Les Misérables, page 267
CHAPTER II--THE BEWILDERMENT OF PERFECT HAPPINESS
They existed vaguely, frightened at their happiness. They did not noticethe cholera which decimated Paris precisely during that very month. Theyhad confided in each other as far as possible, but this had not extendedmuch further than their names. Marius had told Cosette that he was anorphan, that his name was Marius Pontmercy, that he was a lawyer, thathe lived by writing things for publishers, that his father had been acolonel, that the latter had been a hero, and that he, Marius, was onbad terms with his grandfather who was rich. He had also hinted at beinga baron, but this had produced no effect on Cosette. She did notknow the meaning of the word. Marius was Marius. On her side, shehad confided to him that she had been brought up at the Petit-Picpusconvent, that her mother, like his own, was dead, that her father's namewas M. Fauchelevent, that he was very good, that he gave a great dealto the poor, but that he was poor himself, and that he denied himselfeverything though he denied her nothing.
Strange to say, in the sort of symphony which Marius had lived since hehad been in the habit of seeing Cosette, the past, even the most recentpast, had become so confused and distant to him, that what Cosette toldhim satisfied him completely. It did not even occur to him to tell herabout the nocturnal adventure in the hovel, about Thénardier, about theburn, and about the strange attitude and singular flight of her father.Marius had momentarily forgotten all this; in the evening he did noteven know that there had been a morning, what he had done, where he hadbreakfasted, nor who had spoken to him; he had songs in his ears whichrendered him deaf to every other thought; he only existed at the hourswhen he saw Cosette. Then, as he was in heaven, it was quite naturalthat he should forget earth. Both bore languidly the indefinable burdenof immaterial pleasures. Thus lived these somnambulists who are calledlovers.
Alas! Who is there who has not felt all these things? Why does therecome an hour when one emerges from this azure, and why does life go onafterwards?
Loving almost takes the place of thinking. Love is an ardentforgetfulness of all the rest. Then ask logic of passion if you will.There is no more absolute logical sequence in the human heart than thereis a perfect geometrical figure in the celestial mechanism. For Cosetteand Marius nothing existed except Marius and Cosette. The universearound them had fallen into a hole. They lived in a golden minute. Therewas nothing before them, nothing behind. It hardly occurred to Mariusthat Cosette had a father. His brain was dazzled and obliterated. Ofwhat did these lovers talk then? We have seen, of the flowers, andthe swallows, the setting sun and the rising moon, and all sorts ofimportant things. They had told each other everything except everything.The everything of lovers is nothing. But the father, the realities, thatlair, the ruffians, that adventure, to what purpose? And was he verysure that this nightmare had actually existed? They were two, and theyadored each other, and beyond that there was nothing. Nothing elseexisted. It is probable that this vanishing of hell in our rear isinherent to the arrival of paradise. Have we beheld demons? Are thereany? Have we trembled? Have we suffered? We no longer know. A rosy cloudhangs over it.
So these two beings lived in this manner, high aloft, with all thatimprobability which is in nature; neither at the nadir nor at thezenith, between man and seraphim, above the mire, below the ether, inthe clouds; hardly flesh and blood, soul and ecstasy from head to foot;already too sublime to walk the earth, still too heavily charged withhumanity to disappear in the blue, suspended like atoms which arewaiting to be precipitated; apparently beyond the bounds of destiny;ignorant of that rut; yesterday, to-day, to-morrow; amazed, rapturous,floating, soaring; at times so light that they could take their flightout into the infinite; almost prepared to soar away to all eternity.They slept wide-awake, thus sweetly lulled. Oh! splendid lethargy of thereal overwhelmed by the ideal.
Sometimes, beautiful as Cosette was, Marius shut his eyes in herpresence. The best way to look at the soul is through closed eyes.
Marius and Cosette never asked themselves whither this was to lead them.They considered that they had already arrived. It is a strange claim onman's part to wish that love should lead to something.
FOOTNOTES: 1 (return) [ Patois of the French Alps: _chat de maraude_,rascally marauder.]
2 (return) [ Liège: a cork-tree. Pau: a jest on _peau_, skin.]
3 (return) [ She belonged to that circle where cuckoos and carriagesshare the same fate; and a jade herself, she lived, as jades live, forthe space of a morning (or jade).]
4 (return) [ An ex-convict.]
5 (return) [ This parenthesis is due to Jean Valjean.]
6 (return) [ A bullet as large as an egg.]
7 (return) [ Walter Scott, Lamartine, Vaulabelle, Charras, Quinet,Thiers.]
8 (return) [ This is the inscription:--
D. O. M. CY A ETE ÉCRASÉ PAR MALHEUR SOUS UN CHARIOT, MONSIEUR BERNARDDE BRYE MARCHAND A BRUXELLE LE [illegible] FEVRIER 1637.]
9 (return) [ A heavy rifled gun.]
10 (return) [ "A battle terminated, a day finished, false measuresrepaired, greater successes assured for the morrow,--all was lost by amoment of panic, terror."--Napoleon, Dictées de Sainte Hélène.]
11 (return) [ Five winning numbers in a lottery]
12 (return) [ Literally "made cuirs"; _i. e._, pronounced a _t_ or an_s_ at the end of words where the opposite letter should occur, or usedeither one of them where neither exists.]
13 (return) [ Lawyer Corbeau, perched on a docket, held in his beak awrit of execution; Lawyer Renard, attracted by the smell, addressed himnearly as follows, etc.]
14 (return) [ This is the factory of Goblet Junior: Come choose yourjugs and crocks, Flower-pots, pipes, bricks. The Heart sells Diamonds toevery comer.]
15 (return) [ On the boughs hang three bodies of unequal merits: Dismasand Gesmas, between is the divine power. Dismas seeks the heights,Gesmas, unhappy man, the lowest regions; the highest power will preserveus and our effects. If you repeat this verse, you will not lose yourthings by theft.]
16 (return) [ Instead of _porte cochère_ and _porte bàtarde_.]
17 (return) [ Jesus-my-God-bandy-leg--down with the moon!]
18 (return) [_Chicken: _ slang allusion to the noise made in callingpoultry.]
19 (return) [ Louis XVIII. is represented in comic pictures of that dayas having a pear-shaped head.]
20 (return) [ Tuck into your trousers the shirt-tail that is hangingout. Let it not be said that patriots have hoisted the white flag.]
21 (return) [ In order to re-establish the shaken throne firmly on itsbase, soil (Des solles), greenhouse and house (Decazes) must bechanged.]
22 (return) [_Suspendu_, suspended; _pendu_, hung.]
23 (return) [_L'Aile_, wing.]
24 (return) [ The slang term for a painter's assistant.]
25 (return) [ If Cæsar had given me glory and war, and I were obliged toquit my mother's love, I would say to great Cæsar, "Take back thysceptre and thy chariot; I prefer the love of my mother."]
26 (return) [ Whether the sun shines brightly or dim, the bear returnsto his cave.]
27 (return) [ The peep-hole is a _Judas_ in French. Hence the half-punning allusion.]
28 (return) [ Our love has lasted a whole week, but how short are theinstants of happiness! To adore each other for eight days was hardlyworth the while! The time of love should last forever.]
29 (return) [ You leave me to go to glory; my sad heart will follow youeverywhere.]
30 (return) [ A democrat.]
31 (return) [ King Bootkick went a-hunting after crows, mounted on twostilts. When one passed beneath them, one paid him two sous.]
32 (return) [ In olden times, fouriers were the officials who precededthe Court and allotted the lodgings.]
33 (return) [ A game of ninepins, in which one side of the ball issmaller than the other, so that it does not roll straight, but describesa curve on the ground.]
34 (return) [ From April 19 to May 20.]
35 (return) [_Merlan:_ a sobriquet given to hairdressers because theyare white with powder.]
36 (return) [ The scaffold.]
37 (return) [ Argot of the Temple.]
38 (return) [ Argot of the barriers.]
39 (return) [ The Last Day of a Condemned Man.]
40 (return) [ "Vous trouverez dans ces potains-là, une foultitude deraisons pour que je me libertise."]
41 (return) [ It must be observed, however, that _mac_ in Celtic means_son_.]
42 (return) [ Smoke puffed in the face of a person asleep.]
43 (return) [ Je n'entrave que le dail comment meck, le daron desorgues, peut atiger ses mômes et ses momignards et les locher criblantsans être agité lui-meme.]
44 (return) [ At night one sees nothing, by day one sees very well; thebourgeois gets flurried over an apocryphal scrawl, practice virtue,tutu, pointed hat!]
45 (return) [ _Chien_, dog, trigger.]
46 (return) [ Here is the morn appearing. When shall we go to theforest, Charlot asked Charlotte. Tou, tou, tou, for Chatou, I have butone God, one King, one half-farthing, and one boot. And these two poorlittle wolves were as tipsy as sparrows from having drunk dew and thymevery early in the morning. And these two poor little things were asdrunk as thrushes in a vineyard; a tiger laughed at them in his cave.The one cursed, the other swore. When shall we go to the forest? Charlotasked Charlotte.]
47 (return) [ There swings the horrible skeleton of a poor lover whohung himself.]
48 (return) [ She astounds at ten paces, she frightens at two, a wartinhabits her hazardous nose; you tremble every instant lest she shouldblow it at you, and lest, some fine day, her nose should tumble into hermouth.]
49 (return) [_Matelote:_ a culinary preparation of various fishes._Gibelotte:_ stewed rabbits.]
50 (return) [ Treat if you can, and eat if you dare.]
51 (return) [_Bipède sans plume:_ biped without feathers--pen.]
52 (return) [ Municipal officer of Toulouse.]
53 (return) [ Do you remember our sweet life, when we were both soyoung, and when we had no other desire in our hearts than to be welldressed and in love? When, by adding your age to my age, we could notcount forty years between us, and when, in our humble and tinyhousehold, everything was spring to us even in winter. Fair days! Manuelwas proud and wise, Paris sat at sacred banquets, Foy launchedthunderbolts, and your corsage had a pin on which I pricked myself.Everything gazed upon you. A briefless lawyer, when I took you to thePrado to dine, you were so beautiful that the roses seemed to me to turnround, and I heard them say: Is she not beautiful! How good she smells!What billowing hair! Beneath her mantle she hides a wing. Her charmingbonnet is hardly unfolded. I wandered with thee, pressing thy supplearm. The passers-by thought that love bewitched had wedded, in our happycouple, the gentle month of April to the fair month of May. We livedconcealed, content, with closed doors, devouring love, that sweetforbidden fruit. My mouth had not uttered a thing when thy heart hadalready responded. The Sorbonne was the bucolic spot where I adored theefrom eve till morn. 'Tis thus that an amorous soul applies the chart ofthe Tender to the Latin country. O Place Maubert! O Place Dauphine! Whenin the fresh spring-like hut thou didst draw thy stocking on thydelicate leg, I saw a star in the depths of the garret. I have read agreat deal of Plato, but nothing of it remains by me; better thanMalebranche and then Lamennais thou didst demonstrate to me celestialgoodness with a flower which thou gavest to me, I obeyed thee, thoudidst submit to me; oh gilded garret! to lace thee! to behold thee goingand coming from dawn in thy chemise, gazing at thy young brow in thineancient mirror! And who, then, would forego the memory of those days ofaurora and the firmament, of flowers, of gauze and of moire, when lovestammers a charming slang? Our gardens consisted of a pot of tulips;thou didst mask the window with thy petticoat; I took the earthenwarebowl and I gave thee the Japanese cup. And those great misfortunes whichmade us laugh! Thy cuff scorched, thy boa lost! And that dear portraitof the divine Shakespeare which we sold one evening that we might sup! Iwas a beggar and thou wert charitable. I kissed thy fresh round arms inhaste. A folio Dante served us as a table on which to eat merrily acentime's worth of chestnuts. The first time that, in my joyous den, Isnatched a kiss from thy fiery lip, when thou wentest forth, dishevelledand blushing, I turned deathly pale and I believed in God. Dost thourecall our innumerable joys, and all those fichus changed to rags? Oh!what sighs from our hearts full of gloom fluttered forth to the heavenlydepths!]
54 (return) [ My nose is in tears, my friend Bugeaud, lend me thygendarmes that I may say a word to them. With a blue capote and achicken in his shako, here's the banlieue, co-cocorico.]
55 (return) [ Love letters.]
56 (return) [
"The bird slanders in the elms, And pretends that yesterday, Atala Wentoff with a Russian, Where fair maids go. Lon la.
My friend Pierrot, thou pratest, because Mila knocked at her pane theother day and called me. The jades are very charming, their poison whichbewitched me would intoxicate Monsieur Orfila. I'm fond of love and itsbickerings, I love Agnes, I love Pamela, Lise burned herself in settingme aflame. In former days when I saw the mantillas of Suzette and ofZéila, my soul mingled with their folds. Love, when thou gleamest in thedark thou crownest Lola with roses, I would lose my soul for that.Jeanne, at thy mirror thou deckest thyself! One fine day, my heart flewforth. I think that it is Jeanne who has it. At night, when I come fromthe quadrilles, I show Stella to the stars, and I say to them: "Beholdher." Where fair maids go, lon la.]
57 (return) [ But some prisons still remain, and I am going to put astop to this sort of public order. Does any one wish to play atskittles? The whole ancient world fell in ruin, when the big ballrolled. Good old folks, let us smash with our crutches that Louvre wherethe monarchy displayed itself in furbelows. We have forced its gates. Onthat day, King Charles X. did not stick well and came unglued.]
58 (return) [ Steps on the Aventine Hill, leading to the Tiber, to whichthe bodies of executed criminals were dragged by hooks to be thrown intothe Tiber.]
59 (return) [ Mustards.]
60 (return) [ From _casser_, to break: break-necks.]
61 (return) [ "Jeanne was born at Fougère, a true shepherd's nest; Iadore her petticoat, the rogue." "Love, thou dwellest in her; For 'tisin her eyes that thou placest thy quiver, sly scamp!" "As for me, I singher, and I love, more than Diana herself, Jeanne and her firm Bretonbreasts."]
62 (return) [ In allusion to the expression, _coiffer Sainte-Catherine_,"to remain unmarried."]
63 (return) [ "Thus, hemming in the course of thy musings, Alcippus, itis true that thou wilt wed ere long."]
64 (return) [ _Tirer le diable par la queue_, "to live from hand tomouth."]
65 (return) [ "Triton trotted on before, and drew from his conch-shellsounds so ravishing that he delighted everyone!"]
66 (return) [ "A Shrove-Tuesday marriage will have no ungratefulchildren."]
67 (return) [ A short mask.]
68 (return) [ In allusion to the story of Prometheus.]
69 (return) [_Un fafiot sérieux. Fafiot_ is the slang term for a bank-bill, derived from its rustling noise.]
70 (return) [ He sleeps. Although his fate was very strange, he lived.He died when he had no longer his angel. The thing came to pass simply,of itself, as the night comes when day is gone.]
