Page 214 - les-miserables

gold and pearls for her dowry; but her gold was on her head,
and her pearls were in her mouth.
She worked for her living; then, still for the sake of her
living,— for the heart, also, has its hunger,—she loved.
She loved Tholomyes.
An amour for him; passion for her. The streets of the Lat-
in quarter, filled with throngs of students and grisettes, saw
the beginning of their dream. Fantine had long evaded Tho-
lomyes in the mazes of the hill of the Pantheon, where so
many adventurers twine and untwine, but in such a way as
constantly to encounter him again. There is a way of avoid-
ing which resembles seeking. In short, the eclogue took
place.
Blachevelle, Listolier, and Fameuil formed a sort of group
of which Tholomyes was the head. It was he who possessed
the wit.
Tholomyes was the antique old student; he was rich;
he had an income of four thousand francs; four thousand
francs! a splendid scandal on Mount Sainte-Genevieve.
Tholomyes was a fast man of thirty, and badly preserved.
He was wrinkled and toothless, and he had the beginning
of a bald spot, of which he himself said with sadness, the
skull at thirty, the knee at forty. His digestion was medio-
cre, and he had been attacked by a watering in one eye. But
in proportion as his youth disappeared, gayety was kindled;
he replaced his teeth with buffooneries, his hair with mirth,
his health with irony, his weeping eye laughed incessantly.
He was dilapidated but still in flower. His youth, which was
packing up for departure long before its time, beat a retreat

214 Les Miserables