The best way to look at the soul is through closed eyes.
Marius and Cosette never asked themselves whither this was to lead them. They considered that they had already arrived.
It is a strange claim on man''s part to wish that love should lead to something.
BOOK EIGHTH.--ENCHANTMENTS AND DESOLATIONS
CHAPTER III
THE BEGINNING OF SHADOW
Jean Valjean suspected nothing.
Cosette, who was rather less dreamy than Marius, was gay, and that sufficed for Jean Valjean''s happiness.
The thoughts which Cosette cherished, her tender preoccupations, Marius'' image which filled her heart, took away nothing from the incomparable purity of her beautiful, chaste, and smiling brow.
She was at the age when the virgin bears her love as the angel his lily.
So Jean Valjean was at ease.
And then, when two lovers have come to an understanding, things always go well; the third party who might disturb their love is kept in a state of perfect blindness by a restricted number of precautions which are always the same in the case of all lovers. Thus, Cosette never objected to any of Jean Valjean''s proposals. Did she want to take a walk?
"Yes, dear little father."
Did she want to stay at home?
Very good.
Did he wish to pass the evening with Cosette?
She was delighted.
As he always went to bed at ten o''clock, Marius did not come to the garden on such occasions until after that hour, when, from the street, he heard Cosette open the long glass door on the veranda.%%