Page 2388 - les-miserables

CHAPTER IV

ATTRACTION AND

EXTINCTION

During the last months of spring and the first months
of summer in 1833, the rare passersby in the Marais, the
petty shopkeepers, the loungers on thresholds, noticed an
old man neatly clad in black, who emerged every day at the
same hour, towards nightfall, from the Rue de l’Homme
Arme, on the side of the Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Breton-
nerie, passed in front of the Blancs Manteaux, gained the
Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine, and, on arriving at the Rue
de l’Echarpe, turned to the left, and entered the Rue Saint-
Louis.
There he walked at a slow pace, with his head strained
forward, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, his eye immov-
ably fixed on a point which seemed to be a star to him, which
never varied, and which was no other than the corner of the
Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. The nearer he approached the
corner of the street the more his eye lighted up; a sort of joy
illuminated his pupils like an inward aurora, he had a fas-
cinated and much affected air, his lips indulged in obscure

2388 Les Miserables