Cosette, seeing her father ill, had deserted the pavilion, and regained her taste for the little outhouse and the back court. She spent nearly the whole day by the side of Jean Valjean, and read to him any books he chose, which were generally travels. Jean Valjean was regenerated. His happiness returned with ineffable radiance; the Luxembourg, the young unknown prowler, Cosette's coldness,—all these soul-clouds disappeared, and he found himself saying, "I imagined all that; I am an old fool!" His happiness was such that the frightful discovery of the Thénardiers made in Jondrettes den, which was so unexpected, had to some extent glided over him. He had succeeded in escaping, his trail was lost, and what did he care for the rest? He only thought of it to pity those wretches. They were in prison, and henceforth incapable of mischief, he thought, but what a lamentable family in distress! As for the hideous vision of the Barrière du Maine, Cosette had not spoken again about it. In the convent, Sister Sainte Mechtilde had taught Cosette music; she had a voice such as a linnet would have if it possessed a soul; and at times she sang sad songs in the wounded man's obscure room, which enlivened Jean Valjean. Spring arrived, and the garden was so delicious at that season of the year, that Jean Valjean said to Cosette, "You never go out, and I wish you to take a stroll." "As you please, father," said Cosette. And to obey her father, she resumed her walks in the garden, generally alone, for, as we have mentioned, Jean Valjean, who was probably afraid of being seen from the gate, hardly ever entered it.
Jean Valjean's wound had been a diversion; when Cosette saw that her father suffered less, and was recovering and seemed happy, she felt a satisfaction which she did not even notice, for it came so softly and naturally. Then, too, it was the month of March; the days were drawing out, winter was departing, and it always takes with it some portion of our sorrow; then came April, that daybreak of summer, fresh as every dawn, and gay like all childhoods, and somewhat tearful at times like the new-born babe it is. Nature in that month has charming beams which pass from the sky, the clouds, the trees, the fields, and the flowers into the human heart. Cosette was still too young for this April joy, which resembled her, not to penetrate her; insensibly, and without suspecting it, the dark cloud departed from her mind. In spring there is light in sad souls, as there is at midday in cellars. Cosette was no longer so very sad; it was so, but she did not attempt to account for it. In the morning, after breakfast, when she succeeded in drawing her father into the garden for a quarter of an hour, and walked him up and down while supporting his bad arm, she did not notice that she laughed every moment and was happy. Jean Valjean was delighted to see her become ruddy-cheeked and fresh once more.
"Oh, the famous wound!" he repeated to himself, in a low voice.
And he was grateful to the Thénardiers. So soon as his wound was cured he recommenced his solitary night-rambles; and it would be a mistake to suppose that a man can walk about alone in the uninhabited regions of Paris without meeting with some adventure.
[CHAPTER II.]
MOTHER PLUTARCH ACCOUNTS FOR A PHENOMENON.
One evening little Gavroche had eaten nothing; he remembered that he had not dined either on the previous day, and that was becoming ridiculous; so he formed the resolution to try and sup. He went prowling about at the deserted spots beyond the Salpêtrière, for there are good windfalls there; where there is nobody, something may be found. He thus reached a suburb which seemed to him to be the village of Austerlitz. In one of his previous strolls he had noticed there an old garden frequented by an old man and an old woman, and in this garden a passable apple-tree. By the side of this tree was a sort of badly closed fruit-loft, whence an apple might be obtained. An apple is a supper, an apple is life; and what ruined Adam might save Gavroche. The garden skirted a solitary unpaved lane, bordered by shrubs while waiting for houses, and a hedge separated it from the lane. Gavroche proceeded to the garden. He found the lane again, he recognized the apple-tree, and examined the hedge; a hedge is but a stride. Day was declining; there was not a cat in the lane, and the hour was good. Gavroche was preparing to clamber over the hedge, when he stopped short,—some people were talking in the garden. Gavroche looked through one of the interstices in the hedge. Two paces from him, at the foot of the hedge on the other side, at precisely the point where the hole he had intended to make would have opened, lay a stone which formed a species of bench; and on this bench the old man of the garden was seated with the old woman standing in front of him. The old woman was grumbling, and Gavroche, who was not troubled with too much discretion, listened.
"Monsieur Mabœuf!" the old woman said.
"Mabœuf!" Gavroche thought, "that's a rum name."