CHAPTER II—BLONDEAU’S FUNERAL ORATION BY BOSSUET
On a certain afternoon, which had, as will be seen hereafter, some coincidence with the events heretofore related, Laigle de Meaux was to be seen leaning in a sensual manner against the doorpost of the Cafe Musain.
He had the air of a caryatid on a vacation; he carried nothing but his reverie, however.
He was staring at the Place Saint-Michel.
To lean one’s back against a thing is equivalent to lying down while standing erect, which attitude is not hated by thinkers.
Laigle de Meaux was pondering without melancholy, over a little misadventure which had befallen him two days previously at the law-school, and which had modified his personal plans for the future, plans which were rather indistinct in any case.
Reverie does not prevent a cab from passing by, nor the dreamer from taking note of that cab.
Laigle de Meaux, whose eyes were straying about in a sort of diffuse lounging, perceived, athwart his somnambulism, a two-wheeled vehicle proceeding through the place, at a foot pace and apparently in indecision.
For whom was this cabriolet?
Why was it driving at a walk?
Laigle took a survey.
In it, beside the coachman, sat a young man, and in front of the young man lay a rather bulky hand-bag.
The bag displayed to passers-by the following name inscribed in large black letters on a card which was sewn to the stuff: MARIUS PONTMERCY.
This name caused Laigle to change his attitude.
He drew himself up and hurled this apostrophe at the young man in the cabriolet:—
“Monsieur Marius Pontmercy!”
The cabriolet thus addressed came to a halt.
The young man, who also seemed deeply buried in thought, raised his eyes:—
“Hey?” said he.
“You are M. Marius Pontmercy?”
“Certainly.”
“I was looking for you,” resumed Laigle de Meaux.
“How so?” demanded Marius; for it was he: in fact, he had just quitted his grandfather’s, and had before him a face which he now beheld for the first time.
“I do not know you.”
“Neither do I know you,” responded Laigle.
Marius thought he had encountered a wag, the beginning of a mystification in the open street.
He was not in a very good humor at the moment.
He frowned.
Laigle de Meaux went on imperturbably:—
“You were not at the school day before yesterday.”
“That is possible.”
“That is certain.”
“You are a student?” demanded Marius.
“Yes, sir. Like yourself.
Day before yesterday, I entered the school, by chance.
You know, one does have such freaks sometimes.
The professor was just calling the roll.
You are not unaware that they are very ridiculous on such occasions.
At the third call, unanswered, your name is erased from the list. Sixty francs in the gulf.”
Marius began to listen.
“It was Blondeau who was making the call.
You know Blondeau, he has a very pointed and very malicious nose, and he delights to scent out the absent.
He slyly began with the letter P.
I was not listening, not being compromised by that letter.
The call was not going badly.
No erasures; the universe was present.
Blondeau was grieved. I said to myself:
‘Blondeau, my love, you will not get the very smallest sort of an execution to-day.’
All at once Blondeau calls,
‘Marius Pontmercy!’