The chamber which he entered, and which he closed again instantly, was a kind of moderately spacious attic, furnished with a mattress laid on the floor, a table, and several chairs; a stove in which a fire was burning, and whose embers were visible, stood in one corner.
A lantern on the boulevard cast a vague light into this poor room. At the extreme end there was a dressing-room with a folding bed; Jean Valjean carried the child to this bed and laid her down there without waking her.
He struck a match and lighted a candle.
All this was prepared beforehand on the table, and, as he had done on the previous evening, he began to scrutinize Cosette''s face with a gaze full of ecstasy, in which the expression of kindness and tenderness almost amounted to aberration.
The little girl, with that tranquil confidence which belongs only to extreme strength and extreme weakness, had fallen asleep without knowing with whom she was, and continued to sleep without knowing where she was.
Jean Valjean bent down and kissed that child''s hand.
Nine months before he had kissed the hand of the mother, who had also just fallen asleep.
The same sad, piercing, religious sentiment filled his heart.
He knelt beside Cosette''s bed.
lt was broad daylight, and the child still slept.
A wan ray of the December sun penetrated the window of the attic and lay upon the ceiling in long threads of light and shade.