Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [341]
There was in the tone with which he pronounced these words a melancholy so solemn and so quiet, that Cosette trembled. She felt that chill which is given by a stern and true fact passing over us. From the shock she ceased weeping.
“Now listen,” said he, “do not expect me to-morrow.”
“Why not?”
“Do not expect me till the day after to-morrow!”
“Oh! why not?”
“You will see.”
“A day without seeing you! Why, that is impossible.”
“Let us sacrifice one day to gain perhaps a whole life.”
And Marius added in an under-tone, and aside:
“He is a man who changes none of his habits, and he has never received anybody till evening.”
“What man are you speaking of?” inquired Cosette.
“Me? I said nothing.”
“What is it you hope for, then?”
“Wait till day after to-morrow.”
“You wish it?”
“Yes, Cosette.”
She took his head in both her hands, rising on tiptoe to reach his height, and striving to see his hope in his eyes.
Marius continued:
“It occurs to me, you must know my address, something may happen, we don’t know; I live with that friend named Courfeyrac, Rue de la Verrerie, number 16.”
He put his hand in his pocket, took out a penknife, and wrote with the blade upon the plastering of the wall:
16, Rue de la Verrerie.
Cosette, meanwhile, began to look into his eyes again.
“Tell me your idea. Marius, you have an idea. Tell me. Oh! tell me, so that I may pass a good night!”
“My idea is this: that it is impossible that God should wish to separate us. Expect me day after to-morrow.”
“What shall I do till then?” said Cosette. “You, you are out doors, you go, you come! How happy men are. I have to stay alone. Oh! how sad I shall be! What is it you are going to do to-morrow evening, tell me?”
“I shall try a plan.”
“Then I will pray God, and I will think of you from now till then, that you may succeed. I will not ask any more questions, since you wish me not to. You are my master. I shall spend my evening to-morrow singing that music of Euryanthe which you love, and which you came to hear one evening behind my shutter. But day after to-morrow you will come early; I shall expect you at night, at nine o‘clock precisely. I forewarn you. Oh, dear! how sad it is that the days are long! You understand;—when the clock strikes nine, I shall be in the garden.”
“And I too.”
And without saying it, moved by the same thought, drawn on by those electric currents which put two lovers in continual communication, both intoxicated with pleasure even in their grief, they fell into each other’s arms, without perceiving that their lips were joined, while their uplifted eyes, overflowing with ecstasy and full of tears, were fixed upon the stars.
When Marius went out, the street was empty. It was the moment when Eponine was following the bandits to the boulevard.
While Marius was thinking with his head against the tree, an idea had passed through his mind; an idea, alas! which he himself deemed senseless and impossible. He had formed a desperate resolution.
6 (7)
THE OLD HEART AND YOUNG HEART IN PRESENCE
GRANDFATHER GILLENORMAND had, at this period, fully completed his ninety-first year. He still lived with Mademoiselle Gillenormand, Rue des Filles du Calvaire, No.6, in that old house which belonged to him. He was, as we remember, one of those antique old men who await death still erect, whom age loads without making them stoop, and whom grief itself does not bend.
Still, for some time, his daughter had said: “My father is failing.” He no longer beat the servants; he struck his cane with less animation on the landing of the stairs, when Basque was slow in opening the door. The revolution of July had hardly exasperated him for six months. He had seen almost tranquilly in the Moniteur this coupling of words: M. Humblot Conté, peer of France. The fact is, that the old man was filled with dejection. He did not bend, he did not yield; that was no more a part of his physical