Brick Club 5.8.3, 5.8.4
“He was, upon his own demand and through his own complicity, driven in succession from every happiness; and he had this misery that after having lost Cosette wholly in one day, he had been obliged afterwards to lose her again little by little.” The words ‘complicity’ and ‘obliged’ are doing a lot of work here. Do you think Cosette believes she’s lost her father? Because she had the gall to get married? And there’s only room for one male figure of authority in her life?
The idea that Valjean sings Marius’s praises as a tactic to keep Cosette’s attention is hilarious. And Marius moving around the furniture to spite Valjean is even better. These two are being so unnecessarily petty about each other, it’s ridiculous and exactly what I would expect of both of them. Marius is only acting in response to what Valjean specifically told him was what he wanted and now Valjean seems flabbergasted that Marius is taking his words to heart. Maybe Marius just finds it absurd that his father-in-law, a convict though he might be, will only meet his daughter by furtively sneaking in the basement every day and he really ought to just come in the front door if he’s going to visit at all. No wonder he’s suspicious about the money, Valjean went from living as a respectable gentleman for over a decade to hiding in the basement under cover of night and talking about how dangerous he was to have around. And now he’s secretly talking up Marius to his wife? I’d be looking for an angle too!
God! Just let him visit Cosette in a parlor or something! This is very broke-into-people’s-houses-to-leave-money Valjean. Sometimes the symbolism of the act means more to Valjean than the outcome, good or bad, of the act itself. “You would have said that even while wishing to reach some destination, he dreaded the moment when he should be near it.”
I wish Valjean was selfish. I wish he had admitted his past to Marius, still wanting the truth to be laid out, but remained a part of Cosette’s life just more removed (which I really don’t think Marius would have been diametrically opposed to) basically only refusing their offer of rooms in Gillenormand’s house. Then the final chunk of the book could have been the tension of keeping secrets from Cosette and the character growth of Marius learning to not be a judgmental bourgeois. Cosette could have been increasingly upset that she was obviously being lied to and Marius would have slowly turned to her side as he learned more about Valjean. And it slowly comes to a head when Valjean begins to get ill and Marius thinks he needs to tell Cosette everything but Valjean continues to insist he be separate from the new couple. And the reveal that Valjean saved Marius would be even sweeter and Marius would reveal the whole truth to Cosette and then they still have a beautiful and tearful reunion with Valjean. And Marius gains class consciousness as he was always meant to.
