Les Misérables, page 114
CHAPTER III--TWO MISFORTUNES MAKE ONE PIECE OF GOOD FORTUNE
On the following morning, at daybreak, Jean Valjean was still byCosette's bedside; he watched there motionless, waiting for her to wake.
Some new thing had come into his soul.
Jean Valjean had never loved anything; for twenty-five years he had beenalone in the world. He had never been father, lover, husband, friend. Inthe prison he had been vicious, gloomy, chaste, ignorant, and shy.The heart of that ex-convict was full of virginity. His sister and hissister's children had left him only a vague and far-off memory whichhad finally almost completely vanished; he had made every effort tofind them, and not having been able to find them, he had forgotten them.Human nature is made thus; the other tender emotions of his youth, if hehad ever had any, had fallen into an abyss.
When he saw Cosette, when he had taken possession of her, carried heroff, and delivered her, he felt his heart moved within him.
All the passion and affection within him awoke, and rushed towards thatchild. He approached the bed, where she lay sleeping, and trembled withjoy. He suffered all the pangs of a mother, and he knew not what itmeant; for that great and singular movement of a heart which begins tolove is a very obscure and a very sweet thing.
Poor old man, with a perfectly new heart!
Only, as he was five and fifty, and Cosette eight years of age, all thatmight have been love in the whole course of his life flowed togetherinto a sort of ineffable light.
It was the second white apparition which he had encountered. The Bishophad caused the dawn of virtue to rise on his horizon; Cosette caused thedawn of love to rise.
The early days passed in this dazzled state.
Cosette, on her side, had also, unknown to herself, become anotherbeing, poor little thing! She was so little when her mother left her,that she no longer remembered her. Like all children, who resemble youngshoots of the vine, which cling to everything, she had tried to love;she had not succeeded. All had repulsed her,--the Thénardiers, theirchildren, other children. She had loved the dog, and he had died, afterwhich nothing and nobody would have anything to do with her. It is a sadthing to say, and we have already intimated it, that, at eight years ofage, her heart was cold. It was not her fault; it was not the facultyof loving that she lacked; alas! it was the possibility. Thus, from thevery first day, all her sentient and thinking powers loved this kindman. She felt that which she had never felt before--a sensation ofexpansion.
The man no longer produced on her the effect of being old or poor; shethought Jean Valjean handsome, just as she thought the hovel pretty.
These are the effects of the dawn, of childhood, of joy. The novelty ofthe earth and of life counts for something here. Nothing is so charmingas the coloring reflection of happiness on a garret. We all have in ourpast a delightful garret.
Nature, a difference of fifty years, had set a profound gulf betweenJean Valjean and Cosette; destiny filled in this gulf. Destiny suddenlyunited and wedded with its irresistible power these two uprootedexistences, differing in age, alike in sorrow. One, in fact, completedthe other. Cosette's instinct sought a father, as Jean Valjean'sinstinct sought a child. To meet was to find each other. At themysterious moment when their hands touched, they were welded together.When these two souls perceived each other, they recognized each other asnecessary to each other, and embraced each other closely.
Taking the words in their most comprehensive and absolute sense, wemay say that, separated from every one by the walls of the tomb, JeanValjean was the widower, and Cosette was the orphan: this situationcaused Jean Valjean to become Cosette's father after a celestialfashion.
And in truth, the mysterious impression produced on Cosette in thedepths of the forest of Chelles by the hand of Jean Valjean graspinghers in the dark was not an illusion, but a reality. The entrance ofthat man into the destiny of that child had been the advent of God.
Moreover, Jean Valjean had chosen his refuge well. There he seemedperfectly secure.
The chamber with a dressing-room, which he occupied with Cosette, wasthe one whose window opened on the boulevard. This being the only windowin the house, no neighbors' glances were to be feared from across theway or at the side.
The ground-floor of Number 50-52, a sort of dilapidated penthouse,served as a wagon-house for market-gardeners, and no communicationexisted between it and the first story. It was separated by theflooring, which had neither traps nor stairs, and which formed thediaphragm of the building, as it were. The first story contained, as wehave said, numerous chambers and several attics, only one of whichwas occupied by the old woman who took charge of Jean Valjean'shousekeeping; all the rest was uninhabited.
It was this old woman, ornamented with the name of the _principallodger_, and in reality intrusted with the functions of portress, whohad let him the lodging on Christmas eve. He had represented himself toher as a gentleman of means who had been ruined by Spanish bonds, whowas coming there to live with his little daughter. He had paid her sixmonths in advance, and had commissioned the old woman to furnish thechamber and dressing-room, as we have seen. It was this good womanwho had lighted the fire in the stove, and prepared everything on theevening of their arrival.
Week followed week; these two beings led a happy life in that hovel.
Cosette laughed, chattered, and sang from daybreak. Children have theirmorning song as well as birds.
It sometimes happened that Jean Valjean clasped her tiny red hand, allcracked with chilblains, and kissed it. The poor child, who was usedto being beaten, did not know the meaning of this, and ran away inconfusion.
At times she became serious and stared at her little black gown. Cosettewas no longer in rags; she was in mourning. She had emerged from misery,and she was entering into life.
Jean Valjean had undertaken to teach her to read. Sometimes, as he madethe child spell, he remembered that it was with the idea of doing evilthat he had learned to read in prison. This idea had ended in teaching achild to read. Then the ex-convict smiled with the pensive smile of theangels.
He felt in it a premeditation from on high, the will of some one whowas not man, and he became absorbed in revery. Good thoughts have theirabysses as well as evil ones.
To teach Cosette to read, and to let her play, this constituted nearlythe whole of Jean Valjean's existence. And then he talked of her mother,and he made her pray.
She called him _father_, and knew no other name for him.
He passed hours in watching her dressing and undressing her doll, and inlistening to her prattle. Life, henceforth, appeared to him to be fullof interest; men seemed to him good and just; he no longer reproachedany one in thought; he saw no reason why he should not live to be a veryold man, now that this child loved him. He saw a whole future stretchingout before him, illuminated by Cosette as by a charming light. The bestof us are not exempt from egotistical thoughts. At times, he reflectedwith a sort of joy that she would be ugly.
This is only a personal opinion; but, to utter our whole thought, at thepoint where Jean Valjean had arrived when he began to love Cosette, itis by no means clear to us that he did not need this encouragement inorder that he might persevere in well-doing. He had just viewed themalice of men and the misery of society under a new aspect--incompleteaspects, which unfortunately only exhibited one side of the truth,the fate of woman as summed up in Fantine, and public authority aspersonified in Javert. He had returned to prison, this time for havingdone right; he had quaffed fresh bitterness; disgust and lassitude wereoverpowering him; even the memory of the Bishop probably suffereda temporary eclipse, though sure to reappear later on luminous andtriumphant; but, after all, that sacred memory was growing dim.Who knows whether Jean Valjean had not been on the eve of growingdiscouraged and of falling once more? He loved and grew strong again.Alas! he walked with no less indecision than Cosette. He protected her,and she strengthened him. Thanks to him, she could walk through life;thanks to her, he could continue in virtue. He was that child's stay,and she was his prop. Oh, unfathomable and divine mystery of thebalances of destiny!
