d a cabriolet, which took him to the esplanade of the Observatoire.
There he got out, paid the coachman, took Cosette by the hand, and together they directed their steps through the darkness,--through the deserted streets which adjoin the Ourcine and the Glaciere, towards the Boulevard de l''Hopital.
The day had been strange and filled with emotions for Cosette. They had eaten some bread and cheese purchased in isolated taverns, behind hedges; they had changed carriages frequently; they had travelled short distances on foot.
She made no complaint, but she was weary, and Jean Valjean perceived it by the way she dragged more and more on his hand as she walked.
He took her on his back. Cosette, without letting go of Catherine, laid her head on Jean Valjean''s shoulder, and there fell asleep.
BOOK FOURTH.--THE GORBEAU HOVEL
CHAPTER I
MASTER GORBEAU
Forty years ago, a rambler who had ventured into that unknown country of the Salpetriere, and who had mounted to the Barriere d''Italie by way of the boulevard, reached a point where it might be said that Paris disappeared.
It was no longer solitude, for there were passers-by; it was not the country, for there were houses and streets; it was not the city, for the streets had ruts like highways, and the grass grew in them; it was not a village, the houses were too lofty.