Page 1054 - les-miserables

CHAPTER III

REQUIESCANT

Madame de T.’s salon was all that Marius Pontmercy knew
of the world. It was the only opening through which he
could get a glimpse of life. This opening was sombre, and
more cold than warmth, more night than day, came to him
through this skylight. This child, who had been all joy and
light on entering this strange world, soon became melan-
choly, and, what is still more contrary to his age, grave.
Surrounded by all those singular and imposing personages,
he gazed about him with serious amazement. Everything
conspired to increase this astonishment in him. There were
in Madame de T.’s salon some very noble ladies named Ma-
than, Noe, Levis,—which was pronounced Levi,—Cambis,
pronounced Cambyse. These antique visages and these
Biblical names mingled in the child’s mind with the Old
Testament which he was learning by heart, and when they
were all there, seated in a circle around a dying fire, sparely
lighted by a lamp shaded with green, with their severe pro-
files, their gray or white hair, their long gowns of another
age, whose lugubrious colors could not be distinguished,
dropping, at rare intervals, words which were both majes-

1054 Les Miserables