Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [431]
“Monsieur the Baron?” said Basque, drawing himself up.
One is baron to his domestics above all. Something of it is reflected upon them; they have what a philosopher would call the spattering of the title, and it flatters them. Marius, to speak of it in passing, a republican militant, and he had proved it, was now a baron in spite of himself. A slight revolution had taken place in the family in regard to this title. At present it was M. Gillenormand who clung to it and Marius who made light of it. But Colonel Pontmercy had written: My son will bear my title. Marius obeyed. And then Cosette, in whom the woman was beginning to dawn, was in raptures at being a baroness.
“Monsieur the Baron?” repeated Basque. “I will go and see. I will tell him that Monsieur Fauchelevent is here.”
“No. Do not tell him that it is I. Tell him that somebody asks to speak with him in private, and do not give him any name.”
“Ah!” said Basque.
“I wish to give him a surprise.”
“Ah!” resumed Basque, giving himself his second ah! as an explanation of the first.
And he went out.
Jean Valjean remained alone.
A few minutes elapsed. Jean Valjean was motionless in the spot where Basque had left him. He was very pale. His eyes were hollow, and so sunken in their sockets from want of sleep that they could hardly be seen. His black coat had the weary folds of a garment which has passed the night. The elbows were whitened with that down which is left upon cloth by the chafing of linen. Jean Valjean was looking at the window marked out by the sun upon the floor at his feet.
There was a noise at the door, he raised his eyes.
Marius entered, his head erect, his mouth smiling, an indescribable light upon his face, his forehead radiant, his eye triumphant. He also had not slept.
“It is you, father!” exclaimed he on perceiving Jean Valjean, “that idiot of a Basque with his mysterious air! But you come too early. It is only half an hour after noon yet. Cosette is asleep.”
That word: Father, said to M. Fauchelevent by Marius, signified: Supreme felicity. There had always been, as we know, barrier, coldness, and constraint between them; ice to break or to melt. Marius had reached that degree of intoxication where the barrier was falling, the ice was dissolving, and M. Fauchelevent was to him, as to Cosette, a father.
He continued; words overflowed from him, which is characteristic of these divine paroxysms of joy:
“How glad I am to see you! If you knew how we missed you yesterday! Good morning, father. How is your hand? Better, is it not?”
And, satisfied with the good answer which he made to himself, he went on:
“We have both of us talked much about you. Cosette loves you so much! You will not forget that your room is here. We will have no more of the Rue de l‘Homme Armé. We will have no more of it at all. How could you go to live in a street like that, which is sickly, which is scowling, which is ugly, which has a barrier at one end, where you are cold, and where you cannot get in? you will come and install yourself here. And that to-day. Or you will have a bone to pick with Cosette. She intends to lead us all by the nose, I warn you. You have seen your room, it is close by ours, it looks upon the gardens; the lock has been fixed, the bed is made, it is all ready; you have nothing to do but to come. Cosette has put a great old easy chair of Utrecht velvet beside your bed, to which she said: stretch out your arms for him. Every spring, in the clump of acacias which is in front of your windows, there comes a nightingale, you will have her in two months. You will have her nest at your left and ours at your right. By night she will sing, and by day Cosette will talk. Your room is full in the south. Cosette will arrange your books there for you, your voyage of Captain Cook, and the other, Vancouver’s, all your things. There is, I believe, a little valise which you treasure, I have selected a place of honour for it. You have conquered my grandfather, you suit him. We will live together. Do you know whist? you will overjoy my grandfather, if you