Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [180]
Suddenly, in the midst of this deep calm, a new sound arose; a celestial, divine, ineffable sound, as ravishing as the other was horrible. It was a hymn which came forth from the darkness, a bewildering mingling of prayer and harmony in the obscure and fearful silence of the night; voices of women, but voices with the pure accents of virgins, and artless accents of children; those voices which are not of earth, and which resemble those that the newborn still hear, and the dying hear already. This song came from the gloomy building which overlooked the garden. At the moment when the uproar of the demons receded, one would have said, it was a choir of angels approaching in the darkness.
Cosette and Jean Valjean fell on their knees.
They knew not what it was; they knew not where they were; but they both felt, the man and the child, the penitent and the innocent, that they ought to be on their knees.
These voices had this strange effect; they did not prevent the building from appearing deserted. It was like a supernatural song in an uninhabited dwelling.
While these voices were singing Jean Valjean was entirely absorbed in them. He no longer saw the night, he saw a blue sky. He seemed to feel the spreading of these wings which we all have within us.
The chant ceased. Perhaps it had lasted a long time. Jean Valjean could not have told. Hours of ecstasy are never more than a moment.
All had again relapsed into silence. There was nothing more in the street, nothing more in the garden. That which threatened, that which reassured, all had vanished. The wind rattled the dry grass on the top of the wall, which made a low, soft, and mournful noise.
7
THE MYSTERY CONTINUED
THE COLD NIGHT WIND had risen, which indicated that it must be between one and two o‘clock in the morning. Poor Cosette did not speak. As she had sat down at his side and leaned her head on him, Jean Valjean thought that she was asleep. He bent over and looked at her. Her eyes were wide open, and she had a thoughtful look that gave Jean Valjean pain.
She was still trembling.
“Are you sleepy?” said Jean Valjean.
“I am very cold,” she answered.
A moment after she added:
“Is she there yet?”
“Who?” said Jean Valjean.
“Madame Thénardier.”
Jean Valjean had already forgotten the means he had employed to secure Cosette’s silence.
“Oh!” said he. “She has gone. Don’t be afraid any longer.”
The child sighed as if a weight were lifted from her breast.
The ground was damp, the shed open on all sides, the wind freshened every moment. The goodman took off his coat and wrapped Cosette in it.
“Are you warmer, so?”
“Oh! yes, father!”
“Well, wait here a moment for me. I shall soon be back.”
He went out of the ruin, and along by the large building, in search of some better shelter. He found doors, but they were all closed. All the windows of the ground-floor were barred.
Where was he? who would ever have imagined anything equal to this species of sepulchre in the midst of Paris? what was this strange house? A building full of nocturnal mystery, calling to souls in the shade with the voice of angels, and, when they came, abruptly presenting to them this frightful vision—promising to open the radiant gate of Heaven and opening the horrible door of the tomb. And that was in fact a building, a house which had its number in a street? It was not a dream? He had to touch the walls to believe it.
The cold, the anxiety, the agitation, the anguish of the night, were giving him a veritable fever, and all his ideas were jostling in his brain.
He went to Cosette. She was sleeping.
8
THE MYSTERY REDOUBLES
THE CHILD had laid her head upon a stone and gone to sleep.
He sat down near her and looked at her. Little by little, as he beheld her, he grew calm, and regained possession of his clearness of mind.
He plainly perceived this truth, the basis of his life henceforth, that so long as she should be alive, so long as