They existed vaguely, frightened at their happiness. They did not
notice the cholera which decimated Paris precisely during that very
month. They had confided in each other as far as possible, but this had
not extended much further than their names. Marius had told Cosette
that he was an orphan, that his name was Marius Pontmercy, that he was
a lawyer, that he lived by writing things for publishers, that his
father had been a colonel, that the latter had been a hero, and that
he, Marius, was on bad terms with his grandfather who was rich. He had
also hinted at being a baron, but this had produced no effect on
Cosette. She did not know the meaning of the word. Marius was Marius.
On her side, she had confided to him that she had been brought up at
the Petit-Picpus convent, that her mother, like his own, was dead, that
her father’s name was M. Fauchelevent, that he was very good, that he
gave a great deal to the poor, but that he was poor himself, and that
he denied himself everything though he denied her nothing.
Strange to say, in the sort of symphony which Marius had lived since he
had been in the habit of seeing Cosette, the past, even the most recent
past, had become so confused and distant to him, that what Cosette told
him satisfied him completely. It did not even occur to him to tell her
about the nocturnal adventure in the hovel, about Thénardier, about the
burn, and about the strange attitude and singular flight of her father.
Marius had momentarily forgotten all this; in the evening he did not
even know that there had been a morning, what he had done, where he had
breakfasted, nor who had spoken to him; he had songs in his ears which
rendered him deaf to every other thought; he only existed at the hours
when he saw Cosette. Then, as he was in heaven, it was quite natural
that he should forget earth. Both bore languidly the indefinable burden
of immaterial pleasures. Thus lived these somnambulists who are called
lovers.
Alas! Who is there who has not felt all these things? Why does there
come an hour when one emerges from this azure, and why does life go on
afterwards?
Loving almost takes the place of thinking. Love is an ardent
forgetfulness of all the rest. Then ask logic of passion if you will.
There is no more absolute logical sequence in the human heart than
there is a perfect geometrical figure in the celestial mechanism. For
Cosette and Marius nothing existed except Marius and Cosette. The
universe around them had fallen into a hole. They lived in a golden
minute. There was nothing before them, nothing behind. It hardly
occurred to Marius that Cosette had a father. His brain was dazzled and
obliterated. Of what did these lovers talk then? We have seen, of the
flowers, and the swallows, the setting sun and the rising moon, and all
sorts of important things. They had told each other everything except
everything. The everything of lovers is nothing. But the father, the
realities, that lair, the ruffians, that adventure, to what purpose?
And was he very sure that this nightmare had actually existed? They
were two, and they adored each other, and beyond that there was
nothing. Nothing else existed. It is probable that this vanishing of
hell in our rear is inherent to the arrival of paradise. Have we beheld
demons? Are there any? Have we trembled? Have we suffered? We no longer
know. A rosy cloud hangs over it.
So these two beings lived in this manner, high aloft, with all that
improbability which is in nature; neither at the nadir nor at the
zenith, between man and seraphim, above the mire, below the ether, in
the clouds; hardly flesh and blood, soul and ecstasy from head to foot;
already too sublime to walk the earth, still too heavily charged with
humanity to disappear in the blue, suspended like atoms which are
waiting to be precipitated; apparently beyond the bounds of destiny;
ignorant of that rut; yesterday, to-day, to-morrow; amazed, rapturous,
floating, soaring; at times so light that they could take their flight
out into the infinite; almost prepared to soar away to all eternity.
They slept wide-awake, thus sweetly lulled. Oh! splendid lethargy of
the real overwhelmed by the ideal.
Sometimes, beautiful as Cosette was, Marius shut his eyes in her
presence. The best way to look at the soul is through closed eyes.
Marius and Cosette never asked themselves whither this was to lead
them. They considered that they had already arrived. It is a strange
claim on man’s part to wish that love should lead to something.