Les Misérables, v. 4/5: The Idyll and the Epic

  CHAPTER VII.

  JEAN VALJEAN IS VERY SAD.

  All situations have their instincts, and old and eternal mother Naturewarned Jean Valjean darkly of the presence of Marius. Jean Valjeantrembled in the depth of his mind; he saw nothing, knew nothing, andyet regarded with obstinate attention the darkness in which he was, asif he felt on one side something being built up, on the other somethingcrumbling away. Marius, who was also warned by the same mother Nature,did all in his power to conceal himself from the father, but for allthat, Jean Valjean sometimes perceived him. Marius's manner was nolonger wise; he displayed clumsy prudence and awkward temerity. Heno longer came quite close to them, as he had formerly done, he satdown at a distance, and remained in an ecstasy: he had a book, andpretended to read it; why did he pretend? Formerly he came in an oldcoat, and now he came every day in his new one. Jean Valjean was notquite sure whether he did not have his hair dressed; he had a strangeway of rolling his eyes, and wore gloves,--in short, Jean Valjeancordially detested the young man. Cosette did not allow anything tobe guessed. Without knowing exactly what was the matter with her,she had a feeling that it was something which must be hidden. Therewas a parallelism which annoyed Jean Valjean between the taste fordress which had come to Cosette, and the habit of wearing new clothesdisplayed by this stranger. It was an accident, perhaps,--of course itwas,--but a menacing accident.

  He never opened his mouth to Cosette about this stranger. One day,however, he could not refrain, and said, with that vague despair whichsuddenly thrusts the probe into its own misfortune, "That young manlooks like a pedant." Cosette, a year previously, when still a carelesslittle girl, would have answered, "Oh, no, he is very good-looking."Ten years later, with the love of Marius in her heart, she would havereplied, "An insufferable pedant, you are quite right." At the presentmoment of her life and heart, she restricted herself to saying, withsupreme calmness, "That young man!" as if she looked at him for thefirst time in her life. "How stupid I am," Jean Valjean thought, "shehad not even noticed him, and now I have pointed him out to her." Oh,simplicity of old people! oh, depth of children! It is another law ofthese first years of suffering and care, of these sharp struggles offirst love with first obstacles, that the maiden cannot be caught inany snare, while the young man falls into all. Jean Valjean had beguna secret war against Marius, which Marius, in the sublime stupidity ofhis passion and his age, did not guess. Jean Valjean laid all sortsof snares for him. He changed his hours, he changed his bench, heleft his handkerchief, he went alone to the Luxembourg: and Mariuswent headlong into the trap, and to all these notes of interrogationwhich Jean Valjean planted in the road, ingenuously answered, "Yes."Cosette, however, remained immured in her apparent carelessness andimperturbable tranquillity, so that Jean Valjean arrived at thisconclusion: "That humbug is madly in love with Cosette, but Cosettedoes not even know that he exists."

  For all that, though, he had a painful tremor in his heart, for theminute when Cosette would love might arrive at any instant. Does notall this commence with indifference? Only once did Cosette commit anerror and startle him; he arose from his bench to go home after threehours' sitting, and she said, "What, already?" Jean Valjean did notgive up his walks at the Luxembourg, as he did not wish to do anythingsingular, or arouse Cosette's attention; but during the hours sosweet for the two lovers, while Cosette was sending her smile to theintoxicated Marius, who only perceived this, and now saw nothing morein the world than a radiant adored face, Jean Valjean fixed on Mariusflashing and terrible eyes. He who had ended by no longer believinghimself capable of a malevolent feeling, had moments when he felt,if Marius were present, as if he were growing savage and ferocious;and those old depths of his soul which had formerly contained so muchanger opened again against this young man. It seemed to him as ifunknown craters were again being formed within him. What! the fellowwas there! What did he come to do? he came to sniff, examine, andattempt; he came to say, Well, why not? he came to prowl round his,Jean Valjean's, life, to prowl round his happiness, and carry it awayfrom him. Jean Valjean added, "Yes, that is it! What does he come toseek? An adventure. What does he want? A love-affair. A love-affair?and I! What? I was first the most wretched of men, and then the mostunhappy. I have spent sixty years on my knees, I have suffered all thata man can suffer, I have grown old without ever having been young. Ihave lived without family, parents, friends, children, or wife. I haveleft some of my blood on every stone, on every bramble, on every wall.I have been gentle, though men were harsh to me, and good though theywere wicked. I have become an honest man again, in spite of everything;I have repented of the evil I did, and pardoned the evil done to me,and at the moment when I am rewarded, when all is finished, when Itouched my object, when I have what I wish,--and it is but fair as Ihave paid for it and earned it,--all this is to fade away, and I amto lose Cosette, my love, my joy, my soul, because it has pleased along-legged ass to saunter about the Luxembourg garden!"

  Then his eyeballs were filled with a mournful and extraordinarybrilliancy; he was no longer a man looking at a man, no longer an enemylooking at an enemy, he was a dog watching a robber. Our readers knowthe rest. Marius continued to be foolish, and one day followed Cosetteto the Rue de l'Ouest. Another day he spoke to the porter, and theporter spoke in his turn, and said to Jean Valjean, "Do you happen toknow, sir, a curious young man, who has been making inquiries aboutyou?" The next day Jean Valjean gave Marius that look which Mariusat length noticed, and a week later Jean Valjean went away. He made avow that he would never again set foot in the Rue de l'Ouest or theLuxembourg, and returned to the Rue Plumet. Cosette did not complain,she said nothing, she asked no questions, she did not attempt todiscover any motive, for she had reached that stage when a girl fearsthat her thoughts may be perused, or she may betray herself. JeanValjean had no experience of these miseries, the only ones which arecharming, and the only ones he did not know, and on this account hedid not comprehend the grave significance of Cosette's silence. Still,he noticed that she became sad, and he became gloomy. Inexperience wascontending on both sides. Once he made an essay, by asking Cosette,"Will you go to the Luxembourg?" A beam illuminated Cosette's paleface; "Yes," she said. They went there, but three months had elapsed,and Marius no longer went there,--there was no Marius present. The nextday Jean Valjean again asked Cosette, "Will you go to the Luxembourg?"She answered sadly and gently, "No." Jean Valjean was hurt by thesadness, and heart-broken by the gentleness.

  What was taking place in this young and already so impenetrable mind?What was going to be accomplished? What was happening to Cosette'ssoul? Sometimes, instead of going to bed, Jean Valjean would remainseated by his bedside with his head between his hands, and spentwhole nights in asking himself, "What has Cosette on her mind?" andin thinking of the things of which she might be thinking. Oh, atsuch moments what sad glances he turned toward the convent, thatchaste summit, that abiding place of angels, that inaccessible glacierof virtue! With what despairing ravishment did he contemplate thatgarden, full of ignored flowers and immured virgins, where all theperfumes and all the souls ascend direct to heaven! How he adored thatEden, now closed against him forever, and which he had voluntarilyand madly left! How he lamented his self-denial and his madness inbringing Cosette back to the world! He was the poor hero of thesacrifice, seized and hurled down by his own devotion. How he said tohimself, What have I done? However, nothing of this was visible toCosette,--neither temper nor roughness,--it was ever the same serenekind face. Jean Valjean's manner was even more tender and paternal thanbefore; and if anything could have shown that he was less joyous, itwas his greater gentleness.

  On her side, Cosette was pining; she suffered from Marius's absence, asshe had revelled in his presence, singularly, and not exactly knowingwhy. When Jean Valjean ceased taking her for her usual walk, a feminineinstinct had whispered to her heart that she must not appear to beattached to the Luxembourg, and that if she displayed indifference inthe matter her father would take her back to it. But days, weeks, andmonths
succeeded each other, for Jean Valjean had tacitly acceptedCosette's tacit consent. She regretted it, but it was too late, andon the day when they returned to the Luxembourg, Marius was no longerthere. He had disappeared, then, it was all over. What could she do?Would she ever see him again? She felt a contraction of the heartwhich nothing dilated and which daily increased; she no longer knewwhether it were summer or winter, sunshine or rain, whether the birdswere singing, whether it was the dahlia or the daisy season, whetherthe Luxembourg was more charming than the Tuileries, whether thelinen brought home by the washerwoman was too much or insufficientlystarched, or if Toussaint had gone to market well or ill; and sheremained crushed, absorbed, attentive to one thought alone, with avague and fixed eye, like a person gazing through the darkness at thedeep black spot where a phantom has just vanished. Still, she did notallow Jean Valjean to see anything but her pallor, and her face wasever gentle to him. This pallor, though, was more than sufficient torender Jean Valjean anxious, and at times he would ask her:

  "What is the matter with you?"

  And she answered,--

  "Nothing."

  After a silence, she would add, as if guessing that he was sad too,--

  "And, father, is there anything the matter with you?"

  "With me? Oh, nothing," he would reply.

  These two beings who had loved each other so exclusively, and one ofthem with such a touching love, and had lived for a long time onethrough the other, were now suffering side by side, one on account ofthe other, without confessing it, without anger, and with a smile.