Chapter 350 The aftermath of the dream that I vaguely remember in Seven Happiness

The lovers see each other every day.Cosette came with M. Fauchelevent. "It's turned upside down," said Mademoiselle Gillenormand, "and the fiancée comes in person to be wooed by her lover." But Marius, who needed to recuperate from his illness, developed the habit, and at the same time because the sofas and chairs in the Rue des Sisters compared to the Rue des Mariuses. Her straw chair is more comfortable for a heart-to-heart conversation, so I keep her.Marius and M. Fauchelevent did not talk when they met, as if by tacit agreement.Girls need an older companion, and Cosette could not have come without M. Fauchelevent.For Marius, M. Fauchelevent is a condition for Cosette's arrival.He accepted.They exchanged a little more than a simple "yes" or "no" when Marius brought to the table vague and indistinct political questions about improving the life of the people.Once, regarding the issue of education, Marius believed that it should be free and compulsory, and that everyone should be educated in various ways, just like getting air and sunlight. In a word, to make education available to all people. Opinions were agreed, and there was almost a conversation among themselves.Marius now noticed that M. Fauchelevent was very eloquent, and to a certain extent eloquent, even refined.But there seems to be something missing.Monsieur Fauchelevent lacks something that a gentleman of high society possesses, but in some respects he surpasses it.

In the depths of his heart and mind, Marius had all sorts of unspoken doubts about this mere mild and indifferent M. Fauchelevent.Sometimes he has doubts about his own recollection.There was a hole in his memory, a dark place, an abyss dug by four months of dying.A lot of things are lost in it.He even asked himself whether he had really seen such a serious and calm M. Fauchelevent in the barricade. Besides, the appearance and passing of things from the past were not the only surprises in his mind.Do not think that he is free from all troubles of remembering, which, even in joy and contentment, make us look back with sorrow.A person who does not look back on the vanished yesterday is without thought and emotion.Sometimes Marius rested his chin on his hands, and the tumultuous and vague memories of the past passed through the back of his mind.He saw Mabeuf again fall, he heard Gavroche singing amidst the bullets, and felt Eponine's cold brow under his lips; Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouville, Combeferre, Bossuet, Grantaire, all his friends stand up before him disillusioned again.Were all these precious, wretched, brave, lovable, or miserable beings dreams or real beings?Riot sucks everything up in its smoke.These fiery people have great ideals.He asked himself, he was thinking, dizzy with the vanished past.Where are they?Are they really all dead?A fall in the dark took all but himself.All this seemed to him to disappear behind a curtain in the theatre.There are similar curtain-down scenes in life.God went on to the next scene.

Is he still the same person himself?He was poor, but now he has become rich; he was abandoned, and now has a home; he was hopeless, and now he is going to marry Cosette.He felt himself passing through a tomb, entering black and exiting white.Everyone else stayed in this tomb and did not come out.Sometimes these people from the past came back and appeared before him, surrounded him, and depressed him; then he thought of Cosette, and his mood returned to peace.Only this happiness can dispel this impression of disaster. M. Fauchelevent was almost among these vanished persons.Marius always hesitated to believe that M. Fauchelevent in the barricade was the same M. Fauchelevent sitting solemnly beside Cosette in flesh and blood before him.The first Fauchelevent may have appeared and disillusioned in the nightmares of his unconscious moments.Besides, their temperaments were so different that it was impossible for Marius to ask him questions, nor did it occur to him to do so.We have also pointed out this particular detail.

Two people have a secret in common, and like a tacit understanding, the two don't talk about it, and that's not as rare as one might think. Only once did Marius test it out.He had deliberately mentioned the Rue des Marchangs in his conversation, and turning to M. Fauchelevent, he asked: "You know this street, don't you?" "What street?" "Machang Street." "I don't have the slightest impression of that street name," M. Fauchelevent answered him in a very natural tone. His answer referred to the names of the streets rather than the streets themselves, which Marius found more telling.

"Undoubtedly!" thought he, "I must have had wild dreams. It is a delusion of mine. It was a man like him. M. Fauchelevent has not been there."