{"chapter_no":"36","chapter_title":"Two Misfortunes Make One Piece of Good Fortune","book_id":"3","book_name":"Springville","subchapter_no":"0","page_no":"559","page_number":"1","verses_count":0,"total_pages":2,"page_content":"

 <\/p>

Chapter 36<\/p>

Two Misfortunes Make <\/h1><\/p>

One Piece of Good Fortune<\/p>

 <\/p>

The story of the young Cosette from <\/i>Les Miserables concludes—Cosette reads, prays, plays, and <\/i>learns<\/i> <\/i>
more about her mother. Jean Valjean sees good among men<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

 <\/p>

 <\/p>

On the following morning, at daybreak, Jean Valjean <\/i>was still by Cosette's bedside. <\/i>Some
new thing had come into his soul. <\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

It was the second white apparition which he had encountered. The Bishop had caused the
dawn of virtue to rise on his horizon; Cosette caused the dawn of love to rise. <\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

The early days passed in this dazzled state. <\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

Cosette, on her side, had also, unknown to herself, become another being, poor little
thing! She was so little when her mother left her, that she no longer remembered her. Like all
children, who resemble young shoots of the vine, which cling to everything, she had tried to love;
she had not succeeded. All had repulsed her,—the Thenardiers, their children, other children.
She had loved the dog, and he had died, after which nothing and nobody would have anything to
do with her. It is a sad thing to say, and we have already intimated it, that, at eight years of age,
her heart was cold. It was not her fault; it was not the faculty of loving that she lacked; alas! it
was the possibility. Thus, from the very first day, all her sentient and thinking powers loved this
kind man. She felt that which she had never felt before—a sensation of expansion. <\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

And in truth, the mysterious impression produced on Cosette in the depths of the forest of
Chelles by the hand of Jean Valjean grasping hers in the dark was not an illusion, but a reality.
The entrance of that man into the destiny of that child had been the advent of God. <\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

Moreover, Jean Valjean had chosen his refuge well. There he seemed perfectly secure. <\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

The chamber with a dressing-room, which he occupied with Cosette, was the one whose
window opened on the boulevard. This being the only window in the house, no neighbors'
glances were to be feared from across the way or at the side. <\/i><\/p>

The ground-floor of Number 50-52, a sort of dilapidated penthouse, served as a wagon-
house for market-gardeners, and no communication existed between it and the first story. It was
separated by the flooring, which had neither traps nor stairs, and which formed the diaphragm
of the building, as it were. The first story contained, as we have said, numerous chambers and
several attics, only one of which was occupied by the old woman who took charge of Jean
Valjean's housekeeping; all the rest was uninhabited.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

It was this old woman, ornamented with the name of the principal lodger, and in reality
intrusted with the functions of portress, who had let him the lodging on Christmas eve. He had
represented himself to her as a gentleman of means who had been ruined by Spanish bonds, who
was coming there to live with his little daughter. He had paid her six months in advance, and had
commissioned the old woman to furnish the chamber and dressing-room, as we have seen. It was
this good woman who had lighted the fire in the stove, and prepared everything on the evening of
their arrival.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

Week followed week; these two beings led a happy life in that hovel.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

Cosette laughed, chattered, and sang from daybreak. Children have their morning song
as well as birds.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

At times she became serious and stared at her little black gown. Cosette was no longer in
rags; she was in mourning. She had emerged from misery, and she was entering into life.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

Jean Valjean had undertaken to teach her to read. Sometimes, as he made the child spell,
he remembered that it was with the idea of doing evil that he had learned to read in prison. This
idea had ended in teaching a child to read. Then the ex-convict smiled with the pensive smile of
the angels. <\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

He felt in it a premeditation from on high, the will of some one who was not man, and he
became absorbed in revery. Good thoughts have their abysses as well as evil ones. <\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

To teach Cosette to read, and to let her play, this constituted nearly the whole of Jean
Valjean's existence. And then he talked of her mother, and he made her pray.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

She called him father, and knew no other name for him. <\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

Life, henceforth, appeared to him to be full of interest; men seemed to him good and just;
he no longer reproached any one in thought; he saw no reason why he should not live to be a
very old man, now that this child loved him. He saw a whole future stretching out before him,
illuminated by Cosette as by a charming light. <\/i><\/p>"}