'' heart found vent.
He burst forth:
"Cosette, do you hear? he has come to that! he asks my forgiveness!
And do you know what he has done for me, Cosette?
He has saved my life.
He has done more--he has given you to me.
And after having saved me, and after having given you to me, Cosette, what has he done with himself?
He has sacrificed himself.
Behold the man.
And he says to me the ingrate, to me the forgetful, to me the pitiless, to me the guilty one:
Thanks!
Cosette, my whole life passed at the feet of this man would be too little.
That barricade, that sewer, that furnace, that cesspool,--all that he traversed for me, for thee, Cosette!
He carried me away through all the deaths which he put aside before me, and accepted for himself.
Every courage, every virtue, every heroism, every sanctity he possesses!
Cosette, that man is an angel!"
"Hush! hush!" said Jean Valjean in a low voice.
"Why tell all that?"
"But you!" cried Marius with a wrath in which there was veneration, "why did you not tell it to me?
It is your own fault, too.
You save people''s lives, and you conceal it from them!
You do more, under the pretext of unmasking yourself, you calumniate yourself.
It is frightful."
"I told the truth," replied Jean Valjean.
"No," retorted Marius, "the truth is the whole truth; and that you did not tell.