Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [420]
“Father!” exclaimed Marius.
“Ah! you love me then!” said the old man.
There was an ineffable moment. They choked and could not speak.
At last the old man stammered:
“Come! the ice is broken. He has called me ‘Father.’”
Marius released his head from his grandfather’s arms, and said softly:
“But, father, now that I am well, it seems to me that I could see her.”
“Foreseen again, you shall see her to-morrow.”
“Father!”
“What?”
“Why not to-day?”
“Well, to-day. Here goes for to-day. You have called me ‘Father,’ three times, it is well worth that. I will see to it. She shall be brought to you. Foreseen, I tell you. This has already been put into verse.
3 (4)
MADEMOISELLE GILLENORMAND AT LAST THINKS IT NOT IMPROPER THAT MONSIEUR FAUCHELEVENT SHOULD COME IN WITH SOMETHING UNDER HIS ARM
COSETTE and Marius saw each other again.
What the interview was, we will not attempt to tell. There are things which we should not undertake to paint; the sun is of the number.
The whole family, including Basque and Nicolette, were assembled in Marius’ room when Cosette entered.
She appeared on the threshold; it seemed as if she were in a cloud.
Just at that instant the grandfather was about to blow his nose; he stopped short, holding his nose in his handkerchief, and looking at Cosette above it:
“Adorable!” he exclaimed.
Then he blew his nose with a loud noise.
Cosette was intoxicated, enraptured, startled, in Heaven. She was as frightened as one can be by happiness. She stammered, quite pale, quite red, wishing to throw herself into Marius’ arms, and not daring to. Ashamed to show her love before all those people. We are pitiless towards happy lovers; we stay there when they have the strongest desire to be alone. They, however, have no need at all of society.
With Cosette and behind her had entered a man with white hair, grave, smiling nevertheless, but with a vague and poignant smile. This was “Monsieur Fauchelevent;” this was Jean Valjean.
He was very well dressed, as the porter had said, in a new black suit, with a white cravat.
The porter was a thousand miles from recognising in this correct bourgeois, in this probable notary, the frightful corpse-bearer who had landed at his door on the night of the 7th of June, ragged, muddy, hideous, haggard, his face masked by blood and dirt, supporting the fainting Marius in his arms; still his porter’s scent was awakened. When M. Fauchelevent had arrived with Cosette, the porter could not help confiding this remark to his wife: “I don’t know why I always imagine that I have seen that face somewhere.”
Monsieur Fauchelevent, in Marius’ room, stayed near the door, as if apart. He had under his arm a package similar in appearance to an octavo volume, wrapped in paper. The paper of the envelope was greenish, and seemed mouldy.
“Does this gentleman always have books under his arm like that?” asked Mademoiselle Gillenormand, who did not like books, in a low voice of Nicolette.
“Well,” answered M. Gillenormand, who had heard her, in the same tone, “he is a scholar. What then? is it his fault? Monsieur Boulard, whom I knew, never went out without a book, he neither, and always had an old volume against his heart, like that.”
And bowing, he said, in a loud voice:
“Monsieur Tranchelevent—”
Father Gillenormand did not do this on purpose, but inattention to proper names was an aristocratic way he had.
“Monsieur Tranchelevent, I have the honour of asking of you for my grandson, Monsieur the Baron Marius Pontmercy, the hand of mademoiselle.”
Monsieur Tranchelevent bowed.
“It is done,” said the grandfather.
And, turning towards Marius and Cosette, with arms extended in blessing, he cried:
“Permission to adore each other.”
They did not make him say it twice. It was all the same! The cooing began. They talked low, Marius leaning on his long chair, Cosette standing near him. “Oh, my God!” murmured Cosette, “I see you again! It is you!