I am old, they say; it’s astonishing how much I feel in the mood to be young.
I should like to go and listen to the bagpipes in the woods.
Children who contrive to be beautiful and contented,—that intoxicates me.
I would like greatly to get married, if any one would have me.
It is impossible to imagine that God could have made us for anything but this: to idolize, to coo, to preen ourselves, to be dove-like, to be dainty, to bill and coo our loves from morn to night, to gaze at one’s image in one’s little wife, to be proud, to be triumphant, to plume oneself; that is the aim of life.
There, let not that displease you which we used to think in our day, when we were young folks.
Ah! vertu-bamboche! what charming women there were in those days, and what pretty little faces and what lovely lasses!
I committed my ravages among them.
Then love each other.
If people did not love each other, I really do not see what use there would be in having any springtime; and for my own part, I should pray the good God to shut up all the beautiful things that he shows us, and to take away from us and put back in his box, the flowers, the birds, and the pretty maidens.
My children, receive an old man’s blessing.”
The evening was gay, lively and agreeable.
The grandfather’s sovereign good humor gave the key-note to the whole feast, and each person regulated his conduct on that almost centenarian cordiality.
They danced a little, they laughed a great deal; it was an amiable wedding.
Goodman Days of Yore might have been invited to it.
However, he was present in the person of Father Gillenormand.
There was a tumult, then silence.
The married pair disappeared.
A little after midnight, the Gillenormand house became a temple.
Here we pause.
On the threshold of wedding nights stands a smiling angel with his finger on his lips.
The soul enters into contemplation before that sanctuary where the celebration of love takes place.
There should be flashes of light athwart such houses.
The joy which they contain ought to make its escape through the stones of the walls in brilliancy, and vaguely illuminate the gloom.
It is impossible that this sacred and fatal festival should not give off a celestial radiance to the infinite.
Love is the sublime crucible wherein the fusion of the man and the woman takes place; the being one, the being triple, the being final, the human trinity proceeds from it.
This birth of two souls into one, ought to be an emotion for the gloom.
The lover is the priest; the ravished virgin is terrified.
Something of that joy ascends to God.
Where true marriage is, that is to say, where there is love, the ideal enters in.
A nuptial bed makes a nook of dawn amid the shadows.
If it were given to the eye of the flesh to scan the formidable and charming visions of the upper life, it is probable that we should behold the forms of night, the winged unknowns, the blue passers of the invisible, bend down, a throng of sombre heads, around the luminous house, satisfied, showering benedictions, pointing out to each other the virgin wife gently alarmed, sweetly terrified, and bearing the reflection of human bliss upon their divine countenances.
If at that supreme hour, the wedded pair, dazzled with voluptuousness and believing themselves alone, were to listen, they would hear in their chamber a confused rustling of wings.
Perfect happiness implies a mutual understanding with the angels.
That dark little chamber has all heaven for its ceiling.
When two mouths, rendered sacred by love, approach to create, it is impossible that there should not be, above that ineffable kiss, a quivering throughout the immense mystery of stars.
These felicities are the true ones.
There is no joy outside of these joys.
Love is the only ecstasy.
All the rest weeps.
To love, or to have loved,—this suffices.
Demand nothing more.
There is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life.
To love is a fulfilment.
CHAPTER III—THE INSEPARABLE
What had become of Jean Valjean?
Immediately after having laughed, at Cosette’s graceful command, when no one was paying any heed to him, Jean Valjean had risen and had gained the antechamber unperceived.
This was the very room which, eight months before, he had entered black with mud, with blood and powder, bringing back the grandson to the grandfather.
The old wainscoting was garlanded with foliage and flowers; the musicians were seated on the sofa on which they had laid Marius down.
Basque, in a black coat, knee-breeches, white stockings and white gloves, was arranging roses round all of the dishes that were to be served. Jean Valjean pointed to his arm in its sling, charged Basque to explain his absence, and went away.