Chapter 243 The aid below the fourth volume may be the aid above

Their lives are getting darker and darker day by day. They had but one pastime left, which was their former pleasure: giving bread to the hungry, and clothes to the cold.Cosette often accompanied Jean Valjean to visit the poor, and in these actions, they could still find a little common language left over from the past. Sometimes, when the day's activities went smoothly, many poor people were helped and many When the child was well fed and warmed up again, Cosette looked brighter when it was time to light the lamps.It was on these days that they visited Jondrette's dilapidated house.

On the very next morning of that visit, Jean Valjean came into the building, as calm as ever, except with a large gash on his left arm, rather inflamed, rather vicious, like a burning wound, he explained casually. one time.This injury caused him to have a high fever for more than a month, and he never went out.He doesn't want any doctors.When Cosette insisted on having one, he said: "Get a doctor who treats dogs." Cosette bandaged him with the most solemn air, and felt the greatest comfort in being able to do his best for him, and Jean Valjean felt that the old joy returned to his heart, his fear and anxiety disappeared, and he often Looking at Cosette, said: "Oh! what a wound! Oh! what a pain!"

Seeing her father sick, Cosette rebelled against the house, and renewed her intimacy with the cottage and the backyard.She stayed with Jean Valjean almost all day long, reading to him the books he wanted to read, chiefly travelogues.Jean Valjean was reborn, and his happiness reappeared with indescribable brilliance. The Luxembourg Gardens, the unknown wandering youth, Cosette's indifference, and all the dark clouds over his soul disappeared.So he used to say to himself, "I've made all that up out of thin air. I'm an old madman." He felt a great relief, as if Thénardier's new discovery—the unexpected encounter in the Jondrette cottage—had disappeared from him.He has successfully escaped, the clues have been interrupted, and the rest is irrelevant.When he thought of that encounter, he only felt sorry for the gang of gangsters.He thought that they had already been imprisoned and could no longer harm others, but this poor and desperate family was too miserable.

Cosette never mentioned the hideous sight she encountered at the gate of Maine last time. While in the convent, Cosette studied music with the Aunt St. Mechtilde.Cosette's voice was like a psychic oriole, and sometimes, after dark, she sang a melancholy song or two in the hut where the old man was convalescent, which greatly pleased Jean Valjean. . Spring is here, and the garden is always very beautiful at this time of year. Jean Valjean said to Cosette: "You never go to the garden, I want you to go there." "I just obey your orders." Father," said Cosette. In order to listen to her father, she often went to walk in her garden again, mostly alone, because, as we have already pointed out, Jean Valjean almost never went there, probably because he was afraid that others would pass through the iron gate. see him.

Jean Valjean's trauma became a transformative force. Cosette saw her father's pain eased, his wounds healed gradually, and his mind seemed to relax, and she was comforted, but she did not feel it herself, because it came gradually and naturally.Then came March, the days grew longer, winter was over, winter always takes part of our sadness, and then came April, the dawn of summer, fresh as dawn, like childhood Cheerful, like a newborn baby, occasionally crying.Nature has a variety of touching brilliance in this month, reflecting people's hearts from all aspects of the sky, clouds, forests, fields, and flower branches.

Cosette was too young not to let the joy of April like herself penetrate into her heart.The sadness has disappeared from her heart without a trace without knowing it.The soul is bright in spring, just as the cellar is bright at noon.Cosette was even less melancholy.Anyway, that was the way it was, and she didn't feel it herself.In the morning, around ten o'clock, after breakfast, when she held her father's wounded arm and led him to take a walk in front of the steps in the garden and bask in the sun for a quarter of an hour, she didn't feel that she was laughing anytime, And be merry.

Jean Valjean was relieved to see her ruddy again. "Oh! Beautiful trauma!" he repeated in a low voice. He was not grateful to Thenardier. After the wound healed, he resumed the habit of walking alone at night. It would be a mistake to imagine that walking alone in those desolate parts of Paris will bring no surprises.