Page 1294 - les-miserables

and to whip up his horse.
Marius stared at the retreating cabriolet with a bewil-
dered air. For the lack of four and twenty sous, he was losing
his joy, his happiness, his love! He had seen, and he was be-
coming blind again. He reflected bitterly, and it must be
confessed, with profound regret, on the five francs which
he had bestowed, that very morning, on that miserable girl.
If he had had those five francs, he would have been saved,
he would have been born again, he would have emerged
from the limbo and darkness, he would have made his es-
cape from isolation and spleen, from his widowed state; he
might have re-knotted the black thread of his destiny to that
beautiful golden thread, which had just floated before his
eyes and had broken at the same instant, once more! He re-
turned to his hovel in despair.
He might have told himself that M. Leblanc had prom-
ised to return in the evening, and that all he had to do was
to set about the matter more skilfully, so that he might fol-
low him on that occasion; but, in his contemplation, it is
doubtful whether he had heard this.
As he was on the point of mounting the staircase, he
perceived, on the other side of the boulevard, near the de-
serted wall skirting the Rue De la Barriere-des-Gobelins,
Jondrette, wrapped in the ‘philanthropist’s’ great-coat, en-
gaged in conversation with one of those men of disquieting
aspect who have been dubbed by common consent, prowl-
ers of the barriers; people of equivocal face, of suspicious
monologues, who present the air of having evil minds, and
who generally sleep in the daytime, which suggests the sup-

1294 Les Miserables