Les Misérables, v. 5/5: Jean Valjean

  BOOK IX.

  SUPREME DARKNESS, SUPREME DAWN.

  CHAPTER I.

  PITY THE UNHAPPY, BUT BE INDULGENT TO THE HAPPY.

  It is a terrible thing to be happy! How satisfied people are! Howsufficient they find it! How, when possessed of the false objectof life, happiness, they forget the true one, duty! We are boundto say, however, that it would be unjust to accuse Marius. Marius,as we have explained, before his marriage asked no questions of M.Fauchelevent, and since had been afraid to ask any of Jean Valjean.He had regretted the promise which he had allowed to be drawn fromhim, and had repeatedly said to himself that he had done wrong inmaking this concession to despair. He had restricted himself togradually turning Jean Valjean out of his house, and effacing him asfar as possible in Cosette's mind. He had to some extent constantlystationed himself between Cosette and Jean Valjean, feeling certainthat in this way she would not perceive it or think of it. It was morethan an effacement,--it was an eclipse. Marius did what he considerednecessary and just; he believed that he had serious reasons, some ofwhich we have seen, and some we have yet to see, for getting rid ofJean Valjean, without harshness, but without weakness. Chance havingmade him acquainted, in a trial in which he was retained, with anex-clerk of Laffitte's bank, he had obtained, without seeking it,mysterious information, which, in truth, he had not been able toexamine, through respect for the secret he had promised to keep, andthrough regard for Jean Valjean's perilous situation. He believed,at this very moment, that he had a serious duty to perform,--therestitution of the six hundred thousand francs to some one whom he wasseeking as discreetly as he could. In the mean while he abstained fromtouching that money.

  As for Cosette, she was not acquainted with any of these secrets, butit would be harsh to condemn her either. Between Marius and her wasan omnipotent magnetism, which made her do instinctively and almostmechanically whatever Marius wished. She felt a wish of Marius in thematter of Monsieur Jean, and she conformed to it. Her husband hadsaid nothing to her, but she suffered the vague but clear pressure ofhis tacit intentions, and blindly obeyed. Her obedience in this caseconsisted in not remembering what Marius forgot; and she had no effortto make in doing so. Without knowing why herself, and without therebeing anything to blame her for, her mind had so thoroughly becomethat of her husband, that whatever covered itself with a shadow inMarius's thoughts was obscured in hers. Let us not go too far, however;as regards Jean Valjean, this effacement and this forgetfulness wereonly superficial, and she was thoughtless rather than forgetful. Inher heart she truly loved the man whom she had so long called father;but she loved her husband more, and this had slightly falsified thebalance of this heart, which weighed down on one side only. It happenedat times that Cosette would speak of Jean Valjean and express hersurprise, and then Marius would calm her. "He is away, I believe; didhe not say that he was going on a journey?" "That is true," Cosettethought, "he used to disappear like that, but not for so long a time."Twice or thrice she sent Nicolette to inquire in the Rue de l'HommeArmé whether Monsieur Jean had returned from his tour, and Jean Valjeansent answer in the negative. Cosette asked no more, as she had onearth but one want,--Marius. Let us also say that Marius and Cosettehad been absent too. They went to Vernon, and Marius took Cosette tohis father's tomb. Marius had gradually abstracted Cosette from JeanValjean, and Cosette had allowed it. However, what is called much tooharshly in certain cases the ingratitude of children is not always soreprehensible a thing as may be believed. It is the ingratitude ofnature; for nature, as we have said elsewhere, "looks before her," anddivides living beings into arrivals and departures. The departuresare turned to the darkness, and the arrivals toward light. Hence adivergence, which on the part of the old is fatal, on the part ofthe young is involuntary; and this divergence, at first insensible,increases slowly, like every separation of branches, and the twigsseparate without detaching themselves from the parent stem. It is nottheir fault, for youth goes where there is joy, to festivals, to brightlight, and to love, while old age proceeds toward the end. They do notlose each other out of sight, but there is no longer a connecting link:the young people feel the chill of life, and the old that of the tomb.Let us not accuse these poor children.