"What! is that all!" eh! yes, childish prattle, repetitions, laughter at nothing, nonsense, everything that is deepest and most sublime in the world! The only things which are worth the trouble of saying and hearing!
The man who has never heard, the man who has never uttered these absurdities, these paltry remarks, is an imbecile and a malicious fellow.
Cosette said to Marius:--
"Dost thou know?--"
[In all this and athwart this celestial maidenliness, and without either of them being able to say how it had come about, they had begun to call each other thou.]
"Dost thou know?
My name is Euphrasie."
"Euphrasie?
Why, no, thy name is Cosette."
"Oh!
Cosette is a very ugly name that was given to me when I was a little thing.
But my real name is Euphrasie.
Dost thou like that name--Euphrasie?"
"Yes.
But Cosette is not ugly."
"Do you like it better than Euphrasie?"
"Why, yes."
"Then I like it better too.
Truly, it is pretty, Cosette. Call me Cosette."
And the smile that she added made of this dialogue an idyl worthy of a grove situated in heaven.
On another occasion she gazed intently at him and exclaimed:--
"Monsieur, you are handsome, you are good-looking, you are witty, you are not at all stupid, you are much more learned than I am, but I bid you defiance with this word: