Les Miserables Volume 3 Marius, BOOK EIGHTH. THE WICKED POOR MAN CHAPTER I

Summer passed, then the autumn; winter came. Neither M. Leblanc nor theyoung girl had again set foot in the Luxembourg garden. Thenceforth, Marius had but onethought,--to gaze once more on that sweet and adorable face. He sought constantly, hesought everywhere; he found nothing. He was no longer Marius, the enthusiastic dreamer,the firm, resolute, ardent man, the bold defier of fate, the brain which erected future onfuture, the young spirit encumbered with plans, with projects, with pride, with ideas andwishes; he was a lost dog.He fell into a black melancholy. All was over. Workdisgusted him, walking tired him. Vast nature, formerly so filled with forms, lights,voices, counsels, perspectives, horizons, teachings, now lay empty before him. It seemedto him that everything had disappeared. 　

He thought incessantly, for he could not do otherwise; but he no longertook pleasure in his thoughts. To everything that they proposed to him in a whisper, hereplied in his darkness: "What is the use?"

He heaped a hundred reproaches on himself. "Why did I follow her?I was so happy at the mere sight of her! She looked at me; was not that immense?She had the air of loving me. Was not that everything? I wished to have, what? There wasnothing after that. I have been absurd. It is my own fault," etc., etc. Courfeyrac,to whom he confided nothing,--it was his nature,-- but who made some little guess ateverything,--that was his nature,-- had begun by congratulating him on being in love,though he was amazed at it; then, seeing Marius fall into this melancholy state, he endedby saying to him: "I see that you have been simply an animal. Here, come to theChaumiere." 　

Once, having confidence in a fine September sun, Marius had allowedhimself to be taken to the ball at Sceaux by Courfeyrac, Bossuet, and Grantaire, hoping,what a dream! that he might, perhaps, find her there. Of course he did not see the one hesought.--"But this is the place, all the same, where all lost women are found,"grumbled Grantaire in an aside. Marius left his friends at the ball and returned home onfoot, alone, through the night, weary, feverish, with sad and troubled eyes, stunned bythe noise and dust of the merry wagons filled with singing creatures on their way homefrom the feast, which passed close to him, as he, in his discouragement, breathed in theacrid scent of the walnut-trees, along the road, in order to refresh his head. 　

He took to living more and more alone, utterly overwhelmed, whollygiven up to his inward anguish, going and coming in his pain like the wolf in the trap,seeking the absent one everywhere, stupefied by love.

On another occasion, he had an encounter which produced on him asingular effect. He met, in the narrow streets in the vicinity of the Boulevard desInvalides, a man dressed like a workingman and wearing a cap with a long visor, whichallowed a glimpse of locks of very white hair. Marius was struck with the beauty of thiswhite hair, and scrutinized the man, who was walking slowly and as though absorbed inpainful meditation. Strange to say, he thought that he recognized M. Leblanc. The hair wasthe same, also the profile, so far as the cap permitted a view of it, the mien identical,only more depressed. But why these workingman's clothes?What was the meaning ofthis? What signified that disguise? Marius was greatly astonished. When he recoveredhimself, his first impulse was to follow the man; who knows whether he did not hold atlast the clue which he was seeking? In any case, he must see the man near at hand, andclear up the mystery. But the idea occurred to him too late, the man was no longer there.He had turned into some little side street, and Marius could not find him. Thisencounter occupied his mind for three days and then was effaced. "After all," hesaid to himself, "it was probably only a resemblance."