No one caught a glimpse of the sinister reality, and in feet who could have divined such a thing? There are marshes like this in India: the water seems extraordinary, inexplicable, rippling when there is no breeze, and agitated when it ought to be calm. People look at the surface of this ebullition which has no cause, and do not suspect the hydra dragging itself along at the bottom. Many men have in this way a secret monster, an evil which they nourish, a dragon that gnaws them, a despair that dwells in their night. Such a man resembles others, comes and goes, and no one knows that he has within him a frightful parasitic pain with a thousand teeth, which dwells in the wretch and kills him. They do not know that this man is a gulf; he is stagnant but deep. From time to time a trouble which no one understands is produced on his surface; a mysterious ripple forms, then fades away, then reappears; a bubble rises and bursts. It is a slight thing, but it is terrible, for it is the respiration of the unknown boast. Certain strange habits, such as arriving at the hour when others go away, hiding one's self when others show themselves, wearing on all occasions what may be called the wall-colored cloak, seeking the solitary walk, preferring the deserted street, not mixing in conversation, avoiding crowds and festivities, appearing to be comfortably off and living poorly, having, rich though one is, one's key in one's pocket and one's candle in the porter's lodge, entering by the small door and going up the back stairs,—all these insignificant singularities, ripples, air-bubbles, and fugitive marks on the surface, frequently come from a formidable depth.
Several weeks passed thus; a new life gradually seized on Cosette,—the relations which marriage creates, visits, the management of the household, and pleasures, that great business. The pleasures of Cosette were not costly; they consisted in only one, being with Marius. To go out with him, remain at home with him, was the great occupation of her life. It was for them an ever novel joy to go out arm in arm, in the sunshine, in the open streets, without hiding themselves, in the face of everybody, both alone. Cosette had one vexation: Toussaint could not agree with Nicolette (for the welding of the two old maids was impossible), and left. The grandfather was quite well; Marius had a few briefs now and then; Aunt Gillenormand peacefully lived with the married pair that lateral life which sufficed her, and Jean Valjean came daily. The Madame and the Monsieur Jean, however, made him different to Cosette, and the care he had himself taken to detach himself from her succeeded. She was more and more gay, and less and less affectionate; and yet she loved him dearly still, and he felt it One day she suddenly said to him, "You were my father, you are no longer my father; you were my uncle, you are no longer my uncle; you were Monsieur Fauchelevent, and are now Jean. Who are you, then? I do not like all this. If I did not know you to be so good, I should be afraid of you." He still lived in the Rue de l'Homme Armé, as he could not resolve to remove from the quarter in which Cosette lived. At first he stayed only a few minutes with Cosette, and then went away; but by degrees he grew into the habit of making his visits longer. It might be said that he took advantage of the lengthening days; he arrived sooner and went away later. One day the word "father" slipped over Cosette's lips, and a gleam of joy lit up Jean Valjean's old solemn face, but he chided her: "Say Jean."
"Ah, that is true," she replied, with a burst of laughter, "Monsieur Jean."
"That is right," he said; and he turned away that she might not see the tears in his eyes.
[CHAPTER III.]
THEY REMEMBER THE GARDEN IN THE RUE PLUMET.
This was the last occasion, and after this last flare total extinction took place. There was no more familiarity, no more good-day with a kiss, and never again that so deeply tender word "father:" he had been, at his own request and with his own complicity, expelled from all those joys in succession, and he underwent this misery,—that, after losing Cosette entirely on one day, he was then obliged to lose her again bit by bit. The eye eventually grows accustomed to cellar light, and he found it enough to have an apparition of Cosette daily. His whole life was concentrated in that hour; he sat down by her side, looked at her in silence, or else talked to her about former years, her childhood, the convent, and her little friends of those days. One afternoon—it was an early day in April, already warm but still fresh, the moment of the sun's great gayety; the gardens that surrounded Marius's and Cosette's windows were rousing from their slumber, the hawthorn was about to bourgeon, a jewelry of wall-flowers was displayed on the old wall, there was on the grass a fairy carpet of daisies and buttercups, the white butterflies were springing forth, and the wind, that minstrel of the eternal wedding, was trying in the trees the first notes of that great auroral symphony which the old poets called the renewal—Marius said to Cosette, "We said that we would go and see our garden in the Rue Plumet again. Come, we must not be ungrateful." And they flew off like two swallows toward the spring. This garden in the Rue Plumet produced on them the effect of a dawn, for they already had behind them in life something that resembled the springtime of their love. The house in the Rue Plumet, being taken on lease, still belonged to Cosette; they went to this garden and house, found themselves again, and forgot themselves there. In the evening Jean Valjean went to the Rue des Filles du Calvaire at the usual hour. "My lady went out with the Baron," said Basque, "and has not returned yet." He sat down silently and waited an hour, but Cosette did not come in; he hung his head and went away. Cosette was so intoxicated by the walk in "their garden," and so pleased at having "lived a whole day in her past," that she spoke of nothing else the next day. She did not remark that she had not seen Jean Valjean.
"How did you go there?" Jean Valjean asked her.
"On foot."