precisely the page on which she had laid to
dry the four lines which she had penned, and which she had given in
charge of the young workman in the Rue Plumet. The writing had been
printed off on the blotter.

The mirror reflected the writing.

The result was, what is called in geometry, the symmetrical image; so
that the writing, reversed on the blotter, was righted in the mirror and
presented its natural appearance; and Jean Valjean had beneath his eyes
the letter written by Cosette to Marius on the preceding evening.

It was simple and withering.

Jean Valjean stepped up to the mirror. He read the four lines again, but
he did not believe them. They produced on him the effect of appearing in
a flash of lightning. It was a hallucination, it was impossible. It was
not so.

Little by little, his perceptions became more precise; he looked at
Cosette's blotting-book, and the consciousness of the reality returned
to him. He caught up the blotter and said: "It comes from there."
He feverishly examined the four lines imprinted on the blotter, the
reversal of the letters converted into an odd scrawl, and he saw no
sense in it. Then he said to himself: "But this signifies nothing; there
is nothing written here." And he drew a long breath with inexpressible
relief. Who has not experienced those foolish joys in horrible instants?
The soul does not surrender to despair until it has exhausted all
illusions.

He held the blotter in his hand and contemplated it in stupid delight,
almost ready to laugh at the hallucination of which he had been the
dupe. All at once his eyes fell upon the mirror again, and again he
beheld the vision. There were the four lines outlined with inexorable
clearness. This time it was no mirage. The recurrence of a vision is a
reality; it was palpable, it was the writing restored in the mirror. He
understood.

Jean Valjean tottered, dropped the blotter, and fell into the old
arm-chair beside the buffet, with drooping head, and glassy eyes, in
utter bewilderment. He told himself that it was plain, that the light of
the world had been eclipsed forever, and that Cosette had written that
to some one. Then he heard his soul, which had become terrible once
more, give vent to a dull roar in the gloom. Try then the effect of
taking from the lion the dog which he has in his cage!

Strange and sad to say, at that very moment, Marius had not yet received
Cosette's letter; chance had treacherously carried it to