2362 Les Miserables
side by side, the one ingenuous, the other formidable, the
one all bathed in the divine whiteness of dawn, the other
forever blemished by the flash of an eternal lightning? Who
could have arranged that inexplicable pairing off? In what
manner, in consequence of what prodigy, had any com-
munity of life been established between this celestial little
creature and that old criminal?
Who could have bound the lamb to the wolf, and, what
was still more incomprehensible, have attached the wolf to
the lamb? For the wolf loved the lamb, for the fierce creature
adored the feeble one, for, during the space of nine years,
the angel had had the monster as her point of support. Co-
sette’s childhood and girlhood, her advent in the daylight,
her virginal growth towards life and light, had been shel-
tered by that hideous devotion. Here questions exfoliated,
so to speak, into innumerable enigmas, abysses yawned at
the bottoms of abysses, and Marius could no longer bend
over Jean Valjean without becoming dizzy. What was this
man-precipice?
The old symbols of Genesis are eternal; in human soci-
ety, such as it now exists, and until a broader day shall effect
a change in it, there will always be two men, the one supe-
rior, the other subterranean; the one which is according to
good is Abel; the other which is according to evil is Cain.
What was this tender Cain? What was this ruffian religious-
ly absorbed in the adoration of a virgin, watching over her,
rearing her, guarding her, dignifying her, and enveloping
her, impure as he was himself, with purity?
What was that cess-pool which had venerated that in-