Strange to say, she had grown poorer and prettier, two steps which it had not seemed within her power to take.
She had accomplished a double progress, towards the light and towards distress.
She was barefooted and in rags, as on the day when she had so resolutely entered his chamber, only her rags were two months older now, the holes were larger, the tatters more sordid.
It was the same harsh voice, the same brow dimmed and wrinkled with tan, the same free, wild, and vacillating glance.
She had besides, more than formerly, in her face that indescribably terrified and lamentable something which sojourn in a prison adds to wretchedness.
She had bits of straw and hay in her hair, not like Ophelia through having gone mad from the contagion of Hamlet’s madness, but because she had slept in the loft of some stable.
And in spite of it all, she was beautiful.
What a star art thou, O youth!
In the meantime, she had halted in front of Marius with a trace of joy in her livid countenance, and something which resembled a smile.
She stood for several moments as though incapable of speech.
“So I have met you at last!” she said at length.
“Father Mabeuf was right, it was on this boulevard!
How I have hunted for you! If you only knew!
Do you know? I have been in the jug.
A fortnight!
They let me out! seeing that there was nothing against me, and that, moreover, I had not reached years of discretion.
I lack two months of it.
Oh! how I have hunted for you!
These six weeks!
So you don’t live down there any more?”
“No,” said Marius.
“Ah!
I understand.
Because of that affair.
Those take-downs are disagreeable.
You cleared out.
Come now!
Why do you wear old hats like this!
A young man like you ought to have fine clothes.
Do you know, Monsieur Marius, Father Mabeuf calls you Baron Marius, I don’t know what.
It isn’t true that you are a baron?
Barons are old fellows, they go to the Luxembourg, in front of the chateau, where there is the most sun, and they read the Quotidienne for a sou.
I once carried a letter to a baron of that sort.
He was over a hundred years old.
Say, where do you live now?”
Marius made no reply.
“Ah!” she went on, “you have a hole in your shirt.
I must sew it up for you.”
She resumed with an expression which gradually clouded over:—
“You don’t seem glad to see me.”
Marius held his peace; she remained silent for a moment, then exclaimed:—
“But if I choose, nevertheless, I could force you to look glad!”
“What?” demanded Marius. “What do you mean?”
“Ah! you used to call me thou,” she retorted.
“Well, then, what dost thou mean?”
She bit her lips; she seemed to hesitate, as though a prey to some sort of inward conflict.
At last she appeared to come to a decision.
“So much the worse, I don’t care.
You have a melancholy air, I want you to be pleased.
Only promise me that you will smile.