ompanies
them like a lyre, and what remains is nothing more than a shade; you
say: "What! is that all!" eh! yes, childish prattle, repetitions,
laughter at nothing, nonsense, everything that is deepest and most
sublime in the world! The only things which are worth the trouble of
saying and hearing!

The man who has never heard, the man who has never uttered these
absurdities, these paltry remarks, is an imbecile and a malicious
fellow. Cosette said to Marius:--

"Dost thou know?--"

[In all this and athwart this celestial maidenliness, and without either
of them being able to say how it had come about, they had begun to call
each other thou.]

"Dost thou know? My name is Euphrasie."

"Euphrasie? Why, no, thy name is Cosette."

"Oh! Cosette is a very ugly name that was given to me when I was
a little thing. But my real name is Euphrasie. Dost thou like that
name--Euphrasie?"

"Yes. But Cosette is not ugly."

"Do you like it better than Euphrasie?"

"Why, yes."

"Then I like it better too. Truly, it is pretty, Cosette. Call me
Cosette."

And the smile that she added made of this dialogue an idyl worthy of a
grove situated in heaven. On another occasion she gazed intently at him
and exclaimed:--

"Monsieur, you are handsome, you are good-looking, you are witty, you
are not at all stupid, you are much more learned than I am, but I bid
you defiance with this word: I love you!"

And Marius, in the very heavens, thought he heard a strain sung by a
star.

Or she bestowed on him a gentle tap because he coughed, and she said to
him:--

"Don't cough, sir; I will not have people cough on my domain without my
permission. It's very naughty to cough and to disturb me. I want you to
be well, because, in the first place, if you were not well, I should be
very unhappy. What should I do then?"

And this was simply divine.

Once Marius said to Cosette:--

"Just imagine, I thought at one time that your name was Ursule."

This made both of them laugh the whole evening.

In the middle of another conversation, he chanced to exclaim:--

"Oh! One day, at the Luxembourg, I had a good mind to finish breaking
up a veteran!" But he stopped short, and went no further. He would have
been obliged to speak to Cosette of her garter, and that was impossible.
This bordered on a strange theme, the flesh, before which that immense
and innocent love recoiled with a sort of sacred fright.

Marius pictured life with Cosette to hi