3.V.6.2. JEAN VALJEAN STILL WEARS HIS ARM IN A SLING
To realize one's dream. To whom is this accorded? There
must be elections for this in heaven; we are all candidates,
unknown to ourselves; the angels vote. Cosette and Marius
had been elected.
Cosette, both at the mayor's office and at church, was
dazzling
and touching. Toussaint, assisted by Nicolette, had
dressed her.
Cosette wore over a petticoat of white taffeta, her robe
of
Binche guipure, a veil of English point, a necklace of fine
pearls, a wreath of orange flowers; all this was white, and,
from the midst of that whiteness she beamed forth. It was
an exquisite candor expanding and becoming transfigured in
the light. One would have pronounced her a virgin on the
point of turning into a goddess.
Marius' handsome hair was lustrous and perfumed; here
and there, beneath the thick curls, pale lines — the scars of
the
barricade — were visible.
The grandfather, haughty, with head held high,
amalgamating
more than ever in his toilet and his manners all the
elegances of the epoch of Barras, escorted Cosette. He took
the place of Jean Valjean, who, on account of his arm being
still in a sling, could not give his hand to the bride.
Jean Valjean, dressed in black, followed them with a
smile.
"Monsieur Fauchelevent," said the grandfather to him,
"this is a fine day. I vote for the end of afflictions and
sorrows.
Henceforth, there must be no sadness anywhere. Pardieu,
I decree joy! Evil has no right to exist. That there
should be any unhappy men is, in sooth, a disgrace to the
azure of the sky. Evil does not come from man, who is good
at bottom. All human miseries have for their capital and central
government hell, otherwise, known as the Devil's Tuileries.
Good, here I am uttering demagogical words! As far
as I am concerned, I have no longer any political opinions;
let all me be rich, that is to say, mirthful, and I confine
myself
to that."
When, at the conclusion of all the ceremonies, after
having
pronounced before the mayor and before the priest all possible
"yesses," after having signed the registers at the municipality
and at the sacristy, after having exchanged their rings, after
having knelt side by side under the pall of white moire in the
smoke of the censer, they arrived, hand in hand, admired and
envied by all, Marius in black, she in white, preceded by the
suisse, with the epaulets of a colonel, tapping the pavement
with his halberd, between two rows of astonished spectators,
at the portals of the church, both leaves of which were thrown
wide open, ready to enter their carriage again, and all being
finished, Cosette still could not believe that it was real. She
looked at Marius, she looked at the crowd, she looked at the
sky: it seemed as though she feared that she should wake up
from her dream. Her amazed and uneasy air added something
indescribably enchanting to her beauty. They entered the
same carriage to return home, Marius beside Cosette; M.
Gillenormand and Jean Valjean sat opposite them; Aunt
Gillenormand had withdrawn one degree, and was in the
second vehicle.
"My children," said the grandfather, "here you are,
Monsieur
le Baron and Madame la Baronne, with an income of
thirty thousand livres."
And Cosette, nestling close to Marius, caressed his ear
with
an angelic whisper: "So it is true. My name is Marius. I
am Madame Thou."
These two creatures were resplendent. They had reached
that irrevocable and irrecoverable moment, at the dazzling
intersection of all youth and all joy. They realized the verses
of Jean Prouvaire; they were forty years old taken together.
It was marriage sublimated; these two children were two
lilies. They did not see each other, they did not contemplate
each other. Cosette perceived Marius in the midst of
a glory; Marius perceived Cosette on an altar. And on that
altar, and in that glory, the two apotheoses mingling, in the
background, one knows not how, behind a cloud for Cosette,
in a flash for Marius, there was the ideal thing, the real thing,
the meeting of the kiss and the dream, the nuptial pillow.
All the torments through which they had passed came back
to them in intoxication. It seemed to them that their sorrows,
their sleepless nights, their tears, their anguish, their
terrors,
their despair, converted into caresses and rays of light,
rendered
still more charming the charming hour which was
approaching; and that their griefs were but so many hand-maidens
who were preparing the toilet of joy. How good it
is to have suffered! Their unhappiness formed a halo round
their happiness. The long agony of their love was terminating
in an ascension.
It was the same enchantment in two souls, tinged with
voluptuousness in Marius, and with modesty in Cosette. They
said to each other in low tones: "We will go back to take a
look at our little garden in the Rue Plumet." The folds of
Cosette's gown lay across Marius.
Such a day is an ineffable mixture of dream and of
reality.
One possesses and one supposes. One still has time before
one to divine. The emotion on that day, of being at mid-day
and of dreaming of midnight is indescribable. The delights
of these two hearts overflowed upon the crowd, and inspired
the passersby with cheerfulness.
People halted in the Rue Saint-Antoine, in front of Saint-Paul,
to gaze through the windows of the carriage at the
orange-flowers quivering on Cosette's head.
Then they returned home to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire.
Marius, triumphant and radiant, mounted side by side with
Cosette the staircase up which he had been borne in a dying
condition. The poor, who had trooped to the door, and who
shared their purses, blessed them. There were flowers
everywhere.
The house was no less fragrant than the church;
after the incense, roses. They thought they heard voices
carolling
in the infinite; they had God in their hearts; destiny
appeared to them like a ceiling of stars; above their heads
they beheld the light of a rising sun. All at once, the clock
struck. Marius glanced at Cosette's charming bare arm, and
at the rosy things which were vaguely visible through the lace
of her bodice, and Cosette, intercepting Marius' glance,
blushed to her very hair.
Quite a number of old family friends of the Gillenormand
family had been invited; they pressed about Cosette. Each
one vied with the rest in saluting her as Madame la Baronne.
The officer, Theodule Gillenormand, now a captain, had
come from Chartres, where he was stationed in garrison, to be
present at the wedding of his cousin Pontmercy. Cosette did
not recognize him.
He, on his side, habituated as he was to have women
consider
him handsome, retained no more recollection of Cosette
than of any other woman.
"How right I was not to believe in that story about the
lancer!" said Father Gillenormand, to himself.
Cosette had never been more tender with Jean Valjean.
She was in unison with Father Gillenormand; while he erected
joy into aphorisms and maxims, she exhaled goodness like a
perfume. Happiness desires that all the world should be
happy.
She regained, for the purpose of addressing Jean Valjean,
inflections of voice belonging to the time when she was a little
girl. She caressed him with her smile.
A banquet had been spread in the dining-room.
Illumination as brilliant as the daylight is the necessary
seasoning of a great joy. Mist and obscurity are not accepted
by the happy. They do not consent to be black. The night,
yes; the shadows, no. If there is no sun, one must be made.
The dining-room was full of gay things. In the centre,
above the white and glittering table, was a Venetian lustre
with flat plates, with all sorts of colored birds, blue, violet,
red, and green, perched amid the candles; around the chandelier,
girandoles, on the walls, sconces with triple and quintuple
branches; mirrors, silverware, glassware, plate, porcelain,
faience, pottery, gold and silversmith's work, all was sparkling
and gay. The empty spaces between the candelabra were filled
in with bouquets, so that where there was not a light, there
was a flower.
In the antechamber, three violins and a flute softly
played
quartettes by Haydn.
Jean Valjean had seated himself on a chair in the drawing-room,
behind the door, the leaf of which folded back upon
him in such a manner as to nearly conceal him. A few
moments before they sat down to table, Cosette came, as
though inspired by a sudden whim, and made him a deep
courtesy, spreading out her bridal toilet with both hands, and
with a tenderly roguish glance, she asked him:
"Father, are you satisfied?"
"Yes," said Jean Valjean, "I am content!"
"Well, then, laugh."
Jean Valjean began to laugh.
A few moments later, Basque announced that dinner was
served.
The guests, preceded by M. Gillenormand with Cosette on
his arm, entered the dining-room, and arranged themselves in
the proper order around the table.
Two large arm-chairs figured on the right and left of the
bride, the first for M. Gillenormand, the other for Jean Valjean.
M. Gillenormand took his seat. The other arm-chair
remained empty.
They looked about for M. Fauchelevent.
He was no longer there.
M. Gillenormand questioned Basque.
"Do you know where M. Fauchelevent is?"
"Sir," replied Basque, "I do, precisely. M. Fauchelevent
told me to say to you, sir, that he was suffering, his injured
hand was paining him somewhat, and that he could not dine
with Monsieur le Baron and Madame la Baronne. That he
begged to be excused, that he would come to-morrow. He has
just taken his departure."
That empty arm-chair chilled the effusion of the wedding
feast for a moment. But, if M. Fauchelevent was absent, M.
Gillenormand was present, and the grandfather beamed for
two. He affirmed that M. Fauchelevent had done well to retire
early, if he were suffering, but that it was only a slight
ailment.
This declaration sufficed. Moreover, what is an
obscure corner in such a submersion of joy? Cosette and
Marius were passing through one of those egotistical and
blessed moments when no other faculty is left to a person
than that of receiving happiness. And then, an idea occurred
to M. Gillenormand. — "Pardieu, this armchair is empty.
Come hither, Marius. Your aunt will permit it, although she
has a right to you. This armchair is for you. That is legal
and delightful. Fortunatus beside Fortunata." — Applause
from the whole table. Marius took Jean Valjean's place
beside Cosette, and things fell out so that Cosette, who had,
at first, been saddened by Jean Valjean's absence, ended by
being satisfied with it. From the moment when Marius took
his place, and was the substitute, Cosette would not have
regretted God himself. She set her sweet little foot, shod in
white satin, on Marius' foot.
The arm-chair being occupied, M. Fauchelevent was
obliterated;
and nothing was lacking.
And, five minutes afterward, the whole table from one end
to the other, was laughing with all the animation of
forgetfulness.
At dessert, M. Gillenormand, rising to his feet, with a
glass
of champagne in his hand — only half full so that the palsy
of his eighty years might not cause an overflow, — proposed
the health of the married pair.
"You shall not escape two sermons," he exclaimed. "This
morning you had one from the cure, this evening you shall
have one from your grandfather. Listen to me; I will give
you a bit of advice: Adore each other. I do not make a
pack of gyrations, I go straight to the mark, be happy. In
all creation, only the turtle-doves are wise. Philosophers
say: 'Moderate your joys.' I say: 'Give rein to your joys.'
Be as much smitten with each other as fiends. Be in a rage
about it. The philosophers talk stuff and nonsense. I should
like to stuff their philosophy down their gullets again. Can
there be too many perfumes, too many open rose-buds, too
many nightingales singing, too many green leaves, too much
aurora in life? can people love each other too much? can
people please each other too much? Take care, Estelle, thou
art too pretty! Have a care, Nemorin, thou art too handsome!
Fine stupidity, in sooth! Can people enchant each other too
much, cajole each other too much, charm each other too much?
Can one be too much alive, too happy? Moderate your joys.
Ah, indeed! Down with the philosophers! Wisdom consists
in jubilation. Make merry, let us make merry. Are we happy
because we are good, or are we good because we are happy?
Is the Sancy diamond called the Sancy because it belonged to
Harley de Sancy, or because it weighs six hundred carats?
I know nothing about it, life is full of such problems; the
important point is to possess the Sancy and happiness. Let
us be happy without quibbling and quirking. Let us obey the
sun blindly. What is the sun? It is love. He who says love,
says woman. Ah! ah! behold omnipotence — women. Ask
that demagogue of a Marius if he is not the slave of that little
tyrant of a Cosette. And of his own free will, too, the coward!
Woman! There is no Robespierre who keeps his place but
woman reigns. I am no longer Royalist except towards that
royalty. What is Adam? The kingdom of Eve. No '89 for
Eve. There has been the royal sceptre surmounted by a fleur-de-lys,
there has been the imperial sceptre surmounted by a
globe, there has been the sceptre of Charlemagne, which was
of iron, there has been the sceptre of Louis the Great, which
was of gold, — the revolution twisted them between its thumb
and forefinger, ha'penny straws; it is done with, it is broken,
it lies on the earth, there is no longer any sceptre, but make
me a revolution against that little embroidered handkerchief,
which smells of patchouli! I should like to see you do it.
Try. Why is it so solid? Because it is a gewgaw. Ah!
you are the nineteenth century? Well, what then? And
we have been as foolish as you. Do not imagine that you
have effected much change in the universe, because your trip-gallant
is called the cholera-morbus, and because your
pourree
is called the cachuca. In fact, the women must always be
loved. I defy you to escape from that. These friends are
our angels. Yes, love, woman, the kiss forms a circle from
which I defy you to escape; and, for my own part, I should
be only too happy to re-enter it. Which of you has seen the
planet Venus, the coquette of the abyss, the Celimene of the
ocean, rise in the infinite, calming all here below? The
ocean is a rough Alcestis. Well, grumble as he will, when
Venus appears he is forced to smile. That brute beast submits.
We are all made so. Wrath, tempest, claps of thunder,
foam to the very ceiling. A woman enters on the scene, a
planet rises; flat on your face! Marius was fighting six
months ago; to-day he is married. That is well. Yes,
Marius, yes, Cosette, you are in the right. Exist boldly for
each other, make us burst with rage that we cannot do the
same, idealize each other, catch in your beaks all the tiny
blades of felicity that exist on earth, and arrange yourselves a
nest for life. Pardi, to love, to be loved, what a fine miracle
when one is young! Don't imagine that you have invented
that. I, too, have had my dream, I, too, have meditated, I, too,
have sighed; I, too, have had a moonlight soul. Love is a child
six thousand years old. Love has the right to a long white
beard. Methusalem is a street arab beside Cupid. For sixty
centuries men and women have got out of their scrape by
loving. The devil, who is cunning, took to hating man;
man, who is still more cunning, took to loving woman. In
this way he does more good than the devil does him harm.
This craft was discovered in the days of the terrestrial
paradise.
The invention is old, my friends, but it is perfectly new.
Profit by it. Be Daphnis and Chloe, while waiting to become
Philemon and Baucis. Manage so that, when you are with
each other, nothing shall be lacking to you, and that Cosette
may be the sun for Marius, and that Marius may be the universe
to Cosette. Cosette, let your fine weather be the smile
of your husband; Marius, let your rain be your wife's tears.
And let it never rain in your household. You have filched
the winning number in the lottery; you have gained the great
prize, guard it well, keep it under lock and key, do not
squander it, adore each other and snap your fingers at all the
rest. Believe what I say to you. It is good sense. And
good sense cannot lie. Be a religion to each other. Each man
has his own fashion of adoring God. Saperlotte! the best
way to adore God is to love one's wife.
I love thee!
that's
my catechism. He who loves is orthodox. The oath of Henri
IV. places sanctity somewhere between feasting and drunkenness.
Ventre-saint-gris! I don't belong to the religion of
that oath. Woman is forgotten in it. This astonishes me on
the part of Henri IV. My friends, long live women! I am
old, they say; it's astonishing how much I feel in the mood
to be young. I should like to go and listen to the bagpipes in
the woods. Children who contrive to be beautiful and contented,
— that intoxicates me. I would like greatly to get
married, if any one would have me. It is impossible to imagine
that God could have made us for anything but this: to
idolize, to coo, to preen ourselves, to be dove-like, to be
dainty,
to bill and coo our loves from morn to night, to gaze at one's
image in one's little wife, to be proud, to be triumphant, to
plume oneself; that is the aim of life. There, let not that
displease you which we used to think in our day, when we
were young folks. Ah! vertu-bamboche! what charming
women there were in those days, and what pretty little faces
and what lovely lasses! I committed my ravages among
them. Then love each other. If people did not love each
other, I really do not see what use there would be in having
any springtime; and for my own part, I should pray the good
God to shut up all the beautiful things that he shows us, and
to take away from us and put back in his box, the flowers,
the birds, and the pretty maidens. My children, receive an
old man's blessing.
The evening was gay, lively and agreeable. The
grandfather's
sovereign good humor gave the key-note to the whole
feast, and each person regulated his conduct on that almost
centenarian cordiality. They danced a little, they laughed a
great deal; it was an amiable wedding. Goodman Days of
Yore might have been invited to it. However, he was present
in the person of Father Gillenormand.
There was a tumult, then silence.
The married pair disappeared.
A little after midnight, the Gillenormand house became a
temple.
Here we pause. On the threshold of wedding nights stands
a smiling angel with his finger on his lips.
The soul enters into contemplation before that sanctuary
where the celebration of love takes place.
There should be flashes of light athwart such houses. The
joy which they contain ought to make its escape through the
stones of the walls in brilliancy, and vaguely illuminate the
gloom. It is impossible that this sacred and fatal festival
should not give off a celestial radiance to the infinite. Love
is the sublime crucible wherein the fusion of the man and the
woman takes place; the being one, the being triple, the being
final, the human trinity proceeds from it. This birth of two
souls into one, ought to be an emotion for the gloom. The
lover is the priest; the ravished virgin is terrified. Something
of that joy ascends to God. Where true marriage is, that is
to say, where there is love, the ideal enters in. A nuptial bed
makes a nook of dawn amid the shadows. If it were given to
the eye of the flesh to scan the formidable and charming
visions of the upper life, it is probable that we should behold
the forms of night, the winged unknowns, the blue passers of
the invisible, bend down, a throng of sombre heads, around
the luminous house, satisfied, showering benedictions, pointing
out to each other the virgin wife gently alarmed, sweetly
terrified,
and bearing the reflection of human bliss upon their
divine countenances. If at that supreme hour, the wedded
pair, dazzled with voluptuousness and believing themselves
alone, were to listen, they would hear in their chamber a
confused
rustling of wings. Perfect happiness implies a mutual
understanding with the angels. That dark little chamber has
all heaven for its ceiling. When two mouths, rendered sacred
by love, approach to create, it is impossible that there should
not be, above that ineffable kiss, a quivering throughout the
immense mystery of stars.
These felicities are the true ones. There is no joy
outside
of these joys. Love is the only ecstasy. All the rest weeps.
To love, or to have loved, — this suffices. Demand
nothing
more. There is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy
folds of life. To love is a fulfilment.