ded the windows of Marius and Cosette felt the emotion of waking, the hawthorn was on the point of budding, a jewelled garniture of gillyflowers spread over the ancient walls, snapdragons yawned through the crevices of the stones, amid the grass there was a charming beginning of daisies, and buttercups, the white butterflies of the year were making their first appearance, the wind, that minstrel of the eternal wedding, was trying in the trees the first notes of that grand, auroral symphony which the old poets called the springtide,--Marius said to Cosette:--"We said that we would go back to take a look at our garden in the Rue Plumet. Let us go thither.
We must not be ungrateful."--And away they flitted, like two swallows towards the spring.
This garden of the Rue Plumet produced on them the effect of the dawn.
They already had behind them in life something which was like the springtime of their love.
The house in the Rue Plumet being held on a lease, still belonged to Cosette.
They went to that garden and that house. There they found themselves again, there they forgot themselves. That evening, at the usual hour, Jean Valjean came to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire.--"Madame went out with Monsieur and has not yet returned," Basque said to him.
He seated himself in silence, and waited an hour.
Cosette did not return.
He departed with drooping head.