his last battle. A crushing question presented itself; predestinations are not all straight; they do not develop themselves in a rectilinear avenue before the predestined man; they have blind alleys, zigzags, awkward corners, and perplexing cross-roads. Jean Valjean was halting at this moment at the most dangerous of these cross-roads. He had reached the supreme crossing of good and evil, and had that gloomy intersection before his eyes. This time again, as had already happened in other painful interludes, two roads presented themselves before him, one tempting, the other terrifying; which should he take? The one which frightened him was counselled by the mysterious pointing hand which we all perceive every time that we fix our eyes upon the darkness. Jean Valjean had once again a choice between the terrible haven and the smiling snare. Is it true, then? The soul may be cured, but not destiny. What a frightful thing,—an incurable destiny! The question which presented itself was this: In what way was Jean Valjean going to behave to the happiness of Cosette and Marius? That happiness he had willed, he had made; and at this hour, in gazing upon it, he could have the species of satisfaction which a cutler would have who recognized his trade-mark upon a knife when he drew it all smoking from his chest. Cosette had Marius, Marius possessed Cosette; they possessed everything, even wealth, and it was his doing. But now that this happiness existed and was there, how was he, Jean Valjean, to treat it? Should he force himself upon it and treat it as if belonging to himself? Doubtless Cosette was another man's; but should he, Jean Valjean, retain of Cosette all that he could retain? Should he remain the sort of father, scarce seen but respected, which he had hitherto been? Should he introduce himself quietly into Cosette's house? Should he carry his past to this future without saying a word? Should he present himself there as one having a right, and should he sit down, veiled, at this luminous hearth? Should he smilingly take the hands of these two innocent creatures in his tragic hands? Should he place on the andirons of the Gillenormand drawing-room his feet, which dragged after them the degrading shadow of the law? Should he render the obscurity on his brow and the cloud on theirs denser? Should he join his catastrophe to their two felicities? Should he continue to be silent? In a word, should he be the sinister dumb man of destiny by the side of these two happy beings? We must be accustomed to fatality and to meeting it, to raise our eyes when certain questions appear to us in their terrible nudity. Good and evil are behind this stern note of interrogation. What are you going to do? the Sphinx asks. This habit of trial Jean Valjean had, and he looked at the Sphinx fixedly, and examined the pitiless problem from all sides. Cosette, that charming existence, was the raft of this shipwrecked man; what should he do, cling to it, or let it go? If he clung to it, he issued from disaster, he remounted to the sunshine, he let the bitter water drip off his clothes and hair, he was saved and lived. Suppose he let it go? Then there was an abyss. He thus dolorously held counsel with his thoughts, or, to speak more correctly, he combated; he rushed furiously within himself, at one moment against his will, at another against his convictions. It was fortunate for Jean Valjean that he had been able to weep, for that enlightened him, perhaps. Still, the beginning was stern; a tempest, more furious than that which had formerly forced him to Arras, was let loose within him. The past returned to him in the face of the present; he compared and sobbed. Once the sluice of tears was opened, the despairing man writhed. He felt himself arrested, alas! in the deadly fight between one egotism and one duty. When we thus recoil inch by inch before our ideal, wildly, obstinately, exasperated at yielding, disputing the ground, hoping for a possible flight, and seeking an issue, what a sudden and sinister resistance behind us is the foot of the wall! To feel the holy shadow standing in the way! The inexorable, invisible,—what a pressure!
Hence we have never finished with our conscience. Make up your mind, Brutus; make up your mind, Cato. It is bottomless, for it is God. You cast into this pit the labor of your whole life,—your fortune, your wealth, your success, your liberty, or your country, your comfort, your repose, your joy. More, more, more! Empty the vase, tread over the urn, you must, end by throwing in your heart. There is a barrel like this somewhere in the Hades of old. Is it not pardonable to refuse at last? Can that which is inexhaustible have any claim? Are not endless chains beyond human strength? Who then would blame Sisyphus and Jean Valjean for saying, It is enough! The obedience of matter is limited by friction: is there not a limit to the obedience of the soul? If perpetual motion be impossible, why is perpetual devotion demanded? The first step is nothing, it is the last that is difficult. What was the Champmathieu affair by the side of Cosette's marriage? What did it bring with it? What is returning to the hulks by the side of entering nothingness? Oh, first step to descend, how gloomy thou art! oh, second step, how black thou art! How could he help turning his head away this time? Martyrdom is a sublimation, a corrosive sublimation, it is a torture which consecrates. A man may consent to it for the first hour; he sits on the throne of red-hot iron, the crown of red-hot iron is placed on his head,—he accepts the red-hot globe, he takes the red-hot sceptre, but he still has to don the mantle of flame, and is there not a moment when the miserable flesh revolts and he flies from the punishment? At length Jean Valjean entered the calmness of prostration; he wished, thought over, and considered the alternations, the mysterious balance of light and shadow. Should he force his galleys on these two dazzling children, or consummate his own irremediable destruction? On one side was the sacrifice of Cosette, on the other his own.
On which solution did he decide? What determination did he form? What was in his inner self the definitive reply to the incorruptible interrogatory of fatality? What door did he resolve on opening? Which side of his life did he make up his mind to close and condemn? Amid all those unfathomable precipices that surrounded him, which was his choice? What extremity did he accept? To which of these gulfs did he nod his head? His confusing reverie lasted all night; he remained till daybreak in the same position, leaning over the bed, prostrate beneath the enormity of fate, perhaps crushed, alas! with hands convulsed, and arms extended at a right angle like an unnailed crucified man thrown with his face on the ground. He remained thus for twelve hours,—the twelve hours of a long winter's night, frozen, without raising his head or uttering a syllable. He was motionless as a corpse, while his thoughts rolled on the ground or fled away; sometimes like a hydra, sometimes like the eagle. To see him thus you would have thought him a dead man; but all at once he started convulsively, and his mouth pressed to Cosette's clothes, kissed them; then one saw that he was alive.
What One, since Jean Valjean was alone and nobody was there?
The One who is in the darkness.
BOOK VII.
THE LAST DROP IN THE BITTER CUP.
CHAPTER I.
THE SEVENTH CIRCLE AND THE EIGHT HEAVEN.
The day after a wedding is solitary, for people respect the retirement of the happy, and to some extent their lengthened slumbers. The confusion of visits and congratulations does not begin again till a later date. On the morning of Feb. 17 it was a little past midday when Basque, with napkin and feather-brush under his arm, dusting the anteroom, heard a low tap at the door. There had not been a ring, which is discreet on such a day. Basque opened and saw M. Fauchelevent; he conducted him to the drawing-room, which was still topsy-turvy, and looked like the battle-field of the previous day's joys.
"Really, sir," observed Basque, "we woke late."
"Is your master up?" Jean Valjean asked.
"How is your hand, sir?" Basque replied.
"Better. Is your master up?"
"Which one, the old or the new?"
"Monsieur Pontmercy."
"Monsieur le Baron!" said Basque, drawing himself up.
A baron is before all a baron to his servants; a portion of it comes to them, and they have what a philosopher would call the spray of the title, and that flatters them. Marius, we may mention in passing, a militant republican as he had proved, was now a baron in spite of himself. A little revolution had taken place in the family with reference to this title; it was M. Gillenormand who was attached to it, and Marius who had fallen away from it. But Colonel Pontmercy had written, "My son will bear my title," and Marius obeyed. And then Cosette, in whom the woman was beginning to germinate, was delighted at being a baroness.
"Monsieur le Baron?" repeated Basque; "I will go and see. I will tell him that Monsieur Fauchelevent is here."
"No, do not tell him it is I. Tell him that some one wishes to speak to him privately, and do not mention my name."
"Ah!" said Basque.
"I wish to surprise him."
"Ah!" Basque repeated, giving himself his second "Ah!" as an explanation of the first.
And he left the room, and Jean Valjean remained alone. The drawing-room, as we said, was all in disorder, and it seemed as if you could still hear the vague sounds of the wedding. On the floor were all sorts of flowers, which had fallen from garlands and head-dresses, and the candles burned down to the socket added wax stalactites to the crystal of the lustres. Not an article of furniture was in its place; in the corner three or four easy-chairs, drawn close together, and forming a circle, looked as if they were continuing a conversation. The ensemble was laughing, for there is a certain grace left in a dead festival, for it has been happy. Upon those disarranged chairs, amid those fading flowers and under those extinguished lamps, persons have thought of joy. The sun succeeded the chandelier, and gayly entered the drawing-room. A few moments passed, during which Jean Valjean remained motionless at the spot where Basque left him. His eyes were hollow, and so sunk in their sockets by sleeplessness that they almost disappeared. His black coat displayed the fatigued creases of a coat which has been up all night, and the elbows were white with that down which friction with linen leaves on cloth. Jean Valjean looked at the window designed on the floor at his feet by the sun. There was a noise at the door, and he raised his eyes. Marius came in with head erect, laughing mouth, a peculiar light over his face, a smooth forehead, and a flashing eye. He, too, had not slept.
"It is you, father!" he exclaimed, on perceiving Jean Valjean; "why, that ass Basque affected the mysterious. But you have come too early; it is only half-past twelve, and Cosette is asleep."
That word, father, addressed to M. Fauchelevent by Marius, signified supreme felicity. There had always been, as we know, a cliff, a coldness and constraint between them; ice to melt or break. Marius was so intoxicated that the cliff sank, the ice dissolved, and M. Fauchelevent was for him, as for Cosette, a father. He continued, the words overflowed with him, which is peculiar to these divine paroxysms of joy,—
"How delighted I am to see you! If you only knew how we missed you yesterday! Good-day, father. How is your hand? Better, is it not?"
And, satisfied with the favorable answer which he gave himself, he went on,—
"We both spoke about you, for Cosette loves you so dearly. You will not forget that you have a room here, for we will not hear a word about the Rue de l'Homme Armé. I do not know how you were able to live in that street, which is sick, and mean, and poor, which has a barrier at one end, where you feel cold, and which no one can enter! You will come and install yourself here, and from to-day, or else you will have to settle with Cosette. She intends to lead us both by the nose, I warn you. You have seen your room; it is close to ours, and looks out on the gardens. We have had the lock mended; the bed is made; it is all ready, and you have only to move in. Cosette has placed close to your bed a large old easy-chair, of Utrecht velvet, to which she said, 'Hold out your arms to him!' Every spring a nightingale comes to the clump of acacias which faces your windows, and you will have it in two months. You will have its nest on your left, and ours on your right; at night it will sing, and by day Cosette will talk. Your room faces due south; Cosette will arrange, your books in it; the Travels of Captain Cook, and the other, Vancouver's Travels, and all your matters. There is, I believe, a valise to which you are attached, and I have arranged a corner of honor for it. You have won my grandfather, for you suit him. We will live together. Do you know whist? You will over-whelm my grandfather if you are acquainted with whist. You will take Cosette for a walk on the day when I go to the Courts; you will give her your arm, as you used to do, you remember, formerly at the Luxembourg. We are absolutely determined to be very happy, and you will share in our happiness, do you hear, father? By the bye, you will breakfast with us this morning?"
"Sir!" said Jean Valjean, "I have one thing to say to you. I am an ex-convict."
The limit of the perceptible acute sounds may be as well exceeded for the mind as for the ear. These words, "I am an ex-convict," coming from M. Fauchelevent's mouth and entering Marius's ear went beyond possibility. Marius did not hear. It seemed to him as if something had been just said to him, but he knew not what. He stood with gaping mouth. Jean Valjean unfastened the black handkerchief that supported his right arm, undid the linen rolled round his hand, bared his thumb, and showed it to Marius.
"I have nothing the matter with my hand," he said.
Marius looked at the thumb.
"There was never anything the matter with it," Jean Valjean added.
There was, in fact, no sign of a wound. Jean Valjean continued,—
"It was proper that I should be absent from your marriage, and I was so as far as I could be. I feigned this wound in order not to commit a forgery, and render the marriage-deeds null and void."
Marius stammered,—
"What does this mean?"
"It means," Jean Valjean replied, "that I have been to the galleys."
"You are driving me mad!" said the horrified Marius.
"Monsieur Pontmercy," said Jean Valjean, "I was nineteen years at the galleys for robbery. Then I was sentenced to them for life; for robbery and a second offence. At the present moment I am an escaped convict."
Although Marius recoiled before the reality, refused the facts, and resisted the evidence, he was obliged to yield to it. He was beginning to understand, and as always happens in such a case, he understood too much. He had the shudder of a hideous internal flash, and an idea that made him shudder crossed his mind. He foresaw a frightful destiny for himself in the future.
"Say all, say all," he exclaimed; "you are Cosette's father!"
And he fell back two steps, with a movement of indescribable horror. Jean Valjean threw up his head with such a majestic attitude that he seemed to rise to the ceiling.
"It is necessary that you should believe me here, sir, although the oath of men like us is not taken in a court of justice—"
Here there was a silence, and then with a sort of sovereign and sepulchral authority he added, speaking slowly and laying a stress on the syllables,—
"You will believe me. I, Cosette's father! Before Heaven, no, Monsieur le Baron Pontmercy. I am a peasant of Faverolles, and earned my livelihood by pruning trees. My name is not Fauchelevent, but Jean Valjean. I am nothing to Cosette, so reassure yourself."
Marius stammered,—
"Who proves it to me?"
"I do, since I say it."
Marius looked at this man: he was mournful and calm, and no falsehood could issue from such calmness. What is frozen is sincere, and the truth could be felt in this coldness of the tomb.
"I do believe you," said Marius.
Jean Valjean bowed his head, as if to note the fact, and continued,—
"What am I to Cosette? A passer-by. Ten years ago I did not know that she existed. I love her, it is true, for men love a child which they have seen little when old themselves; when a man is old he feels like a grandfather to all little children. You can, I suppose, imagine that I have something which resembles a heart. She was an orphan, without father or mother, and needed me, and that is why I came to love her. Children are so weak that the first comer, even a man like myself, may be their protector. I performed this duty to Cosette. I cannot suppose that so small a thing can be called a good action: but if it be one, well, assume that I did it. Record that extenuating fact. To-day Cosette leaves my life, and our two roads separate. Henceforth I can do no more for her; she is Madame Pontmercy; her providence has changed, and she has gained by the change, so all is well. As for the six hundred thousand francs, you say nothing of them, but I will meet your thought half-way: they are a deposit. How was it placed in my hands? No matter. I give up the deposit, and there is nothing more to ask of me. I complete the restitution by stating my real name, and this too concerns myself, for I am anxious that you should know who I am."
And Jean Valjean looked Marius in the face. All that Marius experienced was tumultuous and incoherent, for certain blasts of the wind of destiny produce such waves in our soul. We have all had such moments of trouble in which everything is dispersed within us: we say the first things that occur to us, which are not always precisely those which we ought to say. There are sudden revelations which we cannot bear, and which intoxicate like a potent wine. Marius was stupefied by the new situation which appeared to him, and spoke to this man almost as if he were angry at the avowal.
"But why," he exclaimed, "do you tell me all this? Who forces you to do so? You might have kept your secret to yourself. You are neither denounced, nor pursued, nor tracked. You have a motive for making the revelation so voluntarily. Continue; there is something else: for what purpose do you make this confession? For what motive?"
"For what motive?" Jean Valjean answered in a voice so low and dull that it seemed as if he were speaking to himself rather than Marius. "For what motive, in truth, does this convict come here to say, 'I am a convict'? Well, yes, the motive is a strange one: it is through honesty. The misfortune is that I have a thread in my heart which holds me fast, and it is especially when a man is old that these threads are most solid. The whole of life is undone around, but they resist. Had I been enabled to tear away that thread, break it, unfasten or cut the knot, and go a long way off, I would be saved and needed only to start. There are diligences in the Hue du Bouloy; you are happy, and I am off. I tried to break that thread. I pulled at it, it held out, it did not break, and I pulled out my heart with it. Then I said, I cannot live anywhere else, and must remain. Well, yes, but you are right. I am a fool; why not remain simply? You offer me a bed-room in the house. Madame Pontmercy loves me dearly, she said to that fauteuil, 'Hold out your arms to him;' your grandfather asks nothing better than to have me. I suit him, we will live all together, have our meals in common, I will give my arm to Cosette,—to Madame Pontmercy, forgive me, but it is habit,—we will have only one roof, one table, one fire, the same chimney-corner in winter, the same walk in summer: that is joy, that is happiness, that is everything. We will live in one family."
At this word Jean Valjean became fierce. He folded his arms, looked at the board at his feet, as if he wished to dig a pit in it, and his voice suddenly became loud.
"In one family? No. I belong to no family; I do not belong to yours, I do not even belong to the human family. In houses where people are together I am in the way. There are families, but none for me; I am the unhappy man, I am outside. Had I a father and mother? I almost doubt it. On the day when I gave you that child in marriage, it was all ended; I saw her happy, and that she was with the man she loved, that there is a kind old gentleman here, a household of two angels, and every joy in this house, and I said to myself, Do not enter. I could lie, it is true, deceive you all, and remain Monsieur Fauchelevent; so long as it was for her, I was able to lie, but now that it would be for myself I ought not to do so. I only required to be silent, it is true, and all would have gone on. You ask me what compels me to speak? A strange sort of thing, my conscience. It would have been very easy, however, to hold my tongue; I spent the night in trying to persuade myself into it. You are shriving me, and what I have just told you is so extraordinary that you have the right to do so. Well, yes, I spent the night in giving myself reasons. I gave myself excellent reasons, I did what I could. But there are two things in which I could not succeed; I could neither break the string which holds me by the heart, fixed, sealed, and riveted here, nor silence some one who speaks to me in a low voice when I am alone. That is why I have come to confess all to you this morning,—all, or nearly all, for it is useless to tell what only concerns myself, and that I keep to myself. You know the essential thing. I took my mystery, then, and brought it to you and ripped it up before your eyes. It was not an easy resolution to form, and I debated the point the whole night. Ah! you may fancy that I did not say to myself that this was not the Champmathieu affair, that in hiding my name I did no one any harm, that the name of Fauchelevent was given me by Fauchelevent himself in gratitude for a service rendered, and that I might fairly keep it, and that I should be happy in this room which you offer me, that I should net be at all in the way, that I should be in my little corner, and that while you had Cosette I should have the idea of being in the same house with her; each would have his proportioned happiness. Continuing to be Monsieur Fauchelevent arranged everything. Yes, except my soul; there would be joy all over me, but the bottom of my soul would remain black. Thus I should have remained Monsieur Fauchelevent. I should have hidden my real face in the presence of your happiness; I should have had an enigma, and in the midst of your broad sunshine I should have had darkness; thus, without crying 'Look out,' I should have introduced the hulks to your hearth, I should have sat down at your table with the thought that if you knew who I was you would expel me, and let myself be served by the servants who, had they known, would have said, 'What a horror!' I should have touched you with my elbow, which you have a right to feel offended at, and swindled you out of shakes of the hand. There would have been in your house a divided respect between venerable gray hairs and branded gray hairs; in your most intimate hours, when all hearts formed themselves to each other, when we were all four together, the grandfather, you two, and I, there would have been a stranger there. Hence I, a dead man, would have imposed myself on you who are living, and I should have sentenced her for life. You, Cosette, and I would have been three heads in the green cap! Do you not shudder? I am only the most crushed of men, but I should have been the most monstrous. And this crime I should have committed every day, and this falsehood I should have told every day, and this face of night I should have worn every day, and to you I should have given a portion of my stain everyday,—to you, my beloved, to you, my children, to you, my innocents! Holding one's tongue is nothing? Keeping silence is simple? No, it is not simple, for there is a silence which lies; and my falsehood, and my fraud, and my indignity, and my cowardice, and my treachery, and my crime I should have drunk drop by drop; I should have spat it out, and then drunk it again; I should have ended at midnight and begun again at midday, and my good day would have lied, and my good night would have lied, and I should have slept upon it, and eaten it with my bread; and I should have looked at Cosette, and responded to the smile of the angel with the smile of the condemned man; and I should have been an abominable scoundrel, and for what purpose? To be happy. I, happy! Have I the right to be happy? I am out of life, sir."
Jean Valjean stopped, and Marius listened, for such enchainments of ideas and agonies cannot be interrupted. Jean Valjean lowered his voice again, yet it was no longer the dull voice, but the sinister voice.
"You ask why I speak? I am neither denounced, nor pursued, nor tracked, you say. Yes, I am denounced! Yes, I am pursued! Yes, I am tracked! By whom? By myself. It is I who bar my own passage, and I drag myself along, and I push myself, and I arrest myself, and execute myself, and when a man holds himself he is securely held."
And, seizing his own collar, and dragging it toward Marius, he continued,—
"Look at this fist. Do you not think that it holds this collar so as not to let it go? Well, conscience is a very different hand! If you wish to be happy, sir, you must never understand duty; for so soon as you have understood it, it is implacable. People may say that it punishes you for understanding it; but no, it rewards you for it, for it places you in a hell where you feel God by your side. A man has no sooner torn his entrails than he is at peace with himself."
And with an indescribable accent he added,—
"Monsieur Pontmercy, that has no common-sense. I am an honest man. It is by degrading myself in your eyes that I raise myself in my own. This has happened to me once before, but it was less painful; it was nothing. Yes, an honest man. I should not be one if you had, through my fault, continued to esteem me; but now that you despise me I am so. I have this fatality upon me, that as I am never able to have any but stolen consideration, this consideration humiliates and crushes me internally, and in order that I may respect myself people must despise me. Then I draw myself up. I am a galley-slave who obeys his conscience. I know very well that this is not likely; but what would you have me do? It is so. I have made engagements with myself and keep them. There are meetings which bind us; there are accidents which drag us into duty. Look you, Monsieur Pontmercy, things have happened to me in my life."
Jean Valjean made another pause, swallowing his saliva with an effort, as if his words had a bitter after-taste, and he continued,—
"When a man has such a horror upon him; he has no right to make others share it unconsciously; he has no right to communicate his plague to them; he has no right to make them slip over his precipice without their perceiving it; he has no right to drag his red cap over them, and no right craftily to encumber the happiness of another man with his misery. To approach those who are healthy and touch them in the darkness with his invisible ulcer is hideous. Fauchelevent may have lent me his name, but I have no right to use it: he may have given it to me, but I was unable to take it. A name is a self. Look you, sir, I have thought a little and read a little, though I am a peasant, and you see that I express myself properly. I explain things to myself, and have carried out my own education. Well, yes; to abstract a name and place one's self under it is dishonest. The letters of the alphabet may 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 among honest folk by picking their lock, never to look, but always to squint, to be internally infamous,—no! no! no! no! It is better to suffer, bleed, weep, tear one's flesh with one's nails, pass the nights writhing in agony, and gnaw one's stomach and soul That is why I have come to tell you all this,—voluntarily, as you remarked."
He breathed painfully, and uttered this last remark,—
"Formerly I stole a loaf in order to live; to-day I will not steal a name in order to live."
"To live!" Marius interrupted; "you do not require that name to live."
"Ah! I understand myself," Jean Valjean replied, raising and drooping his head several times in succession. There was a stillness; both remained silent, sunk as they were in a gulf of thought. Marius was sitting near a table, and supporting the corner of his mouth on one of his fingers. Jean Valjean walked backwards and forwards; he stopped before a glass and remained motionless. Then, as if answering some internal reasoning, he said, as he looked in this glass, in which he did not see himself,—
"While at present I am relieved."
He began walking again, and went to the other end of the room. At the moment when he turned he perceived that Marius was watching his walk, and he said to him, with an indescribable accent,—
"I drag my leg a little. You understand why, now."
Then he turned round full to 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 your family. I am in my room. I come down to breakfast in my slippers; at night we go to the play, all three. I accompany Madame Pontmercy to the Tuileries and to the Place Royale; we are together, and you believe me your equal. One fine day I am here, you are there. We are talking and laughing, and you hear a voice cry this name,—Jean Valjean! and then that fearful hand, the police, issues from the shadow and suddenly tears off my mask!"
He was silent again. Marius had risen with a shudder and Jean Valjean continued,—
"What do you say to that?"
Marius's silence replied, and Jean Valjean continued:—
"You see very well that I did right in not holding my tongue. Be happy, be in heaven, be the angel of an angel, be in the sunshine and content yourself with it, and do not trouble yourself as to the way in which a poor condemned man opens his heart and does his duty; you have a wretched man before you, sir."
Marius slowly crossed the room, and when he was by Jean Valjean's side offered him his hand. But Marius was compelled to take this hand which did not offer itself. Jean Valjean let him do so, and it seemed to Marius that he was pressing a hand of marble.
"My grandfather has friends" said Marius. "I will obtain your pardon."
"It is useless," Jean Valjean replied; "I am supposed to be dead, and that is sufficient. The dead are not subjected to surveillance, and are supposed to rot quietly. Death is the same thing as pardon."
And liberating the hand which Marius held, he added with a sort of inexorable dignity,—
"Moreover, duty, my duty, is the friend to whom I have recourse; and I only need one pardon, that of my conscience."
At this moment the door opened gently at the other end of the drawing-room, and Cosette's head appeared in the crevice. Only her sweet face was visible. Her hair was in admirable confusion, and her eyelids were still swollen with sleep. She made the movement of a bird thrusting its head out of the nest, looked first at her husband, then at Jean Valjean, and cried to them laughingly,—it looked like a smile issuing from a rose,—
"I will bet that you are talking politics. How stupid that is, instead of being with me!"
Jean Valjean started.
"Cosette," Marius stammered, and he stopped. They looked like two culprits; Cosette, radiant, continued to look at them both, and there were in her eyes gleams of Paradise.
"I have caught you in the act," Cosette said; "I just heard through this, Father Fauchelevent saying, 'Conscience, doing one's duty.' That is politics, and I will have none of it. People must not talk politics on the very next day; it is not right."
"You are mistaken, Cosette;" Marius replied, "we are talking of business. We are talking about the best way of investing your six hundred thousand francs."
"I am coming," Cosette interrupted. "Do you want me here?"
And resolutely passing through the door, she entered the drawing-room. She was dressed in a large combing gown with a thousand folds and large sleeves, which descended from her neck to her feet. There are in the golden skies of old Gothic paintings, these charming bags to place an angel in. She contemplated herself from head to foot in a large mirror, and then exclaimed with an ineffable outburst of ecstasy,—
"There was once upon a time a king and queen. Oh, how delighted I am!"
This said, she courtesied to Marius and Jean Valjean.
"Then," she said, "I am going to install myself near you in an easy-chair; we shall breakfast in half an hour. You will say all you like, for I know very well that gentlemen must talk, and I will be very good."
Marius took her by the arm and said to her lovingly,—
"We are talking about business."
"By the way," Cosette answered, "I have opened my window, and a number of sparrows [pierrots] have just entered the garden. Birds, not masks. To-day is Ash Wednesday, but not for the birds."
"I tell you that we are talking of business, so go, my little Cosette; leave us for a moment. We are talking figures, and they would only annoy you."
"You have put on a charming cravat this morning, Marius. You are very coquettish, Monseigneur. No, they will not annoy me."
"I assure you that they will."
"No, since it is you, I shall not understand you, but I shall hear you. When a woman hears voices she loves, she does not require to understand the words they say. To be together is all I want, and I shall stay with you,—there!"
"You are my beloved Cosette! Impossible."
"Impossible?"
"Yes."
"Very good," Cosette remarked; "I should have told you some news. I should have told you that grandpapa is still asleep, that your aunt is at Mass, that the chimney of my papa Fauchelevent's room smokes, that Nicolette has sent for the chimney-sweep, that Nicolette and Toussaint have already quarrelled, and that Nicolette ridicules Toussaint's stammering. Well, you shall know nothing. Ah, it is impossible? You shall see, sir, that in my turn I shall say, 'It is impossible.' Who will be caught then? I implore you, my little Marius, to let me stay with you two."
"I assure you that we must be alone."
"Well, am I anybody?"
Jean Valjean did not utter a word, and Cosette turned to him.
"In the first place, father, I insist on your coming and kissing me. What do you mean by saying nothing, instead of taking my part? Did one ever see a father like that? That will show you how unhappy my marriage is, for my husband beats me. Come and kiss me at once."
Jean Valjean approached her, and Cosette turned to Marius.
"I make a face at you."
Then she offered her forehead to Jean Valjean, who moved a step towards her. All at once Cosette recoiled.
"Father, you are pale; does your arm pain you?"
"It is cured," said Jean Valjean.
"Have you slept badly?"
"No."
"Are you sad?"
"No."
"Kiss me. If you are well, if you sleep soundly, if you are happy, I will not scold you."
And she again offered him her forehead, and Jean Valjean set a kiss on this forehead, upon which there was a heavenly reflection.
"Smile."
Jean Valjean obeyed, but it was the smile of a ghost.
"Now, defend me against my husband."
"Cosette—" said Marius.
"Be angry, father, and tell him I am to remain. You can talk before me. You must think me very foolish. What you are saying is very astonishing, then! Business,—placing money in a bank,—that is a great thing. Men make mysteries of nothing. I mean to say I am very pretty this morning. Marius, look at me."
And with an adorable shrug of the shoulders and an exquisite pout she looked at Marius. Something like a flash passed between these two beings, and they cared little about a third party being present.
"I love you," said Marius.
"I adore you," said Cosette.
And they irresistibly fell into each other's arms.
"And now," Cosette continued, as she smoothed a crease in her dressing-gown, with a little triumphant pout, "I remain."
"No," Marius replied imploringly, "we have something to finish."
"Again, no?"
Marius assumed a serious tone.
"I assure you, Cosette, that it is impossible."
"Ah, you are putting on your man's voice, sir; very good, I will go. You did not support me, father; and so you, my hard husband, and you, my dear papa, are tyrants. I shall go and tell grandpapa. If you believe that I intend to return and talk platitudes to you, you are mistaken. I am proud, and I intend to wait for you at present. You will see how wearisome it will be without me. I am going, very good."
And she left the room, but two seconds after the door opened again, her fresh, rosy face passed once again between the two folding-doors, and she cried to them,—
"I am very angry."
The door closed again, and darkness returned. It was like a straggling sunbeam, which, without suspecting it, had suddenly traversed the night. Marius assured himself that the door was really closed.
"Poor Cosette!" he muttered, "when she learns—"
At these words Jean Valjean trembled all over, and he fixed his haggard eyes on Marius.
"Cosette! Oh, yes, it is true. You will tell Cosette about it. It is fair.—Stay, I did not think of that. A man has strength for one thing, but not for another. I implore you, sir, I conjure you, sir, give me your most sacred word,—do not tell her. Is it not sufficient for you to know it? I was able to tell it of my own accord, without being compelled. I would have told it to the universe, to the whole world, and I should not have cared; but she,—she does not know what it is, and it would horrify her. A convict. What! You would be obliged to explain to her, tell her it is a man who has been to the galleys. She saw the chain-gang once. Oh, my God!"
He sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands; it could not be heard, but from the heaving of his shoulders it could be seen that he was weeping. They were silent tears, terrible tears. There is a choking in a sob; a species of convulsion seized on him, he threw himself back in the chair, letting his arms hang, and displaying to Marius his face bathed in tears, and Marius heard him mutter so low that his voice seemed to come from a bottomless abyss, "Oh! I would like to die!"
"Be at your ease," Marius said; "I will keep your secret to myself."
And, less affected than perhaps he ought to have been, but compelled for more than an hour to listen to unexpected horrors, gradually seeing a convict taking M. Fauchelevent's place, gradually overcome by this mournful reality, and led by the natural state of the situation to notice the gap which bad formed between himself and this man, Marius added,—
"It is impossible for me not to say a word about the trust money which you have so faithfully and honestly given up. That is an act of probity, and it is but fair that a reward should be given you; fix the sum yourself, and it shall be paid you. Do not fear to fix it very high."
"I thank you, sir," Jean Valjean replied gently.
He remained pensive for a moment, mechanically passing the end of his forefinger over his thumb-nail, and then raised his voice,—
"All is nearly finished; there is only one thing left me."
"What is it?"
Jean Valjean had a species of supreme agitation, and voicelessly, almost breathlessly, he stammered, rather than said,—
"Now that you know, do you, sir, who are the master, believe that I ought not to see Cosette again?"
"I believe that it would be better," Marius replied coldly.
"I will not see her again," Jean Valjean murmured. He walked toward the door; he placed his hand upon the handle, the door opened, Jean Valjean was going to pass out, when he suddenly closed it again, then opened the door again and returned to Marius. He was no longer pale, but livid, and in his eyes was a sort of tragic flame instead of tears. His voice bad grows strangely calm again.
"Stay, sir," he said; "if you are wilting, I will come to see her, for I assure you that I desire it greatly. If I had not longed to see Cosette I should not have made you the confession I have done, but have gone away; but wishing to remain at the spot where Cosette is, and continue to see her, I was obliged to tell you everything honestly. You follow my reasoning, do you not? It is a thing easy to understand. Look you, I have had her with me for nine years: we lived at first in that hovel on the boulevard, then in the convent, and then near the Luxembourg. It was there that you saw her for the first time, and you remember her blue plush bonnet. Next we went to the district of the Invalides, where there were a railway and a garden, the Rue Plumet. I lived in a little back yard where I could hear her pianoforte. Such was my life, and we never separated. That lasted nine years and seven months; I was like her father, and she was my child. I do not know whether you understand me, M. Pontmercy, but it would be difficult to go away now, see her no more, speak to her no more, and have nothing left. If you have no objection, I will come and see Cosette every now and then, but not too often, and I will not remain long. You can tell them to show me into the little room on the ground-floor; I would certainly come in by the back door, which is used by the servants, but that might cause surprise, so it is better, I think, for me to come by the front door. Really, sir, I should like to see Cosette a little, but as rarely as you please. Put yourself in my place. I have only that left. And then, again, we must be careful, and if I did not come at all it would have a bad effect, and appear singular. For instance, what I can do is to come in the evening, when it is beginning to grow dark."
"You can come every evening," said Marius, "and Cosette will expect you."
"You are kind, sir," said Jean Valjean.
Marius bowed to Jean Valjean, happiness accompanied despair to the door, and these two men parted.
CHAPTER II.
THE OBSCURITY WHICH A REVELATION MAY CONTAIN.
Marius was overwhelmed; the sort of estrangement which he had ever felt for the man with whom he saw Cosette was henceforth explained. There was in this person something enigmatic, against which his instinct warned him. This enigma was the most hideous of shames, the galleys. This M. Fauchelevent was Jean Valjean the convict. To find suddenly such a secret in the midst of his happiness is like discovering a scorpion in a turtle-dove's nest. Was the happiness of Marius and Cosette in future condensed to this proximity? Was it an accomplished fact? Did the acceptance of this man form part of the consummated marriage? Could nothing else be done? Had Marius also married the convict? Although a man may be crowned with light and joy, though he be enjoying the grand hour of life's purple, happy love, such shocks would compel even the archangel in his ecstasy, even the demi-god in his glory, to shudder.
As ever happens in sudden transformation-scenes of this nature, Marius asked himself whether he ought not to reproach himself? Had he failed in divination? Had he been deficient in prudence? Had he voluntarily been headstrong? Slightly so, perhaps. Had he entered upon this love-adventure, which resulted in his marriage with Cosette, without taking sufficient precaution to throw light upon the surroundings? He verified,—it is thus, by a series of verifications of ourselves on ourselves, that life is gradually corrected,—he verified, we say, the visionary and chimerical side of his nature, a sort of internal cloud peculiar to many organizations, and which in the paroxysms of passion and grief expands, as the temperature of the soul changes, and invades the entire man to such an extent that he merely becomes a conscience enveloped in a fog. We have more than once indicated this characteristic element in Marius's individuality. He remembered that during the intoxication of his love in the Rue Plumet, during those six or seven ecstatic weeks, he had not even spoken to Cosette about the drama in the Gorbeau hovel, during which the victim was so strangely silent both in the struggle and eventual escape. How was it that he had not spoken to Cosette about it, and yet it was so close and so frightful? How was it that he had not even mentioned the Thénardiers, and especially on the day when he met Éponine? He found almost a difficulty in explaining to himself now his silence at that period, but he was able to account for it. He remembered his confusion, his intoxication for Cosette, his love absorbing everything, the carrying off of one by the other into the ideal world, and perhaps, too, as the imperceptible amount of reason mingled with that violent and charming state of the mind, a vague and dull instinct to hide and efface from his memory that formidable adventure with which he feared contact, in which he wished to play no part, from which he stood aloof, and of which he could not be narrator or witness without being an accuser. Moreover, these few weeks had been a lightning flash; he had not had time for anything except to love. In short, when all was revolved, and everything examined, supposing that he had described the Gorbeau trap to Cosette, had mentioned the Thénardiers to her, what would have been the consequence, even if he had discovered that Jean Valjean was a convict; would that have changed him, Marius, or his Cosette? Would he have drawn back? Would he have loved her less? Would he have refused to marry her? No. Would it have made any change in what had happened? No. There was nothing, therefore, to regret, nothing to reproach, and all was well. There is a God for those drunkards who are called lovers, and Marius had blindly followed the road which he had selected with his eyes open. Love had bandaged his eyes to lead him whither? To paradise.
But this paradise was henceforth complicated by an infernal proximity, and the old estrangement of Marius for this man, for this Fauchelevent who had become Jean Valjean, was at present mingled with horror; but in this horror, let us say it, there was some pity, and even a certain degree of surprise. This robber, this relapsed robber, had given up a deposit, and what deposit? Six hundred thousand francs. He alone held the secret of that deposit, he could have kept it all, but he gave it all up. Moreover, he had revealed his situation of his own accord, nothing compelled him to do so; and if he, Marius, knew who he was it was through himself. There was in this confession more than the acceptance of humiliation; there was the acceptance of peril. For a condemned man a mask is not a mask but a shelter, and he had renounced that shelter. A false name is a security, and he had thrown away that false name. He, the galley-slave, could conceal himself forever in an honest family, and he had resisted that temptation, and for what motive? Through scruples of conscience. He had explained himself with the irresistible accent of truth. In short, whoever this Jean Valjean might be, his was incontestably an awakened conscience. Some mysterious rehabilitation had been begun, and according to all appearances scruples had been master of this man for a long time past. Such attacks of justice and honesty are not peculiar to vulgar natures, and an awakening of the conscience is greatness of soul. Jean Valjean was sincere; and this sincerity, visible, palpable, irrefragable, and evident in the grief which it caused him, rendered his statements valuable, and gave authority to all that this man said. Here, for Marius, was a strange inversion of situations. What issued from M. Fauchelevent? Distrust. What was disengaged from Jean Valjean? Confidence. In the mysterious balance-sheet of this Jean Valjean which Marius mentally drew up, he verified the credit, he verified the debit, and tried to arrive at a balance. But all this was as in a storm, Marius striving to form a distinct idea of this man, and pursuing Jean Valjean, so to speak, to the bottom of his thoughts, lost him, and found him again in a fatal mist.
The honest restoration of the trust-money and the probity of the confession were good, and formed as it were a break in the cloud; but then the cloud became black again. However confused Marius's reminiscences might be, some shadows still returned to him. What, after all, was that adventure in the Jondrette garret? Why, on the arrival of the police, did that man, instead of complaining, escape? Here Marius found the answer,—because this man was a convict who had broken his ban. Another question, Why did this man come to the barricade? For at present Marius distinctly saw again that recollection, which reappeared in his emotions like sympathetic ink before the fire. This man was at the barricade and did not fight; what did he want there? Before this question a spectre rose and gave the answer,—Javert. Marius perfectly remembered now the mournful vision of Jean Valjean dragging the bound Javert out of the barricade, and heard again behind the angle of the little Mondétour Lane the frightful pistol-shot. There was probably a hatred between this spy and this galley-slave, and one annoyed the other. Jean Valjean went to the barricade to revenge himself; he arrived late, and was probably aware that Javert was a prisoner there. Corsican Vendetta has penetrated certain lower strata of society, and is the law with them; it is so simple that it does not astonish minds which have half returned to virtue, and their hearts are so constituted that a criminal, when on the path of repentance, may be scrupulous as to a robbery and not so as to a vengeance. Jean Valjean had killed Javert, or at least that seemed evident. The last question of all admitted of no reply, and this question Marius felt like a pair of pincers. How was it that the existence of Jean Valjean had so long brushed against that of Cosette? What was this gloomy sport of Providence which had brought this man and this child in contact? Are there chains for two forged in heaven, and does God take pleasure in coupling the angel with the demon? A crime and an innocence can, then, be chamber companions in the mysterious hulks of misery? In that defile of condemned men which is called human destiny, two foreheads may pass along side by side, one simple, the other formidable,—one all bathed in the divine whiteness of dawn, the other eternally branded? Who can have determined this inexplicable approximation? In what way, in consequence of what prodigy, could a community of life have been established between this celestial child and this condemned old man? Who could have attached the lamb to the wolf, and even more incomprehensible still, the wolf to the lamb? For the wolf loved the lamb, the ferocious being adored the weak being, and for nine years the angel had leaned on the monster for support. The childhood and maidenhood of Cosette and her virgin growth toward life and light had been protected by this deformed devotion. Here questions exfoliated themselves, if we may employ the expression, into countless enigmas; abysses opened at the bottom of abysses, and Marius could no longer bend over Jean Valjean without feeling a dizziness: what could this man-precipice be? The old genesiacal symbols are eternal: in human society, such as it now exists until a greater light shall change it, there are ever two men,—one superior, the other subterranean; the one who holds to good is Abel, the one who holds to bad is Cain. What was this tender Cain? What was this bandit religiously absorbed in the adoration of a virgin, watching over her, bringing her up, guarding her, dignifying her, and though himself impure, surrounding her with purity? What was this cloaca which had venerated this innocence so greatly as not to leave a spot upon it? What was this Valjean carrying on the education of Cosette? What was this figure of darkness, whose sole care it was to preserve from every shadow and every cloud the rising of a star?
That was Jean Valjean's secret; that was also God's secret, and Marius recoiled before this double secret. The one, to some extent, reassured him about the other, for God was as visible in this adventure as was Jean Valjean. God has his instruments, and employs whom he likes as tool, and is not responsible to him. Do we know how God sets to work? Jean Valjean had labored on Cosette, and had to some extent formed her mind; that was incontestable. Well, what then? The workman was horrible, but the work was admirable, and God produces his miracles as he thinks proper. He had constructed that charming Cosette, and employed Jean Valjean on the job, and it had pleased him to choose this strange assistant. What explanation have we to ask of him? Is it the first time that manure has helped spring to produce the rose? Marius gave himself these answers, and declared to himself that they were good. On all the points which we have indicated he had not dared to press Jean Valjean, though he did not confess to himself that he dared not. He adored Cosette, he possessed Cosette; Cosette was splendidly pure, and that was sufficient for him. What enlightenment did he require when Cosette was a light? Does light need illumination? He had everything; what more could he desire? Is not everything enough? Jean Valjean's personal affairs in no way concerned him, and in bending down over the fatal shadow of this wretched man he clung to his solemn declaration, "I am nothing to Cosette; ten years ago I did not know that she existed." Jean Valjean was a passer-by; he had said so himself. Well, then, he passed, and whoever he might be, his part was played out. Henceforth Marius would have to perform the functions of Providence toward Cosette; she had found again in ether her equal, her lover, her husband, her celestial male. In flying away, Cosette, winged and transfigured, left behind her on earth her empty and hideous chrysalis, Jean Valjean. In whatever circle of ideas Marius might turn, he always came back to a certain horror of Jean Valjean; a sacred horror, perhaps, for, as we have stated, he felt a quid divinum in this man. But though it was so, and whatever extenuating circumstances he might seek, he was always compelled to fall back on this: he was a convict, that is to say, a being who has not even a place on the social ladder, being beneath the lowest rung. After the last of men comes the convict, who is no longer, so to speak, in the likeness of his fellow-men. The law has deprived him of the entire amount of humanity which it can strip off a man. Marius, in penal matters, democrat though he was, was still of the inexorable system, and he entertained all the ideas of the law about those whom the law strikes. He had not yet made every progress, we are forced to say; he had not yet learned to distinguish between what is written by man and what is written by God,—between the law and the right. He had examined and weighed the claim which man sets up to dispose of the irrevocable, the irreparable, and the word vindicta was not repulsive to him. He considered it simple that certain breaches of the written law should be followed by eternal penalties, and he accepted social condemnation as a civilizing process. He was still at this point, though infallibly certain to advance at a later date, for his nature was good, and entirely composed of latent progress.