1518 Les Miserables
She had been in the habit of seeing him for a long time,
and she had scrutinized him as girls scrutinize and see,
while looking elsewhere. Marius still considered Cosette
ugly, when she had already begun to think Marius hand-
some. But as he paid no attention to her, the young man was
nothing to her.
Still, she could not refrain from saying to herself that he
had beautiful hair, beautiful eyes, handsome teeth, a charm-
ing tone of voice when she heard him conversing with his
comrades, that he held himself badly when he walked, if you
like, but with a grace that was all his own, that he did not
appear to be at all stupid, that his whole person was noble,
gentle, simple, proud, and that, in short, though he seemed
to be poor, yet his air was fine.
On the day when their eyes met at last, and said to each
other those first, obscure, and ineffable things which the
glance lisps, Cosette did not immediately understand. She
returned thoughtfully to the house in the Rue de l’Ouest,
where Jean Valjean, according to his custom, had come to
spend six weeks. The next morning, on waking, she thought
of that strange young man, so long indifferent and icy, who
now seemed to pay attention to her, and it did not appear to
her that this attention was the least in the world agreeable
to her. She was, on the contrary, somewhat incensed at this
handsome and disdainful individual. A substratum of war
stirred within her. It struck her, and the idea caused her a
wholly childish joy, that she was going to take her revenge
at last.
Knowing that she was beautiful, she was thoroughly con-