|
ANOTHER STEP BACKWARDS
On the following day, at the same hour, Jean Valjean came.
Cosette asked him no questions, was no longer astonished,
no longer exclaimed that she was cold, no longer spoke of the
drawing-room, she avoided saying either "father" or
"Monsieur Jean."
She allowed herself to be addressed as you.
She allowed herself to be called Madame.
Only, her joy had undergone a certain diminution. She would
have been sad, if sadness had been possible to her.
It is probable that she had had with Marius one of those conversations
in which the beloved man says what he pleases, explains nothing,
and satisfies the beloved woman.
The curiosity of lovers does not extend very far beyond their
own love.
The lower room had made a little toilet.
Basque had suppressed the bottles, and Nicolette the spiders.
All the days which followed brought Jean Valjean at the same
hour. He came every day, because he had not the strength to take
Marius' words otherwise than literally.
Marius arranged matters so as to be absent at the hours when
Jean Valjean came.
The house grew accustomed to the novel ways of M. Fauchelevent.
Toussaint helped in this direction:
"Monsieur has always been like that," she repeated.
The grandfather issued this decree:--"He's an original."
And all was said.
Moreover, at the age of ninety-six, no bond is any longer
possible, all is merely juxtaposition; a newcomer is in the way.
There is no longer any room; all habits are acquired.
M. Fauchelevent, M. Tranchelevent, Father Gillenormand asked
nothing better than to be relieved from "that gentleman."
He added:--"Nothing is more common than those originals.
They do all sorts of queer things. They have no reason.
The Marquis de Canaples was still worse. He bought a palace
that he might lodge in the garret.
These are fantastic appearances that people affect."
No one caught a glimpse of the sinister foundation.
And moreover, who could have guessed such a thing?
There are marshes of this description in India.
The water seems extraordinary, inexplicable, rippling though
there is no wind, and agitated where it should be calm.
One gazes at the surface of these causeless ebullitions; one
does not perceive the hydra which crawls on the bottom.
Many men have a secret monster in this same manner, a dragon
which gnaws them, a despair which inhabits their night.
Such a man resembles other men, he goes and comes.
No one knows that he bears within him a frightful parasitic
pain with a thousand teeth, which lives within the unhappy man,
and of which he is dying. No one knows that this man is a gulf.
He is stagnant but deep. From time to time, a trouble of which
the onlooker understands nothing appears on his surface.
A mysterious wrinkle is formed, then vanishes, then re-appears;
an air-bubble rises and bursts. It is the breathing of the unknown
beast.
Certain strange habits:
arriving at the hour when other people are taking their leave,
keeping in the background when other people are displaying themselves,
preserving on all occasions what may be designated as the wall-colored
mantle, seeking the solitary walk, preferring the deserted street,
avoiding any share in conversation, avoiding crowds and festivals,
seeming at one's ease and living poorly, having one's key in one's
pocket, and one's candle at the porter's lodge, however rich one
may be, entering by the side door, ascending the private staircase,--all
these insignificant singularities, fugitive folds on the surface,
often proceed from a formidable foundation.
Many weeks passed in this manner.
A new life gradually took possession of Cosette:
the relations which marriage creates, visits, the care of
the house, pleasures, great matters.
Cosette's pleasures were not costly, they consisted in one
thing:
being with Marius.
The great occupation of her life was to go out with him, to
remain with him. It was for them a joy that was always fresh,
to go out arm in arm, in the face of the sun, in the open street,
without hiding themselves, before the whole world, both of them
completely alone.
Cosette had one vexation.
Toussaint could not get on with Nicolette, the soldering of
two elderly maids being impossible, and she went away. The grandfather
was well; Marius argued a case here and there; Aunt Gillenormand
peacefully led that life aside which sufficed for her, beside
the new household.
Jean Valjean came every day.
The address as thou disappeared, the you, the "Madame,"
the "Monsieur Jean," rendered him another person to
Cosette.
The care which he had himself taken to detach her from him
was succeeding. She became more and more gay and less and less
tender.
Yet she still loved him sincerely, and he felt it.
One day she said to him suddenly:
"You used to be my father, you are no longer my father,
you were my uncle, you are no longer my uncle, you were Monsieur
Fauchelevent, you are Jean.
Who are you then? I don't like all this.
If I did not know how good you are, I should be afraid of
you."
He still lived in the Rue de l'Homme Arme, because he could
not make up his mind to remove to a distance from the quarter
where Cosette dwelt.
At first, he only remained a few minutes with Cosette, and
then went away.
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.
|
