For Cosette
and Marius nothing existed except Marius and Cosette. The universe
around them had fallen into a hole. They lived in a golden minute. There
was nothing before them, nothing behind. It hardly occurred to Marius
that Cosette had a father. His brain was dazzled and obliterated. Of
what did these lovers talk then? We have seen, of the flowers, and
the swallows, the setting sun and the rising moon, and all sorts of
important things. They had told each other everything except everything.
The everything of lovers is nothing. But the father, the realities, that
lair, the ruffians, that adventure, to what purpose? And was he very
sure that this nightmare had actually existed? They were two, and they
adored each other, and beyond that there was nothing. Nothing else
existed. It is probable that this vanishing of hell in our rear is
inherent to the arrival of paradise. Have we beheld demons? Are there
any? Have we trembled? Have we suffered? We no longer know. A rosy cloud
hangs over it.

So these two beings lived in this manner, high aloft, with all that
improbability which is in nature; neither at the nadir nor at the
zenith, between man and seraphim, above the mire, below the ether, in
the clouds; hardly flesh and blood, soul and ecstasy from head to foot;
already too sublime to walk the earth, still too heavily charged with
humanity to disappear in the blue, suspended like atoms which are
waiting to be precipitated; apparently beyond the bounds of destiny;
ignorant of that rut; yesterday, to-day, to-morrow; amazed, rapturous,
floating, soaring; at times so light that they could take their flight
out into the infinite; almost prepared to soar away to all eternity.
They slept wide-awake, thus sweetly lulled. Oh! splendid lethargy of the
real overwhelmed by the ideal.

Sometimes, beautiful as Cosette was, Marius shut his eyes in her
presence. The best way to look at the soul is through closed eyes.

Marius and Cosette never asked themselves whither this was to lead them.
They considered that they had already arrived. It is a strange claim on
man's part to wish that love should lead to something.

CHAPTER III--THE BEGINNING OF SHADOW

Jean Valjean suspected nothing.

Cosette, who was rather less dreamy than Marius, was gay, and that
sufficed for Jean Valjean's happiness. The thoughts which Cosette
cherished, her tender preoccupations, Marius' image which filled her
heart, took away nothing from the incomp