"MY WELL-BELOVED,--Alas! my father insists on our going away at once.
We shall be this evening at No. 7, Rue de l'Homme Armé, and within a
week in London. COSETTE."
"June 4."
Such was the innocence of their love, that Marius did not even know
Cosette's handwriting.
What had happened may be told in a few words. Éponine had done it
all. After the night of June 3 she had had a double thought,--to foil
the plans of her father and the bandits upon the house in the Rue
Plumet, and separate Marius and Cosette. She had changed rags with the
first scamp she met, who thought it amusing to dress up as a woman,
while Éponine disguised herself as a man. It was she who gave Jean
Valjean the expressive warning, "Remove!" and he had gone straight
home and said to Cosette, "We shall start this evening and go to the
Rue de l'Homme Armé with Toussaint. Next week we shall be in London."
Cosette, startled by this unexpected blow, had hastily written two
lines to Marius, but how was she to put the letter in the post? She
never went out alone, and Toussaint, surprised by such an errand, would
certainly show the letter to M. Fauchelevent. In this state of anxiety,
Cosette noticed through the railings Éponine in male clothes, who now
incessantly prowled round the garden. Cosette had summoned "this young
workman," and given him the letter and a five-franc piece, saying,
"Carry this letter at once to its address," and Éponine put the letter
in her pocket. The next day she went to Courfeyrac's and asked for
Marius, not to hand him the letter, but "to see,"--a thing which every
jealous, loving soul will understand. There she waited for Marius, or
at any rate Courfeyrac--always to see. When Courfeyrac said to her,
"We are going to the barricades," an idea crossed her mind,--to throw
herself into this death as she would have done into any other, and
thrust Marius into it. She followed Courfeyrac, assured herself of the
spot where the barricade was being built, and feeling certain, since
Marius had not received the letter, that he would go at nightfall to
the usual meeting-place, she went to the Rue Plumet, waited for Marius
there, and gave him that summons in the name of his friends, which, as
she thought, must lead him to the barricade. She reckoned on Marius's
despair when he did not find Cosette, and she was not mistaken, and
then she returned to the Rue de la Chanvrerie. We have just seen what
she did there; she died with the tragic joy of jealous hearts, which
drag the beloved being down to death with them and say, "No one shall
have him!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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