Her father was standing on the grass-plot below.
“I have waked you for the purpose of reassuring you,” said he; “look, there is your shadow with the round hat.”
And he pointed out to her on the turf a shadow cast by the moon, and which did indeed, bear considerable resemblance to the spectre of a man wearing a round hat. It was the shadow produced by a chimney-pipe of sheet iron, with a hood, which rose above a neighboring roof.
Cosette joined in his laughter, all her lugubrious suppositions were allayed, and the next morning, as she was at breakfast with her father, she made merry over the sinister garden haunted by the shadows of iron chimney-pots.
Jean Valjean became quite tranquil once more; as for Cosette, she did not pay much attention to the question whether the chimney-pot was really in the direction of the shadow which she had seen, or thought she had seen, and whether the moon had been in the same spot in the sky.
She did not question herself as to the peculiarity of a chimney-pot which is afraid of being caught in the act, and which retires when someone looks at its shadow, for the shadow had taken the alarm when Cosette had turned round, and Cosette had thought herself very sure of this. Cosette’s serenity was fully restored. The proof appeared to her to be complete, and it quite vanished from her mind, whether there could possibly be anyone walking in the garden during the evening or at night.
A few days later, however, a fresh incident occurred.
III
Enriched with Commentaries by Toussaint