What passed between these two lovers? Nothing; they adored each other. At night, when they were there, this garden seemed a living and sacred spot. All the flowers opened around them and sent them their incense; and they opened their souls and spread them over the flowers. The wanton and vigorous vegetation quivered, full of sap and intoxication, around these two innocents, and they uttered words of love at which the trees shivered. What were these words? Breathings, nothing more; but they were sufficient to trouble and affect all this nature. It is a magic power which it would be difficult to understand, were we to read in a book this conversation made to be carried away and dissipated like smoke beneath the leaves by the wind. Take away from these whispers of two lovers the melody which issues from the soul, and accompanies them like a lyre, and what is left is only a shadow, and you say, "What! is it only that?" Well, yes, child's-play, repetitions, laughs at nothing, absurdities, foolishness,--all that is the most sublime and profound in the world! the only things which are worth the trouble of being said and being listened to. The man who has never heard, the man who has never uttered these absurdities and poor things is an imbecile and a wicked man. Said Cosette to Marius,-- "Do you know that my name is Euphrasie?" "Euphrasie? No, it is Cosette." "Oh, Cosette is an ugly name, which was given me when I was little; but my real name is Euphrasie. Don't you like that name?" "Yes; but Cosette is not ugly." "Do you like it better than Euphrasie?" "Well--yes." "In that case, I like it better too. That is true, Cosette is pretty. Call me Cosette." Another time she looked at him intently, and exclaimed,-- "You are handsome, sir; you are good-looking; you have wit; you are not at all stupid; you are much more learned than I; but I challenge you with, 'I love you.'" And Marius fancied that he heard a strophe sung by a star. Or else she gave him a little tap when he coughed, and said,-- "Do not cough, sir; I do not allow anybody to cough in my house without permission. It is very wrong to cough and frighten me. I wish you to be in good health, because if you were not I should be very unhappy, and what would you have me do?" And this was simply divine. Once Marius said to Cosette,-- "Just fancy; I supposed for a while that your name was Ursule." This made them laugh the whole evening. In the middle of another conversation he happened to exclaim,-- "Oh! one day at the Luxembourg I felt disposed to finish breaking an invalid!"