Little by little he acquired the habit of making his visits less brief.
One would have said that he was taking advantage of the authorization of the days which were lengthening, he arrived earlier and departed later.
One day Cosette chanced to say “father” to him.
A flash of joy illuminated Jean Valjean’s melancholy old countenance.
He caught her up:
“Say Jean.”—“Ah! truly,” she replied with a burst of laughter, “Monsieur Jean.”—“That is right,” said he. And he turned aside so that she might not see him wipe his eyes.
CHAPTER III—THEY RECALL THE GARDEN OF THE RUE PLUMET
This was the last time.
After that last flash of light, complete extinction ensued.
No more familiarity, no more good-morning with a kiss, never more that word so profoundly sweet: “My father!”
He was at his own request and through his own complicity driven out of all his happinesses one after the other; and he had this sorrow, that after having lost Cosette wholly in one day, he was afterwards obliged to lose her again in detail.
The eye eventually becomes accustomed to the light of a cellar.
In short, it sufficed for him to have an apparition of Cosette every day.
His whole life was concentrated in that one hour.
He seated himself close to her, he gazed at her in silence, or he talked to her of years gone by, of her childhood, of the convent, of her little friends of those bygone days.
One afternoon,—it was on one of those early days in April, already warm and fresh, the moment of the sun’s great gayety, the gardens which surrounded the windows of Marius and Cosette felt the emotion of waking, the hawthorn was on the point of budding, a jewelled garniture of gillyflowers spread over the ancient walls, snapdragons yawned through the crevices of the stones, amid the grass there was a charming beginning of daisies, and buttercups, the white butterflies of the year were making their first appearance, the wind, that minstrel of the eternal wedding, was trying in the trees the first notes of that grand, auroral symphony which the old poets called the springtide,—Marius said to Cosette:—“We said that we would go back to take a look at our garden in the Rue Plumet.
Let us go thither.
We must not be ungrateful.”—And away they flitted, like two swallows towards the spring.
This garden of the Rue Plumet produced on them the effect of the dawn.
They already had behind them in life something which was like the springtime of their love.
The house in the Rue Plumet being held on a lease, still belonged to Cosette.
They went to that garden and that house.
There they found themselves again, there they forgot themselves.
That evening, at the usual hour, Jean Valjean came to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire.—“Madame went out with Monsieur and has not yet returned,” Basque said to him.
He seated himself in silence, and waited an hour.
Cosette did not return.
He departed with drooping head.
Cosette was so intoxicated with her walk to “their garden,” and so joyous at having “lived a whole day in her past,” that she talked of nothing else on the morrow.
She did not notice that she had not seen Jean Valjean.
“In what way did you go thither?” Jean Valjean asked her.”
“On foot.”
“And how did you return?”
“In a hackney carriage.”
For some time, Jean Valjean had noticed the economical life led by the young people.
He was troubled by it.
Marius’ economy was severe, and that word had its absolute meaning for Jean Valjean.
He hazarded a query:
“Why do you not have a carriage of your own?
A pretty coupe would only cost you five hundred francs a month.
You are rich.”
“I don’t know,” replied Cosette.
“It is like Toussaint,” resumed Jean Valjean. “She is gone.
You have not replaced her.
Why?”
“Nicolette suffices.”
“But you ought to have a maid.”
“Have I not Marius?”
“You ought to have a house of your own, your own servants, a carriage, a box at the theatre.
There is nothing too fine for you.
Why not profit by your riches?