It was a hymn which issued from the gloom, a dazzling burst of prayer and harmony in the obscure and alarming silence of the night; women's voices, but voices composed at one and the same time of the pure accents of virgins and the innocent accents of children,-- voices which are not of the earth, and which resemble those that the newborn infant still hears, and which the dying man hears already. This song proceeded from the gloomy edifice which towered above the garden.
At the moment when the hubbub of demons retreated, one would have said that a choir of angels was approaching through the gloom.
Cosette and Jean Valjean fell on their knees.
They knew not what it was, they knew not where they were; but both of them, the man and the child, the penitent and the innocent, felt that they must kneel.
These voices had this strange characteristic, that they did not prevent the building from seeming to be deserted. It was a supernatural chant in an uninhabited house.
While these voices were singing, Jean Valjean thought of nothing. He no longer beheld the night; he beheld a blue sky.
It seemed to him that he felt those wings which we all have within us, unfolding.
The song died away.
It may have lasted a long time.
Jean Valjean could not have told.
Hours of ecstasy are never more than a moment.
All fell silent again.
There was no longer anything in the street; there was nothing in the garden.
That which had menaced, that which had reassured him,--all had vanished.
The breeze swayed a few dry weeds on the crest of the wall, and they gave out a faint, sweet, melancholy sound.
BOOK FIFTH.--FOR A BLACK HUNT, A MUTE PACK
CHAPTER VII
CONTINUATION OF THE ENIGMA