Page 1489 - les-miserables

that, in short, delightful hope, no separation was possible.
On reflecting upon this, he fell into perplexity. He interro-
gated himself. He asked himself if all that happiness were
really his, if it were not composed of the happiness of an-
other, of the happiness of that child which he, an old man,
was confiscating and stealing; if that were not theft? He said
to himself, that this child had a right to know life before re-
nouncing it, that to deprive her in advance, and in some sort
without consulting her, of all joys, under the pretext of sav-
ing her from all trials, to take advantage of her ignorance of
her isolation, in order to make an artificial vocation germi-
nate in her, was to rob a human creature of its nature and to
lie to God. And who knows if, when she came to be aware
of all this some day, and found herself a nun to her sorrow,
Cosette would not come to hate him? A last, almost selfish
thought, and less heroic than the rest, but which was intol-
erable to him. He resolved to quit the convent.
He resolved on this; he recognized with anguish, the fact
that it was necessary. As for objections, there were none. Five
years’ sojourn between these four walls and of disappear-
ance had necessarily destroyed or dispersed the elements of
fear. He could return tranquilly among men. He had grown
old, and all had undergone a change. Who would recognize
him now? And then, to face the worst, there was danger
only for himself, and he had no right to condemn Cosette
to the cloister for the reason that he had been condemned
to the galleys. Besides, what is danger in comparison with
the right? Finally, nothing prevented his being prudent and
taking his precautions.

1489