In the Rue Plumet, where Magnon had sent her, Éponine had recognised the girl of the house through the railing. First she steered the gang away from the place, then she led Marius there. For several days he stood rapt in front of the railing, and in the end he went into the garden. He did not even need to climb the wall. One bar of the old railing was loose in its socket like an old man’s tooth, and he was slim enough to twist it a little and slip through.
From the night a single kiss betrothed their two souls, Marius came there every evening. All through May 1832, in that wild garden, the two of them held hands and looked at each other. The first kiss was also the last. After that Marius never went further than touching his lips to her hand or a curl of her hair.
One day Cosette said: you know, my real name is Euphrasie. When Marius said no, you’re Cosette, she said Cosette was an ugly name she had been given as a little girl. But when he said he liked Cosette better, she said then she liked it better too, and asked him to call her Cosette. Once Marius confessed that for a while he had thought her name was Ursule, and the two of them laughed about it all evening.