"So you are not dead!
Oh!
How wise you are!
I called you so much that you came back.
When I saw your eyes shut, I said: `Good! there he is, stifled,'' I should have gone raving mad, mad enough for a strait jacket.
They would have put me in Bicetre. What do you suppose I should have done if you had been dead? And your little girl?
There''s that fruit-seller,--she would never have understood it!
The child is thrust into your arms, and then-- the grandfather is dead!
What a story! good saints of paradise, what a tale!
Ah! you are alive, that''s the best of it!"
"I am cold," said Jean Valjean.
This remark recalled Fauchelevent thoroughly to reality, and there was pressing need of it.
The souls of these two men were troubled even when they had recovered themselves, although they did not realize it, and there was about them something uncanny, which was the sinister bewilderment inspired by the place.
"Let us get out of here quickly," exclaimed Fauchelevent.
He fumbled in his pocket, and pulled out a gourd with which he had provided himself.
"But first, take a drop," said he.
The flask finished what the fresh air had begun, Jean Valjean swallowed a mouthful of brandy, and regained full possession of his faculties.