Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 2309
olling in the infinite; they had God in their hearts; destiny
appeared to them like a ceiling of stars; above their heads
they beheld the light of a rising sun. All at once, the clock
struck. Marius glanced at Cosette’s charming bare arm, and
at the rosy things which were vaguely visible through the
lace of her bodice, and Cosette, intercepting Marius’ glance,
blushed to her very hair.
Quite a number of old family friends of the Gillenor-
mand family had been invited; they pressed about Cosette.
Each one vied with the rest in saluting her as Madame la
Baronne.
The officer, Theodule Gillenormand, now a captain, had
come from Chartres, where he was stationed in garrison, to
be present at the wedding of his cousin Pontmercy. Cosette
did not recognize him.
He, on his side, habituated as he was to have women
consider him handsome, retained no more recollection of
Cosette than of any other woman.
‘How right I was not to believe in that story about the
lancer!’ said Father Gillenormand, to himself.
Cosette had never been more tender with Jean Valjean.
She was in unison with Father Gillenormand; while he
erected joy into aphorisms and maxims, she exhaled good-
ness like a perfume. Happiness desires that all the world
should be happy.
She regained, for the purpose of addressing Jean Valjean,
inflections of voice belonging to the time when she was a
little girl. She caressed him with her smile.
A banquet had been spread in the dining-room.