Eponine has shown Marius where to find Cosette. After the first visit, he comes every evening and the two of them spend the evening hours adoring each other with words and looks. Marius forgets his former interests and each accepts what the other divulges without thinking to ask for more.
Jean Valjean suspects nothing, content to rejoice in the fact that Cosette seems happy again. Marius' friends, however, notice that he is out until the early morning hours; they assume is sewing wild oats.
Eponine follows Marius when he visits Cosette. One night her father and the four bandits have plans to break into Valjean's house. Eponine holds them off by threatening to scream and bring the police down on them. In this way she also prevents Marius and Cosette from being discovered.
While Eponine has been dealing with the bandits, Marius has been engaged with Cosette. She has been crying because her father is planning for them to move again. Marius gives her his address, then tells her that he will not be seeing her the following night. The next day, Marius visits his grandfather whom he has not seen in four years. The old man has been gradually declining in health and spirits. Inwardly, he grieves continually over the loss of Marius, but is too proud to admit that he might have been wrong.
Marius' intention is to ask his grandfather for permission to marry
Cosette. At first Gillenormand refuses, but he relents when Marius calls
him father. However, he consents not to marriage but to the use of Cosette
as simply a mistress. Marius is deeply insulted and leaves, plunging his
grandfather into despair. The old man believes that he has lost his grandson
for good this time.
The evenings of staring into each other's eyes and engaging in meaningless chat add to the comical naivete of both Marius and Cosette. At the same time, Eponine is wise beyond her years, both in the ways of the criminal element and in the ways of the heart. The depth of her love for Marius is apparent as she could just as easily have betrayed him and thus revealed both his relationship with Cosette and the location of Valjean. She does not know the importance of the latter, but protection of Marius is admirable both for its elements of self-sacrifice and for her courage.
The lovers' final evening together has echoes of Romeo and Juliet. Marius intends to return but does not tell her of his plans to visit his grandfather. She takes his address but is unable to give him information about where she will be. The result is that when he returns two nights later, she is gone and he can find no word of her. Since he did not get word to her, Cosette imagines that she has lost him again. Each of them intends to simply give up and die. At the same time, Valjean sees Marius as the enemy and would prefer to simply have him out of the picture.
Events are approaching a climax between Marius and his grandfather as
well. The old man cannot quite bring himself to initiate a reconciliation
and his misunderstanding of Marius' intentions for Cosette widen the rift
even further. Gillenormand is on a roller-coaster to self-imposed heart-break
and cannot figure out how to stop it.
Jean Valjean, Marius and M. Mabeuf are each brought to desperate situations. In his watchful care, Valjean has seen Thenardier prowling in the quartiere and is afraid that the new vigilance of the police during the political unrest, along with the snoopiness of Thenardier, will eventually bring trouble for him. He ponders the possibility of moving to England, but is not sure how he would get the passport and other required documents. One night while watching the house, he finds an address carved into the plaster wall. Suddenly, an unidentified person tosses a paper at his feet. The paper says only remove.
Marius wanders the street after the confrontation with his grandfather, finally collapsing in his bed at 3:00 in the morning. The following night he tries to visit Cosette, but she is gone and the house is boarded up. While grieving over his loss, he hears a voice similar to Eponine's, telling him that his friends are waiting at the barricade in the Rue de la Chanvrerie.
M. Mabeuf turned Valjean's purse into the police as a lost item and
has gotten progressively poorer. Unable to pay his rent or buy food, he
begins selling his books until he is left with only one, his favorite.
Then his housekeeper falls ill, and he sells his last book for medicine
for her. With nothing left to lose, he joins the populace who are on the
verge of a series of simultaneous emeutes (political uprising).
None needed
Clapsaddle, Diane. "TheBestNotes on A Long Way Gone".
TheBestNotes.com.
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