Chapter 362 Book IX Last Darkness, Sublime Dawn

Happy people can't help being cruel!How satisfied I am!Nothing else is needed!When they got happiness, the false purpose of life, they forgot the true purpose of vocation! In this matter, however, it would be unfair to blame Marius. Marius, as we have already explained, did not question M. Fauchelevent before his marriage, and after that he dreaded to question Jean Valjean.He regrets the promise he made passively.He has repeatedly felt wrong to concede to the disappointed.He can only make Jean Valjean leave his home slowly, and try his best to make Cosette forget him.He managed to place himself always between Cosette and Jean Valjean, so that she would never see Jean Valjean again, nor think of him.This is a step further than forgetting, which is tantamount to disappearing.

Marius did what he thought necessary and just, and he felt that he had good reasons for taking gentle and resolute steps to get rid of Jean Valjean. Some reasons are important, we have already seen them, and there are others we shall have later. will know.He happened to meet a former clerk of the Lafayette Bank in a case he was defending, and without looking for it, he got some confidential material, which he really couldn't get into because he was bound by his non-disclosure. The promise, but also to take into account Jean Valjean's dangerous situation.He considered that at this moment he had an important task to perform, which was to return the six hundred thousand francs to the original owner whom he was looking for with the utmost care.He currently does not use this money.

As for Cosette, she knew nothing of these secrets; it would be too harsh to reproach her. Between Marius and her there was one of the strongest magnetisms, capable of causing her to do what Marius wished, instinctively or almost mechanically.She felt that Marius had a certain idea of ​​"Monsieur Jean"; she obeyed.Her husband didn't have to say anything to her, she felt the pressure of his unspoken but obvious intentions to follow him blindly.Her obedience consisted chiefly in not remembering what Marius had forgotten.She did it effortlessly.Knowing not herself why, and without reproach for it, her heart had become indistinguishable from her husband's, so that what had been shadowed in Marius's mind was dimmed in hers.

However, we don't need to investigate too much. For Jean Valjean, this kind of forgetting and deletion is only superficial.She is mostly due to neglect rather than forgetting.In fact, she loved the man she had called her father for a long time.But she loves her husband more.Therefore, the balance in her heart is a little tilted to one side. Sometimes Cosette was surprised by talking about Jean Valjean, and Marius comforted her by saying: "I don't think he is at home. Didn't he say he was going on a journey?" "Yes," thought Cosette, "he It's often like this. But it won't be so long." She sent Nicolette to the Street of the Warriors two or three times to ask if Monsieur Jean had returned from his trip.Jean Valjean replied that he hadn't.

Cosette asked no further questions; the only person she needed in the world was Marius. Let us also mention that Marius and Cosette also left home, they went to Vernon.Marius takes Cosette to his father's grave. Marius slowly frees Cosette from Jean Valjean, and Cosette is at his mercy. Besides, it is too severe in some cases to say that children are ungrateful, which is not so sinful as one thinks.This forgetting is a natural phenomenon.Naturally, as we've mentioned elsewhere, this is "looking ahead".Nature divides sentient beings into those who arrive and those who depart.Those who leave face the darkness, those who arrive face the light.The distance that arises from this is disadvantageous to the old, but unconscious on the part of the young.This kind of distance is not felt at the beginning, but it gradually expands like the branches of a tree. Although the twigs do not separate from the trunk, they have gradually moved away.It's not their fault.Youth goes toward merriment, festivals, glitz and love, old age toward the end.Although they met each other, they lost their close ties.Life dulls the affections of the young, and the grave dulls the affections of the old.Do not blame these innocent children.