Page 740 - les-miserables

CHAPTER III

TWO MISFORTUNES

MAKE ONE PIECE OF

GOOD FORTUNE

On the following morning, at daybreak, Jean Valjean
was still by Cosette’s bedside; he watched there motionless,
waiting for her to wake.
Some new thing had come into his soul.
Jean Valjean had never loved anything; for twenty-five
years he had been alone in the world. He had never been
father, lover, husband, friend. In the prison he had been vi-
cious, gloomy, chaste, ignorant, and shy. The heart of that
ex-convict was full of virginity. His sister and his sister’s
children had left him only a vague and far-off memory
which had finally almost completely vanished; he had made
every effort to find them, and not having been able to find
them, he had forgotten them. Human nature is made thus;
the other tender emotions of his youth, if he had ever had
any, had fallen into an abyss.
When he saw Cosette, when he had taken possession

740 Les Miserables