Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [150]
We shall see further on that this man did in fact hire a room in this isolated quarter.
This man, in his dress as in his whole person, realised the type of what might be called the mendicant of good society—extreme misery being combined with extreme neatness. It is a rare coincidence which inspires intelligent hearts with this double respect that we feel for him who is very poor and for him who is very worthy. He wore a round hat, very old and carefully brushed, a long coat, completely threadbare, of coarse yellow cloth, a colour which was in nowise extraordinary at that epoch, a large waistcoat with pockets of antique style, black trousers worn grey at the knees, black woollen stockings, and thick shoes with copper buckles. One would have called him an old preceptor of a good family, returned from the emigration. From his hair, which was entirely white, from his wrinkled brow, from his livid lips, from his face in which everything breathed exhaustion and weariness of life, one would have supposed him considerably over sixty. From his firm though slow step, and the singular vigour impressed upon all his motions, one would hardly have thought him fifty. The wrinkles on his forehead were well disposed, and would have prepossessed in his favour any one who observed him with attention. His lip contracted with a strange expression, which seemed severe and yet which was humble. There was in the depths of his eye an indescribably mournful serenity. He carried in his left hand a small package tied in a handkerchief, with his right he leaned upon a sort of staff cut from a hedge. This staff had been finished with some care, and did not look very badly; the knots were smoothed down, and a coral head had been formed with red wax; it was a cudgel, and it seemed a cane.
There are few people on that boulevard, especially in winter. This man appeared to avoid them rather than seek them, but without affectation.
At a quarter past four, that is to say, after dark, he passed in front of the theatre of the Porte Saint Martin where the play that day was The Two Convicts. The poster, lit up by the reflection from the theatre, seemed to strike him, for, although he was walking rapidly, he stopped to read it. A moment after, he was in the cul-de-sac de la Planchette, and entered the Pewter platter, which was then the office of the Lagny stage. This stage started at half past four. The horses were harnessed, and the travellers, who had been called by the driver hastily, were climbing the high iron steps of the vehicle.
The man asked:
“Have you a seat?”
“Only one, beside me, on the box,” said the driver.
“I will take it.”
“Get up then.”
Before starting, however, the driver cast a glance at the poor apparel of the traveller, and at the smallness of his bundle, and took his pay.
“Are you going through to Lagny?” asked the driver.
“Yes,” said the man.
The traveller paid through to Lagny.
They started off. When they had passed the barrière, the driver tried to start a conversation, but the traveller answered only in monosyllables. The driver concluded to whistle, and swear at his horses.
The driver wrapped himself up in his cloak. It was cold. The man did not appear to notice it. In this way they passed through Gournay and Neuilly sur Marne. About six o‘clock in the evening they were at Chelles. The driver stopped to let his horses blow, in front of the waggoners’ tavern established in the old buildings of the royal abbey.
“I will get down here,” said the man.
He took his bundle and stick, and jumped down from the stage.
A moment afterwards he had disappeared.
He did not go into the tavern.
When, a few minutes afterwards, the stage started off for Lagny, it did not overtake him in the main street of Chelles.
The man had not sunk into the ground, but he had hurried rapidly in the darkness along the main street of Chelles; then he had turned