



[Illustration: The Twilight Decline]






On the following day, at nightfall, Jean Valjean knocked at the
carriage gate of the Gillenormand house. It was Basque who received
him. Basque was in the courtyard at the appointed hour, as though he
had received his orders. It sometimes happens that one says to a
servant: “You will watch for Mr. So and So, when he arrives.”


Basque addressed Jean Valjean without waiting for the latter to
approach him:

“Monsieur le Baron has charged me to inquire whether monsieur desires
to go upstairs or to remain below?”


“I will remain below,” replied Jean Valjean.

Basque, who was perfectly respectful, opened the door of the
waiting-room and said:

“I will go and inform Madame.”


The room which Jean Valjean entered was a damp, vaulted room on the
ground floor, which served as a cellar on occasion, which opened on the
street, was paved with red squares and was badly lighted by a grated
window.

This chamber was not one of those which are harassed by the
feather-duster, the pope’s head brush, and the broom. The dust rested
tranquilly there. Persecution of the spiders was not organized there. A
fine web, which spread far and wide, and was very black and ornamented
with dead flies, formed a wheel on one of the window-panes. The room,
which was small and low-ceiled, was furnished with a heap of empty
bottles piled up in one corner.

The wall, which was daubed with an ochre yellow wash, was scaling off
in large flakes. At one end there was a chimney-piece painted in black
with a narrow shelf. A fire was burning there; which indicated that
Jean Valjean’s reply: “I will remain below,” had been foreseen.

Two armchairs were placed at the two corners of the fireplace. Between
the chairs an old bedside rug, which displayed more foundation thread
than wool, had been spread by way of a carpet.

The chamber was lighted by the fire on the hearth and the twilight
falling through the window.

Jean Valjean was fatigued. For days he had neither eaten nor slept. He
threw himself into one of the armchairs.

Basque returned, set a lighted candle on the chimney-piece and retired.
Jean Valjean, his head drooping and his chin resting on his breast,
perceived neither Basque nor the candle.

All at once, he drew himself up with a start. Cosette was standing
beside him.

He had not seen her enter, but he had felt that she was there.

He turned round. He gazed at her. She was adorably lovely. But what he
was contemplating with that profound gaze was not her beauty but her
soul.

“Well,” exclaimed Cosette, “father, I knew that you were peculiar, but
I never should have expected this. What an idea! Marius told me that
you wish me to receive you here.”


“Yes, it is my wish.”


“I expected that reply. Good. I warn you that I am going to make a
scene for you. Let us begin at the beginning. Embrace me, father.”


And she offered him her cheek.

Jean Valjean remained motionless.

“You do not stir. I take note of it. Attitude of guilt. But never mind,
I pardon you. Jesus Christ said: Offer the other cheek. Here it is.”


And she presented her other cheek.

Jean Valjean did not move. It seemed as though his feet were nailed to
the pavement.

“This is becoming serious,” said Cosette. “What have I done to you? I
declare that I am perplexed. You owe me reparation. You will dine with
us.”


“I have dined.”


“That is not true. I will get M. Gillenormand to scold you.
Grandfathers are made to reprimand fathers. Come. Go upstairs with me
to the drawing-room. Immediately.”


“Impossible.”


Here Cosette lost ground a little. She ceased to command and passed to
questioning.

“But why? and you choose the ugliest chamber in the house in which to
see me. It’s horrible here.”


“Thou knowest . . .”


Jean Valjean caught himself up.

“You know, madame, that I am peculiar, I have my freaks.”


Cosette struck her tiny hands together.

“Madame! . . . You know! . . . more novelties! What is the meaning of
this?”


Jean Valjean directed upon her that heartrending smile to which he
occasionally had recourse:

“You wished to be Madame. You are so.”


“Not for you, father.”


“Do not call me father.”


“What?”


“Call me ‘Monsieur Jean.’ ‘Jean,’ if you like.”


“You are no longer my father? I am no longer Cosette? ‘Monsieur Jean’?
What does this mean? why, these are revolutions, aren’t they? what has
taken place? come, look me in the face. And you won’t live with us! And
you won’t have my chamber! What have I done to you? Has anything
happened?”


“Nothing.”


“Well then?”


“Everything is as usual.”


“Why do you change your name?”


“You have changed yours, surely.”


He smiled again with the same smile as before and added:

“Since you are Madame Pontmercy, I certainly can be Monsieur Jean.”


“I don’t understand anything about it. All this is idiotic. I shall ask
permission of my husband for you to be ‘Monsieur Jean.’ I hope that he
will not consent to it. You cause me a great deal of pain. One does
have freaks, but one does not cause one’s little Cosette grief. That is
wrong. You have no right to be wicked, you who are so good.”


He made no reply.

She seized his hands with vivacity, and raising them to her face with
an irresistible movement, she pressed them against her neck beneath her
chin, which is a gesture of profound tenderness.

“Oh!” she said to him, “be good!”


And she went on:

“This is what I call being good: being nice and coming and living
here,—there are birds here as there are in the Rue Plumet,—living with
us, quitting that hole of a Rue de l’Homme Armé, not giving us riddles
to guess, being like all the rest of the world, dining with us,
breakfasting with us, being my father.”


He loosed her hands.

“You no longer need a father, you have a husband.”


Cosette became angry.

“I no longer need a father! One really does not know what to say to
things like that, which are not common sense!”


“If Toussaint were here,” resumed Jean Valjean, like a person who is
driven to seek authorities, and who clutches at every branch, “she
would be the first to agree that it is true that I have always had ways
of my own. There is nothing new in this. I always have loved my black
corner.”


“But it is cold here. One cannot see distinctly. It is abominable, that
it is, to wish to be Monsieur Jean! I will not have you say ‘you’ to
me.

“Just now, as I was coming hither,” replied Jean Valjean, “I saw a
piece of furniture in the Rue Saint Louis. It was at a cabinet-maker’s.
If I were a pretty woman, I would treat myself to that bit of
furniture. A very neat toilet table in the reigning style. What you
call rosewood, I think. It is inlaid. The mirror is quite large. There
are drawers. It is pretty.”


“Hou! the villainous bear!” replied Cosette.

And with supreme grace, setting her teeth and drawing back her lips,
she blew at Jean Valjean. She was a Grace copying a cat.

“I am furious,” she resumed. “Ever since yesterday, you have made me
rage, all of you. I am greatly vexed. I don’t understand. You do not
defend me against Marius. Marius will not uphold me against you. I am
all alone. I arrange a chamber prettily. If I could have put the good
God there I would have done it. My chamber is left on my hands. My
lodger sends me into bankruptcy. I order a nice little dinner of
Nicolette. We will have nothing to do with your dinner, Madame. And my
father Fauchelevent wants me to call him ‘Monsieur Jean,’ and to
receive him in a frightful, old, ugly cellar, where the walls have
beards, and where the crystal consists of empty bottles, and the
curtains are of spiders’ webs! You are singular, I admit, that is your
style, but people who get married are granted a truce. You ought not to
have begun being singular again instantly. So you are going to be
perfectly contented in your abominable Rue de l’Homme Armé. I was very
desperate indeed there, that I was. What have you against me? You cause
me a great deal of grief. Fi!”


And, becoming suddenly serious, she gazed intently at Jean Valjean and
added:

“Are you angry with me because I am happy?”


Ingenuousness sometimes unconsciously penetrates deep. This question,
which was simple for Cosette, was profound for Jean Valjean. Cosette
had meant to scratch, and she lacerated.

Jean Valjean turned pale.

He remained for a moment without replying, then, with an inexpressible
intonation, and speaking to himself, he murmured:

“Her happiness was the object of my life. Now God may sign my
dismissal. Cosette, thou art happy; my day is over.”


“Ah, you have said _thou_ to me!” exclaimed Cosette.

And she sprang to his neck.

Jean Valjean, in bewilderment, strained her wildly to his breast. It
almost seemed to him as though he were taking her back.

“Thanks, father!” said Cosette.

This enthusiastic impulse was on the point of becoming poignant for
Jean Valjean. He gently removed Cosette’s arms, and took his hat.

“Well?” said Cosette.

“I leave you, Madame, they are waiting for you.”


And, from the threshold, he added:

“I have said _thou_ to you. Tell your husband that this shall not
happen again. Pardon me.”


Jean Valjean quitted the room, leaving Cosette stupefied at this
enigmatical farewell.






On the following day, at the same hour, Jean Valjean came.

Cosette asked him no questions, was no longer astonished, no longer
exclaimed that she was cold, no longer spoke of the drawing-room, she
avoided saying either “father” or “Monsieur Jean.” She allowed herself
to be addressed as _you_. She allowed herself to be called Madame.
Only, her joy had undergone a certain diminution. She would have been
sad, if sadness had been possible to her.

It is probable that she had had with Marius one of those conversations
in which the beloved man says what he pleases, explains nothing, and
satisfies the beloved woman. The curiosity of lovers does not extend
very far beyond their own love.

The lower room had made a little toilet. Basque had suppressed the
bottles, and Nicolette the spiders.

All the days which followed brought Jean Valjean at the same hour. He
came every day, because he had not the strength to take Marius’ words
otherwise than literally. Marius arranged matters so as to be absent at
the hours when Jean Valjean came. The house grew accustomed to the
novel ways of M. Fauchelevent. Toussaint helped in this direction:
“Monsieur has always been like that,” she repeated. The grandfather
issued this decree:—“He’s an original.” And all was said. Moreover, at
the age of ninety-six, no bond is any longer possible, all is merely
juxtaposition; a newcomer is in the way. There is no longer any room;
all habits are acquired. M. Fauchelevent, M. Tranchelevent, Father
Gillenormand asked nothing better than to be relieved from “that
gentleman.” He added:—“Nothing is more common than those originals.
They do all sorts of queer things. They have no reason. The Marquis de
Canaples was still worse. He bought a palace that he might lodge in the
garret. These are fantastic appearances that people affect.”


No one caught a glimpse of the sinister foundation. And moreover, who
could have guessed such a thing? There are marshes of this description
in India. The water seems extraordinary, inexplicable, rippling though
there is no wind, and agitated where it should be calm. One gazes at
the surface of these causeless ebullitions; one does not perceive the
hydra which crawls on the bottom.

Many men have a secret monster in this same manner, a dragon which
gnaws them, a despair which inhabits their night. Such a man resembles
other men, he goes and comes. No one knows that he bears within him a
frightful parasitic pain with a thousand teeth, which lives within the
unhappy man, and of which he is dying. No one knows that this man is a
gulf. He is stagnant but deep. From time to time, a trouble of which
the onlooker understands nothing appears on his surface. A mysterious
wrinkle is formed, then vanishes, then reappears; an air-bubble rises
and bursts. It is the breathing of the unknown beast.

Certain strange habits: arriving at the hour when other people are
taking their leave, keeping in the background when other people are
displaying themselves, preserving on all occasions what may be
designated as the wall-colored mantle, seeking the solitary walk,
preferring the deserted street, avoiding any share in conversation,
avoiding crowds and festivals, seeming at one’s ease and living poorly,
having one’s key in one’s pocket, and one’s candle at the porter’s
lodge, however rich one may be, entering by the side door, ascending
the private staircase,—all these insignificant singularities, fugitive
folds on the surface, often proceed from a formidable foundation.

Many weeks passed in this manner. A new life gradually took possession
of Cosette: the relations which marriage creates, visits, the care of
the house, pleasures, great matters. Cosette’s pleasures were not
costly, they consisted in one thing: being with Marius. The great
occupation of her life was to go out with him, to remain with him. It
was for them a joy that was always fresh, to go out arm in arm, in the
face of the sun, in the open street, without hiding themselves, before
the whole world, both of them completely alone.

Cosette had one vexation. Toussaint could not get on with Nicolette,
the soldering of two elderly maids being impossible, and she went away.
The grandfather was well; Marius argued a case here and there; Aunt
Gillenormand peacefully led that life aside which sufficed for her,
beside the new household. Jean Valjean came every day.

The address as _thou_ disappeared, the _you_, the “Madame,” the
“Monsieur Jean,” rendered him another person to Cosette. The care which
he had himself taken to detach her from him was succeeding. She became
more and more gay and less and less tender. Yet she still loved him
sincerely, and he felt it.

One day she said to him suddenly: “You used to be my father, you are no
longer my father, you were my uncle, you are no longer my uncle, you
were Monsieur Fauchelevent, you are Jean. Who are you then? I don’t
like all this. If I did not know how good you are, I should be afraid
of you.”


He still lived in the Rue de l’Homme Armé, because he could not make up
his mind to remove to a distance from the quarter where Cosette dwelt.

At first, he only remained a few minutes with Cosette, and then went
away.

Little by little he acquired the habit of making his visits less brief.
One would have said that he was taking advantage of the authorization
of the days which were lengthening, he arrived earlier and departed
later.

One day Cosette chanced to say “father” to him. A flash of joy
illuminated Jean Valjean’s melancholy old countenance. He caught her
up: “Say Jean.”—“Ah! truly,” she replied with a burst of laughter,
“Monsieur Jean.”—“That is right,” said he. And he turned aside so that
she might not see him wipe his eyes.






This was the last time. After that last flash of light, complete
extinction ensued. No more familiarity, no more good-morning with a
kiss, never more that word so profoundly sweet: “My father!” He was at
his own request and through his own complicity driven out of all his
happinesses one after the other; and he had this sorrow, that after
having lost Cosette wholly in one day, he was afterwards obliged to
lose her again in detail.

The eye eventually becomes accustomed to the light of a cellar. In
short, it sufficed for him to have an apparition of Cosette every day.
His whole life was concentrated in that one hour.

He seated himself close to her, he gazed at her in silence, or he
talked to her of years gone by, of her childhood, of the convent, of
her little friends of those bygone days.

One afternoon,—it was on one of those early days in April, already warm
and fresh, the moment of the sun’s great gayety, the gardens which
surrounded the windows of Marius and Cosette felt the emotion of
waking, the hawthorn was on the point of budding, a jewelled garniture
of gillyflowers spread over the ancient walls, snapdragons yawned
through the crevices of the stones, amid the grass there was a charming
beginning of daisies, and buttercups, the white butterflies of the year
were making their first appearance, the wind, that minstrel of the
eternal wedding, was trying in the trees the first notes of that grand,
auroral symphony which the old poets called the springtide,—Marius said
to Cosette:—“We said that we would go back to take a look at our garden
in the Rue Plumet. Let us go thither. We must not be ungrateful.”—And
away they flitted, like two swallows towards the spring. This garden of
the Rue Plumet produced on them the effect of the dawn. They already
had behind them in life something which was like the springtime of
their love. The house in the Rue Plumet being held on a lease, still
belonged to Cosette. They went to that garden and that house. There
they found themselves again, there they forgot themselves. That
evening, at the usual hour, Jean Valjean came to the Rue des
Filles-du-Calvaire.—“Madame went out with Monsieur and has not yet
returned,” Basque said to him. He seated himself in silence, and waited
an hour. Cosette did not return. He departed with drooping head.

Cosette was so intoxicated with her walk to “their garden,” and so
joyous at having “lived a whole day in her past,” that she talked of
nothing else on the morrow. She did not notice that she had not seen
Jean Valjean.

“In what way did you go thither?” Jean Valjean asked her.”


“On foot.”


“And how did you return?”


“In a hackney carriage.”


For some time, Jean Valjean had noticed the economical life led by the
young people. He was troubled by it. Marius’ economy was severe, and
that word had its absolute meaning for Jean Valjean. He hazarded a
query:

“Why do you not have a carriage of your own? A pretty coupé would only
cost you five hundred francs a month. You are rich.”


“I don’t know,” replied Cosette.

“It is like Toussaint,” resumed Jean Valjean. “She is gone. You have
not replaced her. Why?”


“Nicolette suffices.”


“But you ought to have a maid.”


“Have I not Marius?”


“You ought to have a house of your own, your own servants, a carriage,
a box at the theatre. There is nothing too fine for you. Why not profit
by your riches? Wealth adds to happiness.”


Cosette made no reply.

Jean Valjean’s visits were not abridged. Far from it. When it is the
heart which is slipping, one does not halt on the downward slope.

When Jean Valjean wished to prolong his visit and to induce
forgetfulness of the hour, he sang the praises of Marius; he pronounced
him handsome, noble, courageous, witty, eloquent, good. Cosette outdid
him. Jean Valjean began again. They were never weary. Marius—that word
was inexhaustible; those six letters contained volumes. In this manner,
Jean Valjean contrived to remain a long time.

It was so sweet to see Cosette, to forget by her side! It alleviated
his wounds. It frequently happened that Basque came twice to announce:
“M. Gillenormand sends me to remind Madame la Baronne that dinner is
served.”


On those days, Jean Valjean was very thoughtful on his return home.

Was there, then, any truth in that comparison of the chrysalis which
had presented itself to the mind of Marius? Was Jean Valjean really a
chrysalis who would persist, and who would come to visit his butterfly?

One day he remained still longer than usual. On the following day he
observed that there was no fire on the hearth.—“Hello!” he thought. “No
fire.”—And he furnished the explanation for himself.—“It is perfectly
simple. It is April. The cold weather has ceased.”


“Heavens! how cold it is here!” exclaimed Cosette when she entered.

“Why, no,” said Jean Valjean.

“Was it you who told Basque not to make a fire then?”


“Yes, since we are now in the month of May.”


“But we have a fire until June. One is needed all the year in this
cellar.”


“I thought that a fire was unnecessary.”


“That is exactly like one of your ideas!” retorted Cosette.

On the following day there was a fire. But the two armchairs were
arranged at the other end of the room near the door. “—What is the
meaning of this?” thought Jean Valjean.

He went for the armchairs and restored them to their ordinary place
near the hearth.

This fire lighted once more encouraged him, however. He prolonged the
conversation even beyond its customary limits. As he rose to take his
leave, Cosette said to him:

“My husband said a queer thing to me yesterday.”


“What was it?”


“He said to me: ‘Cosette, we have an income of thirty thousand livres.
Twenty-seven that you own, and three that my grandfather gives me.’ I
replied: ‘That makes thirty.’ He went on: ‘Would you have the courage
to live on the three thousand?’ I answered: ‘Yes, on nothing. Provided
that it was with you.’ And then I asked: ‘Why do you say that to me?’
He replied: ‘I wanted to know.’”


Jean Valjean found not a word to answer. Cosette probably expected some
explanation from him; he listened in gloomy silence. He went back to
the Rue de l’Homme Armé; he was so deeply absorbed that he mistook the
door and instead of entering his own house, he entered the adjoining
dwelling. It was only after having ascended nearly two stories that he
perceived his error and went down again.

His mind was swarming with conjectures. It was evident that Marius had
his doubts as to the origin of the six hundred thousand francs, that he
feared some source that was not pure, who knows? that he had even,
perhaps, discovered that the money came from him, Jean Valjean, that he
hesitated before this suspicious fortune, and was disinclined to take
it as his own,—preferring that both he and Cosette should remain poor,
rather than that they should be rich with wealth that was not clean.

Moreover, Jean Valjean began vaguely to surmise that he was being shown
the door.

On the following day, he underwent something like a shock on entering
the ground-floor room. The armchairs had disappeared. There was not a
single chair of any sort.

“Ah, what’s this!” exclaimed Cosette as she entered, “no chairs! Where
are the armchairs?”


“They are no longer here,” replied Jean Valjean.

“This is too much!”


Jean Valjean stammered:

“It was I who told Basque to remove them.”


“And your reason?”


“I have only a few minutes to stay to-day.”


“A brief stay is no reason for remaining standing.”


“I think that Basque needed the chairs for the drawing-room.”


“Why?”


“You have company this evening, no doubt.”


“We expect no one.”


Jean Valjean had not another word to say.

Cosette shrugged her shoulders.

“To have the chairs carried off! The other day you had the fire put
out. How odd you are!”


“Adieu!” murmured Jean Valjean.

He did not say: “Adieu, Cosette.” But he had not the strength to say:
“Adieu, Madame.”


He went away utterly overwhelmed.

This time he had understood.

On the following day he did not come. Cosette only observed the fact in
the evening.

“Why,” said she, “Monsieur Jean has not been here today.”


And she felt a slight twinge at her heart, but she hardly perceived it,
being immediately diverted by a kiss from Marius.

On the following day he did not come.

Cosette paid no heed to this, passed her evening and slept well that
night, as usual, and thought of it only when she woke. She was so
happy! She speedily despatched Nicolette to M. Jean’s house to inquire
whether he were ill, and why he had not come on the previous evening.
Nicolette brought back the reply of M. Jean that he was not ill. He was
busy. He would come soon. As soon as he was able. Moreover, he was on
the point of taking a little journey. Madame must remember that it was
his custom to take trips from time to time. They were not to worry
about him. They were not to think of him.

Nicolette on entering M. Jean’s had repeated to him her mistress’ very
words. That Madame had sent her to inquire why M. Jean had not come on
the preceding evening. ”—It is two days since I have been there,” said
Jean Valjean gently.

But the remark passed unnoticed by Nicolette, who did not report it to
Cosette.






During the last months of spring and the first months of summer in
1833, the rare passers-by in the Marais, the petty shopkeepers, the
loungers on thresholds, noticed an old man neatly clad in black, who
emerged every day at the same hour, towards nightfall, from the Rue de
l’Homme Armé, on the side of the Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie,
passed in front of the Blancs Manteaux, gained the Rue
Culture-Sainte-Catherine, and, on arriving at the Rue de l’Écharpe,
turned to the left, and entered the Rue Saint-Louis.

There he walked at a slow pace, with his head strained forward, seeing
nothing, hearing nothing, his eye immovably fixed on a point which
seemed to be a star to him, which never varied, and which was no other
than the corner of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. The nearer he
approached the corner of the street the more his eye lighted up; a sort
of joy illuminated his pupils like an inward aurora, he had a
fascinated and much affected air, his lips indulged in obscure
movements, as though he were talking to some one whom he did not see,
he smiled vaguely and advanced as slowly as possible. One would have
said that, while desirous of reaching his destination, he feared the
moment when he should be close at hand. When only a few houses remained
between him and that street which appeared to attract him his pace
slackened, to such a degree that, at times, one might have thought that
he was no longer advancing at all. The vacillation of his head and the
fixity of his eyeballs suggested the thought of the magnetic needle
seeking the pole. Whatever time he spent on arriving, he was obliged to
arrive at last; he reached the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire; then he
halted, he trembled, he thrust his head with a sort of melancholy
timidity round the corner of the last house, and gazed into that
street, and there was in that tragic look something which resembled the
dazzling light of the impossible, and the reflection from a paradise
that was closed to him. Then a tear, which had slowly gathered in the
corner of his lids, and had become large enough to fall, trickled down
his cheek, and sometimes stopped at his mouth. The old man tasted its
bitter flavor. Thus he remained for several minutes as though made of
stone, then he returned by the same road and with the same step, and,
in proportion as he retreated, his glance died out.

Little by little, this old man ceased to go as far as the corner of the
Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire; he halted half way in the Rue Saint-Louis;
sometimes a little further off, sometimes a little nearer.

One day he stopped at the corner of the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine
and looked at the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire from a distance. Then he
shook his head slowly from right to left, as though refusing himself
something, and retraced his steps.

Soon he no longer came as far as the Rue Saint-Louis. He got as far as
the Rue Pavée, shook his head and turned back; then he went no further
than the Rue des Trois-Pavillons; then he did not overstep the
Blancs-Manteaux. One would have said that he was a pendulum which was
no longer wound up, and whose oscillations were growing shorter before
ceasing altogether.

Every day he emerged from his house at the same hour, he undertook the
same trip, but he no longer completed it, and, perhaps without himself
being aware of the fact, he constantly shortened it. His whole
countenance expressed this single idea: What is the use?—His eye was
dim; no more radiance. His tears were also exhausted; they no longer
collected in the corner of his eye-lid; that thoughtful eye was dry.
The old man’s head was still craned forward; his chin moved at times;
the folds in his gaunt neck were painful to behold. Sometimes, when the
weather was bad, he had an umbrella under his arm, but he never opened
it.

The good women of the quarter said: “He is an innocent.” The children
followed him and laughed.




