Chapter 204 two discoveries

Marius has been living in Gorbeau's old house, and never pays attention to other people's affairs. At that time, only he and the Jondrette family lived in that dilapidated house, and there was no one else; Jondrette was the one who paid off the rent on his behalf last time, but he had never been with the two elders. Or those two daughters talked.The other tenants have long since moved out, died, or been evicted for non-payment of rent. The sun came out a little in the afternoon that winter day, February 2, the day of the old Candlemas, the deceitful sun that often brings six weeks of cold and has triggered Inspired by Mathieu Lansberg, he left behind two lines worthy of being called classical:

But Marius came out of his cave that day, and it was almost dark, and it was time to go to supper, because there must be something to eat, alas!The incurable disease of imagined love! He was stepping over the threshold, and Bugong's mother was also sweeping the floor at that time, saying these memorable monologues: "What's cheap, now? All expensive. Only the pain of the world is cheap, it's worth nothing, the pain of the world!" Marius walked slowly along the avenue toward the rue Saint-Jacques in the direction of the wicket.He was thinking about something with his head down.

Suddenly, in the mist, he felt someone bumped into him. He turned his head and saw two young girls in ragged clothes, one was tall and thin, the other was shorter. , as if he was afraid of being overtaken by others and wanted to run away.They ran towards him, didn't see him, and touched him as soon as they got close.In the dim twilight Marius saw their sallow faces, their bare heads, their hair disheveled, clutching two shapeless bonnets, dragging on two tattered skirts, and their bare feet.They ran and talked.The older one said in a very low voice: "Lei Zi came and almost handcuffed me."

The other answered: "I see them, and I'll go, go, go!" Through that hideous slang, Marius understood that the gendarme or the municipal police had almost arrested the two children, but the two children had escaped. They went deep into the big tree beside the road behind him, and saw a faint twilight gradually disappearing into the darkness. Marius stopped and looked for a moment. He was about to continue walking, but saw a small gray bag on the ground at his feet, and he bent down to pick it up.It was something like an envelope, and it seemed to be filled with paper. "Hmph," he said, "perhaps those two poor boys lost it!"

He turned around and called them, but didn't stop them. He thought they had gone far away, so he put the paper bag in his pocket and went to have dinner. Halfway there, in a narrow alley in the Rue Mouffard, he saw a child's coffin, covered with a black cloth, placed on three chairs, and lit with a single candle.The two girls in the twilight came back to his mind.he thought: "Poor mothers! There is nothing sadder than to see your own children die, and that is to see them suffer." Then the gloomy events which had so animated him passed from his mind, and he returned to his usual recollections.He thought again of the six months he had spent in the shadow of the trees on a sunny day in the Luxembourg Gardens.

"How dark my life has become!" he thought to himself. "I see young girls all the time. But before I thought they were all angels, and now I think they're all goblins."