Part 144 (1/2)

”Do you know, Mr. Marius, that you are a very handsome fellow?”

And at the same moment the same idea occurred to them both, and made her smile and him blush. She stepped up to him, and laid her hand on his shoulder: ”You pay no heed to me, but I know you, Mr. Marius. I meet you here on the staircase, and then I often see you going to a person named Father Mabeuf who lives in the direction of Austerlitz, sometimes when I have been strolling in that quarter. It is very becoming to you to have your hair tumbled thus.”

She tried to render her voice soft, but only succeeded in making it very deep. A portion of her words was lost in the transit from her larynx to her lips, as though on a piano where some notes are missing.

Marius had retreated gently.

”Mademoiselle,” said he, with his cool gravity, ”I have here a package which belongs to you, I think. Permit me to return it to you.”

And he held out the envelope containing the four letters.

She clapped her hands and exclaimed:--

”We have been looking everywhere for that!”

Then she eagerly seized the package and opened the envelope, saying as she did so:--

”Dieu de Dieu! how my sister and I have hunted! And it was you who found it! On the boulevard, was it not? It must have been on the boulevard?

You see, we let it fall when we were running. It was that brat of a sister of mine who was so stupid. When we got home, we could not find it anywhere. As we did not wish to be beaten, as that is useless, as that is entirely useless, as that is absolutely useless, we said that we had carried the letters to the proper persons, and that they had said to us: 'Nix.' So here they are, those poor letters! And how did you find out that they belonged to me? Ah! yes, the writing. So it was you that we jostled as we pa.s.sed last night. We couldn't see. I said to my sister: 'Is it a gentleman?' My sister said to me: 'I think it is a gentleman.'”

In the meanwhile she had unfolded the pet.i.tion addressed to ”the benevolent gentleman of the church of Saint-Jacquesdu-Haut-Pas.”

”Here!” said she, ”this is for that old fellow who goes to ma.s.s. By the way, this is his hour. I'll go and carry it to him. Perhaps he will give us something to breakfast on.”

Then she began to laugh again, and added:--

”Do you know what it will mean if we get a breakfast today? It will mean that we shall have had our breakfast of the day before yesterday, our breakfast of yesterday, our dinner of to-day, and all that at once, and this morning. Come! Parbleu! if you are not satisfied, dogs, burst!”

This reminded Marius of the wretched girl's errand to himself. He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and found nothing there.

The young girl went on, and seemed to have no consciousness of Marius'

presence.

”I often go off in the evening. Sometimes I don't come home again. Last winter, before we came here, we lived under the arches of the bridges.

We huddled together to keep from freezing. My little sister cried. How melancholy the water is! When I thought of drowning myself, I said to myself: 'No, it's too cold.' I go out alone, whenever I choose, I sometimes sleep in the ditches. Do you know, at night, when I walk along the boulevard, I see the trees like forks, I see houses, all black and as big as Notre Dame, I fancy that the white walls are the river, I say to myself: 'Why, there's water there!' The stars are like the lamps in illuminations, one would say that they smoked and that the wind blew them out, I am bewildered, as though horses were breathing in my ears; although it is night, I hear hand-organs and spinning-machines, and I don't know what all. I think people are flinging stones at me, I flee without knowing whither, everything whirls and whirls. You feel very queer when you have had no food.”

And then she stared at him with a bewildered air.

By dint of searching and ransacking his pockets, Marius had finally collected five francs sixteen sous. This was all he owned in the world for the moment. ”At all events,” he thought, ”there is my dinner for to-day, and to-morrow we will see.” He kept the sixteen sous, and handed the five francs to the young girl.

She seized the coin.

”Good!” said she, ”the sun is s.h.i.+ning!”

And, as though the sun had possessed the property of melting the avalanches of slang in her brain, she went on:--

”Five francs! the s.h.i.+ner! a monarch! in this hole! Ain't this fine!