Les Miserables

Marius moves out of his apartment. Unsure how to honor his father's savior now that he knows Thénardier is a criminal, he anonymously sends money each week to the imprisoned Thénardier. As the months pass, he cannot stop thinking about Cosette, even though he does not know her actual name. In his mind, he refers to her as the lark, and he is delighted to find a park named the Field of the Lark. Marius visits the Field of the Lark every day. He does not know that, while he has been drifting through the city in a fit of emotional blur of "hazy notions" (633), Eponine has located the young lady whom Marius loves. She finds Marius and tells him that the lark is now living in a house in the Parisian suburb Saint-Germain. Eponine neglects to mention that she spotted Cosette while studying a house on behalf of a criminal who is currently in prison. She leads Marius to the house. He agrees to follow her, still unaware that Eponine is in love with him. When Marius tries to pay Eponine for her help, she lets the coin fall to the ground. She tells him that she does not want money from him.

Valjean and Cosette live comfortably in their two-story villa in Saint-Germain. Valjean left his job at the Petit-Picpus convent after the death of Fauchelevent; he did not want to deprive Cosette of the pleasures of life which are denied to nuns. Although they are safe, Cosette is beginning to question her situation. Having been under Valjean's protection since she was a young girl, she is now aware that she has grown into a beautiful woman. As she nears adulthood, Cosette suspects that Valjean is overly protective toward her. She believes that they have relocated to Saint-Germain to isolate her from the world, rather than simply to hide from Javert. She also noticed Marius in the gardens and was equally attracted to him, though she is concerned that Valjean will detect and disapprove of her feelings toward the young stranger. The end of their daily trips to the park suggests to Cosette that Valjean does not want her to develop an interest in men. Cosette has no faith that Valjean, whose past is a mystery and who seems completely uninterested in romance, is in any position to help her deal with her feelings toward the unknown young man.

For Valjean, the prospect of losing Cosette is devastating. She is all he has left in his life, and he cannot stand the thought of losing her. When he returns one day with a large, infected wound on his arm from his encounter with Thénardier, Cosette begins to worry. She nurses Valjean back to health, forgetting for the time being about the stranger in the park.

Later, Gavroche overhears Mabeuf talking about his financial situation. Destitute, Mabeuf is worried that he will starve. Gavroche leaves, only to spot the criminal Montparnasse. He sees Montparnasse line up and attack an old man. The old man—actually Valjean—is able to fight back against the criminal. Valjean knocks Montparnasse down and instructs him to change his ways, as his "idleness is misguiding [him]" (668). Unprompted, Valjean takes out his wallet and gives Montparnasse all his money. Montparnasse is allowed to leave, though Gavroche passes him by and, with a subtle flick of his wrist, picks Montparnasse's pocket. Gavroche takes the wallet and, remembering Mabeuf's complaints, throws it over the wall into Mabeuf's garden. Mabeuf is delighted by the sudden good fortune. His housekeeper claims that the money is a godsend.

After a few months of quiet unrest, Valjean and Cosette settle into their happy, familiar arrangement. This harmonious moment is interrupted by the arrival of Marius. Ever since learning about the location of the mysterious young woman, he has been spying on the house. He leaves a small booklet for Cosette, explaining his love for her. The next day, Valjean steps out alone for his routine evening walk. Marius visits Cosette in the garden and repeats his love for her. She tells Marius that she feels the same way about him. Feeling enraptured, they finally tell each other their real names.

Gavroche continues to roam the streets in the harsh and bitter cold. Unlike many of his peers, he lives according to a code of social morality. For example, he uses whatever money he has recently stolen to feed two starving children who have been abandoned in the street. Gavroche has no idea that these children are his brothers, who have also been kicked out by Madame Thénardier. After, Gavroche meets a freezing woman. He takes pity on her and gives her whatever of his own clothes that he can spare and finds her food. Gavroche leads the two starving children to the place that he has made his home: a hollow statue of an elephant—"forty feet high, built of timber and masonry" (689)—which is located near the famous Bastille prison. The children try to sleep, but they are scared of the rats, which also live in the elephant statue. That night, a group of criminals escape from the Bastille. Among the group is Thénardier himself. As the criminals scramble for freedom, Thénardier slips on a rooftop. Gavroche saves his father, despite the man’s abuse and abandonment of the boy. In turn, Thénardier fails to recognize his own son.

The narrator pauses the narrative to detail the rich and storied history of street slang in Paris. Slang, the narrator says, "is both a nation and its linguistic expression" (707). Slang is inventive, fascinating, and expedient. It evolves much faster than normal language and has a huge, untapped literary potential, but it is dismissed because it comes from "the poor minds of the wretched" (716).