Page 1461 - les-miserables

Marius surveyed by a calm and real, although peculiar light,
what passed before his eyes, even the most indifferent deeds
and men; he pronounced a just criticism on everything with
a sort of honest dejection and candid disinterestedness. His
judgment, which was almost wholly disassociated from
hope, held itself aloof and soared on high.
In this state of mind nothing escaped him, nothing de-
ceived him, and every moment he was discovering the
foundation of life, of humanity, and of destiny. Happy, even
in the midst of anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul
worthy of love and of unhappiness! He who has not viewed
the things of this world and the heart of man under this
double light has seen nothing and knows nothing of the
true.
The soul which loves and suffers is in a state of sublim-
ity.
However, day followed day, and nothing new presented
itself. It merely seemed to him, that the sombre space which
still remained to be traversed by him was growing short-
er with every instant. He thought that he already distinctly
perceived the brink of the bottomless abyss.
‘What!’ he repeated to himself, ‘shall I not see her again
before then!’
When you have ascended the Rue Saint-Jacques, left the
barrier on one side and followed the old inner boulevard for
some distance, you reach the Rue de la Sante, then the Gla-
ciere, and, a little while before arriving at the little river of
the Gobelins, you come to a sort of field which is the only
spot in the long and monotonous chain of the boulevards of

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