#5.9.5

I'M NOT AT ALL OKAY.

And then Monsieur Pontmercy starts in scolding Valjean,which, yeah, Valjean needs a fish upside the head, but MARIUS YOU ARE NOT THE DUDE TO DO SO.

...Actually maybe you are EXACTLY the dude to do so, because here you are, two guys who have made a great oath in your hearts and in public about loving Cosette, and look at this, she's crying,everything's falling the heck apart, and it's totally your joint fault because you are both colossal ninnyhammers who persist in internalizing the standards of a society that has shown you again and again and AGAIN that it has REALLY CRAP STANDARDS, that it will hurt and destroy both you and the people you love for NOTHING, but STILL YOU BOTH WERE TOTALLY READY TO ROLL WITH IT UNTIL THIS MOMENT. So maybe it's time for some group discussion, you think?!?

And I've written elsewhere about how Marius was a confession away from even beginning to be able to start his real arc per the constructs of this story, and here it is; this is his confession AND Valjean's, and it's reasonable, I think, that they have to come together. Because they've both been trying to avoid this, really, this final unmasking-- the really REALLY hard one, to a person they both care about and want to think well of them.

And also 'cause, you know, THEY'VE BEEN ENCOURAGING EACH OTHER'S WORST TENDENCIES SINCE THE DAY THEY STARTED INTERACTING. Seriously. Marius around M.LeBlanc was stalkery and weird; Valjean because of Marius was paranoid and isolationist; both of them started lying to Cosette to distract from the other one, both of them have fallen into melancholy because of the other being there, both of them have gone right up to death to basically AVOID DEALING WITH EACH OTHER and wow I could probably go full bore class theory about how this is the social pariah and the socially secure interacting, and how both of their positions depend on each other and in a REALLY LOUSY WAY.  But for once, Marius is ACTUALLY EXPLAINING THINGS THAT NEED EXPLAINING, and dealing with CONTEXT, and he is doing so at some risk to himself; his pointing out to Cosette that he was a major jerk to her dad is no small offering; maybe divorce isn't an option, but he could lose her good opinion and then have to live with that, and he's not even considering it; he's really just making a clean breast of things out of nothing except, apparently, a desire to finally have things be out and in the open. 

And okay, this is important for Marius, but it's also REALLY REALLY important for Valjean; in confessing his failings, Marius is freeing Valjean, too, because he would NEVER have had the thought to say these things now, he's dying and tired and he just wants to hear Cosette talk. So Marius is, finally FINALLY, giving Valjean time to see that Cosette loves him as he is, with full knowledge of him; and to know that Marius knows it too, and ALSO loves him (in his very very Marius way). It's not ENOUGH time, but it's time for Valjean to reconcile, and it's time for Cosette to at least BEGIN saying goodbye; whatever else, in the work of grief she's got ahead of her, she won't have to tell herself he didn't know she loved him, she won't have to wonder what he would have said. This is the only time Cosette's EVER had even the CHANCE to look at her papa and say yes, I know and it's still okay, because you're my papa and that's the only thing that matters and I still love you. And I'm not at all sure, without this, that Valjean would ever have given Cosette Fantine's name; certainly he didn't seem to be building to it in the letter!

So FOR ONCE, AT THE VERY LAST MOMENT, I think I might, actually, HONESTLY see some hope in Marius. because at the last possible moment, he manages to get it all together, to offer something that's honestly his to offer and his to pay back-- a side of truth only he knows, responsibility for his own behavior, honesty about himself and his faults. That IS his debt, and this is the only payment that matters, and Marius' honesty here is what gives Cosette a chance to understand herself and her own history better.  It does not sand off one tiny bit of how wrong Marius HAS been, but it really does make me think, hey, maybe the side of him we've had tiny glimpses of, the side that paid the neighbor's rent without thinking and talked to Eponine like a person for a few minutes just for her own sake one evening, maybe that will come through; maybe one day he'll fully become the best of himself, not just in a walled garden with the woman he's obsessing over but out in the world and to everyone. It's a start. It's an IMPORTANT start.

Still I can't help cracking up, because he is being the Pontmercyest about it. " You had saved Javert; why did you not say so?" MAYBE BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T ASK?!? LIKE AT ALL?? EVER??? And maybe it didn't occur to even VALJEAN that you might be holding a grudge against him for killing a dude HE DID NOT ACTUALLY KILL at the barricades where YOU KILLED A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE FOR SURE on the orders of the SAME GUY WHO TOLD HIM TO KILL JAVERT AND FOR OSTENSIBLY THE SAME CAUSE,  especially because you never said anything to ANYONE about caring about Javert any at all or even noticing he existed?!?  MAYBE THAT'S WHY NOT, BARON I-CAN'T-CHECK-THE-OBITS?!?

*deep breath* I'M OKAY.  I;m obviously not so totally over to Marius'side here that I can't appreciate Doctor Guilt Trip taking time to say "OH YEAH THIS IS IN FACT TOTALLY YOUR FAULT, SHOULDA COME SOONER", and to say it specifically to MARIUS and not Cosette (well spotted, Doc!), but I...I feel weirdly hopeful? Because finally, FINALLY this messed-up little family is growing into honesty, and openness, and love WITH trust. Light, light, flood it with light; there's been enough of darkness and secrets here to last THREE Bricks, and it's helped no one. 

And now it's Valjean's turn to enter the shadow and go towards the light, And I'm sorry for Cosette, losing her father just as she's getting the chance to fully know him, and sorry for Marius, even, and it's sad that Valjean's dying all around, but this death...I'm actually okay with this. He's happy. His last thoughts were about Cosette, and they were glad ones, not poisoned by him thinking she didn't love him. Maybe he didn't make it all the way through to the best philosophy, but like he says, he did what he could,  and I wish he could have known enough to know that ANYONE would say it was enough, but at least he knew it was enough for Cosette. And she knew she was enough for him; she won't have to go forward thinking her father somehow came to disapprove of her. He dies in love, and she can live with it. 

*banshee wail of despair*

I can't deal with this. Valjean is just so sad. So earnest and still not truly getting that he didn't need to go away he could have been with them, If he had perhaps told Marius everything Marius wouldn't have behaved idiotically. Not that Marius is innocent, at all, but he has a point when he says, "the truth is the whole truth; and that you did not tell." Marius could still have had a good view of Valjean with the stuff he DID know but it would've gone better if Valjean hadn't hid much of the good he did. And Valjean is still it was for the good.

And... and... *desperately looks for something not twinged with the sads of the impending death*... I've got nothing.

He just so calmly says he's going to die and asks Cosette to keep talking about the bird! that predeceased him! It's sad.

And then...

' "Would you like a priest?"

"I have had one," replied Jean Valjean.

And with his finger he seemed to indicate a point above his head where one would have said that he saw some one.

It is probable, in fact, that the Bishop was present at this death agony."

This, makes the movies inclusion of the Bishop really appropriate and poignant. It's bittersweet.