Cosette continued to hold her tongue in the convent. It was quite natural that Cosette should think herself Jean Valjean’s daughter. Moreover, as she knew nothing, she could say nothing, and then, she would not have said anything in any case.
As we have just observed, nothing trains children to silence like unhappiness. Cosette had suffered so much, that she feared everything, even to speak or to breathe. A single word had so often brought down an avalanche upon her.
She had hardly begun to regain her confidence since she had been with Jean Valjean. She speedily became accustomed to the convent. Only she regretted Catherine, but she dared not say so.
Once, however, she did say to Jean Valjean: 'Father, if I had known, I would have brought her away with me. ' Cosette had been obliged, on becoming a scholar in the convent, to don the garb of the pupils of the house.
Jean Valjean succeeded in getting them to restore to him the garments which she laid aside. This was the same mourning suit which he had made her put on when she had quitted the Thénardiers’ inn. It was not very threadbare even now.
Jean Valjean locked up these garments, plus the stockings and the shoes, with a quantity of camphor and all the aromatics in which convents abound, in a little valise which he found means of procuring.
He set this valise on a chair near his bed, and he always carried the key about his person. 'Father,' Cosette asked him one day, 'what is there in that box which smells so good?
' Father Fauchelevent received other recompense for his good action, in addition to the glory which we just mentioned, and of which he knew nothing; in the first place it made him happy; next,