CHAPTER I--FULL LIGHT

  The reader has probably understood that Éponine, having recognizedthrough the gate, the inhabitant of that Rue Plumet whither Magnon hadsent her, had begun by keeping the ruffians away from the Rue Plumet,and had then conducted Marius thither, and that, after many days spentin ecstasy before that gate, Marius, drawn on by that force which drawsthe iron to the magnet and a lover towards the stones of which is builtthe house of her whom he loves, had finally entered Cosette's garden asRomeo entered the garden of Juliet. This had even proved easier for himthan for Romeo; Romeo was obliged to scale a wall, Marius had onlyto use a little force on one of the bars of the decrepit gate whichvacillated in its rusty recess, after the fashion of old people's teeth.Marius was slender and readily passed through.

  As there was never any one in the street, and as Marius never enteredthe garden except at night, he ran no risk of being seen.

  Beginning with that blessed and holy hour when a kiss betrothed thesetwo souls, Marius was there every evening. If, at that period ofher existence, Cosette had fallen in love with a man in the leastunscrupulous or debauched, she would have been lost; for there aregenerous natures which yield themselves, and Cosette was one of them.One of woman's magnanimities is to yield. Love, at the height where itis absolute, is complicated with some indescribably celestial blindnessof modesty. But what dangers you run, O noble souls! Often you give theheart, and we take the body. Your heart remains with you, you gaze uponit in the gloom with a shudder. Love has no middle course; it eitherruins or it saves. All human destiny lies in this dilemma. This dilemma,ruin, or safety, is set forth no more inexorably by any fatality thanby love. Love is life, if it is not death. Cradle; also coffin. The samesentiment says "yes" and "no" in the human heart. Of all the things thatGod has made, the human heart is the one which sheds the most light,alas! and the most darkness.

  God willed that Cosette's love should encounter one of the loves whichsave.

  Throughout the whole of the month of May of that year 1832, there werethere, in every night, in that poor, neglected garden, beneath thatthicket which grew thicker and more fragrant day by day, two beingscomposed of all chastity, all innocence, overflowing with all thefelicity of heaven, nearer to the archangels than to mankind, pure,honest, intoxicated, radiant, who shone for each other amid the shadows.It seemed to Cosette that Marius had a crown, and to Marius that Cosettehad a nimbus. They touched each other, they gazed at each other, theyclasped each other's hands, they pressed close to each other; but therewas a distance which they did not pass. Not that they respected it;they did not know of its existence. Marius was conscious of a barrier,Cosette's innocence; and Cosette of a support, Marius' loyalty. Thefirst kiss had also been the last. Marius, since that time, had not gonefurther than to touch Cosette's hand, or her kerchief, or a lock of herhair, with his lips. For him, Cosette was a perfume and not a woman.He inhaled her. She refused nothing, and he asked nothing. Cosette washappy, and Marius was satisfied. They lived in this ecstatic state whichcan be described as the dazzling of one soul by another soul. It wasthe ineffable first embrace of two maiden souls in the ideal. Two swansmeeting on the Jungfrau.

  At that hour of love, an hour when voluptuousness is absolutely mute,beneath the omnipotence of ecstasy, Marius, the pure and seraphicMarius, would rather have gone to a woman of the town than have raisedCosette's robe to the height of her ankle. Once, in the moonlight,Cosette stooped to pick up something on the ground, her bodice fellapart and permitted a glimpse of the beginning of her throat. Mariusturned away his eyes.

  What took place between these two beings? Nothing. They adored eachother.

  At night, when they were there, that garden seemed a living and a sacredspot. All flowers unfolded around them and sent them incense; and theyopened their souls and scattered them over the flowers. The wanton andvigorous vegetation quivered, full of strength and intoxication, aroundthese two innocents, and they uttered words of love which set the treesto trembling.

  What words were these? Breaths. Nothing more. These breaths sufficed totrouble and to touch all nature round about. Magic power which weshould find it difficult to understand were we to read in a book theseconversations which are made to be borne away and dispersed like smokewreaths by the breeze beneath the leaves. Take from those murmurs of twolovers that melody which proceeds from the soul and which accompaniesthem like a lyre, and what remains is nothing more than a shade; yousay: "What! is that all!" eh! yes, childish prattle, repetitions,laughter at nothing, nonsense, everything that is deepest and mostsublime in the world! The only things which are worth the trouble ofsaying and hearing!

  The man who has never heard, the man who has never uttered theseabsurdities, these paltry remarks, is an imbecile and a maliciousfellow. Cosette said to Marius:--

  "Dost thou know?--"

  [In all this and athwart this celestial maidenliness, and without eitherof them being able to say how it had come about, they had begun to calleach other _thou_.]

  "Dost thou know? My name is Euphrasie."

  "Euphrasie? Why, no, thy name is Cosette."

  "Oh! Cosette is a very ugly name that was given to me when I wasa little thing. But my real name is Euphrasie. Dost thou like thatname--Euphrasie?"

  "Yes. But Cosette is not ugly."

  "Do you like it better than Euphrasie?"

  "Why, yes."

  "Then I like it better too. Truly, it is pretty, Cosette. Call meCosette."

  And the smile that she added made of this dialogue an idyl worthy of agrove situated in heaven. On another occasion she gazed intently at himand exclaimed:--

  "Monsieur, you are handsome, you are good-looking, you are witty, youare not at all stupid, you are much more learned than I am, but I bidyou defiance with this word: I love you!"

  And Marius, in the very heavens, thought he heard a strain sung by astar.

  Or she bestowed on him a gentle tap because he coughed, and she said tohim:--

  "Don't cough, sir; I will not have people cough on my domain without mypermission. It's very naughty to cough and to disturb me. I want you tobe well, because, in the first place, if you were not well, I should bevery unhappy. What should I do then?"

  And this was simply divine.

  Once Marius said to Cosette:--

  "Just imagine, I thought at one time that your name was Ursule."

  This made both of them laugh the whole evening.

  In the middle of another conversation, he chanced to exclaim:--

  "Oh! One day, at the Luxembourg, I had a good mind to finish breakingup a veteran!" But he stopped short, and went no further. He would havebeen obliged to speak to Cosette of her garter, and that was impossible.This bordered on a strange theme, the flesh, before which that immenseand innocent love recoiled with a sort of sacred fright.

  Marius pictured life with Cosette to himself like this, without anythingelse; to come every evening to the Rue Plumet, to displace the old andaccommodating bar of the chief-justice's gate, to sit elbow to elbowon that bench, to gaze through the trees at the scintillation of theon-coming night, to fit a fold of the knee of his trousers into theample fall of Cosette's gown, to caress her thumb-nail, to call her_thou_, to smell of the same flower, one after the other, forever,indefinitely. During this time, clouds passed above their heads. Everytime that the wind blows it bears with it more of the dreams of men thanof the clouds of heaven.

  This chaste, almost shy love was not devoid of gallantry, by any means.To pay compliments to the woman whom a man loves is the first method ofbestowing caresses, and he is half audacious who tries it. A complimentis something like a kiss through a veil. Voluptuousness mingles therewith its sweet tiny point, while it hides itself. The heart draws backbefore voluptuousness only to love the more. Marius' blandishments, allsaturated with fancy, were, so to speak, of azure hue. The birds whenthey fly up yonder, in the direction of the angels, must hear suchwords. There were mingled with them, nevertheless, life, humanity, allthe positiveness of which Marius was capable. It was what is said inthe bower, a prelude to what will be said in the chamber; a lyricaleffusion, strophe and sonnet intermingled, pleasing hyperboles ofcooing, all the refinements of adoration arranged in a bouquet andexhaling a celestial perfume, an ineffable twitter of heart to heart.

  "Oh!" murmured Marius, "how beautiful you are! I dare not look at you.It is all over with me when I contemplate you. You are a grace. I knownot what is the matter with me. The hem of your gown, when the tip ofyour shoe peeps from beneath, upsets me. And then, what an enchantedgleam when you open your thought even but a little! You talkastonishingly good sense. It seems to me at times that you are adream. Speak, I listen, I admire. Oh Cosette! how strange it is and howcharming! I am really beside myself. You are adorable, Mademoiselle. Istudy your feet with the microscope and your soul with the telescope."

  And Cosette answered:--

  "I have been loving a little more all the time that has passed sincethis morning."

  Questions and replies took care of themselves in this dialogue, whichalways turned with mutual consent upon love, as the little pith figuresalways turn on their peg.

  Cosette's whole person was ingenuousness, ingenuity, transparency,whiteness, candor, radiance. It might have been said of Cosette that shewas clear. She produced on those who saw her the sensation of Apriland dawn. There was dew in her eyes. Cosette was a condensation of theauroral light in the form of a woman.

  It was quite simple that Marius should admire her, since he adored her.But the truth is, that this little school-girl, fresh from the convent,talked with exquisite penetration and uttered, at times, all sorts oftrue and delicate sayings. Her prattle was conversation. She never madea mistake about anything, and she saw things justly. The woman feels andspeaks with the tender instinct of the heart, which is infallible.

  No one understands so well as a woman, how to say things that are, atonce, both sweet and deep. Sweetness and depth, they are the whole ofwoman; in them lies the whole of heaven.

  In this full felicity, tears welled up to their eyes every instant. Acrushed lady-bug, a feather fallen from a nest, a branch of hawthornbroken, aroused their pity, and their ecstasy, sweetly mingled withmelancholy, seemed to ask nothing better than to weep. The mostsovereign symptom of love is a tenderness that is, at times, almostunbearable.

  And, in addition to this,--all these contradictions are the lightningplay of love,--they were fond of laughing, they laughed readily and witha delicious freedom, and so familiarly that they sometimes presented theair of two boys.

  Still, though unknown to hearts intoxicated with purity, nature isalways present and will not be forgotten. She is there with her brutaland sublime object; and however great may be the innocence of souls, onefeels in the most modest private interview, the adorable and mysteriousshade which separates a couple of lovers from a pair of friends.

  They idolized each other.

  The permanent and the immutable are persistent. People live, they smile,they laugh, they make little grimaces with the tips of their lips, theyinterlace their fingers, they call each other _thou_, and that does notprevent eternity.

  Two lovers hide themselves in the evening, in the twilight, in theinvisible, with the birds, with the roses; they fascinate each other inthe darkness with their hearts which they throw into their eyes, theymurmur, they whisper, and in the meantime, immense librations of theplanets fill the infinite universe.