He thought no more about the girl now that she was beautiful than he had when she was homely.
He passed very near the bench where she sat, because such was his habit.
CHAPTER III—EFFECT OF THE SPRING
One day, the air was warm, the Luxembourg was inundated with light and shade, the sky was as pure as though the angels had washed it that morning, the sparrows were giving vent to little twitters in the depths of the chestnut-trees.
Marius had thrown open his whole soul to nature, he was not thinking of anything, he simply lived and breathed, he passed near the bench, the young girl raised her eyes to him, the two glances met.
What was there in the young girl’s glance on this occasion?
Marius could not have told.
There was nothing and there was everything.
It was a strange flash.
She dropped her eyes, and he pursued his way.
What he had just seen was no longer the ingenuous and simple eye of a child; it was a mysterious gulf which had half opened, then abruptly closed again.
There comes a day when the young girl glances in this manner.
Woe to him who chances to be there!
That first gaze of a soul which does not, as yet, know itself, is like the dawn in the sky.
It is the awakening of something radiant and strange.
Nothing can give any idea of the dangerous charm of that unexpected gleam, which flashes suddenly and vaguely forth from adorable shadows, and which is composed of all the innocence of the present, and of all the passion of the future.
It is a sort of undecided tenderness which reveals itself by chance, and which waits.
It is a snare which the innocent maiden sets unknown to herself, and in which she captures hearts without either wishing or knowing it.
It is a virgin looking like a woman.
It is rare that a profound reverie does not spring from that glance, where it falls.
All purities and all candors meet in that celestial and fatal gleam which, more than all the best-planned tender glances of coquettes, possesses the magic power of causing the sudden blossoming, in the depths of the soul, of that sombre flower, impregnated with perfume and with poison, which is called love.
That evening, on his return to his garret, Marius cast his eyes over his garments, and perceived, for the first time, that he had been so slovenly, indecorous, and inconceivably stupid as to go for his walk in the Luxembourg with his “every-day clothes,” that is to say, with a hat battered near the band, coarse carter’s boots, black trousers which showed white at the knees, and a black coat which was pale at the elbows.
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.