On the following day, at nightfall, Jean Valjean knocked at the carriage gate of the Gillenormand house. It was Basque who received him. Basque was in the courtyard at the appointed hour, as though he had received his orders. It sometimes happens that one says to a servant: “You will watch for Mr. So and So, when he arrives.”
Basque addressed Jean Valjean without waiting for the latter to approach him:
“Monsieur le Baron has charged me to inquire whether monsieur desires to go upstairs or to remain below?”
“I will remain below,” replied Jean Valjean.
Basque, who was perfectly respectful, opened the door of the waiting-room and said:
“I will go and inform Madame.”
The room which Jean Valjean entered was a damp, vaulted room on the ground floor, which served as a cellar on occasion, which opened on the street, was paved with red squares and was badly lighted by a grated window.
This chamber was not one of those which are harassed by the feather-duster, the pope’s head brush, and the broom. The dust rested tranquilly there. Persecution of the spiders was not organized there. A fine web, which spread far and wide, and was very black and ornamented with dead flies, formed a wheel on one of the window-panes. The room, which was small and low-ceiled, was furnished with a heap of empty bottles piled up in one corner.
The wall, which was daubed with an ochre yellow wash, was scaling off in large flakes. At one end there was a chimney-piece painted in black with a narrow shelf. A fire was burning there; which indicated that Jean Valjean’s reply: “I will remain below,” had been foreseen.
Two armchairs were placed at the two corners of the fireplace. Between the chairs an old bedside rug, which displayed more foundation thread than wool, had been spread by way of a carpet.
The chamber was lighted by the fire on the hearth and the twilight falling through the window.
Jean Valjean was fatigued. For days he had neither eaten nor slept. He threw himself into one of the armchairs.
Basque returned, set a lighted candle on the chimney-piece and retired. Jean Valjean, his head drooping and his chin resting on his breast, perceived neither Basque nor the candle.
All at once, he drew himself up with a start. Cosette was standing beside him.
He had not seen her enter, but he had felt that she was there.
He turned round. He gazed at her. She was adorably lovely. But what he was contemplating with that profound gaze was not her beauty but her soul.
“Well,” exclaimed Cosette, “father, I knew that you were peculiar, but I never should have expected this. What an idea! Marius told me that you wish me to receive you here.”
“Yes, it is my wish.”
“I expected that reply. Good. I warn you that I am going to make a scene for you. Let us begin at the beginning. Embrace me, father.”
And she offered him her cheek.
Jean Valjean remained motionless.
“You do not stir. I take note of it. Attitude of guilt. But never mind, I pardon you. Jesus Christ said: Offer the other cheek. Here it is.”
And she presented her other cheek.
Jean Valjean did not move. It seemed as though his feet were nailed to the pavement.
“This is becoming serious,” said Cosette. “What have I done to you? I declare that I am perplexed. You owe me reparation. You will dine with us.”
“I have dined.”
“That is not true. I will get M. Gillenormand to scold you. Grandfathers are made to reprimand fathers. Come. Go upstairs with me to the drawing-room. Immediately.”
“Impossible.”
Here Cosette lost ground a little. She ceased to command and passed to questioning.
“But why? and you choose the ugliest chamber in the house in which to see me. It’s horrible here.”
“Thou knowest . . .”
Jean Valjean caught himself up.
“You know, madame, that I am peculiar, I have my freaks.”
Cosette struck her tiny hands together.
“Madame! . . . You know! . . . more novelties! What is the meaning of this?”
Jean Valjean directed upon her that heartrending smile to which he occasionally had recourse:
“You wished to be Madame. You are so.”
“Not for you, father.”
“Do not call me father.”
“What?”
“Call me ‘Monsieur Jean.’ ‘Jean,’ if you like.”
“You are no longer my father? I am no longer Cosette? ‘Monsieur Jean’? What does this mean? why, these are revolutions, aren’t they? what has taken place? come, look me in the face. And you won’t live with us! And you won’t have my chamber! What have I done to you? Has anything happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Well then?”
“Everything is as usual.”
“Why do you change your name?”
“You have changed yours, surely.”
He smiled again with the same smile as before and added:
“Since you are Madame Pontmercy, I certainly can be Monsieur Jean.”
“I don’t understand anything about it. All this is idiotic. I shall ask permission of my husband for you to be ‘Monsieur Jean.’ I hope that he will not consent to it. You cause me a great deal of pain. One does have freaks, but one does not cause one’s little Cosette grief. That is wrong. You have no right to be wicked, you who are so good.”
He made no reply.
She seized his hands with vivacity, and raising them to her face with an irresistible movement, she pressed them against her neck beneath her chin, which is a gesture of profound tenderness.
“Oh!” she said to him, “be good!”
And she went on:
“This is what I call being good: being nice and coming and living here,—there are birds here as there are in the Rue Plumet,—living with us, quitting that hole of a Rue de l’Homme Armé, not giving us riddles to guess, being like all the rest of the world, dining with us, breakfasting with us, being my father.”
He loosed her hands.
“You no longer need a father, you have a husband.”
Cosette became angry.
“I no longer need a father! One really does not know what to say to things like that, which are not common sense!”
“If Toussaint were here,” resumed Jean Valjean, like a person who is driven to seek authorities, and who clutches at every branch, “she would be the first to agree that it is true that I have always had ways of my own. There is nothing new in this. I always have loved my black corner.”
“But it is cold here. One cannot see distinctly. It is abominable, that it is, to wish to be Monsieur Jean! I will not have you say ‘you’ to me.
“Just now, as I was coming hither,” replied Jean Valjean, “I saw a piece of furniture in the Rue Saint Louis. It was at a cabinet-maker’s. If I were a pretty woman, I would treat myself to that bit of furniture. A very neat toilet table in the reigning style. What you call rosewood, I think. It is inlaid. The mirror is quite large. There are drawers. It is pretty.”
“Hou! the villainous bear!” replied Cosette.
And with supreme grace, setting her teeth and drawing back her lips, she blew at Jean Valjean. She was a Grace copying a cat.
“I am furious,” she resumed. “Ever since yesterday, you have made me rage, all of you. I am greatly vexed. I don’t understand. You do not defend me against Marius. Marius will not uphold me against you. I am all alone. I arrange a chamber prettily. If I could have put the good God there I would have done it. My chamber is left on my hands. My lodger sends me into bankruptcy. I order a nice little dinner of Nicolette. We will have nothing to do with your dinner, Madame. And my father Fauchelevent wants me to call him ‘Monsieur Jean,’ and to receive him in a frightful, old, ugly cellar, where the walls have beards, and where the crystal consists of empty bottles, and the curtains are of spiders’ webs! You are singular, I admit, that is your style, but people who get married are granted a truce. You ought not to have begun being singular again instantly. So you are going to be perfectly contented in your abominable Rue de l’Homme Armé. I was very desperate indeed there, that I was. What have you against me? You cause me a great deal of grief. Fi!”
And, becoming suddenly serious, she gazed intently at Jean Valjean and added:
“Are you angry with me because I am happy?”
Ingenuousness sometimes unconsciously penetrates deep. This question, which was simple for Cosette, was profound for Jean Valjean. Cosette had meant to scratch, and she lacerated.
Jean Valjean turned pale.
He remained for a moment without replying, then, with an inexpressible intonation, and speaking to himself, he murmured:
“Her happiness was the object of my life. Now God may sign my dismissal. Cosette, thou art happy; my day is over.”
“Ah, you have said thou to me!” exclaimed Cosette.
And she sprang to his neck.
Jean Valjean, in bewilderment, strained her wildly to his breast. It almost seemed to him as though he were taking her back.
“Thanks, father!” said Cosette.
This enthusiastic impulse was on the point of becoming poignant for Jean Valjean. He gently removed Cosette’s arms, and took his hat.
“Well?” said Cosette.
“I leave you, Madame, they are waiting for you.”
And, from the threshold, he added:
“I have said thou to you. Tell your husband that this shall not happen again. Pardon me.”
Jean Valjean quitted the room, leaving Cosette stupefied at this enigmatical farewell.