All Chapters of Les Misérables: Chapter 361 - Chapter 370

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On the following day, at the same hour, Jean Valjean came.Cosette asked him no questions, was no longer astonished, no longer exclaimed that she was cold, no longer spoke of the drawing-room, she avoided saying either “father” or “Monsieur Jean.” She allowed herself to be addressed as you. She allowed herself to be called Madame. Only, her joy had undergone a certain diminution. She would have been sad, if sadness had been possible to her.It is probable that she had had with Marius one of those conversations in which the beloved man says what he pleases, explains nothing, and satisfies the beloved woman. The curiosity of lovers does not extend very far beyond their own love.The lower room had made a little toilet. Basque had suppressed the bottles, and Nicolette the spiders.All the days which followed brought Jean Valjean at the same hour. He came every day, because he had not the strength to take Marius’ words otherwise than literally. Marius arranged matters so as to be absen

During the last months of spring and the first months of summer in 1833, the rare passers-by in the Marais, the petty shopkeepers, the loungers on thresholds, noticed an old man neatly clad in black, who emerged every day at the same hour, towards nightfall, from the Rue de l’Homme Armé, on the side of the Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, passed in front of the Blancs Manteaux, gained the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine, and, on arriving at the Rue de l‘Écharpe, turned to the left, and entered the Rue Saint-Louis.There he walked at a slow pace, with his head strained forward, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, his eye immovably fixed on a point which seemed to be a star to him, which never varied, and which was no other than the corner of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. The nearer he approached the corner of the street the more his eye lighted up; a sort of joy illuminated his pupils like an inward aurora, he had a fascinated and much affected air, his lips indulged in obscure movement

One day, Jean Valjean descended his staircase, took three steps in the street, seated himself on a post, on that same stone post where Gavroche had found him meditating on the night between the 5th and the 6th of June; he remained there a few moments, then went upstairs again. This was the last oscillation of the pendulum. On the following day he did not leave his apartment. On the day after that, he did not leave his bed.His portress, who prepared his scanty repasts, a few cabbages or potatoes with bacon, glanced at the brown earthenware plate and exclaimed:“But you ate nothing yesterday, poor, dear man!”“Certainly I did,” replied Jean Valjean.“The plate is quite full.”“Look at the water jug. It is empty.”“That proves that you have drunk; it does not prove that you have eaten.”“Well,” said Jean Valjean, “what if I felt hungry only for water?”“That is called thirst, and, when one does not eat at the same time, it is called fever.”“I will eat to-morrow.”“Or at Trinit

That same day, or to speak more accurately, that same evening, as Marius left the table, and was on the point of withdrawing to his study, having a case to look over, Basque handed him a letter saying: “The person who wrote the letter is in the antechamber.”Cosette had taken the grandfather’s arm and was strolling in the garden.A letter, like a man, may have an unprepossessing exterior. Coarse paper, coarsely folded—the very sight of certain missives is displeasing.The letter which Basque had brought was of this sort.Marius took it. It smelled of tobacco. Nothing evokes a memory like an odor. Marius recognized that tobacco. He looked at the superscription: “To Monsieur, Monsieur le Baron Pommerci. At his hotel.” The recognition of the tobacco caused him to recognize the writing as well. It may be said that amazement has its lightning flashes.Marius was, as it were, illuminated by one of these flashes.The sense of smell, that mysterious aid to memory, had just revived a whol