Page 1531 - les-miserables

dispel her idea of looking at young men.
An unforeseen shock was added to these sad reflections.
In the isolated life which they led, and since they had
come to dwell in the Rue Plumet, they had contracted one
habit. They sometimes took a pleasure trip to see the sun
rise, a mild species of enjoyment which befits those who are
entering life and those who are quitting it.
For those who love solitude, a walk in the early morn-
ing is equivalent to a stroll by night, with the cheerfulness
of nature added. The streets are deserted and the birds are
singing. Cosette, a bird herself, liked to rise early. These ma-
tutinal excursions were planned on the preceding evening.
He proposed, and she agreed. It was arranged like a plot,
they set out before daybreak, and these trips were so many
small delights for Cosette. These innocent eccentricities
please young people.
Jean Valjean’s inclination led him, as we have seen, to the
least frequented spots, to solitary nooks, to forgotten places.
There then existed, in the vicinity of the barriers of Paris, a
sort of poor meadows, which were almost confounded with
the city, where grew in summer sickly grain, and which, in
autumn, after the harvest had been gathered, presented the
appearance, not of having been reaped, but peeled. Jean
Valjean loved to haunt these fields. Cosette was not bored
there. It meant solitude to him and liberty to her. There, she
became a little girl once more, she could run and almost
play; she took off her hat, laid it on Jean Valjean’s knees, and
gathered bunches of flowers. She gazed at the butterflies on
the flowers, but did not catch them; gentleness and tender-

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