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

  CHAPTER V.

  COSETTE AFTER THE LETTER.

  While reading these lines Cosette gradually fell into a reverie,and at the moment when she raised her eyes from the last page thehandsome officer passed triumphantly in front of the gate; for it washis hour. Cosette found him hideous. She began gazing at the roll ofpaper again; it was in an exquisite hand-writing, Cosette thought, allwritten by the same hand, but with different inks, some very black,others pale, as when ink is put in the stand, and consequently ondifferent days. It was, therefore, a thought expanded on the paper,sigh by sigh, irregularly, without order, without choice, withoutpurpose, accidentally. Cosette had never read anything like it; thismanuscript, in which she saw more light than obscurity, produced on herthe effect of the door of a shrine left ajar. Each of these mysteriouslines flashed in her eyes, and flooded her heart with a strange light.The education which she had received had always spoken to her of thesoul, and not of love, much as if a person were to speak of the burninglog and say nothing about the flame. This manuscript of fifteen pagessuddenly and gently revealed to her the whole of love, sorrow, destiny,life, eternity, the beginning and the end. It was like a hand whichopened and threw upon her a galaxy of beams. She felt in these linesan impassioned, ardent, generous, and honest nature, a sacred will, animmense grief and an immense hope, a contracted heart, and an expandedecstasy. What was the manuscript? A letter. A letter without address,name, or signature, pressing and disinterested, an enigma composedof truths, a love-message fit to be borne by an angel and read by avirgin; a rendezvous appointed off the world, a sweet love-letterwritten by a phantom to a shadow. It was a tranquil and crushed absentman, who seemed ready to seek a refuge in death, and who sent to hisabsent love the secret of destiny, the key of life. It had been writtenwith one foot in the grave and the hand in heaven, and these lines,which had fallen one by one on the paper, were what might be calleddrops of the soul.

  And now, from whom could these pages come? Who could have writtenthem? Cosette did not hesitate for a moment,--only from one man, from_him!_ Daylight had returned to her mind and everything reappeared. Sheexperienced an extraordinary joy and a profound agony. It was he! Hewho wrote to her; he had been there; his arm had been passed throughthe railings! While she was forgetting him he had found her again!But had she forgotten him? No, never! she was mad to have thoughtso for a moment; for she had ever loved, ever adored him. The firewas covered, and had smouldered for a while, but, as she now plainlysaw, it had spread its ravages, and again burst into a flame whichentirely kindled her. This letter was like a spark that had fallenfrom the other soul into hers; she felt the fire begin again, and shewas penetrated by every word of the manuscript. "Oh, yes," she said toherself, "how well I recognize all this! I had read it all already inhis eyes."

  As she finished reading it for the third time, Lieutenant Théodulereturned past the railings, and clanked his spurs on the pavement.Cosette was obliged to raise her eyes, and she found him insipid,silly, stupid, useless, fatuous, displeasing, impertinent, and veryugly. The officer thought himself bound to smile, and she turned awayashamed and indignant; she would have gladly thrown something at hishead. She ran away, re-entered the house, and locked herself in herbedroom, to re-read the letter, learn it by heart, and dream. Whenshe had read it thoroughly, she kissed it and hid it in her bosom.It was all over. Cosette had fallen back into the profound seraphiclove; the Paradisaic abyss had opened again. The whole day through,Cosette was in a state of bewilderment; she hardly thought, and herideas were confused in her brain; she could not succeed in forming anyconjectures, and she hoped through a tremor, what? Vague things. Shedid not dare promise herself anything, and she would not refuse herselfanything. A pallor passed over her face, and a quiver over her limbs;and she fancied at moments that it was all a chimera, and said toherself, "Is it real?" Then she felt the well-beloved paper under herdress, pressed it to her heart, felt the corners against her flesh, andif Jean Valjean had seen her at that moment he would have shuddered atthe luminous and strange joy which overflowed from her eyelids. "Oh,yes," she thought, "it is certainly his! This comes from him for me!"And she said to herself that an intervention of the angels, a celestialaccident, had restored him to her. Oh, transfiguration of love! oh,dreams! this celestial accident, this intervention of angels, was theball of bread cast by one robber to another from the Charlemagne yardto the Lions' den, over the buildings of La Force.