Page 1695 - les-miserables

perfume, an ineffable twitter of heart to heart.
‘Oh!’ murmured Marius, ‘how beautiful you are! I dare
not look at you. It is all over with me when I contemplate
you. You are a grace. I know not what is the matter with
me. The hem of your gown, when the tip of your shoe peeps
from beneath, upsets me. And then, what an enchanted
gleam when you open your thought even but a little! You
talk astonishingly good sense. It seems to me at times that
you are a dream. Speak, I listen, I admire. Oh Cosette! how
strange it is and how charming! I am really beside myself.
You are adorable, Mademoiselle. I study your feet with the
microscope and your soul with the telescope.’
And Cosette answered:—
‘I have been loving a little more all the time that has
passed since this morning.’
Questions and replies took care of themselves in this dia-
logue, which always turned with mutual consent upon love,
as the little pith figures always turn on their peg.
Cosette’s whole person was ingenuousness, ingenuity,
transparency, whiteness, candor, radiance. It might have
been said of Cosette that she was clear. She produced on
those who saw her the sensation of April and dawn. There
was dew in her eyes. Cosette was a condensation of the au-
roral light in the form of a woman.
It was quite simple that Marius should admire her, since
he adored her. But the truth is, that this little school-girl,
fresh from the convent, talked with exquisite penetration
and uttered, at times, all sorts of true and delicate sayings.
Her prattle was conversation. She never made a mistake

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