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At that moment, Cosette awoke. .

Her chamber was narrow, neat, unobtrusive, with a long sash-window, facing the East on

the back court-yard of the house. .

Cosette knew nothing of what was going on in Paris. She had not been there on the

preceding evening, and she had already retired to her chamber when Toussaint had said: .

"It appears that there is a row." .

Cosette had slept only a few hours, but soundly. She had had sweet dreams, which

possibly arose from the fact that her little bed was very white. Some one, who was Marius,

had appeared to her in the light. She awoke with the sun in her eyes, which, at

first,produced on her the effect of being a continuation of her dream. Her first thought

on emerging from this dream was a smiling one. Cosette felt herself thoroughly reassured.

Like Jean Valjean, she had, a few hours previously, passed through that reaction of the

soul which absolutely will not hear of unhappiness. She began to cherish hope, with all

her might, without knowing why. Then she felt a pang at her heart.It was three days since

she had seen Marius. But she said to herself that he must have received her letter, that

he knew where she was, and that he was so clever that he would find means of reaching

her.--And that certainly to-day, and perhaps that very morning.--It was broad daylight,

but the rays of light were very horizontal; she thought that it was very early, but that

she must rise, nevertheless, in order to receive Marius. .

She felt that she could not live without Marius, and that, consequently, that was

sufficient and that Marius would come. No objection was valid. All this was certain. It

was monstrous enough already to have suffered for three days. Marius absent three days,

this was horrible on the part of the good God. Now, this cruel teasing from on high had

been gone through with. Marius was about to arrive, and he would bring good news. Youth is

made thus; it quickly dries its eyes; it finds sorrow useless and does not accept it.

Youth is the smile of the future in the presence of an unknown quantity, which is itself.

It is natural to it to be happy. It seems as though its respiration were made of hope. .

Moreover, Cosette could not remember what Marius had said to her on the subject of this

absence which was to last only one day, and what explanation of it he had given her. Every

one has noticed with what nimbleness a coin which one has dropped on the ground rolls away

and hides, and with what art it renders itself undiscoverable. There are thoughts which

play us the same trick; they nestle away in a corner of our brain; that is the end of

them; they are lost; it is impossible to lay the memory on them. Cosette was somewhat

vexed at the useless little effort made by her memory. She told herself, that it was very

naughty and very wicked of her, to have forgotten the words uttered by Marius. .

She sprang out of bed and accomplished the two ablutions of soul and body, her prayers

and her toilet. .

One may, in a case of exigency, introduce the reader into a nuptial chamber, not into a

virginal chamber. Verse would hardly venture it, prose must not. .

It is the interior of a flower that is not yet unfolded, it is whiteness in the dark,

it is the private cell of a closed lily, which must not be gazed upon by man so long as

the sun has not gazed upon it. Woman in the bud is sacred. That innocent bud which opens,

that adorable half-nudity which is afraid of itself, that white foot which takes refuge in

a slipper, that throat which veils itself before a mirror as though a mirror were an eye,

that chemise which makes haste to rise up and conceal the shoulder for a creaking bit of

furniture or a passing vehicle, those cords tied, those clasps fastened, those laces

drawn, those tremors, those shivers of cold and modesty, that exquisite affright in every

movement, that almost winged uneasiness where there is no cause for alarm, the successive

phases of dressing, as charming as the clouds of dawn,-- it is not fitting that all this

should be narrated, and it is too much to have even called attention to it. .

The eye of man must be more religious in the presence of the rising of a young girl

than in the presence of the rising of a star. The possibility of hurting should inspire an

augmentation of respect. The down on the peach, the bloom on the plum, the radiated

crystal of the snow, the wing of the butterfly powdered with feathers, are coarse compared

to that chastity which does not even know that it is chaste. The young girl is only the

flash of a dream, and is not yet a statue. Her bed-chamber is hidden in the sombre part of

the ideal. The indiscreet touch of a glance brutalizes this vague penumbra. Here,

contemplation is profanation. .

We shall, therefore, show nothing of that sweet little flutter of Cosette's rising. .

An oriental tale relates how the rose was made white by God, but that Adam looked upon

her when she was unfolding, and she was ashamed and turned crimson. We are of the number

who fall speechless in the presence of young girls and flowers, since we think them worthy

of veneration. .

Cosette dressed herself very hastily, combed and dressed her hair, which was a very

simple matter in those days, when women did not swell out their curls and bands with

cushions and puffs, and did not put crinoline in their locks. Then she opened the window

and cast her eyes around her in every direction, hoping to descry some bit of the street,

an angle of the house, an edge of pavement, so that she might be able to watch for Marius

there. But no view of the outside was to be had. The back court was surrounded by

tolerably high walls, and the outlook was only on several gardens. Cosette pronounced

these gardens hideous: for the first time in her life, she found flowers ugly. The

smallest scrap of the gutter of the street would have met her wishes better. She decided

to gaze at the sky, as though she thought that Marius might come from that quarter. .

All at once, she burst into tears. Not that this was fickleness of soul; but hopes cut

in twain by dejection--that was her case. She had a confused consciousness of something

horrible. Thoughts were rife in the air, in fact. She told herself that she was not sure

of anything, that to withdraw herself from sight was to be lost; and the idea that Marius

could return to her from heaven appeared to her no longer charming but mournful. .

Then, as is the nature of these clouds, calm returned to her, and hope and a sort of

unconscious smile, which yet indicated trust in God. .

Every one in the house was still asleep. A country-like silence reigned. Not a shutter

had been opened. The porter's lodge was closed. Toussaint had not risen, and Cosette,

naturally, thought that her father was asleep. She must have suffered much, and she must

have still been suffering greatly, for she said to herself, that her father had been

unkind; but she counted on Marius. The eclipse of such a light was decidedly impossible.

Now and then, she heard sharp shocks in the distance, and she said: "It is odd that

people should be opening and shutting their carriage gates so early." They were the

reports of the cannon battering the barricade. .

A few feet below Cosette's window, in the ancient and perfectly black cornice of the

wall, there was a martin's nest; the curve of this nest formed a little projection beyond

the cornice, so that from above it was possible to look into this little paradise. The

mother was there, spreading her wings like a fan over her brood; the father fluttered

about, flew away, then came back, bearing in his beak food and kisses. The dawning day

gilded this happy thing, the great law, "Multiply," lay there smiling and

august, and that sweet mystery unfolded in the glory of the morning. Cosette, with her

hair in the sunlight, her soul absorbed in chimeras, illuminated by love within and by the

dawn without, bent over mechanically, and almost without daring to avow to herself that

she was thinking at the same time of Marius, began to gaze at these birds, at this family,

at that male and female, that mother and her little ones, with the profound trouble which

a nest produces on a virgin. .

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