While this sort of a dog with a human face was mounting guard over the gate, and while the six ruffians were yielding to a girl, Marius was by Cosette’s side.
Never had the sky been more studded with stars and more charming, the trees more trembling, the odor of the grass more penetrating; never had the birds fallen asleep among the leaves with a sweeter noise; never had all the harmonies of universal serenity responded more thoroughly to the inward music of love; never had Marius been more captivated, more happy, more ecstatic.
But he had found Cosette sad; Cosette had been weeping. Her eyes were red. This was the first cloud in that wonderful dream. Marius’ first word had been: 'What is the matter? ' And she had replied: 'This.
' Then she had seated herself on the bench near the steps, and while he tremblingly took his place beside her, she had continued:— 'My father told me this morning to hold myself in readiness, because he has business, and we may go away from here.
' Marius shivered from head to foot. When one is at the end of one’s life, to die means to go away; when one is at the beginning of it, to go away means to die.
For the last six weeks, Marius had little by little, slowly, by degrees, taken possession of Cosette each day.
As we have already explained, in the case of first love, the soul is taken long before the body; later on, one takes the body long before the soul; sometimes one does not take the soul at all; the Faublas and the Prudhommes add: 'Because there is none'; but the sarcasm is, fortunately, a blasphemy.
So Marius possessed Cosette, as spirits possess, but he enveloped her with all his soul,