Page 2433 - les-miserables

‘It is thou! thou art here! Thou dost pardon me then!’
Marius, lowering his eyelids, in order to keep his tears
from flowing, took a step forward and murmured between
lips convulsively contracted to repress his sobs:
‘My father!’
‘And you also, you pardon me!’ Jean Valjean said to
him.
Marius could find no words, and Jean Valjean added:
‘Thanks.’
Cosette tore off her shawl and tossed her hat on the bed.
‘It embarrasses me,’ said she.
And, seating herself on the old man’s knees, she put aside
his white locks with an adorable movement, and kissed his
brow.
Jean Valjean, bewildered, let her have her own way.
Cosette, who only understood in a very confused man-
ner, redoubled her caresses, as though she desired to pay
Marius’ debt.
Jean Valjean stammered:
‘How stupid people are! I thought that I should never see
her again. Imagine, Monsieur Pontmercy, at the very mo-
ment when you entered, I was saying to myself: ‘All is over.
Here is her little gown, I am a miserable man, I shall never
see Cosette again,’ and I was saying that at the very moment
when you were mounting the stairs. Was not I an idiot? Just
see how idiotic one can be! One reckons without the good
God. The good God says:
‘‘You fancy that you are about to be abandoned, stupid!
No. No, things will not go so. Come, there is a good man

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