mned persons which
is called human destiny, can two brows pass side by side, the one
ingenuous, the other formidable, the one all bathed in the divine
whiteness of dawn, the other forever blemished by the flash of an
eternal lightning? Who could have arranged that inexplicable pairing
off? In what manner, in consequence of what prodigy, had any community
of life been established between this celestial little creature and that
old criminal?

Who could have bound the lamb to the wolf, and, what was still more
incomprehensible, have attached the wolf to the lamb? For the wolf loved
the lamb, for the fierce creature adored the feeble one, for, during
the space of nine years, the angel had had the monster as her point of
support. Cosette's childhood and girlhood, her advent in the daylight,
her virginal growth towards life and light, had been sheltered by
that hideous devotion. Here questions exfoliated, so to speak, into
innumerable enigmas, abysses yawned at the bottoms of abysses, and
Marius could no longer bend over Jean Valjean without becoming dizzy.
What was this man-precipice?

The old symbols of Genesis are eternal; in human society, such as it now
exists, and until a broader day shall effect a change in it, there will
always be two men, the one superior, the other subterranean; the one
which is according to good is Abel; the other which is according to evil
is Cain. What was this tender Cain? What was this ruffian religiously
absorbed in the adoration of a virgin, watching over her, rearing her,
guarding her, dignifying her, and enveloping her, impure as he was
himself, with purity?

What was that cess-pool which had venerated that innocence to such a
point as not to leave upon it a single spot? What was this Jean Valjean
educating Cosette? What was this figure of the shadows which had for its
only object the preservation of the rising of a star from every shadow
and from every cloud?

That was Jean Valjean's secret; that was also God's secret.

In the presence of this double secret, Marius recoiled. The one, in some
sort, reassured him as to the other. God was as visible in this affair
as was Jean Valjean. God has his instruments. He makes use of the tool
which he wills. He is not responsible to men. Do we know how God sets
about the work? Jean Valjean had labored over Cosette. He had, to some
extent, made that soul. That was incontestable. Well, what then? The
workman was horrible; but the work was admirabl