CHAPTER II--TREASURE TROVE

  Marius had not left the Gorbeau house. He paid no attention to any onethere.

  At that epoch, to tell the truth, there were no other inhabitants in thehouse, except himself and those Jondrettes whose rent he had once paid,without, moreover, ever having spoken to either father, mother, ordaughters. The other lodgers had moved away or had died, or had beenturned out in default of payment.

  One day during that winter, the sun had shown itself a little in theafternoon, but it was the 2d of February, that ancient Candlemasday whose treacherous sun, the precursor of a six weeks' cold spell,inspired Mathieu Laensberg with these two lines, which have with justiceremained classic:--

  Qu'il luise ou qu'il luiserne, L'ours rentre dans en sa caverne.26

  Marius had just emerged from his: night was falling. It was the hour forhis dinner; for he had been obliged to take to dining again, alas! oh,infirmities of ideal passions!

  He had just crossed his threshold, where Ma'am Bougon was sweeping atthe moment, as she uttered this memorable monologue:--

  "What is there that is cheap now? Everything is dear. There is nothingin the world that is cheap except trouble; you can get that for nothing,the trouble of the world!"

  Marius slowly ascended the boulevard towards the barrier, in order toreach the Rue Saint-Jacques. He was walking along with drooping head.

  All at once, he felt some one elbow him in the dusk; he wheeled round,and saw two young girls clad in rags, the one tall and slim, the other alittle shorter, who were passing rapidly, all out of breath, in terror,and with the appearance of fleeing; they had been coming to meet him,had not seen him, and had jostled him as they passed. Through thetwilight, Marius could distinguish their livid faces, their wild heads,their dishevelled hair, their hideous bonnets, their ragged petticoats,and their bare feet. They were talking as they ran. The taller said in avery low voice:--

  "The bobbies have come. They came near nabbing me at the half-circle."The other answered: "I saw them. I bolted, bolted, bolted!"

  Through this repulsive slang, Marius understood that gendarmes or thepolice had come near apprehending these two children, and that thelatter had escaped.

  They plunged among the trees of the boulevard behind him, and therecreated, for a few minutes, in the gloom, a sort of vague white spot,then disappeared.

  Marius had halted for a moment.

  He was about to pursue his way, when his eye lighted on a little grayishpackage lying on the ground at his feet. He stooped and picked it up. Itwas a sort of envelope which appeared to contain papers.

  "Good," he said to himself, "those unhappy girls dropped it."

  He retraced his steps, he called, he did not find them; he reflectedthat they must already be far away, put the package in his pocket, andwent off to dine.

  On the way, he saw in an alley of the Rue Mouffetard, a child's coffin,covered with a black cloth resting on three chairs, and illuminated by acandle. The two girls of the twilight recurred to his mind.

  "Poor mothers!" he thought. "There is one thing sadder than to see one'schildren die; it is to see them leading an evil life."

  Then those shadows which had varied his melancholy vanished from histhoughts, and he fell back once more into his habitual preoccupations.He fell to thinking once more of his six months of love and happinessin the open air and the broad daylight, beneath the beautiful trees ofLuxembourg.

  "How gloomy my life has become!" he said to himself. "Young girls arealways appearing to me, only formerly they were angels and now they areghouls."