2026 Les Miserables
to that chastity which does not even know that it is chaste.
The young girl is only the flash of a dream, and is not yet a
statue. Her bed-chamber is hidden in the sombre part of the
ideal. The indiscreet touch of a glance brutalizes this vague
penumbra. Here, contemplation is profanation.
We shall, therefore, show nothing of that sweet little flut-
ter of Cosette’s rising.
An oriental tale relates how the rose was made white by
God, but that Adam looked upon her when she was unfold-
ing, and she was ashamed and turned crimson. We are of
the number who fall speechless in the presence of young
girls and flowers, since we think them worthy of venera-
tion.
Cosette dressed herself very hastily, combed and dressed
her hair, which was a very simple matter in those days, when
women did not swell out their curls and bands with cushions
and puffs, and did not put crinoline in their locks. Then she
opened the window and cast her eyes around her in every
direction, hoping to descry some bit of the street, an angle
of the house, an edge of pavement, so that she might be able
to watch for Marius there. But no view of the outside was to
be had. The back court was surrounded by tolerably high
walls, and the outlook was only on several gardens. Cosette
pronounced these gardens hideous: for the first time in her
life, she found flowers ugly. The smallest scrap of the gutter
of the street would have met her wishes better. She decided
to gaze at the sky, as though she thought that Marius might
come from that quarter.
All at once, she burst into tears. Not that this was fickle-