Kabanata Kabanata 192 · BEGINNING OF A GREAT MALADY

On the following day, at the accustomed hour, Marius drew from his

wardrobe his new coat, his new trousers, his new hat, and his new

boots; he clothed himself in this complete panoply, put on his gloves,

a tremendous luxury, and set off for the Luxembourg.

On the way thither, he encountered Courfeyrac, and pretended not to see

him. Courfeyrac, on his return home, said to his friends:—

“I have just met Marius’ new hat and new coat, with Marius inside them.

He was going to pass an examination, no doubt. He looked utterly

stupid.”

On arriving at the Luxembourg, Marius made the tour of the fountain

basin, and stared at the swans; then he remained for a long time in

contemplation before a statue whose head was perfectly black with

mould, and one of whose hips was missing. Near the basin there was a

bourgeois forty years of age, with a prominent stomach, who was holding

by the hand a little urchin of five, and saying to him: “Shun excess,

my son, keep at an equal distance from despotism and from anarchy.”

Marius listened to this bourgeois. Then he made the circuit of the

basin once more. At last he directed his course towards “his alley,”

slowly, and as if with regret. One would have said that he was both

forced to go there and withheld from doing so. He did not perceive it

himself, and thought that he was doing as he always did.

On turning into the walk, he saw M. Leblanc and the young girl at the

other end, “on their bench.” He buttoned his coat up to the very top,

pulled it down on his body so that there might be no wrinkles,

examined, with a certain complaisance, the lustrous gleams of his

trousers, and marched on the bench. This march savored of an attack,

and certainly of a desire for conquest. So I say that he marched on the

bench, as I should say: “Hannibal marched on Rome.”

However, all his movements were purely mechanical, and he had

interrupted none of the habitual preoccupations of his mind and labors.

At that moment, he was thinking that the _Manuel du Baccalauréat_ was a

stupid book, and that it must have been drawn up by rare idiots, to

allow of three tragedies of Racine and only one comedy of Molière being

analyzed therein as masterpieces of the human mind. There was a

piercing whistling going on in his ears. As he approached the bench, he

held fast to the folds in his coat, and fixed his eyes on the young

girl. It seemed to him that she filled the entire extremity of the

alley with a vague blue light.

In proportion as he drew near, his pace slackened more and more. On

arriving at some little distance from the bench, and long before he had

reached the end of the walk, he halted, and could not explain to

himself why he retraced his steps. He did not even say to himself that

he would not go as far as the end. It was only with difficulty that the

young girl could have perceived him in the distance and noted his fine

appearance in his new clothes. Nevertheless, he held himself very

erect, in case any one should be looking at him from behind.

He attained the opposite end, then came back, and this time he

approached a little nearer to the bench. He even got to within three

intervals of trees, but there he felt an indescribable impossibility of

proceeding further, and he hesitated. He thought he saw the young

girl’s face bending towards him. But he exerted a manly and violent

effort, subdued his hesitation, and walked straight ahead. A few

seconds later, he rushed in front of the bench, erect and firm,

reddening to the very ears, without daring to cast a glance either to

the right or to the left, with his hand thrust into his coat like a

statesman. At the moment when he passed,—under the cannon of the

place,—he felt his heart beat wildly. As on the preceding day, she wore

her damask gown and her crape bonnet. He heard an ineffable voice,

which must have been “her voice.” She was talking tranquilly. She was

very pretty. He felt it, although he made no attempt to see her. “She

could not, however,” he thought, “help feeling esteem and consideration

for me, if she only knew that I am the veritable author of the

dissertation on Marcos Obrégon de la Ronde, which M. François de

Neufchâteau put, as though it were his own, at the head of his edition

of _Gil Blas_.” He went beyond the bench as far as the extremity of the

walk, which was very near, then turned on his heel and passed once more

in front of the lovely girl. This time, he was very pale. Moreover, all

his emotions were disagreeable. As he went further from the bench and

the young girl, and while his back was turned to her, he fancied that

she was gazing after him, and that made him stumble.

He did not attempt to approach the bench again; he halted near the

middle of the walk, and there, a thing which he never did, he sat down,

and reflecting in the most profoundly indistinct depths of his spirit,

that after all, it was hard that persons whose white bonnet and black

gown he admired should be absolutely insensible to his splendid

trousers and his new coat.

At the expiration of a quarter of an hour, he rose, as though he were

on the point of again beginning his march towards that bench which was

surrounded by an aureole. But he remained standing there, motionless.

For the first time in fifteen months, he said to himself that that

gentleman who sat there every day with his daughter, had, on his side,

noticed him, and probably considered his assiduity singular.

For the first time, also, he was conscious of some irreverence in

designating that stranger, even in his secret thoughts, by the

sobriquet of M. Leblanc.

He stood thus for several minutes, with drooping head, tracing figures

in the sand, with the cane which he held in his hand.

Then he turned abruptly in the direction opposite to the bench, to M.

Leblanc and his daughter, and went home.

That day he forgot to dine. At eight o’clock in the evening he

perceived this fact, and as it was too late to go down to the Rue

Saint-Jacques, he said: “Never mind!” and ate a bit of bread.

He did not go to bed until he had brushed his coat and folded it up

with great care.