CHAPTER III.
ENRICHED WITH THE COMMENTS OF TOUSSAINT.
In the garden, near the railings looking out on the street, there was astone bench, protected from the gaze of passers-by by a hedge, but itwould have been an easy task to reach it by thrusting an arm throughthe railings and the hedge. One evening in this same month of April,Jean Valjean had gone out, and Cosette, after sunset, was seated onthis bench. The wind was freshening in the trees, and Cosette wasreflecting; an objectless sorrow was gradually gaining on her, theinvincible sorrow which night produces, and which comes perhaps--forwho knows?--from the mystery of the tomb which is yawning at themoment. Possibly Fantine was in that shadow.
Cosette rose, and slowly went round the garden, walking on thedew-laden grass and saying to herself through the sort of melancholysomnambulism in which she was plunged: "I ought to have wooden shoesto walk in the garden at this hour; I shall catch cold." She returnedto the bench; but at the moment when she was going to sit down, shenoticed at the place she had left a rather large stone, which hadevidently not been there a moment before. Cosette looked at the stone,asking herself what it meant. All at once the idea that the stone hadnot reached the bench of itself, that some one had placed it there, andthat an arm had been passed through the grating, occurred to her andfrightened her. This time it was a real fear, for there was the stone.No doubt was possible. She did not touch it, but fled without daringto look behind her, sought refuge in the house, and at once shuttered,barred, and bolted the French window opening on the steps. Then sheasked Toussaint,--
"Has my father come in?"
"No, Miss."
(We have indicated once for all Toussaint's stammering, and we askleave no longer to accentuate it, as we feel a musical notation of aninfirmity to be repulsive.)
Jean Valjean, a thoughtful man, and stroller by night, often did notreturn till a late hour.
"Toussaint," Cosette continued, "be careful to put up the bars to theshutters looking on the garden, and to place the little iron things inthe rings that close them."
"Oh, I am sure I will, Miss."
Toussaint did not fail, and Cosette was well aware of the fact, but shecould not refrain from adding,--
"For it is so desolate here."
"Well, that's true," said Toussaint; "we might be murdered before wehad the time to say, Ouf! and then, too, master does not sleep in thehouse. But don't be frightened, Miss. I fasten up the windows likeBastilles. Lone women! I should think that is enough to make a bodyshudder. Only think! to see men coming into your bedroom and hear themsay, 'Be quiet, you!' and then they begin to cut your throat. It is notso much the dying, for everybody dies, and we know that we must do so;but it is the abomination of feeling those fellows touch you; and thentheir knives are not sharp, perhaps; oh, Lord!"
"Hold your tongue," said Cosette, "and fasten up everything securely."
Cosette, terrified by the drama improvised by Toussaint, and perhapstoo by the apparitions of the last week, which returned to her mind,did not even dare to say to her, "Just go and look at the stone laidon the bench;" for fear of having to open the garden gate again, andthe men might walk in. She had all the doors and windows carefullyclosed, made Toussaint examine the whole house from cellar to attic,locked herself in her bedroom, looked under the bed, and slept badly.The whole night through, she saw the stone as large as a mountain andfull of caverns. At sunrise--the peculiarity of sunrise is to makeus laugh at all our terrors of the night, and our laughter is alwaysproportioned to the fear we have felt--at sunrise, Cosette, on waking,saw her terror like a nightmare, and said to herself: "What could I bethinking about! It was like the steps which I fancied I heard last weekin the garden at night! It is like the shadow of the chimney-pot. Am Igoing to turn coward now?" The sun, which poured through the crevicesof her shutters and made the damask curtains one mass of purple,re-assured her so fully that all faded away in her mind, even to thestone.
"There was no more a stone on the bench than there was a man in a roundhat in the garden. I dreamed of the stone like the rest."
She dressed herself, went down into the garden, and felt a coldperspiration all over her,--the stone was there. But this only lastedfor a moment, for what is terror by night is curiosity by day.
"Nonsense!" she said, "I'll see."
She raised the stone, which was of some size, and there was somethingunder it that resembled a letter; it was an envelope of white paper.Cosette seized it; there was no address on it, and it was not sealedup. Still, the envelope, though open, was not empty, for papers couldbe seen inside. Cosette no longer suffered from terror, nor was itcuriosity; it was a commencement of anxiety. Cosette took out a smallquire of paper, each page of which was numbered, and bore several lineswritten in a very nice and delicate hand, so Cosette thought. Shelooked for a name, but there was none; for a signature, but there wasnone either. For whom was the packet intended? Probably for herself, asa hand had laid it on the bench. From whom did it come? An irresistiblefascination seized upon her; she tried to turn her eyes away fromthese pages, which trembled in her hand. She looked at the sky, thestreet, the acacias all bathed in light, the pigeons circling round anadjoining roof, and then her eye settled on the manuscript, and shesaid to herself that she must know what was inside it. This is what sheread.