There was one circumstance which, it must be admitted, aggravated his exasperation. There are always petty fatalities of the sort which complicate domestic dramas.
They augment the grievances in such cases, although, in reality, the wrongs are not increased by them. While carrying Marius' "duds" precipitately to his chamber, at his grandfather's command, Nicolette had, inadvertently, let fall, probably, on the attic staircase, which was dark, that medallion of black shagreen which contained the paper penned by the colonel. Neither paper nor case could afterwards be found.
Marius was convinced that "Monsieur Gillenormand"--from that day forth he never alluded to him otherwise--had flung "his father's testament" in the fire.
He knew by heart the few lines which the colonel had written, and, consequently, nothing was lost.
But the paper, the writing, that sacred relic,--all that was his very heart. What had been done with it?
Marius had taken his departure without saying whither he was going, and without knowing where, with thirty francs, his watch, and a few clothes in a hand-bag. He had entered a hackney-coach, had engaged it by the hour, and had directed his course at hap-hazard towards the Latin quarter.
What was to become of Marius?
BOOK FOURTH.--THE FRIENDS OF THE A B C
CHAPTER I
A GROUP WHICH BARELY MISSED BECOMING HISTORIC
At that epoch, which was, to all appearances indifferent, a certain revolutionary quiver was vaguely current.
Breaths which had started forth from the depths of '89 and '93 were in the air.
Youth was on the point, may the reader pardon us the word, of moulting. People were undergoing a transformation, almost without being conscious of it, through the movement of the age.
The needle which moves round the compass also moves in souls.
Each person was taking that step in advance which he was bound to take. The Royalists were becoming liberals, liberals were turning democrats. It was a flood tide complicated with a thousand ebb movements; the peculiarity of ebbs is to create intermixtures; hence the combination of very singular ideas; people adored both Napoleon and liberty. We are making history here.
These were the mirages of that period. Opinions traverse phases.
Voltairian royalism, a quaint variety, had a no less singular sequel, Bonapartist liberalism.
Other groups of minds were more serious.