January, 1834
Cosette sat in front of the fire in her nightgown. Her feet were swathed in the thick socks Toussaint had knitted her last winter, but she could not remember ever being so cold. Though her nightdress was thick and warm, it was not enough, and her coats were all too structured to sleep in.
The bedroom door opened, and she looked up from her huddled place.
"Marius," she announced. "Are you cold? I'm so cold!"
He looked at her and nodded, but was still dressed in his day clothes: his winter suit, a wool shirt and undershirt, and a sweater and thick socks.
"It's this big house. It never gets warm enough," he remarked. He sat on the bench on the end of their bed and unlaced his boots. "I remember as a child, always being cold here. My grandfather would tease me, and offer to have me live in a little country house, but I am positive it would be warmer."
"Smaller at least. Less cold places," Cosette remarked. "Either way, I can't remember it getting this cold ever before. Not in the past several years, at least."
Marius disappeared into his closet and came back into the room a moment later with one of his thick sweaters and handed it to her.
"You should have something like this. You only wear shawls. Those can't keep you warm enough; not in front at least."
"Thank you, Marius," she said. She slipped her hands through the sleeves and pulled the thick wool garment over her head. It hung past her waist and the sleeves past her hands. Ordinarily she would have rolled the sleeves up, but her fingers were too cold so she left them covered. "I would, but can you imagine how this would look over a dress?"
He shook his head. "As long as you're warm. Get in bed and bundle up."
"It's too cold without you," she informed him. "That's why I've been waiting. Where did you go after dinner? Did you have a nice walk?"
"Cosette, it was wonderful. I swear, walking does more for my brain than anything else… I feel so revitalized after I've taken a stroll through this city. Paris is the most amazing city in the world, I won't hear a word otherwise." He hung up his trousers and suit jacket, and unbuttoned his shirt. He opened the wardrobe and located a nightshirt.
Cosette, still curled up by the fire, giggled. "Marius, have you been to another city?"
"Plenty, in France. They're dreadful."
"I mean a city that could possibly rival Paris."
"There aren't any," he said with a grin. He splashed some water on his face and neck, and then poured himself a glass of water. "Come. Bedtime."
She let him pull her to her feet, and then snuggled in bed. She shivered; the bedclothes were cold. Nicolette had come by an hour before with a warming pan, but most of it's effects had already worn off. Cosette had wanted to retire early, but did not like to without Marius. She hadn't been able to go to bed.
He blew out the candles and pulled her close to him, and she felt him press his face against her hair. He kissed her head, and held himself against her.
"What do you think about, when you're walking?" she wondered.
Marius sighed. She waited patiently. Marius had always been one to desire some time alone, and she did not resent it. He needed at least an hour out a day to think; he was solitary that way and she knew that forcing her presence on him would only make him unhappy. She hadn't known this initially, and used to become very upset when he would go out without her.
"Are you always alone?" she'd asked in the early months of their marriage.
"Why—yes," Marius had promised. "Cosette, do you think I am seeing someone else? That I could possibly love another? Please, cherie, no—"
"It's not only that," Cosette had said. "Though what else would I think? You go out at night and don't ask me along… Well, if you were seeing friends, maybe I could understand. But you'd really rather be off by yourself, thinking, alone, than home with me? Whyever did you marry me then?"
She'd cried and let Marius hold her and promise her otherwise, and it took many confrontations like that one before he came up with a way of explaining it to her.
"Cosette, my love, I have always been a person who is content in his own company. I need to think or else I would go mad; I often think I am mad. But believe me when I say none of this solitary walking, none of these thoughts I am thinking, would mean a thing without you to come home to. If I didn't have you, I would be wandering and lonely. But I do have you, and that fact gives meaning to everything else. Please, Cosette, do you understand?"
She'd begun to, and as their first year of marriage was drawing to a close, she understood her husband more and more. He needed his time to recuperate after a day talking to people and socializing; he was a lone man and understood his life better when he could think about it without others around. Some people did not like to look too closely at their lives, and always needed others around to prevent them from doing so. Her husband was not one of those people. She alone knew that he was a poet, and that he could not produce his words without his time distilling all the fuss in his brain.
"Did you think some good thoughts tonight?" she asked as she kissed him under his jaw.
"I did," he said finally. "I thought about you. I thought about something else, too, love, about us and what's coming next. Do you know why anyone talks, or writes, or creates anything?"
"Why?"
"Well, it's to bring something meaningful into life, isn't it? To make themselves immortal in some way, or to somehow validate their existence and make it more valuable than another?"
Cosette slowly nodded. "I suppose so. Or just to make something beautiful."
"Well, yes," Marius said with agitation. "But that's just it. Animals cannot make anything beautiful, or if they do they don't do it for leisure, they do it by accident. We make things beautiful purely because we can. We do it to prove that we are more masterful, more brilliant than any other species."
"You're right," she said. Sometimes her husband could go off on tangents like these, and that was precisely why she knew he needed his time alone to think.
"But," he said importantly, "but. We search so long and hard for the meaning of our life that we forget that the primary goal of any species is to stay alive. Humans are meant to live and pass on their genes, and create and invent so that their children can live longer, and produce more children… it is simple. It is not about art. Art is frivolity, beautiful and perfect, but it is not necessary. The meaning of life will not be found through art, but through perfect, meaningful existence."
Cosette was confused. "How can existence be meaningful if we do not know the meaning of it?"
"Sorry, sorry, that was a poor choice of words. What I mean is that life, and it's meaning are found at home. It is found in living a life to promote healthy children and to make their lives long and prosperous, so they can pass more life on. Does that make sense?"
"Why, yes, that does, Marius."
"It is found in a solid and honorable homelife, my love. I was thinking about that while I walked," he said.
Marius' hands, which had grown quite cold while he was walking, had finally warmed up from his time in bed. Slowly, he lifted Cosette's nightgown and sweater up until it was bunched under her breasts.
He leaned down and kissed her belly, just under her navel.
"It is here, my love. Right here."
She smiled and ran a hand through his thick, dark hair.
"Our baby is going to love you," she mused. "Just as I do."
He rose back up and kissed her resolutely on the mouth. "I already love them. He's ours. Or she. Ours."
His hand spread wide across her stomach, still flat with only six weeks of pregnancy.
"You need to write again, my love," Cosette remarked as she pulled away from Marius' kiss.
"I don't know," he confessed. "I'm a lawyer now."
"You are Marius," she said. "You are not a lawyer, or a writer, or any thing. You are Marius Pontmercy, who practices law, and writes, and lives in the Marais and has a beautiful wife who he adores."
"He does," Marius said, grinning. "And she is beautiful."
"And he knows how much his wife loves his poetry," Cosette whispered, kissing Marius' neck. "Marius Pontmercy walks through Paris late nights and then comes home and says beautiful things to his wife, who listens and sometimes does not understand all that he is saying but loves when he talks like that to her. And then, Marius makes love to his wife, and then they sleep. Doesn't that sound like a nice life?"
"You are enchanting. Come here."
"I'm as close as I can get."
"That's hardly true."
Marius leaned down and kissed Cosette deeply, thinking how maybe there wasn't anything more than that.
I'd love some suggestions for future chapters- I do take them and use them!
