Les Misérables Volume IV Book 5 Chapter 3-4

In which a solitary garden bench becomes the silent messenger of an unknown correspondent, stirring tremulous alarms and tender curiosity in a young girl whose contemplations are suddenly pierced by a mysterious and delicate testament of love. Thus unfolds a poetic meditation on the transcendent and consuming nature of love, a celestial fire eternal and inscrutable, which animates the soul and gives meaning even to the shadows of absence and longing.