CHAPTER IV

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
Baccalaureat 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 Moliere 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 Obregon de la Ronde, which M. Francois de Neufchateau 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. le Blanc.

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.