On the following day, at the accustomed hour, Marius drew from his wardrobe his new coat, his new trousers, his new hat, and his new boots. He clothed himself in this complete panoply, put on his gloves, a tremendous luxury, and set off for the Luxembourg. On the way he encountered Courfeyrac and pretended not to see him. Courfeyrac, on his return home, said to his friends that he had just met Marius's new hat and new coat, with Marius inside them. He was going to pass an examination, no doubt. He looked utterly stupid. On arriving, Marius made the tour of the fountain basin and stared at the swans, then remained a long time before a statue whose head was black with mould and one of whose hips was missing. Near the basin a bourgeois of forty, with a prominent stomach, was holding a little urchin of five and saying: Shun excess, my son, keep at an equal distance from despotism and from anarchy. Marius listened. Then he made the circuit once more. At last he directed his course towards his alley, slowly, and as if with regret. One would have said that he was both forced to go there and withheld from doing so. He did not perceive it himself, and thought that he was doing as he always did.
On turning into the walk he saw Leblanc and the young girl at the other end, on their bench. He buttoned his coat up to the very top, pulled it down so that there might be no wrinkles, examined the lustrous gleams of his trousers, and marched on the bench. This march savoured of an attack, and certainly of a desire for conquest. He marched on the bench as Hannibal marched on Rome. Yet all his movements were purely mechanical. At that moment he was thinking that the Manuel du Baccalauréat was a stupid book, drawn up by rare idiots, to allow of three tragedies of Racine and only one comedy of Molière. There was a piercing whistling in his ears. As he approached, he held fast to the folds in his coat and fixed his eyes on the young girl. It seemed to him that she filled the entire extremity of the alley with a vague blue light. In proportion as he drew near, his pace slackened. Long before the end of the walk he halted, and could not explain to himself why he retraced his steps. Nevertheless he held himself very erect, in case anyone should be looking at him from behind. He attained the opposite end, came back, and got to within three intervals of trees. There he felt an indescribable impossibility of proceeding further. He thought he saw the young girl's face bending towards him. He exerted a manly and violent effort, subdued his hesitation, and walked straight ahead. A few seconds later he rushed in front of the bench, erect and firm, reddening to the very ears, without daring to cast a glance either to the right or to the left, with his hand thrust into his coat like a statesman. He felt his heart beat wildly. She wore her damask gown and her crape bonnet. He heard an ineffable voice, which must have been her voice. She was talking tranquilly. She was very pretty. He felt it, although he made no attempt to see her. She could not, he thought, help feeling esteem for him if she only knew that he was the veritable author of the dissertation on Marcos Obrégon de la Ronde, which François de Neufchâteau had put, as though it were his own, at the head of his edition of Gil Blas. He went beyond the bench, turned, and passed once more. This time he was very pale. All his emotions were disagreeable. While his back was turned he fancied that she was gazing after him, and that made him stumble.
He did not attempt to approach the bench again. He halted near the middle of the walk, and there, a thing which he never did, he sat down, reflecting that it was hard that persons whose white bonnet and black gown he admired should be absolutely insensible to his splendid trousers and his new coat. After a quarter of an hour he rose as though to begin the march again toward that bench surrounded by an aureole. He remained standing, motionless. For the first time in fifteen months he said to himself that the gentleman who sat there every day had, on his side, noticed him, and probably considered his assiduity singular. For the first time, also, he was conscious of some irreverence in designating that stranger, even in his secret thoughts, by the sobriquet of Leblanc. He stood thus for several minutes, with drooping head, tracing figures in the sand with his cane. Then he turned abruptly in the opposite direction and went home. That day he forgot to dine. At eight o'clock he perceived this fact, and as it was too late to go down to the Rue Saint-Jacques, he said: Never mind, and ate a bit of bread. He did not go to bed until he had brushed his coat and folded it up with great care.
