Where did you go?
Why have you stayed away so long?
Formerly your journeys only lasted three or four days.
I sent Nicolette, the answer always was:
‘He is absent.’
How long have you been back?
Why did you not let us know?
Do you know that you are very much changed?
Ah! what a naughty father! he has been ill, and we have not known it!
Stay, Marius, feel how cold his hand is!”
“So you are here!
Monsieur Pontmercy, you pardon me!” repeated Jean Valjean.
At that word which Jean Valjean had just uttered once more, all that was swelling Marius’ heart found vent.
He burst forth:
“Cosette, do you hear? he has come to that! he asks my forgiveness!
And do you know what he has done for me, Cosette?
He has saved my life.
He has done more—he has given you to me.
And after having saved me, and after having given you to me, Cosette, what has he done with himself?
He has sacrificed himself.
Behold the man.
And he says to me the ingrate, to me the forgetful, to me the pitiless, to me the guilty one: Thanks!
Cosette, my whole life passed at the feet of this man would be too little.
That barricade, that sewer, that furnace, that cesspool,—all that he traversed for me, for thee, Cosette!
He carried me away through all the deaths which he put aside before me, and accepted for himself.
Every courage, every virtue, every heroism, every sanctity he possesses!
Cosette, that man is an angel!”
“Hush! hush!” said Jean Valjean in a low voice.
“Why tell all that?”
“But you!” cried Marius with a wrath in which there was veneration, “why did you not tell it to me?
It is your own fault, too.
You save people’s lives, and you conceal it from them!
You do more, under the pretext of unmasking yourself, you calumniate yourself.
It is frightful.”
“I told the truth,” replied Jean Valjean.
“No,” retorted Marius, “the truth is the whole truth; and that you did not tell.
You were Monsieur Madeleine, why not have said so?
You saved Javert, why not have said so?
I owed my life to you, why not have said so?”
“Because I thought as you do.
I thought that you were in the right.
It was necessary that I should go away.
If you had known about that affair, of the sewer, you would have made me remain near you.
I was therefore forced to hold my peace.
If I had spoken, it would have caused embarrassment in every way.”
“It would have embarrassed what? embarrassed whom?” retorted Marius.
“Do you think that you are going to stay here?
We shall carry you off.
Ah! good heavens! when I reflect that it was by an accident that I have learned all this.
You form a part of ourselves.