November 6, 1829
Feast Day of St. Leonard de Noblet, patron saint of prisoners
I put this journal away on a shelf months ago – almost six months ago, in fact – and told myself that I wouldn't write in it anymore. But this evening, I took it down and blew the dust off. I can't help it. My thoughts are so frantically jumbled-up just now, and I think if I don't write them down and sort them out, I might go mad.
I never thought much about my blood father. I don't know who he is, or a single thing about him, but I never particularly wanted to learn. That might seem strange, when I've been so curious about all the other things I don't know, but ever since Papa found me, I've had the dearest father anyone could want. Why should I go asking questions about another one?
But this week, that changed. All this week, I haven't been able to stop thinking and wondering about my blood father — and I don't like it one bit.
You see, all this week at school, we've been learning about the lives of different saints, in honor of All Saints Day, last Sunday. We studied so many, but there are hundreds of saints, so I know there are still many more that we didn't study. It was the lesson on St. Edith that got me started thinking about my blood father. Like me, St. Edith grew up in a convent, but unlike me, she never left it, choosing to become a nun as an adult. She was also conceived by rape. She was born because her father forced himself upon her mother.
It felt like my chest had turned to a block of ice when I learned that. The worst possibility yet entered my mind — was I conceived by rape, too?
The more I think on it, the more sense it makes. That's what frightens me so. That could be why my mother arranged for me to live at that miserable inn: she couldn't stand to raise me herself, because I made her think of the man who violated her, and so she abandoned me to those horrid inn-keepers and only sent them money out of some sense of obligation, not of love.
And even worse, almost too horrible to contemplate, but what if my mother knew how those inn-keepers treated me, and she didn't care? I've always assumed that she didn't know, or else she wouldn't have let me go on living with them, but good heavens, what if she fully did know how miserable I was?
Perhaps my mother never loved me at all. Perhaps she hated me from the very moment I was born — or even before then, from when she first felt me move inside her.
This would also explain why Papa refuses to speak about my mother to me: he doesn't want me to find this out, because he knows how much it would hurt me. And it would even explain why he wanted me to pray for unwed mothers, back on St. Margaret's Feast Day; he could've really been asking me to pray for my own mother. Do you see how much sense it makes? It fits so well.
To think that perhaps my father was a rapist and my mother never loved me at all and I'm only alive because something unspeakable happened. And if my blood father did rape my mother, then who knows what other awful sins he might've committed? I could be the daughter of a murderer.
Oh dear, writing this down hasn't helped at all. My mind feels even more frantic than before, like a stormy sea.
This is something I never considered about those pages torn out from the book of my life. What if a very sad story was written on them? One that I was happier not knowing? How foolish that was of me.
::
November 7, 1829
The weather has turned so bitterly cold this week. It's as if Paris went from autumn to winter overnight. Outside, the winds are harsh, the skies are grey, and all the trees are bare and lonely-looking. Inside, I feel just as empty and lonely. Last night, after writing that last entry, I laid awake in bed and couldn't stop thinking about how my blood father might've raped my mother.
It's always been so sweet to me to imagine that my mother took care of me when I was a baby. Perhaps she did. Perhaps when I was first born, my mother intended to raise me herself... but as I grew older, I came to favor that terrible man in my appearance, and my mother couldn't bear the sight of me and sent me away from her.
I tossed and turned and couldn't sleep, so I got up from my bed and crept into our parlor. I wanted so much to go to Papa's room and climb into his bed with him, like I used to when I was a little girl and had a bad dream. But I'm thirteen now... or at least, I'm probably thirteen. In any case, I'm too old to still be sleeping in Papa's bed, however much I might want to. So I went to our parlor instead. It's a bit drafty at night, but there was more light and noise from the street outside. I had so many bad dreams when I was a child that I knew I would feel safer with more reminders of the real world around me. I laid down on our divan and tried again to sleep.
I hadn't noticed if a light was still burning in Papa's room when I walked past his door. I didn't know how late it was. But he must've still been awake and heard my footsteps because a moment later, he came into the parlor, his white shirt glowing in the darkness. He asked why I wasn't in my bed, and I told him I couldn't sleep. He asked if I felt ill or had had a bad dream, and I shook my head.
He frowned and pressed his hand against my forehead to check for fever, but I was cool to his touch. Too cool, I suppose, because he went back to his room and returned with a blanket from his own bed and tucked it around me. I felt better right away; it was warm and soft and smelled like him. It was the second best thing to sleeping in his bed.
Then he sat gently on the edge of the divan and asked, "Sweetheart, do you want to tell me what's upsetting you?"
But I shook my head. I couldn't tell Papa my horrible (and almost certainly true) suspicions about my blood father, and how they weighed on me so. I don't think I could even bring myself to say those words to him — my blood father. I don't want to say anything to suggest I consider any man but him my father. It would break his heart.
Papa just looked at me for a long moment, and then he bent over me and kissed my cheek and stroked my hair, which made me suddenly feel very sleepy. "Cosette, you know you can tell me anything, don't you?" I nodded drowsily.
I think he asked me one more thing, too. Just before I fell asleep, I thought I heard him say, "And you know I love you, don't you?" But would Papa really ask me such a question? Of course he loves me. Of course I know that.
When I woke up this morning, I was back in my room. Papa must've carried me there after I fell asleep. But even though I was in my own bed again, his blanket was still wrapped around me.
He knows that something is upsetting me, but I don't think he'll keep after me to tell him. I suppose he feels that since he keeps so many secrets, I'm entitled to a few of my own.
I know he wants me to tell him, though. I've always gone to him with my problems. I so wish I could go to him with this one.