phan, be
she rich or poor, for wealth does not prevent a bad choice; misalliances
are made in very high circles, real misalliance is that of souls; and as
many an unknown young man, without name, without birth, without fortune,
is a marble column which bears up a temple of grand sentiments and grand
ideas, so such and such a man of the world satisfied and opulent, who
has polished boots and varnished words, if looked at not outside, but
inside, a thing which is reserved for his wife, is nothing more than a
block obscurely haunted by violent, unclean, and vinous passions; the
post of a drinking-shop.

What did Cosette's soul contain? Passion calmed or lulled to sleep;
something limpid, brilliant, troubled to a certain depth, and gloomy
lower down. The image of the handsome officer was reflected in
the surface. Did a souvenir linger in the depths?--Quite at the
bottom?--Possibly. Cosette did not know.

A singular incident supervened.

CHAPTER II--COSETTE'S APPREHENSIONS

During the first fortnight in April, Jean Valjean took a journey. This,
as the reader knows, happened from time to time, at very long intervals.
He remained absent a day or two days at the utmost. Where did he go? No
one knew, not even Cosette. Once only, on the occasion of one of these
departures, she had accompanied him in a hackney-coach as far as a
little blind-alley at the corner of which she read: Impasse de la
Planchette. There he alighted, and the coach took Cosette back to the
Rue de Babylone. It was usually when money was lacking in the house that
Jean Valjean took these little trips.

So Jean Valjean was absent. He had said: "I shall return in three days."

That evening, Cosette was alone in the drawing-room. In order to get
rid of her ennui, she had opened her piano-organ, and had begun to sing,
accompanying herself the while, the chorus from Euryanthe: "Hunters
astray in the wood!" which is probably the most beautiful thing in all
the sphere of music. When she had finished, she remained wrapped in
thought.

All at once, it seemed to her that she heard the sound of footsteps in
the garden.

It could not be her father, he was absent; it could not be Toussaint,
she was in bed, and it was ten o'clock at night.

She stepped to the shutter of the drawing-room, which was closed, and
laid her ear against it.

It seemed to her that it was the tread of a man, and that he was walking
very softly.

She mounted rapidly to the first fl