The dead are not subjected to surveillance.
They are supposed to rot in peace.
Death is the same thing as pardon.”
And, disengaging the hand which Marius held, he added, with a sort of inexorable dignity:
“Moreover, the friend to whom I have recourse is the doing of my duty; and I need but one pardon, that of my conscience.”
At that moment, a door at the other end of the drawing-room opened gently half way, and in the opening Cosette’s head appeared.
They saw only her sweet face, her hair was in charming disorder, her eyelids were still swollen with sleep.
She made the movement of a bird, which thrusts its head out of its nest, glanced first at her husband, then at Jean Valjean, and cried to them with a smile, so that they seemed to behold a smile at the heart of a rose:
“I will wager that you are talking politics.
How stupid that is, instead of being with me!”
Jean Valjean shuddered.
“Cosette! . . .” stammered Marius.
And he paused.
One would have said that they were two criminals.
Cosette, who was radiant, continued to gaze at both of them.
There was something in her eyes like gleams of paradise.
“I have caught you in the very act,” said Cosette.
“Just now, I heard my father Fauchelevent through the door saying:
‘Conscience . . . doing my duty . . .’ That is politics, indeed it is.
I will not have it.
People should not talk politics the very next day.
It is not right.”
“You are mistaken.
Cosette,” said Marius, “we are talking business.
We are discussing the best investment of your six hundred thousand francs . . .”
“That is not it at all,” interrupted Cosette.
“I am coming.
Does anybody want me here?”
And, passing resolutely through the door, she entered the drawing-room.
She was dressed in a voluminous white dressing-gown, with a thousand folds and large sleeves which, starting from the neck, fell to her feet.
In the golden heavens of some ancient gothic pictures, there are these charming sacks fit to clothe the angels.
She contemplated herself from head to foot in a long mirror, then exclaimed, in an outburst of ineffable ecstasy:
“There was once a King and a Queen.
Oh! how happy I am!”
That said, she made a curtsey to Marius and to Jean Valjean.
“There,” said she, “I am going to install myself near you in an easy-chair, we breakfast in half an hour, you shall say anything you like, I know well that men must talk, and I will be very good.”
Marius took her by the arm and said lovingly to her:
“We are talking business.”
“By the way,” said Cosette, “I have opened my window, a flock of pierrots has arrived in the garden,—Birds, not maskers.
To-day is Ash-Wednesday; but not for the birds.”
“I tell you that we are talking business, go, my little Cosette, leave us alone for a moment.
We are talking figures.
That will bore you.”
“You have a charming cravat on this morning, Marius.
You are very dandified, monseigneur.
No, it will not bore me.”
“I assure you that it will bore you.”
“No. Since it is you.
I shall not understand you, but I shall listen to you.
When one hears the voices of those whom one loves, one does not need to understand the words that they utter.