Back

Les Misérables

Chapter 242

Jean Valjean was the more unhappy of the two. Youth, even in its sorrows, always possesses its own peculiar radiance. At times, Jean Valjean suffered so greatly that he became puerile. It is the property of grief to cause the childish side of man to reappear.

He had an unconquerable conviction that Cosette was escaping from him. He would have liked to resist, to retain her, to arouse her enthusiasm by some external and brilliant matter.

These ideas, puerile, as we have just said, and at the same time senile, conveyed to him, by their very childishness, a tolerably just notion of the influence of gold lace on the imaginations of young girls.

He once chanced to see a general on horseback, in full uniform, pass along the street, Comte Coutard, the commandant of Paris.

He envied that gilded man; what happiness it would be, he said to himself, if he could put on that suit which was an incontestable thing; and if Cosette could behold him thus, she would be dazzled, and when he had Cosette on his arm and passed the gates of the Tuileries, the guard would present arms to him, and that would suffice for Cosette, and would dispel her idea of looking at young men.

An unforeseen shock was added to these sad reflections. In the isolated life which they led, and since they had come to dwell in the Rue Plumet, they had contracted one habit.

They sometimes took a pleasure trip to see the sun rise, a mild species of enjoyment which befits those who are entering life and those who are quitting it.

For those who love solitude, a walk in the early morning is equivalent to a stroll by night, with the cheerfulness of nature added. The streets are deserted and

Previous
Next