Les Misérables
through the crevices of the stones, amid the grass there was a charming
beginning of daisies, and buttercups, the white butterflies of the year
were making their first appearance, the wind, that minstrel of the
eternal wedding, was trying in the trees the first notes of that grand,
auroral symphony which the old poets called the springtide,—Marius said
to Cosette:—“We said that we would go back to take a look at our garden
in the Rue Plumet. Let us go thither. We must not be ungrateful.”—And
away they flitted, like two swallows towards the spring. This garden of
the Rue Plumet produced on them the effect of the dawn. They already
had behind them in life something which was like the springtime of
their love. The house in the Rue Plumet being held on a lease, still
belonged to Cosette. They went to that garden and that house. There
they found themselves again, there they forgot themselves. That
evening, at the usual hour, Jean Valjean came to the Rue des
Filles-du-Calvaire.—“Madame went out with Monsieur and has not yet
returned,” Basque said to him. He seated himself in silence, and waited
an hour. Cosette did not return. He departed with drooping head.
Cosette was so intoxicated with her walk to “their garden,” and so
joyous at having “lived a whole day in her past,” that she talked of
nothing else on the morrow. She did not notice that she had not seen
Jean Valjean.
“In what way did you go thither?” Jean Valjean asked her.”
“On foot.”
“And how did you return?”
“In a hackney carriage.”
For some time, Jean Valjean had noticed the economical life led by the
young people. He was troubled by it. Marius’ economy was severe, and
that word had its absolute meaning for Jean Valjean. He hazarded a
query:
“Why do you not have a carriage of your own? A pretty coupé would only
cost you five hundred francs a month. You are rich.”
“I don’t know,” replied Cosette.
“It is like Toussaint,” resumed Jean Valjean. “She is gone. You have
not replaced her. Why?”
“Nicolette suffices.”
“But you ought to have a maid.”
“Have I not Marius?”
“You ought to have a house of your own, your own servants, a carriage,
a box at the theatre. There is nothing too fine for you. Why not profit
by your riches? Wealth adds to happiness.”
Cosette made no reply.
Jean Valjean’s visits were not abridged. Far from it. When it is the
heart which is slipping, one does not halt on the downward slope.
When Jean Valjean wished to prolong his visit and to induce
forgetfulness of the hour, he sang the praises of Marius; he pronounced
him handsome, noble, courageous, witty, eloquent, good. Cosette outdid
him. Jean Valjean began again. They were never weary. Marius—that word
was inexhaustible; those six letters contained volumes. In this manner,
Jean Valjean contrived to remain a long time.
It was so sweet to see Cosette, to forget by her side! It alleviated
his wounds. It frequently happened that Basque came twice to announce:
“M. Gillenormand sends me to remind Madame la Baronne that dinner is
served.”
On those days, Jean Valjean was very thoughtful on his return home.
Was there, then, any truth in that comparison of the chrysalis which
had presented itself to the mind of Marius? Was Jean Valjean really a
chrysalis who would persist, and who would come to visit his butterfly?
One day he remained still longer than usual. On the following day he
observed that there was no fire on the hearth.—“Hello!” he thought. “No
fire.”—And he furnished the explanation for himself.—“It is perfectly
simple. It is April. The cold weather has ceased.”
“Heavens! how cold it is here!” exclaimed Cosette when she entered.
“Why, no,” said Jean Valjean.
“Was it you who told Basque not to make a fire then?”
“Yes, since we are now in the month of May.”
“But we have a fire until June. One is needed all the year in this
cellar.”
“I thought that a fire was unnecessary.”
“That is exactly like one of your ideas!” retorted Cosette.
On the following day there was a fire. But the two armchairs were
arranged at the other end of the room near the door. “—What is the
meaning of this?” thought Jean Valjean.
He went for the armchairs and restored them to their ordinary place
near the hearth.
This fire lighted once more encouraged him, however. He prolonged the
conversation even beyond its customary limits. As he rose to take his
leave, Cosette said to him:
“My husband said a queer thing to me yesterday.”
“What was it?”
“He said to me: ‘Cosette, we have an income of thirty thousand livres.
Twenty-seven that you own, and three that my grandfather gives me.’ I
replied: ‘That makes thirty.’ He went on: ‘Would you have the courage
to live on the three thousand?’ I answered: ‘Yes, on nothing. Provided
that it was with you.’ And then I asked: ‘Why do you say that to me?’
He replied: ‘I wanted to know.’”
Jean Valjean found not a word to answer. Cosette probably expected some
explanation from him; he listened in gloomy silence. He went back to
the Rue de l’Homme Armé; he was so deeply absorbed that he mistook the
door and instead of entering his own house, he entered the adjoining
dwelling. It was only after having ascended nearly two stories that he
perceived his error and went down again.
His mind was swarming with conjectures. It was evident that Marius had
his doubts as to the origin of the six hundred thousand francs, that he
feared some source that was not pure, who knows? that he had even,
perhaps, discovered that the money came from him, Jean Valjean, that he
hesitated before this suspicious fortune, and was disinclined to take
it as his own,—preferring that both he and Cosette should remain poor,
rather than that they should be rich with wealth that was not clean.
Moreover, Jean Valjean began vaguely to surmise that he was being shown
the door.
On the following day, he underwent something like a shock on entering
the ground-floor room. The armchairs had disappeared. There was not a
single chair of any sort.
“Ah, what’s this!” exclaimed Cosette as she entered, “no chairs! Where
are the armchairs?”
“They are no longer here,” replied Jean Valjean.
“This is too much!”
Jean Valjean stammered:
“It was I who told Basque to remove them.”
“And your reason?”
“I have only a few minutes to stay to-day.”
“A brief stay is no reason for remaining standing.”
“I think that Basque needed the chairs for the drawing-room.”
“Why?”
“You have company this evening, no doubt.”
“We expect no one.”
Jean Valjean had not another word to say.
Cosette shrugged her shoulders.
“To have the chairs carried off! The other day you had the fire put
out. How odd you are!”
“Adieu!” murmured Jean Valjean.
He did not say: “Adieu, Cosette.” But he had not the strength to say:
“Adieu, Madame.”
He went away utterly overwhelmed.
This time he had understood.
On the following day he did not come. Cosette only observed the fact in
the evening.
“Why,” said she, “Monsieur Jean has not been here today.”
And she felt a slight twinge at her heart, but she hardly perceived it,
being immediately diverted by a kiss from Marius.
On the following day he did not come.
Cosette paid no heed to this, passed her evening and slept well that
night, as usual, and thought of it only when she woke. She was so
happy! She speedily despatched Nicolette to M. Jean’s house to inquire
whether he were ill, and why he had not come on the previous evening.
Nicolette brought back the reply of M. Jean that he was not ill. He was
busy. He would come soon. As soon as he was able. Moreover, he was on
the point of taking a little journey. Madame must remember that it was
his custom to take trips from time to time. They were not to worry
about him. They were not to think of him.
Nicolette on entering M. Jean’s had repeated to him her mistress’ very
words. That Madame had sent her to inquire why M. Jean had not come on
the preceding evening. ”—It is two days since I have been there,” said
Jean Valjean gently.
But the remark passed unnoticed by Nicolette, who did not report it to
Cosette.
CHAPTER IV—ATTRACTION AND EXTINCTION
During the last months of spring and the first months of summer in
1833, the rare passers-by in the Marais, the petty shopkeepers, the
loungers on thresholds, noticed an old man neatly clad in black, who
emerged every day at the same hour, towards nightfall, from the Rue de
l’Homme Armé, on the side of the Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie,
passed in front of the Blancs Manteaux, gained the Rue
Culture-Sainte-Catherine, and, on arriving at the Rue de l’Écharpe,
turned to the left, and entered the Rue Saint-Louis.
There he walked at a slow pace, with his head strained forward, seeing
nothing, hearing nothing, his eye immovably fixed on a point which
seemed to be a star to him, which never varied, and which was no other
than the corner of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. The nearer he
approached the corner of the street the more his eye lighted up; a sort
of joy illuminated his pupils like an inward aurora, he had a
fascinated and much affected air, his lips indulged in obscure
movements, as though he were talking to some one whom he did not see,
he smiled vaguely and advanced as slowly as possible. One would have
said that, while desirous of reaching his destination, he feared the
moment when he should be close at hand. When only a few houses remained
between him and that street which appeared to attract him his pace
slackened, to such a degree that, at times, one might have thought that
he was no longer advancing at all. The vacillation of his head and the
fixity of his eyeballs suggested the thought of the magnetic needle
seeking the pole. Whatever time he spent on arriving, he was obliged to
arrive at last; he reached the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire; then he
halted, he trembled, he thrust his head with a sort of melancholy
timidity round the corner of the last house, and gazed into that
street, and there was in that tragic look something which resembled the
dazzling light of the impossible, and the reflection from a paradise
that was closed to him. Then a tear, which had slowly gathered in the
corner of his lids, and had become large enough to fall, trickled down
his cheek, and sometimes stopped at his mouth. The old man tasted its
bitter flavor. Thus he remained for several minutes as though made of
stone, then he returned by the same road and with the same step, and,
in proportion as he retreated, his glance died out.
Little by little, this old man ceased to go as far as the corner of the
Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire; he halted half way in the Rue Saint-Louis;
sometimes a little further off, sometimes a little nearer.
One day he stopped at the corner of the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine
and looked at the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire from a distance. Then he
shook his head slowly from right to left, as though refusing himself
something, and retraced his steps.
Soon he no longer came as far as the Rue Saint-Louis. He got as far as
the Rue Pavée, shook his head and turned back; then he went no further
than the Rue des Trois-Pavillons; then he did not overstep the
Blancs-Manteaux. One would have said that he was a pendulum which was
no longer wound up, and whose oscillations were growing shorter before
ceasing altogether.
Every day he emerged from his house at the same hour, he undertook the
same trip, but he no longer completed it, and, perhaps without himself
being aware of the fact, he constantly shortened it. His whole
countenance expressed this single idea: What is the use?—His eye was
dim; no more radiance. His tears were also exhausted; they no longer
collected in the corner of his eye-lid; that thoughtful eye was dry.