in the garden, near the railing on the street, there was a stone bench, screened from the eyes of the curious by a plantation of yoke-elms, but which could, in case of necessity, be reached by an arm from the outside, past the trees and the gate.
one evening during that same month of april, jean valjean had gone out; cosette had seated herself on this bench after sundown. the breeze was blowing briskly in the trees, cosette was meditating; an objectless sadness was taking possession of her little by little, that invincible sadness evoked by the evening, and which arises, perhaps, who knows, from the mystery of the tomb which is ajar at that hour.
perhaps fantine was within that shadow.
cosette rose, slowly made the tour of the garden, walking on the grass drenched in dew, and saying to herself, through the species of melancholy somnambulism in which she was plunged: "really, one needs wooden shoes for the garden at this hour. one takes cold."
she returned to the bench.
as she was about to resume her seat there, she observed on the spot which she had quitted, a tolerably large stone which had, evidently, not been there a moment before.
cosette gazed at the stone, asking herself what it meant. all at once the idea occurred to her that the stone had not reached the bench all by itself, that some one had placed it there, that an arm had been thrust through the railing, and this idea appeared to alarm her. this time, the fear was genuine; the stone was there. no doubt was possible; she did not touch it, fled without glancing behind her, took refuge in the house, and immediately closed with shutter, bolt, and bar the door-like window opening on the flight of steps. she inquired of toussaint:--
"has my father returned yet?"
"not yet, mademoiselle."
[we have already noted once for all the fact that toussaint stuttered. may we be permitted to dispense with it for the future. the musical notation of an infirmity is repugnant to us.]
jean valjean, a thoughtful man, and given to nocturnal strolls, often returned quite late at night.
"toussaint," went on cosette, "are you careful to thoroughly barricade the shutters opening on the garden, at least with bars, in the evening, and to put the little iron things in the little rings that close them?"
"oh! be easy on that score, miss."
toussaint did not fail in her duty, and cosette was well aware of the fact, but she could not refrain from adding:--
"it is so solitary here."
"so far as that is concerned," said toussaint, "it is true. we might be assassinated before we had time to say ouf! and monsieur does not sleep in the house, to boot. but fear nothing, miss, i fasten the shutters up like prisons. lone women! that is enough to make one shudder, i believe you! just imagine, what if you were to see men enter your chamber at night and say: `hold your tongue!' and begin to cut your throat. it's not the dying so much; you die, for one must die, and that's all right; it's the abomination of feeling those people touch you. and then, their knives; they can't be able to cut well with them! ah, good gracious!"
"be quiet," said cosette. "fasten everything thoroughly."
cosette, terrified by the melodrama improvised by toussaint, and possibly, also, by the recollection of the apparitions of the past week, which recurred to her memory, dared not even say to her: "go and look at the stone which has been placed on the bench!" for fear of opening the garden gate and allowing "the men" to enter. she saw that all the doors and windows were carefully fastened, made toussaint go all over the house from garret to cellar, locked herself up in her own chamber, bolted her door, looked under her couch, went to bed and slept badly. all night long she saw that big stone, as large as a mountain and full of caverns.
at sunrise,--the property of the rising sun is to make us laugh at all our terrors of the past night, and our laughter is in direct proportion to our terror which they have caused,--at sunrise cosette, when she woke, viewed her fright as a nightmare, and said to herself: "what have i been thinking of? it is like the footsteps that i thought i heard a week or two ago in the garden at night! it is like the shadow of the chimney-pot! am i becoming a coward?" the sun, which was glowing through the crevices in her shutters, and turning the damask curtains crimson, reassured her to such an extent that everything vanished from her thoughts, even the stone.
"there was no more a stone on the bench than there was a man in a round hat in the garden; i dreamed about the stone, as i did all the rest."
she dressed herself, descended to the garden, ran to the bench, and broke out in a cold perspiration. the stone was there.
but this lasted only for a moment. that which is terror by night is curiosity by day.
"bah!" said she, "come, let us see what it is."
she lifted the stone, which was tolerably large. beneath it was something which resembled a letter. it was a white envelope. cosette seized it. there was no address on one side, no seal on the other. yet the envelope, though unsealed, was not empty. papers could be seen inside.
cosette examined it. it was no longer alarm, it was no longer curiosity; it was a beginning of anxiety.
cosette drew from the envelope its contents, a little notebook of paper, each page of which was numbered and bore a few lines in a very fine and rather pretty handwriting, as cosette thought.
cosette looked for a name; there was none. to whom was this addressed? to her, probably, since a hand had deposited the packet on her bench. from whom did it come? an irresistible fascination took possession of her; she tried to turn away her eyes from the leaflets which were trembling in her hand, she gazed at the sky, the street, the acacias all bathed in light, the pigeons fluttering over a neighboring roof, and then her glance suddenly fell upon the manuscript, and she said to herself that she must know what it contained.
this is what she read.
在那园里，靠铁栏门临街的地方，有一条石凳，为了挡住人们好奇的视线，在石凳旁边，栽了一排千金榆，但是，严格地说，一个过路人如果把手臂从铁栏门和千金榆缝里伸过来，仍能伸到石凳上面。
仍是在那个四月里，一天，将近黄昏时，冉阿让上街去了，珂赛特坐在石凳上，当时太阳已经落山。树林里的风已经有些凉意，珂赛特正想着心事，一种莫来由的伤感情绪渐渐控制了她，苍茫中带来的这种无可克服的伤感，也许，是由在这一时刻的半开着的坟墓里的一种神秘力量引起的吧，谁知道？
芳汀也许就在迷蒙的暮色中。
珂赛特站起来，绕着园子，踏着沾满露水的青草，慢慢地走，象个梦游人，她凄声说道：“这种时刻在园里走，真非穿着木鞋不可。搞不好就要伤风。”
她回到了石凳前。
正待坐下去时，她发现在她原先离开的坐处，放了一块相当大的石头，这明明是先头没有的。
珂赛特望着石头，心里在问那是什么意思。她想这块石头决不会自己跑到坐位上来，一定是什么人放在那里的，一定有谁把手臂从铁栏门的缝里伸进来过。这个思想一出现，她便害怕起来了。这一次是真正害了怕。没有什么可怀疑的，石头在那里嘛，她没有碰它，连忙逃走，也不敢回头望一眼。躲进房子后她立即把临台阶的长窗门关上，推上板门、门杠和铁闩。她问杜桑说：
“我爹回来了没有？”
“还没有回来，姑娘。”
（我们已把杜桑口吃的情形写过了，提过一次，便不必再提。希望读者能允许我们不再突出这一点。我们厌恶那种把别人的缺陷一板一眼记录下来的乐谱。）
冉阿让是个喜欢思索和夜游的人，他常常要到夜深才回家。
“杜桑，”珂赛特又说，“您到夜里想必一定会把对花园的板门关好，门杠上好，把那些小铁件好好插在那些铁环里的吧？”
“呵！您请放心吧，姑娘。”
杜桑在这些方面从不大意，珂赛特也完全知道，但是她无法控制自己不加上这么一句：
“问题是这地方太偏僻了！”
“说到这点，”杜桑说，“真是不错。要是有人来杀害我们，我们连哼一声的时间也不会有。特别是，先生不睡在这大房子里。但是您不用害怕，姑娘。我天天晚上要把门窗关得和铁桶一样。孤零零的两个女人！真是，我一想到，寒毛便会竖起来！您想想吧。半夜里，看见许多男子汉走到你屋子里来，对你说：‘不许喊！’他们上来便割你的颈脖子。死，并没有什么了不起，要死就死吧，你也明明知道，不死没有旁的路，可怕的是那些人走上来碰你，那可不是滋味。并且，他们那些刀子，一定是割不大动的！天主啊！”
“不许说了，”珂赛特说，“把一切都好好关上。”
珂赛特被杜桑临时编出来的戏剧性台词吓得心惊肉跳，也许还回想到在那个星期里遇到的怪事，竟至不敢对她说：“您去看看什么人放在石凳上的石块嘛！”唯恐去园里的门开了，那些“男子汉”便会闯进来。她要杜桑把所有的门窗都一一留意关好，把整所房子，从顶楼到地窖，全部检视一番，回头把自己关在卧房里，推上铁闩，检查了床底下，提心吊胆地睡了。
一整夜，她都看见那块石头，大得象一座山，满是洞穴。
出太阳的时候棗初升太阳的特点便是叫我们嘲笑夜间的一切惊扰，嘲笑的程度又往往和我们有过的恐惧成正比棗，出太阳的时候，珂赛特，醒过来，便把自己的一场虚惊看作了一场恶梦，她对自己说：“我想到哪里去了？这和我上星期晚上自以为在园子里听到脚步声是同一回事！和烟囱的影子也是同一回事！我现在快要变成胆小鬼了吧？”太阳光从板窗缝里强烈地照射进来，把花缎窗帘照得发紫，使她完全恢复了自信心，清除了她思想中的一切，连那块石头也不见了。
“石凳上不会有石头，正如园里不会有戴圆帽的人，全是由于我做梦，才会有什么石头和其他的东西。”
她穿好衣服，下楼走到园里，跑向石凳，觉得自己出了身冷汗，石头仍在老地方。
但这不过是一刹那间的事。夜间的畏惧一到白天便成了好奇心。
“有什么关系！”她说，“让我来看看。”
她搬开那块相当大的石头，下面出现一件东西，仿佛是一封信。
那是一个白信封。珂赛特拿起来看。看这一面，没有姓名地址，那一面也没有火漆印。信封虽然敞着口，却不是空的。里面露出几张纸。
珂赛特伸手到里面去摸。这已不是恐惧，也不是好奇心，而是疑惑的开始。
珂赛特把信封里的东西抽出来看。那是一小叠纸，每一张都编了号，并写了几行字，笔迹很秀丽，珂赛特心里想，并且字迹纤细。
珂赛特找一个名字，没有，找一个签字，也没有。这是寄给谁的呢？也许是给她的，因为它是放在她坐过的条凳上的。是谁送来的呢？一种无可抗拒的诱感力把她控制住了。她想把她的眼睛从那几张在她手里发抖的纸上移开。她望望天，望望街上，望望那些沐浴在阳光中的刺槐，在邻居屋顶上飞翔的鸽子，随后她的视线迅捷地朝下看那手稿，并对自己说，她应当知道那里写的究竟是什么。
她念的是：