THE OBSCURITIES WHICH A REVELATION CAN CONTAIN

You shall give orders that I am to be received in the little waiting-room. On the ground floor. 　　I could enter perfectly well by the back door, but that might create surprise perhaps, and it would be better, I think, for me to enter by the usual door. 　　Truly, sir, I should like to see a little more of Cosette. 　　As rarely as you please. Put yourself in my place, I have nothing left but that. 　　And then, we must be cautious. 　　If I no longer come at all, it would produce a bad effect, it would be considered singular. 　　What I can do, by the way, is to come in the afternoon, when night is beginning to fall." 　　"You shall come every evening," said Marius, "and Cosette will be waiting for you." 　　"You are kind, sir," said Jean Valjean. 　　Marius saluted Jean Valjean, happiness escorted despair to the door, and these two men parted. BOOK SEVENTH.--THE LAST DRAUGHT FROM THE CUP CHAPTER II 　　THE OBSCURITIES WHICH A REVELATION CAN CONTAIN 　　 Marius was quite upset. 　　The sort of estrangement which he had always felt towards the man beside whom he had seen Cosette, was now explained to him. There was something enigmatic about that person, of which his instinct had warned him. 　　This enigma was the most hideous of disgraces, the galleys. This M. Fauchelevent was the convict Jean Valjean. 　　To abruptly find such a secret in the midst of one's happiness resembles the discovery of a scorpion in a nest of turtledoves. 　　Was the happiness of Marius and Cosette thenceforth condemned to such a neighborhood? 　　Was this an accomplished fact? 　　Did the acceptance of that man form a part of the marriage now consummated? Was there nothing to be done? 　　Had Marius wedded the convict as well? 　　In vain may one be crowned with light and joy, in vain may one taste the grand purple hour of life, happy love, such shocks would force even the archangel in his ecstasy, even the demigod in his glory, to shudder. 　　As is always the case in changes of view of this nature, Marius asked himself whether he had nothing with which to reproach himself. Had he been wanting in divination? 　　Had he been wanting in prudence? Had he involuntarily dulled his wits? 　　A little, perhaps.