"How unkind to have left us like that! Where have you been to? Why were you away so long? Formerly your absences did not last over three or four days. I sent Nicolette, and the answer always was, 'He has not returned.' When did you get back? Why did you not let us know? Are you aware that you are greatly changed? Oh, naughty papa, he has been ill, and we did not know it. Here, Marius, feel how cold his hand is!"
"So you are here! So you forgive me, Monsieur Pontmercy?" Jean Valjean repeated.
At this remark, all that was swelling in Marius's heart found a vent, and he burst forth,—
"Do you hear, Cosette? He asks my pardon. And do you know what he did for me, Cosette? He saved my life; he did more, he gave you to me, and, after saving me, and after giving you to me, Cosette, what did he do for himself? He sacrificed himself. That is the man. And to me, who am so ungrateful, so pitiless, so forgetful, and so guilty, he says, 'Thank you!' Cosette, my whole life spent at this man's feet would be too little. That barricade, that sewer, that furnace, that pit,—he went through them all for me and for you, Cosette! He carried me through every form of death, which he held at bay from me and accepted for himself. This man possesses every courage, every virtue, every heroism, and every holiness, and he is an angel, Cosette!"
"Stop, stop!" Jean Valjean said in a whisper; "why talk in that way?"
"But why did you not tell me of it?" exclaimed Marius, with a passion in which was veneration; "it is your fault also. You save people's lives, and conceal the fact from them! You do more; under the pretext of unmasking yourself, you calumniate yourself. It is frightful!"
"I told the truth," Jean Valjean replied.
"No!" Marius retorted, "the truth is the whole truth, and you did not tell that. You were Monsieur Madeleine; why not tell me so? You saved Javert; why not tell me so? I owed you my life; why not tell me so?"
"Because I thought like you, and found that you were right. It was necessary that I should leave you. Had you known of the sewer, you would have compelled me to remain with you, and hence I held my tongue. Had I spoken, I should have been in the way."
"Been in the way of whom,—of what?" Marius broke out. "Do you fancy that you are going to remain here? We mean to take you back with us. Oh, good heaven! when I think that I only learned all this by accident! We shall take you away with us, for you form a part of ourselves. You are her father and mine. You shall not spend another day in this frightful house, so do not fancy you will be here to-morrow."