Page 1505 - les-miserables

hunted for ‘beasts”; she played in it, while awaiting the time
when she would dream in it; she loved this garden for the
insects that she found beneath her feet amid the grass, while
awaiting the day when she would love it for the stars that she
would see through the boughs above her head.
And then, she loved her father, that is to say, Jean
Valjean, with all her soul, with an innocent filial passion
which made the goodman a beloved and charming com-
panion to her. It will be remembered that M. Madeleine had
been in the habit of reading a great deal. Jean Valjean had
continued this practice; he had come to converse well; he
possessed the secret riches and the eloquence of a true and
humble mind which has spontaneously cultivated itself. He
retained just enough sharpness to season his kindness; his
mind was rough and his heart was soft. During their con-
versations in the Luxembourg, he gave her explanations of
everything, drawing on what he had read, and also on what
he had suffered. As she listened to him, Cosette’s eyes wan-
dered vaguely about.
This simple man sufficed for Cosette’s thought, the same
as the wild garden sufficed for her eyes. When she had had a
good chase after the butterflies, she came panting up to him
and said: ‘Ah! How I have run!’ He kissed her brow.
Cosette adored the goodman. She was always at his heels.
Where Jean Valjean was, there happiness was. Jean Valjean
lived neither in the pavilion nor the garden; she took greater
pleasure in the paved back courtyard, than in the enclosure
filled with flowers, and in his little lodge furnished with
straw-seated chairs than in the great drawing-room hung

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