Although it is only a personal opinion, we fancy that at the point which Jean Valjean had reached when he began to love Cosette, he required this fresh impulse to continue in the right path. He had just seen, under new aspects, the wickedness of men and the wretchedness of society; but the aspects were incomplete, and only fatally showed him one side of the truth,--the fate of woman comprised in Fantine, and public authority personified in Javert; he had returned to the galleys, but this time for acting justly; he had drunk the new cup of bitterness to the dregs; disgust and weariness seized upon him; the very recollection of the Bishop was approaching an eclipse, and though it would have perhaps reappeared afterwards luminous and triumphant, still this holy recollection was beginning to fade. Who knows whether Jean Valjean was not on the eve of growing discouraged and relapsing? But he loved and became strong again. Alas! he was no less tottering than Cosette; he protected her and she strengthened him; through him, she was able to advance in her life; through her, he could continue in the path of virtue. Oh unfathomable and divine mystery of the equilibrium of destiny!
Jean Valjean was so prudent as never to go out by day; every evening he walked out for an hour or two, sometimes alone, but generally with Cosette in the most retired streets, and entering the churches at nightfall. When he did not take Cosette with him, she remained with the old woman; but it was her delight to go out with him. She preferred an hour with him to the ravishing _têtes-à-têtes_ with Catherine. He walked along holding her by the hand, and talking pleasantly with her, for Cosette's temper turned to be extremely gay.
The old woman cleaned, cooked, and bought food for them; they lived quietly, always having a little fire, but as if they were very poor. Jean Valjean had made no change in the furniture since the first day, except that he had a wooden door put up in place of the glass door in Cosette's sleeping closet. He still wore his yellow coat, black breeches, and old hat, and in the streets he was taken for a poor man. It happened at times that charitable women turned and gave him a sou, which Jean Valjean accepted with a deep bow. It happened at times also that he met some wretch asking for charity; in such a case he looked behind him to see that no one was watching, furtively approached the beggar, gave him money,--now and then silver,--and hurried away. This entailed inconveniences, for people began to know him in the district under the name of the alms-giving beggar. The old chief lodger, a spiteful creature, full of envy and uncharitableness toward her neighbors, watched him closely, though he did not suspect it. She was rather deaf, which rendered her prone to gossip, and there remained to her from the past two teeth, one atop and one at bottom, which she constantly rattled against each other. She questioned Cosette, who, knowing nothing, could say nothing except that she came from Montfermeil. One day this spy saw Jean Valjean go into one of the uninhabited rooms in a way that seemed to her peculiar. She followed him with the stealthy step of an old cat, and was able to watch him, herself unseen, through the crack of the door, to which Jean Valjean turned his back, doubtless as a greater precaution. She saw him take out of his pocket a pair of scissors, needle, and thread, and then begin ripping up the lining of his coat, and pull out a piece of yellow paper, which he unfolded. The old woman recognized with horror that it was a thousand-franc note, the second or third she had seen in her life, and she fled in terror. A moment after Jean Valjean addressed her, and requested her to change the note for him, adding that it was his half-year's dividend, which he had received on the previous day. "When?" the old woman thought; "he did not go out till six in the evening, and the Bank is certainly not open at that hour." The old woman went to change the note and made her conjectures; the amount of money being considerably multiplied, afforded a grand topic of conversation for the gossips of the Rue des Vignes St. Marcel.