Here questions exfoliated, so to speak, into innumerable enigmas, abysses yawned at the bottoms of abysses, and Marius could no longer bend over Jean Valjean without becoming dizzy.
What was this man-precipice?
The old symbols of Genesis are eternal; in human society, such as it now exists, and until a broader day shall effect a change in it, there will always be two men, the one superior, the other subterranean; the one which is according to good is Abel; the other which is according to evil is Cain.
What was this tender Cain?
What was this ruffian religiously absorbed in the adoration of a virgin, watching over her, rearing her, guarding her, dignifying her, and enveloping her, impure as he was himself, with purity?
What was that cesspool which had venerated that innocence to such a point as not to leave upon it a single spot?
What was this Jean Valjean educating Cosette?
What was this figure of the shadows which had for its only object the preservation of the rising of a star from every shadow and from every cloud?
That was Jean Valjean’s secret; that was also God’s secret.
In the presence of this double secret, Marius recoiled.
The one, in some sort, reassured him as to the other.
God was as visible in this affair as was Jean Valjean.
God has his instruments.
He makes use of the tool which he wills.
He is not responsible to men.
Do we know how God sets about the work?
Jean Valjean had labored over Cosette.
He had, to some extent, made that soul.
That was incontestable.
Well, what then?
The workman was horrible; but the work was admirable.
God produces his miracles as seems good to him.
He had constructed that charming Cosette, and he had employed Jean Valjean.
It had pleased him to choose this strange collaborator for himself.
What account have we to demand of him?
Is this the first time that the dung-heap has aided the spring to create the rose?
Marius made himself these replies, and declared to himself that they were good.
He had not dared to press Jean Valjean on all the points which we have just indicated, but he did not confess to himself that he did not dare to do it.
He adored Cosette, he possessed Cosette, Cosette was splendidly pure.
That was sufficient for him.
What enlightenment did he need?
Cosette was a light.
Does light require enlightenment?
He had everything; what more could he desire?
All,—is not that enough?
Jean Valjean’s personal affairs did not concern him.
And bending over the fatal shadow of that man, he clung fast, convulsively, to the solemn declaration of that unhappy wretch:
“I am nothing to Cosette.
Ten years ago I did not know that she was in existence.”
Jean Valjean was a passer-by.
He had said so himself.
Well, he had passed.
Whatever he was, his part was finished.
Henceforth, there remained Marius to fulfil the part of Providence to Cosette.
Cosette had sought the azure in a person like herself, in her lover, her husband, her celestial male.
Cosette, as she took her flight, winged and transfigured, left behind her on the earth her hideous and empty chrysalis, Jean Valjean.
In whatever circle of ideas Marius revolved, he always returned to a certain horror for Jean Valjean.
A sacred horror, perhaps, for, as we have just pointed out, he felt a quid divinum in that man.
But do what he would, and seek what extenuation he would, he was certainly forced to fall back upon this: the man was a convict; that is to say, a being who has not even a place in the social ladder, since he is lower than the very lowest rung.
After the very last of men comes the convict.