It’s a sunny Monday afternoon in Paris, and our class is on a search for the zigzag. More specifically, we’re looking for the twists and turns of the path that Jean Valjean and Cosette take in Les Miserables as they try to escape from the sight of Javert, who is chasing behind them:

“Jean Valjean had immediately turned off the boulevard and plunged into the narrower streets, striking off in a different direction as often as he could, sometimes abruptly retracing his steps to make sure he was not being followed” (Hugo 405).

The fifth arrondissement of Paris is charming and calmer than I expected. We’re tracing the “labyrinthine routes in the Mouffetard district” (Hugo 405). Tan, yellow and white buildings line the narrow, cobblestone Rue Mouffetard. On my left I pass the smell of kebab and fried goodness, and on my right, the cigarette smoke from Parisians at a bustling cafe. The sun is friendly on this Monday afternoon– I watch a butterfly dance through the warm air before me and into vibrant, stretching vines hanging from a window above.

I’m exhausted today, from hustling through class excursions and not getting enough sleep. Maybe it’s better for the experience this way– was little Cosette sleepy too, when Jean Valjean pulled her from bed and brought her on the zigzag course?

Rue Mouffetard is darling, but as I stroll through I can’t help but think how so many of the streets in Paris look alike. Maybe it’s because I’m a tourist, but I had thought that after being in Paris for nearly three weeks I would understand the arrondissements a bit more. Did the Paris streets look alike in Jean Valjean's time as well? If so, I couldn’t even imagine how difficult the zigzag chase must have been– and at night! Have we been through this street before? Have we passed that park, that tree, that lamp before?

We dip into a tiny side street, and I instantly see tall Jean Valjean holding Cosette’s hand. The entrance to this street is almost missable in the daylight and certainly missable at night. With the cobblestone beneath me and the slim slice of sky above– this is the perfect street for a zigzag chase!

A pink bike rests on the right side of the street, across from a thick bush. I watch the breeze sway some long vines that almost entirely cover the side of another building on the left. I feel peaceful. I think about the pink bike, and its story. I imagine that it’s waiting for a little girl to come home and take it for a ride down a cobblestone zigzag course.

This narrow street is bright but (nearly) fully in the shade. I try to imagine how it might’ve looked for Jean Valjean. Was the street pitch-black, or did the moon shine one one side? “There was a full moon that night… Still very low on the horizon, the moon divided the streets into great blocks of light and shadow” (Hugo 405).

I imagine myself as little Cosette, holding tight onto Jean Valjean’s hand. Was the silence chilling? Were there any lamps lit along the course? What did she think (before Valjean told her the Thenardiers were coming for her) the two of them were doing? Where did she think they were going? Maybe she thought the zigzag was something fun and exciting, as young children do, unaware of danger or fear in the air. Did she recognize any dark streets of Paris? What kinds of thoughts were going through her head?

Maybe these curiosities are too much for Cosette’s simplistic characterization. Perhaps all she truly felt was Valjean’s hand around hers: “And anyway, being with him, she felt safe” (Hugo 405).

As I “bookpack” this narrow street, something in the relationship between Cosette and Valjean is illuminated for me. Hugo tells us that Cosette felt safe with Valjean as they scurry through these dark and narrow streets of the fifth arrondissement. In such a simple description, Hugo so poignantly reveals this magical feeling of being a child and feeling totally protected and guided by a loved parent. He shows us such a genuine sensitivity to this childlike feeling of seeing a hero in a parent: “He trusted in God as she trusted in him” (Hugo 405).

Suddenly, in my envisioning of myself as Cosette, I see my own little self. I’m there, in that narrow side street at night, holding the hand of my own father. All the chaos, the uncertainty, the Big and Bad of the world, is far away. In the darkest of nights, in the most desperate moments, there is that hand reaching out, offering safety, guidance, comfort. Our zigzag path is unknown, but for little me, he knows exactly where he is taking us. There is darkness, there is the moon, and there is his hand holding mine, and that is enough.

I make my way through the other end of the narrow street, back into the sun, back to zigzagging. We continue tracing the possible path from the book, and I think about what Hugo’s childhood might have been like. Did he see a hero in his father as a young boy? Did he miss that feeling, as a matured adult writing Les Miserables? Did Hugo see his own daughters in Cosette in any way? What did he want us to see in that description of Valjean and Cosette at night?

The farther I walk from that narrow side street, the less I see Cosette and Jean Valjean. I’ve lost them now. They’re somewhere in the zigzag, across a bridge, through an alleyway and over a wall, hiding somewhere. I’m left strolling the streets of the fifth arrondissement and feeling nostalgic, missing the warmth of a guiding hand.