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

  CHAPTER III.

  THE BEGINNING OF THE SHADOW.

  Jean Valjean suspected nothing; for Cosette, not quite such a dreameras Marius, was gay, and that sufficed to render Jean Valjean happy.Cosette's thoughts, her tender preoccupations, and the image of Mariuswhich filled her soul, removed none of the incomparable purity of hersplendid, chaste, and smiling forehead. She was at the age when thevirgin wears her love as the angel wears its lily. Jean Valjean was,therefore, happy; and, besides, when two lovers understand each other,things always go well, and any third party who might trouble theirlove is kept in a perfect state of blindness by a small number ofprecautions, which are always the same with all lovers. Hence Cosettenever made any objections; if he wished to take a walk, "Very good, mylittle papa," and if he stayed at home, very good, and if he wished tospend the evening with Cosette, she was enchanted. As he always retiredat ten o'clock at night, on those occasions Marius did not reach thegarden till after that hour, when he heard from the street Cosetteopening the door. We need hardly say that Marius was never visible byday, and Jean Valjean did not even remember that Marius existed. Onemorning, however, he happened to say to Cosette, "Why, the back of yourdress is all white!" On the previous evening Marius in a transport hadpressed Cosette against the wall. Old Toussaint, who went to bed at anearly hour, only thought of sleeping so soon as her work was finished,and was ignorant of everything, like Jean Valjean.

  Marius never set foot in the house when he was with Cosette; theyconcealed themselves in a niche near the steps so as not to be seenor heard from the street, and sat there, often contenting themselveswith the sole conversation of pressing hands twenty times a minute, andgazing at the branches of the trees. At such moments, had a thunderboltfallen within thirty feet of them, they would not have noticed it, soprofoundly was the revery of the one absorbed and plunged in the reveryof the other. It was a limpid purity, and the houses were all white,and nearly all alike. This species of love is a collection of lilyleaves and dove's feathers. The whole garden was between them and thestreet, and each time that Marius came in and out he carefully restoredthe bar of the railings, so that no disarrangement was visible. He wentaway generally at midnight, and went back to Courfeyrac's lodgings.Courfeyrac said to Bahorel,--

  "Can you believe it? Marius returns home at present at one in themorning."

  Bahorel answered,--

  "What would you have? There is always a bombshell inside a seminarist."

  At times Courfeyrac crossed his arms, assumed a stern air, and said toMarius,--

  "Young man, you are becoming irregular in your habits."

  Courfeyrac, who was a practical man, was not pleased with thisreflection of an invisible Paradise cast on Marius; he was but littleaccustomed to unpublished passions, hence he grew impatient, and attimes summoned Marius to return to reality. One morning he cast thisadmonition to him,--

  "My dear fellow, you produce on me the effect at present of beinga denizen of the moon, in the kingdom of dreams, the province ofillusion, whose chief city is soap-bubble. Come, don't play theprude,--what is her name?"

  But nothing could make Marius speak, and his nails could have beendragged from him more easily than one of the three sacred syllables ofwhich the ineffable name _Cosette_ was composed. True love is luminousas the dawn, and silent as the tomb. Still Courfeyrac found this changein Marius, that he had a beaming taciturnity. During the sweet monthof May, Marius and Cosette knew this immense happiness,--to quarreland become reconciled, to talk for a long time, and with the mostminute details, about people who did not interest them the least in theworld,--a further proof that in that ravishing opera which is calledlove, the libretto is nothing. For Marius it was heaven to listen toCosette talking of dress; for Cosette to listen to Marius talkingpolitics, to listen, knee against knee, to the vehicles passing alongthe Rue de Babylone, to look at the same planet in space, or the sameworm glistening in the grass, to be silent together, a greater pleasurestill than talking, etc.

  Still various complications were approaching. One evening Marius wasgoing to the rendezvous along the Boulevard des Invalides; he waswalking as usual with his head down, and as he was turning the cornerof the Rue Plumet, he heard some one say close to him,--

  "Good-evening, Monsieur Marius."

  He raised his head and recognized Éponine. This produced a singulareffect; he had not once thought of this girl since the day when she ledhim to the Rue Plumet; he had not seen her again, and she had entirelyleft his mind. He had only motives to be grateful to her, he owed herhis present happiness, and yet it annoyed him to meet her. It is anerror to believe that passion, when it is happy and pure, leads a manto a state of perfection; it leads him simply, as we have shown, to astate of forgetfulness. In this situation, man forgets to be wicked,but he also forgets to be good, and gratitude, duty, and essential andmaterial recollections, fade away. At any other time Marius would havebeen very different to Éponine, but, absorbed by Cosette, he had notvery clearly comprehended that this Éponine was Éponine Thénardier, andthat she bore a name written in his father's will,--that name to whichhe would have so ardently devoted himself a few months previously. Weshow Marius as he was, and his father himself slightly disappeared inhis mind beneath the splendor of his love. Hence he replied with someembarrassment,--

  "Ah, is it you, Éponine?"

  "Why do you treat me so coldly? Have I done you any injury?"

  "No," he answered.

  Certainly he had nothing against her; far from it. Still he felt thathe could not but say "you" to Éponine, now that he said "thou" toCosette. As he remained silent, she exclaimed,--

  "Tell me--"

  Then she stopped, and it seemed as if words failed this creature, whowas formerly so impudent and bold. She tried to smile and could not, socontinued,--

  "Well?"

  Then she was silent again, and looked down on the ground.

  "Good-night, Monsieur Marius," she suddenly said, and went away.