Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [451]
Since he had been alone, he had made his bed in the ante-room, so as to occupy this desolate tenement as little as possible.
He opened the valise and took out Cosette’s outfit.
He spread it out upon his bed.
The bishop’s candlesticks were in their place, on the mantel. He took two wax tapers from a drawer, and put them into the candlesticks. Then, although it was still broad daylight, it was in summer, he lighted them. We sometimes see torches lighted thus in broad day, in rooms where the dead lie.
Each step that he took in going from one piece of furniture to another exhausted him, and he was obliged to sit down. One of the chairs upon which he sank was standing before that mirror, so fatal for him, so providential for Marius, in which he had read Cosette’s note, reversed on the blotter. He saw himself in this mirror, and did not recognise himself. He was eighty years old; before Marius’ marriage, one would hardly have thought him fifty; this year had counted thirty. What was now upon his forehead was not the wrinkle of age, it was the mysterious mark of death.
Night had come. With much labour he drew a table and an old arm-chair near the fireplace, and put upon the table pen, ink, and paper.
Then he fainted. When he regained consciousness he was thirsty. Being unable to lift the water-pitcher, with great effort he tipped it towards his mouth, and drank a swallow.
Then he turned to the bed, and, still sitting, for he could stand but a moment, he looked at the little black dress, and all those dear objects.
Such contemplations last for hours which seem minutes. Suddenly he shivered, he felt that the chill was coming, he leaned upon the table which was lighted by the bishop’s candlesticks, and took the pen.
As neither the pen nor the ink had been used for a long time, the tip of the pen was bent back, the ink was dried, he was obliged to get up and put a few drops of water into the ink, which he could not do without stopping and sitting down two or three times, and he was compelled to write with the back of the pen. He wiped his forehead from time to time.
His hand trembled. He slowly wrote the few lines which follow:
“Cosette, I bless you. I am going to make an explanation to you. Your husband was quite right in giving me to understand that I ought to leave; there is some mistake in what he believed, but he was right. He is very good. Always love him well when I am dead. Monsieur Pontmercy, always love my darling child. Cosette, this paper will be found, this is what I want to tell you, you shall see the figures, if I have the strength to recall them, listen well, this money is really your own.
Here he stopped, the pen fell from his fingers, he gave way to one of those despairing sobs which rose at times from the depths of his being, the poor man clasped his head with both hands, and reflected.
“Oh!” exclaimed he within himself (pitiful cries, heard by God alone), “it is all over. I shall never see her more. She is a smile which has passed over me. I am going to enter into the night without even seeing her again. Oh! a minute, an instant, to hear her voice, to touch her dress, to look at her, the angel! and then to die! It is nothing to die, but it is dreadful to die without seeing her. She would smile upon me, she would say a word to me. Would that harm anybody? No, it is over, forever. Here I am, all alone. My God! my God! I shall never see her again.”
At this moment there was a rap at his door.
4
A BOTTLE OF INK WHICH SERVES ONLY TO WHITEN
THAT VERY DAY, or rather that very evening, just as Marius had left the table and retired into his office, having a dossier to study, Basque had handed him a letter, saying: “the person who wrote the letter is in the antechamber.”
Cosette had taken grandfather’s arm, and was walking in the garden.
A letter, as well as a man, may have a forbidding appearance. Coarse paper, clumsy fold, the mere sight of certain missives displeases. The letter which Basque brought was of this kind.
Marius took it. It smelt of tobacco. Nothing awakens a reminiscence like