The moon was full that night.

It is a delight to him to dream that there still lingers behind him something of that which he beheld when he was in his own country, and that all has not vanished. 　　So long as you go and come in your native land, you imagine that those streets are a matter of indifference to you; that those windows, those roofs, and those doors are nothing to you; that those walls are strangers to you; that those trees are merely the first encountered haphazard; that those houses, which you do not enter, are useless to you; that the pavements which you tread are merely stones. 　　Later on, when you are no longer there, you perceive that the streets are dear to you; that you miss those roofs, those doors; and that those walls are necessary to you, those trees are well beloved by you; that you entered those houses which you never entered, every day, and that you have left a part of your heart, of your blood, of your soul, in those pavements. 　　All those places which you no longer behold, which you may never behold again, perchance, and whose memory you have cherished, take on a melancholy charm, recur to your mind with the melancholy of an apparition, make the holy land visible to you, and are, so to speak, the very form of France, and you love them; and you call them up as they are, as they were, and you persist in this, and you will submit to no change: for you are attached to the figure of your fatherland as to the face of your mother. 　　May we, then, be permitted to speak of the past in the present? That said, we beg the reader to take note of it, and we continue. 　　Jean Valjean instantly quitted the boulevard and plunged into the streets, taking the most intricate lines which he could devise, returning on his track at times, to make sure that he was not being followed. 　　This manoeuvre is peculiar to the hunted stag. 　　On soil where an imprint of the track may be left, this manoeuvre possesses, among other advantages, that of deceiving the huntsmen and the dogs, by throwing them on the wrong scent. 　　In venery this is called false re-imbushment. 　　The moon was full that night. 　　Jean Valjean was not sorry for this. The moon, still very close to the horizon, cast great masses of light and shadow in the streets. 　　Jean Valjean could glide along close to the houses on the dark side, and yet keep watch on the light side. He did not, perhaps, take sufficiently into consideration the fact that the dark side escaped him. 　　Still, in the deserted lanes which lie near the Rue Poliveau, he thought he felt certain that no one was following him. 　　Cosette walked on without asking any questions. 　　The sufferings of the first six years of her life had instilled something passive into her nature. 　　Moreover,--and this is a remark to which we shall frequently have occasion to recur,--she had grown used, without being herself aware of it, to the peculiarities of this good man and to the freaks of destiny. 　　And then she was with him, and she felt safe.