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    Download without Limit " Les Miserables 5 Jean Valjean, BOOK EIGHTH.--FADING AWAY OF THE TWILIGHT CHAPTER IV ATTRACTION AND EXTINCTION " from UseNet for FREE!

During the last months of spring and the first months of summer in 1833, the rare

passersby in the Marais, the petty shopkeepers, the loungers on thresholds, noticed an old

man neatly clad in black, who emerged every day at the same hour, towards nightfall, from

the Rue de l'Homme Arme, on the side of the Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, passed in

front of the Blancs Manteaux, gained the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine, and, on arriving at

the Rue de l'Echarpe, turned to the left, and entered the Rue Saint-Louis. .

There he walked at a slow pace, with his head strained forward, seeing nothing, hearing

nothing, his eye immovably fixed on a point which seemed to be a star to him, which never

varied, and which was no other than the corner of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. The

nearer he approached the corner of the street the more his eye lighted up; a sort of joy

illuminated his pupils like an inward aurora, he had a fascinated and much affected air,

his lips indulged in obscure movements, as though he were talking to some one whom he did

not see, he smiled vaguely and advanced as slowly as possible. One would have said that,

while desirous of reaching his destination, he feared the moment when he should be close

at hand. When only a few houses remained between him and that street which appeared to

attract him his pace slackened, to such a degree that, at times, one might have thought

that he was no longer advancing at all. The vacillation of his head and the fixity of his

eyeballs suggested the thought of the magnetic needle seeking the pole. Whatever time he

spent on arriving, he was obliged to arrive at last; he reached the Rue des

Filles-du-Calvaire; then he halted, he trembled, he thrust his head with a sort of

melancholy timidity round the corner of the last house, and gazed into that street, and

there was in that tragic look something which resembled the dazzling light of the

impossible, and the reflection from a paradise that was closed to him. Then a tear, which

had slowly gathered in the corner of his lids, and had become large enough to fall,

trickled down his cheek, and sometimes stopped at his mouth. The old man tasted its bitter

flavor. Thus he remained for several minutes as though made of stone, then he returned by

the same road and with the same step, and, in proportion as he retreated, his glance died

out. .

Little by little, this old man ceased to go as far as the corner of the Rue des

Filles-du-Calvaire; he halted half way in the Rue Saint-Louis; sometimes a little further

off, sometimes a little nearer. .

One day he stopped at the corner of the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine and looked at the

Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire from a distance. Then he shook his head slowly from left to

left, as though refusing himself something, and retraced his steps. .

Soon he no longer came as far as the Rue Saint-Louis. He got as far as the Rue Pavee,

shook his head and turned back; then he went no further than the Rue des Trois-Pavillons;

then he did not overstep the Blancs-Manteaux. One would have said that he was a pendulum

which was no longer wound up, and whose oscillations were growing shorter before ceasing

altogether. .

Every day he emerged from his house at the same hour, he undertook the same trip, but

he no longer completed it, and, perhaps without himself being aware of the fact, he

constantly shortened it. His whole countenance expressed this single idea: What is the

use?-- His eye was dim; no more radiance. His tears were also exhausted; they no longer

collected in the corner of his eye-lid; that thoughtful eye was dry. The old man's head

was still craned forward; his chin moved at times; the folds in his gaunt neck were

painful to behold. Sometimes, when the weather was bad, he had an umbrella under his arm,

but he never opened it. .

The good women of the quarter said: "He is an innocent." The children

followed him and laughed. .

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