Page 2334 - les-miserables

had reached that point of intoxication when the wall was
lowered, when the ice dissolved, and when M. Fauchelevent
was to him, as to Cosette, a father.
He continued: his words poured forth, as is the peculiar-
ity of divine paroxysms of joy.
‘How glad I am to see you! If you only knew how we
missed you yesterday! Good morning, father. How is your
hand? Better, is it not?’
And, satisfied with the favorable reply which he had
made to himself, he pursued:
‘We have both been talking about you. Cosette loves you
so dearly! You must not forget that you have a chamber here,
We want nothing more to do with the Rue de l’Homme
Arme. We will have no more of it at all. How could you go
to live in a street like that, which is sickly, which is disagree-
able, which is ugly, which has a barrier at one end, where
one is cold, and into which one cannot enter? You are to
come and install yourself here. And this very day. Or you
will have to deal with Cosette. She means to lead us all by
the nose, I warn you. You have your own chamber here, it
is close to ours, it opens on the garden; the trouble with the
clock has been attended to, the bed is made, it is all ready,
you have only to take possession of it. Near your bed Co-
sette has placed a huge, old, easy-chair covered with Utrecht
velvet and she has said to it: ‘Stretch out your arms to him.’
A nightingale comes to the clump of acacias opposite your
windows, every spring. In two months more you will have
it. You will have its nest on your left and ours on your right.
By night it will sing, and by day Cosette will prattle. Your

2334 Les Miserables