Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [444]
“But it is cold here. We can’t see clearly. It is horrid, too, to want to be Monsieur Jean. I don’t want you to talk so to me.”
“Just now, on my way here,” answered Jean Valjean, “I saw a piece of furniture in the Rue Saint Louis. At a cabinet maker’s. If I were a pretty woman, I should make myself a present of that piece of furniture. A very fine toilet table; in the present style. What you call rosewood, I think. It is inlaid. A pretty large glass. There are drawers in it. It is handsome.”
“Oh! the ugly bear!” replied Cosette.
And with a bewitching sauciness, pressing her teeth together and separating her lips, she blew upon Jean Valjean. It was a Grace copying a kitten.
“I am furious,” she said. “Since yesterday, you all make me rage. Everybody spites me. I don’t understand. You don’t defend me against Marius. Marius doesn’t uphold me against you, I am all alone. I arrange a room handsomely. If I could have put the good God into it, I would have done it. You leave me my room upon my hands. My tenant bankrupts me. I order Nicolette to have a nice little dinner. Nobody wants your dinner, madame. And my father Fauchelevent, wishes me to call him Monsieur Jean, and to receive him in a hideous, old, ugly, mouldy cellar, where the walls have a beard, and where there are empty bottles for vases, and spiders’ webs for curtains. You are singular, I admit, that is your way, but a truce is granted to people who get married. You should not have gone back to being singular immediately. So you are going to be well satisfied with your horrid Rue de l‘Homme Armé. I was very forlorn there, myself! What have you against me? You give me a great deal of trouble. Fie!”
And, growing suddenly serious, she looked fixedly at Jean Valjean, and added:
“So you don’t like it that I am happy?”
Artlessness, unconsciously, sometimes penetrates very deep. This ques tion, simple to Cosette, was severe to Jean Valjean. Cosette wished to scratch; she tore.
Jean Valjean grew pale. For a moment he did not answer, then, with an indescribable accent and talking to himself, he murmured:
“Her happiness was the aim of my life. Now, God may beckon me away. Cosette, you are happy; my time is full.”
“Ah, you have called me Cosette!” exclaimed she.
And she sprang upon his neck.
Jean Valjean, in desperation, clasped her to his breast wildly. It seemed to him almost as if he were taking her back.
“Thank you, father!” said Cosette to him.
The transport was becoming poignant to Jean Valjean. He gently put away Cosette’s arms, and took his hat.
“Well?” said Cosette.
Jean Valjean answered:
“I will leave you, madame; they are waiting for you.”
And, from the door, he added:
“I called you Cosette. Tell your husband that that shall not happen again. Pardon me.”
Jean Valjean went out, leaving Cosette astounded at that enigmatic farewell.
2
OTHER STEPS BACKWARD
THE FOLLOWING DAY, at the same hour, Jean Valjean came.
Cosette put no questions to him, was no longer astonished, no longer exclaimed that she was cold, no longer talked of the parlour, she avoided saying either father or Monsieur Jean. She let him speak as he would. She allowed herself to be called madame. Only she betrayed a certain diminution of joy. She would have been sad, if sadness had been possible for her.
It is probable that she had had one of those conversations with Marius, in which the beloved man says what he pleases, explains nothing, and satisfies the beloved woman. The curiosity of lovers does not go very far beyond their love.
The basement room had been cleaned up a little. Basque had suppressed the bottles, and Nicolette the spiders.
Every succeeding morrow brought Jean Valjean at the same hour. He came every day, not having the strength to take Marius’ words otherwise than literally. Marius made his arrangements, so as to be absent at the hours when Jean Valjean came. The house became accustomed to M. Fauchelevent’s new mode of life. Toussaint aided: