4 (7)
FOR SADNESS, SADNESS REDOUBLED
THERE IS ANOTHER LAW of these young years of suffering and care, of these sharp struggles of the first love against the first obstacles, the young girl does not allow herself to be caught in any toil, the young man falls into all. Jean Valjean had commenced a sullen war against Marius, which Marius, with the sublime folly of his passion and his age, did not guess. Jean Valjean spread around him a multitude of snares; he changed his hours, he changed his bench, he forgot his handkerchief, he went to the Luxembourg Gardens alone; Marius fell headlong into every trap; and to all these question marks planted upon his path by Jean Valjean he answered ingenuously, yes. Meanwhile Cosette was still walled in in her apparent unconcern and her imperturbable tranquillity, so that Jean Valjean came to this conclusion: “This booby is madly in love with Cosette, but Cosette does not even know of his existence!”
There was nevertheless a painful tremor in the heart. The moment when Cosette would fall in love might come at any instant. Does not everything begin by indifference?
Once only Cosette made a mistake, and startled him. He rose from the bench to go, after sitting there three hours, and she said: “So soon!”
Jean Valjean had not discontinued the strolls in the Luxembourg Gardens, not wishing to do anything singular, and above all dreading to excite any suspicion in Cosette; but during those hours so sweet to the two lovers, while Cosette was sending her smile to the intoxicated Marius, who perceived nothing but that, and now saw nothing in the world save one radiant, adored face, Jean Valjean fixed upon Marius glaring and terrible eyes. He who had come to believe that he was no longer capable of a malevolent feeling, had moments in which, when Marius was there, he thought that he was again becoming savage and ferocious, and felt opening and upheaving against this young man those old depths of his soul where there had once been so much wrath. It seemed to him almost as if the unknown craters were forming within him again.
What? he was there, that creature. What did he come for? He came to pry, to scent, to examine, to attempt: he came to say, “Eh, why not?” he came to prowl about his, Jean Valjean’s life!—to prowl about his happiness, to clutch it and carry it away!
Jean Valjean added: “Yes, that is it! what is he looking for? an adventure? What does he want? an amour! An amour!—and as for me! What! I, after having been the most miserable of men, shall be the most unfortunate; I shall have spent sixty years of life upon my knees; I shall have suffered all that a man can suffer; I shall have grown old without having been young; I shall have lived with no family, no relatives, no friends, no wife, no children! I shall have left my blood on every stone, on every thorn, on every post, along every wall; I shall have been mild, although the world was harsh to me, and good, although it was evil; I shall have become an honest man in spite of all; I shall have repented of the wrong which I have done, and pardoned the wrongs which have been done to me and the moment that I am rewarded, the moment that it is over, the moment that I reach the end, the moment that I have what I desire, rightfully and justly; I have paid for it, I have earned it; it will all disappear, it will all vanish, and I shall lose Cosette, and I shall lose my life, my joy, my soul, because a great booby has been pleased to come and lounge about the Luxembourg Gardens.”
Then his eyes filled with a strange and dismal light. It was no longer a man looking upon a man; it was not an enemy looking upon an enemy. It was a dog looking upon a robber.
We know the rest. The insanity of Marius continued. One day he followed Cosette to the Rue de l‘Ouest. Another day he spoke to the porter: the porter in his turn spoke, and said to Jean Valjean: “Monsieur, who is that curious young man who has been asking for you?” The next day, Jean Valjean cast that glance at Marius which Marius finally perceived. A week after, Jean Valjean had moved. He resolved that he would never set his foot again either in the Luxembourg Gardens, or in the Rue de l’Ouest. He returned to the Rue Plumet.
Cosette did not complain, she said nothing, she asked no questions, she did not seek to know any reason; she was already at that point at which one fears discovery and self-betrayal. Jean Valjean had no experience of this misery, the only misery which is charming, and the only misery which he did not know; for this reason, he did not understand the deep significance of Cosette’s silence. He noticed only that she had become sad, and he became gloomy. There was on either side an armed inexperience.
Once he made a trial. He asked Cosette:
“Would you like to go to the Luxembourg Gardens?”
A light illumined Cosette’s pale face.
“Yes,” said she.
They went. Three months had passed. Marius went there no longer. Marius was not there.
The next day, Jean Valjean asked Cosette again:
“Would you like to go to the Luxembourg Gardens?”
She answered sadly and quietly:
“No!”
Jean Valjean was hurt by this sadness, and harrowed by this gentleness.
For her part, Cosette was languishing. She suffered from the absence of Marius, as she had rejoiced in his presence, in a peculiar way, without really knowing it. When Jean Valjean ceased to take her on their usual walk, her woman’s instinct murmured confusedly in the depths of her heart, that she must not appear to cling to the Luxembourg Gardens; and that if it were indifferent to her, her father would take her back there. But days, weeks, and months passed away. Jean Valjean had tacitly accepted Cosette’s tacit consent. She regretted it. It was too late. The day she returned to the Luxembourg Gardens, Marius was no longer there. Marius then had disappeared; it was all over; what could she do? Would she ever find him again? She felt a constriction of her heart, which nothing relaxed, and which was increasing every day; she no longer knew whether it was winter or summer, sunshine or rain, whether the birds sang, whether it was the season for dahlias or daisies, whether the Luxembourg Gardens were more charming than the Tuileries, whether the linen which the washerwoman brought home was starched too much, or not enough, whether Toussaint did “her marketing” well or ill, and she became dejected, absorbed, intent upon a single thought, her eye wild and fixed, as when one looks into the night at the deep black place where an apparition has vanished.
Still she did not let Jean Valjean see anything, except her paleness. She kept her face sweet for him.
This paleness was more than sufficient to make Jean Valjean anxious. Sometimes he asked her:
“What is the matter with you?”
She answered:
“Nothing.”
And after a silence, as she felt that he was sad also, she continued: “And you, father, is not something the matter with you?”
“Me? nothing,” said he.
These two beings, who had loved each other so exclusively, and with so touching a love, and who had lived so long for each other, were now suffering by each other and through each other; without speaking of it, without harsh feeling, and smiling the while.