1
THE BASEMENT ROOM
THE NEXT DAY, at nightfall, Jean Valjean knocked at the M. Gillenormand porte-cochère. Basque received him. Basque happened to be in the court yard very conveniently, and as if he had had orders. It sometimes happens that one says to a servant: “You will be on the watch for Monsieur So-and-so, when he comes.”
Basque, without waiting for Jean Valjean to come up to him, addressed him as follows:
“Monsieur the Baron told me to ask monsieur whether he desires to go upstairs or to remain below?”
“To remain below,” answered Jean Valjean.
Basque, who was moreover absolutely respectful, opened the door of the basement room and said: “I will inform madame.”
The room which Jean Valjean entered was an arched and damp basement, used as a cellar when necessary, looking upon the street paved with red tiles, and dimly lighted by a window with an iron grating.
The room was not of those which are harassed by the brush, the duster, and the broom. In it the dust was tranquil. There the persecution of the spiders had not been organised. A fine web, broadly spread out, very black, adorned with dead flies, ornamented one of the window-panes. The room, small and low, was furnished with a pile of empty bottles heaped up in one corner. The wall had been washed with a wash of yellow ochre, which was scaling off in large flakes. At the end was a wooden mantel, painted black, with a narrow shelf. A fire was kindled, which indicated that somebody had anticipated Jean Valjean’s answer: To remain below.
Two arm-chairs were placed at the corners of the fireplace. Between the chairs was spread, in guise of a carpet, an old bed-side rug, showing more warp than wool.
Suddenly he started up. Cosette was behind him.
He had not seen her come in, but he had felt that she was coming.
He turned. He gazed at her. She was adorably beautiful. But what he looked upon with that deep look, was not her beauty but her soul.
“Ah, well!” exclaimed Cosette, “father, I knew that you were singular, but I should never have thought this. What an idea! Marius tells me that it is you who wish me to receive you here.”
“Yes, it is I.”
“I expected the answer. Well, I warn you that I am going to make a scene. Let us begin at the beginning. Father, kiss me.”
And she offered her cheek.
Jean Valjean remained motionless.
“You do not stir. I see it. You act guilty. But it is all the same, I forgive you. Jesus Christ said: ‘Offer the other cheek.’ Here it is.”
And she offered the other cheek.
Jean Valjean did not move. It seemed as if his feet were nailed to the floor.
“This is getting serious,” said Cosette. “What have I done to you? I declare I am confounded. You owe me amends. You will dine with us.”
“I have dined.”
“That is not true. I will have Monsieur Gillenormand scold you. Grandfathers are made to scold fathers. Come. Go up to the parlour with me. Immediately.”
“Impossible.”
Cosette here lost ground a little. She ceased to order and passed to questions.
“But why not? and you choose the ugliest room in the house to see me in. It is horrible here.”
“You know, madame, I am peculiar, I have my whims.”
Cosette clapped her little hands together.
“Madame! Still again! What does this mean?”
Jean Valjean fixed upon her that distressing smile to which he sometimes had recourse:
“You have wished to be madame. You are so.”
“Not to you, father.”
“Don’t call me father any more.”
“What.”
“Call me Monsieur Jean. Jean, if you will.”
“You are no longer father? I am no longer Cosette? Monsieur Jean? What does this mean? but these are revolutions, these are! what then has happened? look me in the face now. And you will not live with us! And you will not have my room! What have I done to you? what have I done to you? Is there anything the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Well then?”
“All is as usual.”
“Why do you change your name?”
“You have certainly changed yours.”
He smiled again with that same smile and added:
“Since you are Madame Pontmercy I can surely be Monsieur Jean.”
“I don’t understand anything about it. It is all nonsense; I shall ask my husband’s permission for you to be Monsieur Jean. I hope that he will not consent to it. You make me a great deal of trouble. You may have whims, but you must not grieve your darling Cosette. It is wrong. You have no right to be naughty, you are too good.”
He made no answer.
She seized both his hands hastily and, with an irresistible impulse, raising them towards her face, she pressed them against her neck under her chin, which is a deep token of affection.
“Oh!” said she to him, “be good!”
And she continued:
“This is what I call being good: being nice, coming to stay here, there are birds here as well as in the Rue Plumet, living with us, leaving that hole in the Rue de l‘Homme Armé, not giving us riddles to guess, being like other people, dining with us, breakfasting with us, being my father.”
He disengaged his hands.
“You have no more need of a father, you have a husband.”
Cosette could not contain herself.
“I no more need of a father! To things like that which have no common sense, one really doesn’t know what to say!”
“If Toussaint was here,” replied Jean Valjean, like one who is in search of authorities and who catches at every straw, “she would be the first to acknowledge that it is true that I always had my peculiar ways. There is nothing new in this. I have always liked my dark corner.”
“But it is cold here. We can’t see clearly. It is horrid, too, to want to be Monsieur Jean. I don’t want you to talk so to me.”
“Just now, on my way here,” answered Jean Valjean, “I saw a piece of furniture in the Rue Saint Louis. At a cabinet maker’s. If I were a pretty woman, I should make myself a present of that piece of furniture. A very fine toilet table; in the present style. What you call rosewood, I think. It is inlaid. A pretty large glass. There are drawers in it. It is handsome.”
“Oh! the ugly bear!” replied Cosette.
And with a bewitching sauciness, pressing her teeth together and separating her lips, she blew upon Jean Valjean. It was a Grace copying a kitten.
“I am furious,” she said. “Since yesterday, you all make me rage. Everybody spites me. I don’t understand. You don’t defend me against Marius. Marius doesn’t uphold me against you, I am all alone. I arrange a room handsomely. If I could have put the good God into it, I would have done it. You leave me my room upon my hands. My tenant bankrupts me. I order Nicolette to have a nice little dinner. Nobody wants your dinner, madame. And my father Fauchelevent, wishes me to call him Monsieur Jean, and to receive him in a hideous, old, ugly, mouldy cellar, where the walls have a beard, and where there are empty bottles for vases, and spiders’ webs for curtains. You are singular, I admit, that is your way, but a truce is granted to people who get married. You should not have gone back to being singular immediately. So you are going to be well satisfied with your horrid Rue de l‘Homme Armé. I was very forlorn there, myself! What have you against me? You give me a great deal of trouble. Fie!”
And, growing suddenly serious, she looked fixedly at Jean Valjean, and added:
“So you don’t like it that I am happy?”
Artlessness, unconsciously, sometimes penetrates very deep. This ques tion, simple to Cosette, was severe to Jean Valjean. Cosette wished to scratch; she tore.
Jean Valjean grew pale. For a moment he did not answer, then, with an indescribable accent and talking to himself, he murmured:
“Her happiness was the aim of my life. Now, God may beckon me away. Cosette, you are happy; my time is full.”
“Ah, you have called me Cosette!” exclaimed she.
And she sprang upon his neck.
Jean Valjean, in desperation, clasped her to his breast wildly. It seemed to him almost as if he were taking her back.
“Thank you, father!” said Cosette to him.
The transport was becoming poignant to Jean Valjean. He gently put away Cosette’s arms, and took his hat.
“Well?” said Cosette.
Jean Valjean answered:
“I will leave you, madame; they are waiting for you.”
And, from the door, he added:
“I called you Cosette. Tell your husband that that shall not happen again. Pardon me.”
Jean Valjean went out, leaving Cosette astounded at that enigmatic farewell.