Cosette and Marius beheld each other once more.
What that interview was like we decline to say. There are things which one must not attempt to depict; the sun is one of them.
The entire family, including Basque and Nicolette, were assembled in Marius’ chamber at the moment when Cosette entered it.
Precisely at that moment, the grandfather was on the point of blowing his nose; he stopped short, holding his nose in his handkerchief, and gazing over it at Cosette.
She appeared on the threshold; it seemed to him that she was surrounded by a glory.
“Adorable!” he exclaimed.
Then he blew his nose noisily.
Cosette was intoxicated, delighted, frightened, in heaven. She was as thoroughly alarmed as any one can be by happiness. She stammered all pale, yet flushed, she wanted to fling herself into Marius’ arms, and dared not. Ashamed of loving in the presence of all these people. People are pitiless towards happy lovers; they remain when the latter most desire to be left alone. Lovers have no need of any people whatever.
With Cosette, and behind her, there had entered a man with white hair who was grave yet smiling, though with a vague and heartrending smile. It was “Monsieur Fauchelevent”; it was Jean Valjean.
He was very well dressed, as the porter had said, entirely in black, in perfectly new garments, and with a white cravat.
The porter was a thousand leagues from recognizing in this correct bourgeois, in this probable notary, the fear-inspiring bearer of the corpse, who had sprung up at his door on the night of the 7th of June, tattered, muddy, hideous, haggard, his face masked in blood and mire, supporting in his arms the fainting Marius; still, his porter’s scent was aroused. When M. Fauchelevent arrived with Cosette, the porter had not been able to refrain from communicating to his wife this aside: “I don’t know why it is, but I can’t help fancying that I’ve seen that face before.”
M. Fauchelevent in Marius’ chamber, remained apart near the door. He had under his arm, a package which bore considerable resemblance to an octavo volume enveloped in paper. The enveloping paper was of a greenish hue, and appeared to be mouldy.
“Does the gentleman always have books like that under his arm?” Mademoiselle Gillenormand, who did not like books, demanded in a low tone of Nicolette.
“Well,” retorted M. Gillenormand, who had overheard her, in the same tone, “he’s a learned man. What then? Is that his fault? Monsieur Boulard, one of my acquaintances, never walked out without a book under his arm either, and he always had some old volume hugged to his heart like that.”
And, with a bow, he said aloud:
“Monsieur Tranchelevent….”
Father Gillenormand did not do it intentionally, but inattention to proper names was an aristocratic habit of his.
“Monsieur Tranchelevent, I have the honor of asking you, on behalf of my grandson, Baron Marius Pontmercy, for the hand of Mademoiselle.”
Monsieur Tranchelevent bowed.
“That’s settled,” said the grandfather.
And, turning to Marius and Cosette, with both arms extended in blessing, he cried:
“Permission to adore each other!”
They did not require him to repeat it twice. So much the worse! the chirping began. They talked low. Marius, resting on his elbow on his reclining chair, Cosette standing beside him. “Oh, heavens!” murmured Cosette, “I see you once again! it is thou! it is you! The idea of going and fighting like that! But why? It is horrible. I have been dead for four months. Oh! how wicked it was of you to go to that battle! What had I done to you? I pardon you, but you will never do it again. A little while ago, when they came to tell us to come to you, I still thought that I was about to die, but it was from joy. I was so sad! I have not taken the time to dress myself, I must frighten people with my looks! What will your relatives say to see me in a crumpled collar? Do speak! You let me do all the talking. We are still in the Rue de l’Homme Armé. It seems that your shoulder was terrible. They told me that you could put your fist in it. And then, it seems that they cut your flesh with the scissors. That is frightful. I have cried till I have no eyes left. It is queer that a person can suffer like that. Your grandfather has a very kindly air. Don’t disturb yourself, don’t rise on your elbow, you will injure yourself. Oh! how happy I am! So our unhappiness is over! I am quite foolish. I had things to say to you, and I no longer know in the least what they were. Do you still love me? We live in the Rue de l’Homme Armé. There is no garden. I made lint all the time; stay, sir, look, it is your fault, I have a callous on my fingers.”
“Angel!” said Marius.
Angel is the only word in the language which cannot be worn out. No other word could resist the merciless use which lovers make of it.
Then as there were spectators, they paused and said not a word more, contenting themselves with softly touching each other’s hands.
M. Gillenormand turned towards those who were in the room and cried:
“Talk loud, the rest of you. Make a noise, you people behind the scenes. Come, a little uproar, the deuce! so that the children can chatter at their ease.”
And, approaching Marius and Cosette, he said to them in a very low voice:
“Call each other thou. Don’t stand on ceremony.”
Aunt Gillenormand looked on in amazement at this irruption of light in her elderly household. There was nothing aggressive about this amazement; it was not the least in the world like the scandalized and envious glance of an owl at two turtledoves, it was the stupid eye of a poor innocent seven and fifty years of age; it was a life which had been a failure gazing at that triumph, love.
“Mademoiselle Gillenormand senior,” said her father to her, “I told you that this is what would happen to you.”
He remained silent for a moment, and then added:
“Look at the happiness of others.”
Then he turned to Cosette.
“How pretty she is! how pretty she is! She’s a Greuze. So you are going to have that all to yourself, you scamp! Ah! my rogue, you are getting off nicely with me, you are happy; if I were not fifteen years too old, we would fight with swords to see which of us should have her. Come now! I am in love with you, mademoiselle. It’s perfectly simple. It is your right. You are in the right. Ah! what a sweet, charming little wedding this will make! Our parish is Saint-Denis du Saint Sacrament, but I will get a dispensation so that you can be married at Saint-Paul. The church is better. It was built by the Jesuits. It is more coquettish. It is opposite the fountain of Cardinal de Birague. The masterpiece of Jesuit architecture is at Namur. It is called Saint-Loup. You must go there after you are married. It is worth the journey. Mademoiselle, I am quite of your mind, I think girls ought to marry; that is what they are made for. There is a certain Sainte-Catherine whom I should always like to see uncoiffed.62 It’s a fine thing to remain a spinster, but it is chilly. The Bible says: Multiply. In order to save the people, Jeanne d’Arc is needed; but in order to make people, what is needed is Mother Goose. So, marry, my beauties. I really do not see the use in remaining a spinster! I know that they have their chapel apart in the church, and that they fall back on the Society of the Virgin; but, sapristi, a handsome husband, a fine fellow, and at the expiration of a year, a big, blond brat who nurses lustily, and who has fine rolls of fat on his thighs, and who musses up your breast in handfuls with his little rosy paws, laughing the while like the dawn,—that’s better than holding a candle at vespers, and chanting Turris Eburnea!”
The grandfather executed a pirouette on his eighty-year-old heels, and began to talk again like a spring that has broken loose once more:
“Ainsi, bornant les cours de tes rêvasseries,
Alcippe, il est donc vrai, dans peu tu te maries.”63
“By the way!”
“What is it, father?”
“Have not you an intimate friend?”
“Yes, Courfeyrac.”
“What has become of him?”
“He is dead.”
“That is good.”
He seated himself near them, made Cosette sit down, and took their four hands in his aged and wrinkled hands:
“She is exquisite, this darling. She’s a masterpiece, this Cosette! She is a very little girl and a very great lady. She will only be a Baroness, which is a come down for her; she was born a Marquise. What eyelashes she has! Get it well fixed in your noddles, my children, that you are in the true road. Love each other. Be foolish about it. Love is the folly of men and the wit of God. Adore each other. Only,” he added, suddenly becoming gloomy, “what a misfortune! It has just occurred to me! More than half of what I possess is swallowed up in an annuity; so long as I live, it will not matter, but after my death, a score of years hence, ah! my poor children, you will not have a sou! Your beautiful white hands, Madame la Baronne, will do the devil the honor of pulling him by the tail.”64
At this point they heard a grave and tranquil voice say:
“Mademoiselle Euphrasie Fauchelevent possesses six hundred thousand francs.”
It was the voice of Jean Valjean.
So far he had not uttered a single word, no one seemed to be aware that he was there, and he had remained standing erect and motionless, behind all these happy people.
“What has Mademoiselle Euphrasie to do with the question?” inquired the startled grandfather.
“I am she,” replied Cosette.
“Six hundred thousand francs?” resumed M. Gillenormand.
“Minus fourteen or fifteen thousand francs, possibly,” said Jean Valjean.
And he laid on the table the package which Mademoiselle Gillenormand had mistaken for a book.
Jean Valjean himself opened the package; it was a bundle of bank-notes. They were turned over and counted. There were five hundred notes for a thousand francs each, and one hundred and sixty-eight of five hundred. In all, five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs.
“This is a fine book,” said M. Gillenormand.
“Five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs!” murmured the aunt.
“This arranges things well, does it not, Mademoiselle Gillenormand senior?” said the grandfather. “That devil of a Marius has ferreted out the nest of a millionaire grisette in his tree of dreams! Just trust to the love affairs of young folks now, will you! Students find studentesses with six hundred thousand francs. Cherubino works better than Rothschild.”
“Five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs!” repeated Mademoiselle Gillenormand, in a low tone. “Five hundred and eighty-four! one might as well say six hundred thousand!”
As for Marius and Cosette, they were gazing at each other while this was going on; they hardly heeded this detail.