CHAPTER V--POVERTY A GOOD NEIGHBOR FOR MISERY

  Marius liked this candid old man who saw himself gradually falling intothe clutches of indigence, and who came to feel astonishment, littleby little, without, however, being made melancholy by it. Marius metCourfeyrac and sought out M. Mabeuf. Very rarely, however; twice a monthat most.

  Marius' pleasure consisted in taking long walks alone on the outerboulevards, or in the Champs-de-Mars, or in the least frequented alleysof the Luxembourg. He often spent half a day in gazing at a marketgarden, the beds of lettuce, the chickens on the dung-heap, the horseturning the water-wheel. The passers-by stared at him in surprise, andsome of them thought his attire suspicious and his mien sinister. He wasonly a poor young man dreaming in an objectless way.

  It was during one of his strolls that he had hit upon the Gorbeau house,and, tempted by its isolation and its cheapness, had taken up his abodethere. He was known there only under the name of M. Marius.

  Some of his father's old generals or old comrades had invited him to goand see them, when they learned about him. Marius had not refused theirinvitations. They afforded opportunities of talking about his father.Thus he went from time to time, to Comte Pajol, to General Bellavesne,to General Fririon, to the Invalides. There was music and dancing there.On such evenings, Marius put on his new coat. But he never went tothese evening parties or balls except on days when it was freezing cold,because he could not afford a carriage, and he did not wish to arrivewith boots otherwise than like mirrors.

  He said sometimes, but without bitterness: "Men are so made that in adrawing-room you may be soiled everywhere except on your shoes. In orderto insure a good reception there, only one irreproachable thing is askedof you; your conscience? No, your boots."

  All passions except those of the heart are dissipated by revery. Marius'political fevers vanished thus. The Revolution of 1830 assisted in theprocess, by satisfying and calming him. He remained the same, settingaside his fits of wrath. He still held the same opinions. Only, they hadbeen tempered. To speak accurately, he had no longer any opinions, hehad sympathies. To what party did he belong? To the party of humanity.Out of humanity he chose France; out of the Nation he chose the people;out of the people he chose the woman. It was to that point above all,that his pity was directed. Now he preferred an idea to a deed, apoet to a hero, and he admired a book like Job more than an event likeMarengo. And then, when, after a day spent in meditation, he returnedin the evening through the boulevards, and caught a glimpse throughthe branches of the trees of the fathomless space beyond, the namelessgleams, the abyss, the shadow, the mystery, all that which is only humanseemed very pretty indeed to him.

  He thought that he had, and he really had, in fact, arrived at the truthof life and of human philosophy, and he had ended by gazing at nothingbut heaven, the only thing which Truth can perceive from the bottom ofher well.

  This did not prevent him from multiplying his plans, his combinations,his scaffoldings, his projects for the future. In this state of revery,an eye which could have cast a glance into Marius' interior would havebeen dazzled with the purity of that soul. In fact, had it been given toour eyes of the flesh to gaze into the consciences of others, we shouldbe able to judge a man much more surely according to what he dreams,than according to what he thinks. There is will in thought, there isnone in dreams. Revery, which is utterly spontaneous, takes and keeps,even in the gigantic and the ideal, the form of our spirit. Nothingproceeds more directly and more sincerely from the very depth of oursoul, than our unpremeditated and boundless aspirations towardsthe splendors of destiny. In these aspirations, much more than indeliberate, rational co-ordinated ideas, is the real character of a manto be found. Our chimæras are the things which the most resemble us.Each one of us dreams of the unknown and the impossible in accordancewith his nature.

  Towards the middle of this year 1831, the old woman who waited on Mariustold him that his neighbors, the wretched Jondrette family, had beenturned out of doors. Marius, who passed nearly the whole of his days outof the house, hardly knew that he had any neighbors.

  "Why are they turned out?" he asked.

  "Because they do not pay their rent; they owe for two quarters."

  "How much is it?"

  "Twenty francs," said the old woman.

  Marius had thirty francs saved up in a drawer.

  "Here," he said to the old woman, "take these twenty-five francs. Payfor the poor people and give them five francs, and do not tell them thatit was I."