“I adore you!” said Cosette.
And they fell irresistibly into each other’s arms.
“Now,” said Cosette, adjusting a fold of her dressing-gown, with a triumphant little grimace, “I shall stay.”
“No, not that,” said Marius, in a supplicating tone.
“We have to finish something.”
“Still no?”
Marius assumed a grave tone:
“I assure you, Cosette, that it is impossible.”
“Ah! you put on your man’s voice, sir.
That is well, I go.
You, father, have not upheld me.
Monsieur my father, monsieur my husband, you are tyrants.
I shall go and tell grandpapa.
If you think that I am going to return and talk platitudes to you, you are mistaken.
I am proud.
I shall wait for you now.
You shall see, that it is you who are going to be bored without me.
I am going, it is well.”
And she left the room.
Two seconds later, the door opened once more, her fresh and rosy head was again thrust between the two leaves, and she cried to them:
“I am very angry indeed.”
The door closed again, and the shadows descended once more.
It was as though a ray of sunlight should have suddenly traversed the night, without itself being conscious of it.
Marius made sure that the door was securely closed.
“Poor Cosette!” he murmured, “when she finds out . . .”
At that word Jean Valjean trembled in every limb.
He fixed on Marius a bewildered eye.
“Cosette! oh yes, it is true, you are going to tell Cosette about this.
That is right.
Stay, I had not thought of that.
One has the strength for one thing, but not for another.
Sir, I conjure you, I entreat now, sir, give me your most sacred word of honor, that you will not tell her.
Is it not enough that you should know it?
I have been able to say it myself without being forced to it, I could have told it to the universe, to the whole world,—it was all one to me.
But she, she does not know what it is, it would terrify her.
What, a convict! we should be obliged to explain matters to her, to say to her:
‘He is a man who has been in the galleys.’
She saw the chain-gang pass by one day.
Oh! My God!” . . .
He dropped into an armchair and hid his face in his hands.
His grief was not audible, but from the quivering of his shoulders it was evident that he was weeping.
Silent tears, terrible tears.
There is something of suffocation in the sob.
He was seized with a sort of convulsion, he threw himself against the back of the chair as though to gain breath, letting his arms fall, and allowing Marius to see his face inundated with tears, and Marius heard him murmur, so low that his voice seemed to issue from fathomless depths:
“Oh! would that I could die!”
“Be at your ease,” said Marius, “I will keep your secret for myself alone.”
And, less touched, perhaps, than he ought to have been, but forced, for the last hour, to familiarize himself with something as unexpected as it was dreadful, gradually beholding the convict superposed before his very eyes, upon M. Fauchelevent, overcome, little by little, by that lugubrious reality, and led, by the natural inclination of the situation, to recognize the space which had just been placed between that man and himself, Marius added:
“It is impossible that I should not speak a word to you with regard to the deposit which you have so faithfully and honestly remitted.
That is an act of probity.
It is just that some recompense should be bestowed on you.