152 8 Les Miserables
folly in having brought Cosette back into the world, poor
hero of sacrifice, seized and hurled to the earth by his very
self-devotion! How he said to himself, ‘What have I done?’
However, nothing of all this was perceptible to Cosette.
No ill-temper, no harshness. His face was always serene and
kind. Jean Valjean’s manners were more tender and more
paternal than ever. If anything could have betrayed his lack
of joy, it was his increased suavity.
On her side, Cosette languished. She suffered from the
absence of Marius as she had rejoiced in his presence, pe-
culiarly, without exactly being conscious of it. When Jean
Valjean ceased to take her on their customary strolls, a
feminine instinct murmured confusedly, at the bottom of
her heart, that she must not seem to set store on the Lux-
embourg garden, and that if this proved to be a matter of
indifference to her, her father would take her thither once
more. But days, weeks, months, elapsed. Jean Valjean had
tacitly accepted Cosette’s tacit consent. She regretted it. It
was too late. So Marius had disappeared; all was over. The
day on which she returned to the Luxembourg, Marius was
no longer there. What was to be done? Should she ever find
him again? She felt an anguish at her heart, which noth-
ing relieved, and which augmented every day; she no longer
knew whether it was winter or summer, whether it was
raining or shining, whether the birds were singing, whether
it was the season for dahlias or daisies, whether the Lux-
embourg was more charming than the Tuileries, whether
the linen which the laundress brought home was starched
too much or not enough, whether Toussaint had done ‘her