2.M.6.6. TAKEN PRISONER
ON one of the last days of the second week, Marius was
seated on his bench, as usual, holding in his hand an open book,
of which he had not turned a page for the last two hours. All
at once he started. An event was taking place at the other
extremity of the walk. Leblanc and his daughter had just
left their seat, and the daughter had taken her father's arm,
and both were advancing slowly, towards the middle of the
alley where Marius was. Marius closed his book, then opened
it again, then forced himself to read; he trembled; the aureole
was coming straight towards him. "Ah! good Heavens!"
thought he, "I shall not have time to strike an attitude."
Still the white-haired man and the girl advanced. It seemed
to him that this lasted for a century, and that it was but a
second. "What are they coming in this direction for?" he
asked himself. "What! She will pass here? Her feet will
tread this sand, this walk, two paces from me?" He was utterly
upset, he would have liked to be very handsome, he would
have liked to own the cross. He heard the soft and measured
sound of their approaching footsteps. He imagined that M.
Leblanc was darting angry glances at him. "Is that gentleman
going to address me?" he thought to himself. He dropped
his head; when he raised it again, they were very near him.
The young girl passed, and as she passed, she glanced at him.
She gazed steadily at him, with a pensive sweetness which
thrilled Marius from head to foot. It seemed to him that she
was reproaching him for having allowed so long a time to
elapse without coming as far as her, and that she was saying to
him: "I am coming myself." Marius was dazzled by those eyes
fraught with rays and abysses.
He felt his brain on fire. She had come to him, what joy!
And then, how she had looked at him! She appeared to him
more beautiful than he had ever seen her yet. Beautiful with
a beauty which was wholly feminine and angelic, with a complete
beauty which would have made Petrarch sing and Dante
kneel. It seemed to him that he was floating free in the azure
heavens. At the same time, he was horribly vexed because
there was dust on his boots.
He thought he felt sure that she had looked at his boots
too.
He followed her with his eyes until she disappeared. Then
he started up and walked about the Luxembourg garden like a
madman. It is possible that, at times, he laughed to himself
and talked aloud. He was so dreamy when he came near the
children's nurses, that each one of them thought him in love
with her.
He quitted the Luxembourg, hoping to find her again in the
street.
He encountered Courfeyrac under the arcades of the Odeon,
and said to him: "Come and dine with me." They went off
to Rousseau's and spent six francs. Marius ate like an ogre.
He gave the waiter six sous. At dessert, he said to Courfeyrac.
"Have you read the paper? What a fine discourse
Audry de Puyraveau delivered!"
He was desperately in love.
After dinner, he said to Courfeyrac: "I will treat you
to the play." They went to the Porte-Sainte-Martin to see
Frederick in l'Auberge des Adrets. Marius was
enormously
amused.
At the same time, he had a redoubled attack of shyness.
On emerging from the theatre, he refused to look at the garter
of a modiste who was stepping across a gutter, and Courfeyrac,
who said: "I should like to put that woman in my
collection," almost horrified him.
Courfeyrac invited him to breakfast at the Cafe Voltaire
on the following morning. Marius went thither, and ate even
more than on the preceding evening. He was very thoughtful
and very merry. One would have said that he was taking
advantage of every occasion to laugh uproariously. He tenderly
embraced some man or other from the provinces, who
was presented to him. A circle of students formed round the
table, and they spoke of the nonsense paid for by the State
which was uttered from the rostrum in the Sorbonne, then the
conversation fell upon the faults and omissions in Guicherat's
4 i
dictionaries and grammars. Marius interrupted the discussion
to exclaim: "But it is very agreeable, all the same to have
the cross!"
"That's queer!" whispered Courfeyrac to Jean Prouvaire.
"No," responded Prouvaire, "that's serious."
It was serious; in fact, Marius had reached that first
violent
and charming hour with which grand passions begin.
A glance had wrought all this.
When the mine is charged, when the conflagration is ready,
nothing is more simple. A glance is a spark.
It was all over with him. Marius loved a woman. His
fate was entering the unknown.
The glance of women resembles certain combinations of
wheels, which are tranquil in appearance yet formidable. You
pass close to them every day, peaceably and with impunity, and
without a suspicion of anything. A moment arrives when you
forget that the thing is there. You go and come, dream, speak,
laugh. All at once you feel yourself clutched; all is over.
The wheels hold you fast, the glance has ensnared you. It has
caught you, no matter where or how, by some portion of your
thought which was fluttering loose, by some distraction which
had attacked you. You are lost. The whole of you passes
into it. A chain of mysterious forces takes possession of you.
You struggle in vain; no more human succor is possible. You
go on falling from gearing to gearing, from agony to agony,
from torture to torture, you, your mind, your fortune, your
future, your soul; and, according to whether you are in the
power of a wicked creature, or of a noble heart, you will not
escape from this terrifying machine otherwise than disfigured
with shame, or transfigured by passion.