It was monstrous enoughalready to have suffered for three days. Marius absent three days,this was horrible on the part of the good God. Now, this cruelteasing from on high had been gone through with. Marius was aboutto arrive, and he would bring good news. Youth is made thus;it quickly dries its eyes; it finds sorrow useless and does notaccept it. Youth is the smile of the future in the presence of anunknown quantity, which is itself. It is natural to it to be happy. It seems as though its respiration were made of hope.
Moreover, Cosette could not remember what Marius had said to heron the subject of this absence which was to last only one day,and what explanation of it he had given her. Every one has noticedwith what nimbleness a coin which one has dropped on the ground rollsaway and hides, and with what art it renders itself undiscoverable. There are thoughts which play us the same trick; they nestle awayin a corner of our brain; that is the end of them; they are lost;it is impossible to lay the memory on them. Cosette was somewhat vexedat the useless little effort made by her memory. She told herself,that it was very naughty and very wicked of her, to have forgottenthe words uttered by Marius.
She sprang out of bed and accomplished the two ablutions of souland body, her prayers and her toilet.
One may, in a case of exigency, introduce the reader intoa nuptial chamber, not into a virginal chamber. Verse wouldhardly venture it, prose must not.