United States or Pitcairn Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Marius followed them to the Rue de l'Ouest, as he had taken up the habit of doing. On arriving at the carriage entrance M. Leblanc made his daughter pass in first, then paused, before crossing the threshold, and stared intently at Marius. On the next day they did not come to the Luxembourg. Marius waited for them all day in vain.
He was getting on. "Good," thought he, "I know that her name is Ursule, that she is the daughter of a gentleman who lives on his income, and that she lives there, on the third floor, in the Rue de l'Ouest." On the following day, M. Leblanc and his daughter made only a very brief stay in the Luxembourg; they went away while it was still broad daylight.
For more than a year, Marius had noticed in one of the walks of the Luxembourg, the one which skirts the parapet of the Pepiniere, a man and a very young girl, who were almost always seated side by side on the same bench, at the most solitary end of the alley, on the Rue de l'Ouest side.
On the day when their eyes met at last, and said to each other those first, obscure, and ineffable things which the glance lisps, Cosette did not immediately understand. She returned thoughtfully to the house in the Rue de l'Ouest, where Jean Valjean, according to his custom, had come to spend six weeks.
He did not see M. Leblanc and his daughter retire. He concluded that they had quitted the garden by the gate on the Rue de l'Ouest. Later on, several weeks afterwards, when he came to think it over, he could never recall where he had dined that evening. On the following day, which was the third, Ma'am Bougon was thunderstruck. Marius went out in his new coat.
Towards seven in the evening he returned to the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, by way of the rue de Vaugiraud and the rue de l'Ouest, and he saw then how deserted the quarter was, for he met no one. It is true that the cold was rigorous, and the snow fell in great flakes, the wheels of the carriages making no noise upon the pavements. "Ah, here you are, monsieur!" said Madame Vauthier.
In the disastrous last years of Louis XIV, the court gave little thought to the New World; but under the regency of the Duke of Orleans interest in American affairs revived. Plans for reaching the Mer de l'Ouest, or Pacific Ocean, were laid before the Regent in 1716.
You lived in the Rue de l'Ouest, on the third floor, in the front apartments of a new house, you see that I know! I followed you. What else was there for me to do? And then you disappeared. I thought I saw you pass once, while I was reading the newspapers under the arcade of the Odeon. I ran after you. But no. It was a person who had a bonnet like yours. At night I came hither.
The porter, on his side, spoke, and said to Jean Valjean: "Monsieur, who is that curious young man who is asking for you?" On the morrow Jean Valjean bestowed on Marius that glance which Marius at last perceived. A week later, Jean Valjean had taken his departure. He swore to himself that he would never again set foot either in the Luxembourg or in the Rue de l'Ouest.
Then his eyes were filled with a sad and extraordinary gleam. It was no longer a man gazing at a man; it was no longer an enemy surveying an enemy. It was a dog scanning a thief. The reader knows the rest. Marius pursued his senseless course. One day he followed Cosette to the Rue de l'Ouest. Another day he spoke to the porter.
Word Of The Day