Les Misérables Volume 4, Chapter 2 Summary

Summary

During a fortnight in April Jean Valjean briefly leaves home on one of his habitual short journeys; he tells Cosette, “I shall return in three days.” While he is away Cosette, alone in the drawing-room at night, plays and sings the chorus from Euryanthe, then believes she hears footsteps in the garden. She peeps through a shutter and sees nothing, dismissing it as a musical-induced hallucination.

The next evening she again suspects someone in the garden: this time she sees, in moonlight on the lawn, a second shadow beside her own, distinct and wearing the outline of a round hat. She searches boldly but finds no one and grows chilled with terror; she reasons that two hallucinations would be strange. When Jean Valjean returns she tells him; he goes out to examine the gate. Over subsequent nights he watches in the garden and Cosette glimpses him from her shutter, misidentifying his silhouette as a strange man with a club. On the third night he calls her out and, laughing, demonstrates that the supposed man's shadow with a round hat is cast by a neighboring chimney-pipe with a hood. Cosette laughs too and abandons her fear, accepting the rational explanation, though the narrative notes her failure to scrutinize all details of the coincidence. The chapter ends noting that, despite this resolution, another incident soon occurs.

Key events

1. Jean Valjean departs for a brief customary journey, telling Cosette he will return in three days.
2. Cosette, alone, plays the piano-organ and thinks she hears footsteps in the garden at night.
3. She sees a second shadow with a round-hat outline on the lawn but finds no person when she searches.
4. Jean Valjean returns, inspects the gate, and spends nights watching in the garden.
5. Cosette mistakes Jean Valjean's profile for a stranger with a club when seen from her shutter.
6. Jean Valjean reveals the mysterious hat-shadow is cast by a neighboring chimney-pipe; Cosette laughs and is reassured.

Analysis

This chapter performs several functions: it heightens suspense through repeated, ambiguous sensations and it deepens the portrait of Cosette and Jean Valjean’s relationship. Cosette’s initial fright shows her youthful mixture of bravery and imagination—Hugo describes her as part lark, part dove—while Jean Valjean’s immediate vigilance and later playful explanation emphasize his protective, parental presence. The episode also explores perception versus reality; what seems supernatural is given a prosaic cause, and Hugo teases the reader with near-supernatural suggestions before deflating them. Narrative technique alternates close third-person attention on Cosette’s sensations with ironic narrator commentary (e.g., music producing “hallucination”), which both cultivates mood and keeps the tone balanced between melodrama and realism.

Symbolically, moonlight and shadows function as motifs for partial knowledge and fear—shadows suggest danger but can mislead. The chimney-pipe’s “round hat” shadow is a small instance of how ordinary urban elements cast uncanny impressions at night, underscoring themes of social invisibility and misrecognition that recur in the novel. Structurally, the scene serves as a calm, intimate interlude that spotlights domestic vulnerability and foreshadows future intrusions into Cosette’s sheltered life without revealing later plot developments.

Important quotes

“He had said: “I shall return in three days.””

NarratorEstablishes Jean Valjean’s brief absence that sets up Cosette’s solitude and subsequent fears.

“Hunters astray in the wood!”

NarratorLine from the chorus Cosette plays; the music is said to open the imagination and provoke her hallucinatory fear.

““I have waked you for the purpose of reassuring you,” said he; “look, there is your shadow with the round hat.””

Jean ValjeanJean Valjean dispels Cosette’s terror by showing that the frightening shadow is an ordinary chimney-pipe’s silhouette.

Characters in Volume 4, Chapter 2

• Jean Valjean
• Cosette
• Toussaint
• Narrator