150 4 Les Miserables
As for Jean Valjean, he was, indeed, all tenderness, all
solicitude; but he was only an old man and he knew noth-
ing at all.
Now, in this work of education, in this grave matter of
preparing a woman for life, what science is required to com-
bat that vast ignorance which is called innocence!
Nothing prepares a young girl for passions like the con-
vent. The convent turns the thoughts in the direction of the
unknown. The heart, thus thrown back upon itself, works
downward within itself, since it cannot overflow, and grows
deep, since it cannot expand. Hence visions, suppositions,
conjectures, outlines of romances, a desire for adventures,
fantastic constructions, edifices built wholly in the inner
obscurity of the mind, sombre and secret abodes where the
passions immediately find a lodgement as soon as the open
gate permits them to enter. The convent is a compression
which, in order to triumph over the human heart, should
last during the whole life.
On quitting the convent, Cosette could have found noth-
ing more sweet and more dangerous than the house in the
Rue Plumet. It was the continuation of solitude with the be-
ginning of liberty; a garden that was closed, but a nature
that was acrid, rich, voluptuous, and fragrant; the same
dreams as in the convent, but with glimpses of young men;
a grating, but one that opened on the street.
Still, when she arrived there, we repeat, she was only a
child. Jean Valjean gave this neglected garden over to her.
‘Do what you like with it,’ he said to her. This amused Co-
sette; she turned over all the clumps and all the stones, she