ost doubt it. On the day when I gave that
child in marriage, all came to an end. I have seen her happy, and that
she is with a man whom she loves, and that there exists here a kind old
man, a household of two angels, and all joys in that house, and that it
was well, I said to myself: 'Enter thou not.' I could have lied, it is
true, have deceived you all, and remained Monsieur Fauchelevent. So long
as it was for her, I could lie; but now it would be for myself, and I
must not. It was sufficient for me to hold my peace, it is true, and all
would go on. You ask me what has forced me to speak? a very odd thing;
my conscience. To hold my peace was very easy, however. I passed the
night in trying to persuade myself to it; you questioned me, and what I
have just said to you is so extraordinary that you have the right to do
it; well, yes, I have passed the night in alleging reasons to myself,
and I gave myself very good reasons, I have done what I could. But there
are two things in which I have not succeeded; in breaking the thread
that holds me fixed, riveted and sealed here by the heart, or in
silencing some one who speaks softly to me when I am alone. That is why
I have come hither to tell you everything this morning. Everything or
nearly everything. It is useless to tell you that which concerns only
myself; I keep that to myself. You know the essential points. So I have
taken my mystery and have brought it to you. And I have disembowelled my
secret before your eyes. It was not a resolution that was easy to take.
I struggled all night long. Ah! you think that I did not tell myself
that this was no Champmathieu affair, that by concealing my name I was
doing no one any injury, that the name of Fauchelevent had been given to
me by Fauchelevent himself, out of gratitude for a service rendered to
him, and that I might assuredly keep it, and that I should be happy in
that chamber which you offer me, that I should not be in any one's way,
that I should be in my own little corner, and that, while you would have
Cosette, I should have the idea that I was in the same house with her.
Each one of us would have had his share of happiness. If I continued to
be Monsieur Fauchelevent, that would arrange everything. Yes, with the
exception of my soul. There was joy everywhere upon my surface, but the
bottom of my soul remained black. It is not enough to be happy, one must
be content. Thus I should have remained Monsieur Fauchelevent, thus
I sh