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If you do not disapprove of it, I will come to see Cosette from time to time. I will not come often. I will not remain long. You shall give orders that I am to be received in the little waiting-room. On the ground floor. I could enter perfectly well by the back door, but that might create surprise perhaps, and it would be better, I think, for me to enter by the usual door.
They entered the same carriage to return home, Marius beside Cosette; M. Gillenormand and Jean Valjean sat opposite them; Aunt Gillenormand had withdrawn one degree, and was in the second vehicle. "My children," said the grandfather, "here you are, Monsieur le Baron and Madame la Baronne, with an income of thirty thousand livres."
At certain moments, all these beings of the past, returned and present, formed a circle around him, and overshadowed him; then he thought of Cosette, and recovered his serenity; but nothing less than this felicity could have sufficed to efface that catastrophe. M. Fauchelevent almost occupied a place among these vanished beings.
Plato said the state should train the children; and added that the wisest man should rule the state. This is to say that the wisest man should tend his children! Hugo gives us, in Jean Valjean and Cosette, a picture of the true paternal relationship. We hear a certain group of studies called the humanities, and it is right. But the best school in the humanities for every man is in his own house.
When Cosette saw that her father was suffering less, that he was convalescing, and that he appeared to be happy, she experienced a contentment which she did not even perceive, so gently and naturally had it come.
And, seating herself on the old man's knees, she put aside his white locks with an adorable movement, and kissed his brow. Jean Valjean, bewildered, let her have her own way. Cosette, who only understood in a very confused manner, redoubled her caresses, as though she desired to pay Marius' debt. Jean Valjean stammered: "How stupid people are! I thought that I should never see her again.
As soon as he had gone, the Thenardier profited by his absence to give Cosette a hearty kick under the table, which made the child utter loud cries. The door opened again, the man re-appeared; he carried in both hands the fabulous doll which we have mentioned, and which all the village brats had been staring at ever since the morning, and he set it upright in front of Cosette, saying:
To talk at great length with very minute details, of persons in whom they took not the slightest interest in the world; another proof that in that ravishing opera called love, the libretto counts for almost nothing. For Marius, to listen to Cosette discussing finery. For Cosette, to listen to Marius talk in politics;
"Are you alone there?" "Yes, sir." Another pause ensued. Cosette lifted up her voice: "That is to say, there are two little girls." "What little girls?" "Ponine and Zelma." This was the way the child simplified the romantic names so dear to the female Thenardier. "Who are Ponine and Zelma?" "They are Madame Thenardier's young ladies; her daughters, as you would say." "And what do those girls do?"
Instinct had forced her to create something out of rags to satisfy a mysterious craving. But a doll that rolled its eyes and had flaxen hair! Except for the manual labour there had been natives to fetch and carry she and Cosette were sisters in loneliness. Perhaps an hour passed before she laid aside the book.
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