Un cœur sous une pierre
song cycle for tenor and piano
In Victor Hugo's literary masterpiece Les Misérables, there is a pair of chapters in which Cosette discovers an envelope which Marius left for her to find, which contains a notebook with some poems and musings about love. This song cycle is adapted from those two chapters. The first movement is a condensed version of the narrative chapter, which I have abridged to fit within a single song, and the rest of the cycle will be selections from the next chapter which is the contents of the notebook.
This cycle is still a work in progress. I have written the first two movements and will continue to curate selections from the notebook for the remaining movements in the cycle.
(first two movements)
adapted from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo; Volume 4, Book 5, Chapters 3-4
Dans le jardin, près de la grille sur la rue, il y avait un banc de pierre.
Un soir de ce même mois d’avril, Cosette, après le soleil couché, s’était assise sur ce banc.
Elle remarqua à la place qu’elle avait quittée une assez grosse pierre qui n’y était évidemment pas l’instant d’auparavant.
Tout à coup l’idée que cette pierre n’était point venue sur ce banc toute seule, que quelqu’un l’avait mise là.
— Bah ! dit-elle, voyons donc.
Elle souleva cette pierre qui était assez grosse. Il y avait dessous quelque chose qui ressemblait à une lettre.
Cosette tira de l’enveloppe ce qu’elle contenait, un petit cahier de papier dont chaque page était numérotée et portait quelques lignes écrites d’une écriture assez jolie, et très fine.
Elle se dit qu’il fallait qu’elle sût ce qu’il y avait là dedans.
Voici ce qu’elle lut :
La réduction de l’univers à un seul être,
la dilatation d’un seul être jusqu’à Dieu,
voilà l’amour.
In the garden, near the railing on the street, there was a stone bench.
One evening during that same month of April, Cosette had seated herself on this bench after sundown.
She observed on the spot which she had quitted, a tolerably large stone which had, evidently, not been there a moment before.
All at once the idea occurred to her that the stone had not reached the bench all by itself, that some one had placed it there.
"Bah!" said she, "come, let us see what it is."
She lifted the stone, which was tolerably large. Beneath it was something which resembled a letter.
Cosette drew from the envelope its contents, a little notebook of paper, each page of which was numbered and bore a few lines in a very fine and rather pretty handwriting.
She said to herself that she must know what it contained.
This is what she read:
The reduction of the universe to a single being,
the expansion of a single being even to God,
that is love.
Un cœur sous une pierre
Copyright © 2026 by Daniel Ahlgren; All rights reserved.