No sooner had Javert left the Gorbeau House with his prisoners than Marius left as well. It was now around nine o’clock in the evening and Marius ventured out to see Courfeyrac. His friend no longer lived in the Latin Quarter but had moved to the rue de la Verrerie for what he called “political reasons.” And because of people such as Courfeyrac and his friends who populated the area, it was becoming known as a hotbed of insurrection.
Marius told Courfeyrac he needed a safe place to stay, so Courfeyrac immediately pulled a mattress from his bed onto the floor and offered, “You may sleep here.” Early the next morning, Marius returned to the Gorbeau House, loaded his books, bed, table, dressers, and two chairs onto a pushcart, and left without leaving a forwarding address. He wanted to avoid the possibility Javert might return to question the inhabitants of the house about the events of the preceding evening. When Javert did arrive later that same day, he asked the old landlady about the resident of the adjoining room to that of the Thénardiers, but she answered by saying simply, “Moved away!”
Another visitor to the Gorbeau House also had questioned the landlady. He was a young lad who had the look of a street urchin. He told her he was looking for his parents and his sisters and that he had heard they lived upstairs. He said his last name was Thénardier, but the old woman answered coldly, saying, “I don’t know anyone by that name. Besides, the family that lived upstairs is in jail.” Then the boy walked down the street happily whistling a tune. His name was Gavroche.
Gavroche
Marius’s own hasty change of residence was prompted by two primary reasons. The first was that the previous night’s events had built a sense of horror in his mind when he thought of remaining there. And the second was that, despite Thénardier’s evil behavior, he did not want to be forced to testify against him in a court of law. Out of respect for his father’s memory, he could not bring himself to testify against the man who had risked his life to save his father in the heat of battle.
Yet once again Marius was heartbroken, as though everything in his life had suddenly plunged through a trapdoor. For a brief moment, he again had beheld the lovely young woman he loved and the old man who appeared to be her father. Yet he still did not know the girl’s identity or her address, which was the only information he believed could ever bring him happiness. And just as she was nearly in his grasp, a gust of wind had swept his hopes away. Everything had vanished—except his love.
To make matters worse the icy breath of poverty once again was breathing down Marius’s neck. New law cases seemed to be few and far between, and in the midst of his mental torment, he found it difficult to concentrate on those he had. He began to avoid work altogether and felt he was on the verge of falling into a bottomless pit. One question occupied his mind: “Will I ever again see the woman I love?”
The young man’s soul seemed paralyzed, and even during his waking hours he dreamed of her. He took long walks each day to think, and he hoped against hope for the miracle of finding her again. Yet after several weeks, his thinking was becoming so clouded he no longer even saw the sun.
One day as he walked in the shadows of the twin towers of Notre Dame, he suddenly heard a familiar voice saying, “Marius, is it you?” Stunned to hear his name, he raised his eyes. Standing before him was the poor young woman who had visited him weeks ago. It was Éponine, the older of the two Thénardier daughters. Now he knew her name, having heard it during the notorious scene he had witnessed. She was barefoot and was wearing the same dirty rags she had worn the morning she had visited him—only now they were two months older and more tattered. She appeared poorer than before, yet in spite of it all, she was beautiful. She stood in front of Marius, totally speechless for a few moments, as a slight smile crossed her face.
“I have found you at last!” she said excitedly. “I have searched these streets for weeks! If you only knew how hard I’ve looked! The police had me under lock and key for two weeks after that incident in our house, but realizing they had no evidence against me and that I was two months underage, they finally let me go. As soon as I was out, I began looking for you. So you don’t live at the Gorbeau House anymore?”
“No,” Marius said.
“I guess I don’t blame you for that, especially after such a disturbing incident,” she said. “Where do you live now?”
Marius did not reply.
Éponine continued, “You don’t seem glad to see me.”
He remained silent, not really trusting the young woman because of the previous deception she had foisted upon him. He thought for a moment before offering, “There is a way you could make me glad to see you. The lovely young woman who visited your room that day with the old gentleman—have you discovered her address?”
Éponine had been able to discover the mysterious young woman’s address—albeit quite by accident. It seems one of Thénardier’s cohorts in crime had sent her a message from prison. Éponine had been instructed to investigate a particular house on the rue Plumet as a potential target for burglary and thus had watched the house for several days. To her great surprise, the man who lived there with his daughter was the same man who once before had slipped through her father’s grasp. Upon learning who lived there, however, Éponine had sent a message back to prison that this house would not make a good target after all. Still, her conclusion was to be ignored by her father.
Upon hearing Marius’s request for the young woman’s address, a conflict welled up within Éponine. For years she had longed for Marius to notice her as he would come and go, and now he was asking her help in finding another woman. Her lower lip quivered slightly as she finally decided to give him what he asked. Desiring to please the man she had secretly come to love, she said, “You look so sad, poor Marius. I want to see you smile again. Promise me you will smile. Yes, I know her address.”
Marius’s face turned pale, as all his blood seemed to flow back to his heart. He reached to take Éponine’s hand and pleaded, “Please take me to her.”
After sighing deeply, she said, “I will show you where she lives. I know the house well. It is quite a distance from here, but I will take you there.” Then she headed in the opposite direction from which she had come, but after a few steps she stopped, turned to him, and said, “Monsieur Marius, you are following me too closely. Let me go on ahead, and then follow me without appearing to do so. A nice young man like you should not be seen with a woman like me.”
Éponine walked another dozen paces and stopped again. Marius walked up to her as she said, “By the way, remember you promised me something.” Of course, she was referring to the smile she had hoped to see brighten his face. Yet Marius simply fumbled through his pockets, pulled out a five-franc piece, and placed it in her hand. She opened her fingers, allowing the coin to fall to the ground, and stared at him with sad eyes.
“It’s not your money I want,” she said.
A little more than two years prior to this, in October 1829, Jean Valjean had left the Convent of the Petit Picpus with Cosette. He had been completely happy with their lives there, but a matter of conscience began to overtake him. Living in the convent kept him safe from police capture and allowed him the opportunity to see his daughter every day. The convent had become his total universe, as well as hers, and he could easily envision growing quite old and dying there. Yet he began to ask himself that if by clutching this happiness for himself, was he in fact confiscating true happiness from Cosette? He knew that if they stayed at the convent no one could ever take his daughter from him, but he also knew if she were required to stay there much longer, she probably would become a nun. This probability became the root of his perplexing thoughts.
Many years earlier he had resolved never to be a thief again, and yet he saw himself as perfectly willing to steal Cosette’s future from her. If he did not allow her to know life before she renounced it as a nun, he was actually stealing her life from her—depriving her without her consent.
Valjean began to see that he was depriving Cosette of many of the joys of life under the pretext of saving her from the trials of life. Allowing someone to grow in such continued isolation was to rob a human being of her true nature and to lie to God, he thought. If Cosette stayed in the convent and later became a nun, would she someday come to hate him for his selfishness? Ironically this last thought caused him to make a selfish decision—for he knew he could not live if she grew to hate him. He decided to leave the convent with Cosette.
With the decision made, Valjean waited for the perfect opportunity. It was not long before it presented itself, for Fauchelevent, his old gardener friend, died. Valjean asked to speak to the reverend mother and told her that since he had received a small inheritance at the death of his “brother,” he was now able to live without working and desired to leave the convent with his “granddaughter.” Yet he wanted the sister to know that he had not taken the last five years for granted, and since Cosette was not going to take the vows of a nun, he wished to make a donation for the education she had received. He gave the reverend mother 5,000 francs.
After this Valjean continued to use the name he had taken at the convent—Ultimus Fauchelevent—and he and Cosette moved to the house on the rue Plumet where he endeavored to stay out of sight. Yet at the same time, he rented two other rooms in Paris that were quite pitiful in their appearance. By living in three different places and moving every couple of months, he felt he would draw much less attention to himself. And if he needed to escape the clutches of Javert, as in the past, he would have other hiding places as options.
Cosette was a little more than fourteen years old when they left the convent, and, except for her eyes, she was more homely than she was pretty. She was not quite a woman and was still somewhat awkward, thin, and timid, yet the woman within was beginning to appear. Her education was complete, which is to say, she had been taught of the importance of being devoted to God, along with the typical studies of history, geography, grammar, music, and art. Yet in all other respects, she was totally naive, which can be quite charming but also quite dangerous.
Upon leaving the convent, Cosette could have found nothing more wonderful yet more dangerous than the house on the rue Plumet. It became the continuation of solitude and the beginning of liberty for her, for its garden was enclosed but had one gate that opened onto the street, allowing occasional glimpses of young men who would pass by. Valjean entrusted the garden to her and said, “Do whatever you like with it.” She loved the garden, which became for her a place to dream with the grass beneath her feet.
She also loved her father, Jean Valjean, with all her heart and soul and with such an innocent passion that the man had become a wonderful companion and friend to her. He had become more and more cultured over time, yet often his mind was still rough, while his heart had become tender. Valjean had never been happier. When they would go for walks, she would take his arm and he would feel his heart melt with delight.
Cosette had nothing but a confused recollection of her childhood. She prayed every morning and night for her mother, whom she did not remember, while the Thénardiers had become like two hideous creatures in a vague dream. She recalled going to fetch some water in a forest one evening in a place that seemed very far away from Paris. The event was what she considered to be the turning point in her life, for she remembered her life then as someone falling into a deep, dark pit, but who was rescued by Jean Valjean.
The young woman did not even know her mother’s name, and whenever she would ask her father, he would remain silent. If she persisted, however, and asked again, Valjean would simply smile. Once, when she insisted, and repeated the question a second time, he was again silent, but she noticed tears welling up in his eyes.
One day Cosette said to him, “Father, I saw my mother in a dream last night. She had two large wings like an angel. My mother must have been a saint during her life.”
“By way of her martyrdom, my child,” Valjean replied.