CHAPTER III

THE INSEPARABLE


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. This was the very
room which, eight months before, he had entered black with mud,
with blood and powder, bringing back the grandson to the grandfather.
The old wainscoting was garlanded with foliage and flowers;
the musicians were seated on the sofa on which they had laid
Marius down. Basque, in a black coat, knee-breeches, white stockings
and white gloves, was arranging roses round all of the dishes that
were to be served. Jean Valjean pointed to his arm in its sling,
charged Basque to explain his absence, and went away.

The long windows of the dining-room opened on the street.
Jean Valjean stood for several minutes, erect and motionless
in the darkness, beneath those radiant windows. He listened.
The confused sounds of the banquet reached his ear. He heard the loud,
commanding tones of the grandfather, the violins, the clatter of
the plates, the bursts of laughter, and through all that merry uproar,
he distinguished Cosette's sweet and joyous voice.

He quitted the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, and returned to the Rue
de l'Homme Arme.

In order to return thither, he took the Rue Saint-Louis, the Rue
Culture-Sainte-Catherine, and the Blancs-Manteaux; it was a little longer,
but it was the road through which, for the last three months,
he had become accustomed to pass every day on his way from the
Rue de l'Homme Arme to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, in order
to avoid the obstructions and the mud in the Rue Vielle-du-Temple.

This road, through which Cosette had passed, excluded for him
all possibility of any other itinerary.

Jean Valjean entered his lodgings. He lighted his candle and
mounted the stairs. The apartment was empty. Even Toussaint
was no longer there. Jean Valjean's step made more noise
than usual in the chambers. All the cupboards stood open.
He penetrated to Cosette's bedroom. There were no sheets on the bed.
The pillow, covered with ticking, and without a case or lace,
was laid on the blankets folded up on the foot of the mattress,
whose covering was visible, and on which no one was ever to sleep again.
All the little feminine objects which Cosette was attached to had
been carried away; nothing remained except the heavy furniture
and the four walls. Toussaint's bed was despoiled in like manner.
One bed only was made up, and seemed to be waiting some one,
and this was Jean Valjean's bed.

Jean Valjean looked at the walls, closed some of the cupboard doors,
and went and came from one room to another.

Then he sought his own chamber once more, and set his candle
on a table.

He had disengaged his arm from the sling, and he used his right
hand as though it did not hurt him.

He approached his bed, and his eyes rested, was it by chance?
was it intentionally? on the inseparable of which Cosette had
been jealous, on the little portmanteau which never left him.
On his arrival in the Rue de l'Homme Arme, on the 4th of June,
he had deposited it on a round table near the head of his bed.
He went to this table with a sort of vivacity, took a key from
his pocket, and opened the valise.

From it he slowly drew forth the garments in which, ten years before,
Cosette had quitted Montfermeil; first the little gown, then the
black fichu, then the stout, coarse child's shoes which Cosette
might almost have worn still, so tiny were her feet, then the
fustian bodice, which was very thick, then the knitted petticoat,
next the apron with pockets, then the woollen stockings.
These stockings, which still preserved the graceful form of a tiny leg,
were no longer than Jean Valjean's hand. All this was black of hue.
It was he who had brought those garments to Montfermeil for her.
As he removed them from the valise, he laid them on the bed.
He fell to thinking. He called up memories. It was in winter,
in a very cold month of December, she was shivering, half-naked,
in rags, her poor little feet were all red in their wooden shoes.
He, Jean Valjean, had made her abandon those rags to clothe herself
in these mourning habiliments. The mother must have felt pleased in
her grave, to see her daughter wearing mourning for her, and, above all,
to see that she was properly clothed, and that she was warm.
He thought of that forest of Montfermeil; they had traversed
it together, Cosette and he; he thought of what the weather had been,
of the leafless trees, of the wood destitute of birds, of the
sunless sky; it mattered not, it was charming. He arranged the tiny
garments on the bed, the fichu next to the petticoat, the stockings
beside the shoes, and he looked at them, one after the other.
She was no taller than that, she had her big doll in her arms,
she had put her louis d'or in the pocket of that apron, she had laughed,
they walked hand in hand, she had no one in the world but him.

Then his venerable, white head fell forward on the bed,
that stoical old heart broke, his face was engulfed, so to speak,
in Cosette's garments, and if any one had passed up the stairs
at that moment, he would have heard frightful sobs.