“But it is cold here. One cannot see distinctly. It is abominable, that it is, to wish to be Monsieur Jean! I will not have you say ‘you’ to me.
“Just now, as I was coming hither,” replied Jean Valjean, “I saw a piece of furniture in the Rue Saint Louis. It was at a cabinetmaker’s. If I were a pretty woman, I would treat myself to that bit of furniture. A very neat toilet table in the reigning style. What you call rosewood, I think. It is inlaid. The mirror is quite large. There are drawers. It is pretty.”
“Hou! the villainous bear!” replied Cosette.
And with supreme grace, setting her teeth and drawing back her lips, she blew at Jean Valjean. She was a Grace copying a cat.
“I am furious,” she resumed. “Ever since yesterday, you have made me rage, all of you. I am greatly vexed. I don’t understand. You do not defend me against Marius. Marius will not uphold me against you. I am all alone. I arrange a chamber prettily. If I could have put the good God there I would have done it. My chamber is left on my hands. My lodger sends me into bankruptcy. I order a nice little dinner of Nicolette. We will have nothing to do with your dinner, Madame. And my father Fauchelevent wants me to call him ‘Monsieur Jean,’ and to receive him in a frightful, old, ugly cellar, where the walls have beards, and where the crystal consists of empty bottles, and the curtains are of spiders’ webs! You are singular, I admit, that is your style, but people who get married are granted a truce. You ought not to have begun being singular again instantly. So you are going to be perfectly contented in your abominable Rue de l’Homme Armé. I was very desperate indeed there, that I was. What have you against me? You cause me a great deal of grief. Fi!”
And, becoming suddenly serious, she gazed intently at Jean Valjean and added: