CHAPTER II--COSETTE'S APPREHENSIONS

  During the first fortnight in April, Jean Valjean took a journey. This,as the reader knows, happened from time to time, at very long intervals.He remained absent a day or two days at the utmost. Where did he go? Noone knew, not even Cosette. Once only, on the occasion of one of thesedepartures, she had accompanied him in a hackney-coach as far as alittle blind-alley at the corner of which she read: _Impasse de laPlanchette_. There he alighted, and the coach took Cosette back to theRue de Babylone. It was usually when money was lacking in the house thatJean Valjean took these little trips.

  So Jean Valjean was absent. He had said: "I shall return in three days."

  That evening, Cosette was alone in the drawing-room. In order to getrid of her ennui, she had opened her piano-organ, and had begun to sing,accompanying herself the while, the chorus from _Euryanthe_: "Huntersastray in the wood!" which is probably the most beautiful thing in allthe sphere of music. When she had finished, she remained wrapped inthought.

  All at once, it seemed to her that she heard the sound of footsteps inthe garden.

  It could not be her father, he was absent; it could not be Toussaint,she was in bed, and it was ten o'clock at night.

  She stepped to the shutter of the drawing-room, which was closed, andlaid her ear against it.

  It seemed to her that it was the tread of a man, and that he was walkingvery softly.

  She mounted rapidly to the first floor, to her own chamber, opened asmall wicket in her shutter, and peeped into the garden. The moon was atthe full. Everything could be seen as plainly as by day.

  There was no one there.

  She opened the window. The garden was absolutely calm, and all that wasvisible was that the street was deserted as usual.

  Cosette thought that she had been mistaken. She thought that she hadheard a noise. It was a hallucination produced by the melancholy andmagnificent chorus of Weber, which lays open before the mind terrifieddepths, which trembles before the gaze like a dizzy forest, and in whichone hears the crackling of dead branches beneath the uneasy tread of thehuntsmen of whom one catches a glimpse through the twilight.

  She thought no more about it.

  Moreover, Cosette was not very timid by nature. There flowed in herveins some of the blood of the bohemian and the adventuress who runsbarefoot. It will be remembered that she was more of a lark than a dove.There was a foundation of wildness and bravery in her.

  On the following day, at an earlier hour, towards nightfall, she wasstrolling in the garden. In the midst of the confused thoughts whichoccupied her, she fancied that she caught for an instant a sound similarto that of the preceding evening, as though some one were walkingbeneath the trees in the dusk, and not very far from her; but she toldherself that nothing so closely resembles a step on the grass as thefriction of two branches which have moved from side to side, and shepaid no heed to it. Besides, she could see nothing.

  She emerged from "the thicket"; she had still to cross a small lawn toregain the steps.

  The moon, which had just risen behind her, cast Cosette's shadow infront of her upon this lawn, as she came out from the shrubbery.

  Cosette halted in alarm.

  Beside her shadow, the moon outlined distinctly upon the turf anothershadow, which was particularly startling and terrible, a shadow whichhad a round hat.

  It was the shadow of a man, who must have been standing on the border ofthe clump of shrubbery, a few paces in the rear of Cosette.

  She stood for a moment without the power to speak, or cry, or call, orstir, or turn her head.

  Then she summoned up all her courage, and turned round resolutely.

  There was no one there.

  She glanced on the ground. The figure had disappeared.

  She re-entered the thicket, searched the corners boldly, went as far asthe gate, and found nothing.

  She felt herself absolutely chilled with terror. Was this anotherhallucination? What! Two days in succession! One hallucination mightpass, but two hallucinations? The disquieting point about it was, thatthe shadow had assuredly not been a phantom. Phantoms do not wear roundhats.

  On the following day Jean Valjean returned. Cosette told him what shethought she had heard and seen. She wanted to be reassured and to seeher father shrug his shoulders and say to her: "You are a little goose."

  Jean Valjean grew anxious.

  "It cannot be anything," said he.

  He left her under some pretext, and went into the garden, and she sawhim examining the gate with great attention.

  During the night she woke up; this time she was sure, and she distinctlyheard some one walking close to the flight of steps beneath her window.She ran to her little wicket and opened it. In point of fact, therewas a man in the garden, with a large club in his hand. Just as shewas about to scream, the moon lighted up the man's profile. It was herfather. She returned to her bed, saying to herself: "He is very uneasy!"

  Jean Valjean passed that night and the two succeeding nights in thegarden. Cosette saw him through the hole in her shutter.

  On the third night, the moon was on the wane, and had begun to riselater; at one o'clock in the morning, possibly, she heard a loud burstof laughter and her father's voice calling her:--

  "Cosette!"

  She jumped out of bed, threw on her dressing-gown, and opened herwindow.

  Her father was standing on the grass-plot below.

  "I have waked you for the purpose of reassuring you," said he; "look,there is your shadow with the round hat."

  And he pointed out to her on the turf a shadow cast by the moon, andwhich did indeed, bear considerable resemblance to the spectre of a manwearing a round hat. It was the shadow produced by a chimney-pipe ofsheet iron, with a hood, which rose above a neighboring roof.

  Cosette joined in his laughter, all her lugubrious suppositions wereallayed, and the next morning, as she was at breakfast with her father,she made merry over the sinister garden haunted by the shadows of ironchimney-pots.

  Jean Valjean became quite tranquil once more; as for Cosette, she didnot pay much attention to the question whether the chimney-pot wasreally in the direction of the shadow which she had seen, or thought shehad seen, and whether the moon had been in the same spot in the sky.

  She did not question herself as to the peculiarity of a chimney-potwhich is afraid of being caught in the act, and which retires when someone looks at its shadow, for the shadow had taken the alarm when Cosettehad turned round, and Cosette had thought herself very sure of this.Cosette's serenity was fully restored. The proof appeared to her tobe complete, and it quite vanished from her mind, whether there couldpossibly be any one walking in the garden during the evening or atnight.

  A few days later, however, a fresh incident occurred.