Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: April 30, 2025
"No," replied Cosette, "but it seems to me that the good God is caring for us." Jean Valjean did everything, smoothed away every difficulty, arranged everything, made everything easy. He hastened towards Cosette's happiness with as much ardor, and, apparently with as much joy, as Cosette herself.
There is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life. To love is a fulfilment. What had become of Jean Valjean? Immediately after having laughed, at Cosette's graceful command, when no one was paying any heed to him, Jean Valjean had risen and had gained the antechamber unperceived.
It is probable that, had the match been a poor one, she would have left him poor. "So much the worse for my nephew! he is wedding a beggar, let him be a beggar himself!" But Cosette's half-million pleased the aunt, and altered her inward situation so far as this pair of lovers were concerned.
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.
At recreation hours, Jean Valjean watched her running and playing in the distance, and he distinguished her laugh from that of the rest. For Cosette laughed now. Cosette's face had even undergone a change, to a certain extent. The gloom had disappeared from it. A smile is the same as sunshine; it banishes winter from the human countenance.
The chair into which he allowed himself to fall was placed in front of that mirror, so fatal for him, so providential for Marius, in which he had read Cosette's reversed writing on the blotting book. He caught sight of himself in this mirror, and did not recognize himself. He was eighty years old; before Marius' marriage, he would have hardly been taken for fifty; that year had counted for thirty.
He was forced to approve, forced to admit the artificial and decadent but indubitable charm of paint and powder. The contrast between Cosette's lips and her brilliant teeth was utterly bewitching. She was not beautiful. In facial looks, she was simply not in the same class with Geraldine. And as to intellect, also, Geraldine was an easy first.
He felt a certain religious horror at letting that shadow enter Cosette's thought; and of placing a third in their destiny. The more sacred this shade was to him, the more did it seem that it was to be feared. He thought of Fantine, and felt himself overwhelmed with silence. Through the darkness, he vaguely perceived something which appeared to have its finger on its lips.
The combination of the hat and the evening-dress startled Henry, but he saw in the theatre many other women similarly contemptuous of the English code, and came to the conclusion that, though queer and un-English, the French custom had its points. Cosette's complexion was even more audacious in its contempt of Henry's deepest English convictions.
"Say all, say all!" he cried. "You are Cosette's father!" And he retreated a couple of paces with a movement of indescribable horror. Jean Valjean elevated his head with so much majesty of attitude that he seemed to grow even to the ceiling. "It is necessary that you should believe me here, sir; although our oath to others may not be received in law . . ."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking