170 0 Les Miserables
We have seen, of the flowers, and the swallows, the setting
sun and the rising moon, and all sorts of important things.
They had told each other everything except everything. The
everything of lovers is nothing. But the father, the realities,
that lair, the ruffians, that adventure, to what purpose? And
was he very sure that this nightmare had actually existed?
They were two, and they adored each other, and beyond that
there was nothing. Nothing else existed. It is probable that
this vanishing of hell in our rear is inherent to the arrival
of paradise. Have we beheld demons? Are there any? Have
we trembled? Have we suffered? We no longer know. A rosy
cloud hangs over it.
So these two beings lived in this manner, high aloft, with
all that improbability which is in nature; neither at the na-
dir nor at the zenith, between man and seraphim, above the
mire, below the ether, in the clouds; hardly flesh and blood,
soul and ecstasy from head to foot; already too sublime to
walk the earth, still too heavily charged with humanity to
disappear in the blue, suspended like atoms which are wait-
ing to be precipitated; apparently beyond the bounds of
destiny; ignorant of that rut; yesterday, to-day, to-morrow;
amazed, rapturous, floating, soaring; at times so light that
they could take their flight out into the infinite; almost pre-
pared to soar away to all eternity. They slept wide-awake,
thus sweetly lulled. Oh! splendid lethargy of the real over-
whelmed by the ideal.
Sometimes, beautiful as Cosette was, Marius shut his
eyes in her presence. The best way to look at the soul is
through closed eyes.