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CHAPTER II
COSETTE’S
APPREHENSIONS
During the first fortnight in April, Jean Valjean took a
journey. This, as the reader knows, happened from time to
time, at very long intervals. He remained absent a day or
two days at the utmost. Where did he go? No one knew, not
even Cosette. Once only, on the occasion of one of these de-
partures, she had accompanied him in a hackney-coach as
far as a little blind-alley at the corner of which she read: Im-
passe de la Planchette. There he alighted, and the coach took
Cosette back to the Rue de Babylone. It was usually when
money was lacking in the house that Jean Valjean took these
little trips.
So Jean Valjean was absent. He had said: ‘I shall return
in three days.’
That evening, Cosette was alone in the drawing-room.
In order to get rid of her ennui, she had opened her pia-
no-organ, and had begun to sing, accompanying herself
the while, the chorus from Euryanthe: ‘Hunters astray in
the wood!’ which is probably the most beautiful thing in all