ould have concealed my true visage, thus, in the presence of your
expansion, I should have had an enigma, thus, in the midst of your full
noonday, I should have had shadows, thus, without crying ''ware,' I
should have simply introduced the galleys to your fireside, I should
have taken my seat at your table with the thought that if you knew who
I was, you would drive me from it, I should have allowed myself to
be served by domestics who, had they known, would have said: 'How
horrible!' I should have touched you with my elbow, which you have a
right to dislike, I should have filched your clasps of the hand! There
would have existed in your house a division of respect between venerable
white locks and tainted white locks; at your most intimate hours, when
all hearts thought themselves open to the very bottom to all the rest,
when we four were together, your grandfather, you two and myself, a
stranger would have been present! I should have been side by side with
you in your existence, having for my only care not to disarrange the
cover of my dreadful pit. Thus, I, a dead man, should have thrust myself
upon you who are living beings. I should have condemned her to myself
forever. You and Cosette and I would have had all three of our heads in
the green cap! Does it not make you shudder? I am only the most crushed
of men; I should have been the most monstrous of men. And I should have
committed that crime every day! And I should have had that face of night
upon my visage every day! every day! And I should have communicated to
you a share in my taint every day! every day! to you, my dearly beloved,
my children, to you, my innocent creatures! Is it nothing to hold one's
peace? is it a simple matter to keep silence? No, it is not simple.
There is a silence which lies. And my lie, and my fraud and my
indignity, and my cowardice and my treason and my crime, I should have
drained drop by drop, I should have spit it out, then swallowed it
again, I should have finished at midnight and have begun again at
midday, and my 'good morning' would have lied, and my 'good night' would
have lied, and I should have slept on it, I should have eaten it, with
my bread, and I should have looked Cosette in the face, and I should
have responded to the smile of the angel by the smile of the damned
soul, and I should have been an abominable villain! Why should I do
it? in order to be happy. In order to be happy. Have I the right to be
happy? I stand outsi