That evening, as he was undressing, his hand came in contact, in the pocket of his coat, with the packet which he had picked up on the boulevard. He had forgotten it. He thought that it might contain the address of the young girls, or at least the information necessary to a restitution. He opened the envelope. It was not sealed and contained four letters, also unsealed. They bore addresses. All four exhaled a horrible odour of tobacco.
The first asked clemency of a marquise in the name of a Spanish captain, a royalist refugee full of wounds. The second was an unhappy mother of six, abandoned, the last child only eight months old. The third begged a stocking merchant to protect a man of letters who had just sent a drama to the theatre, and who would send his daughter because sad motives connected with the toilet did not permit him to go out. Even if it is only forty sous. The fourth invited a benevolent gentleman of a church to accompany a daughter and behold a miserable calamity. After perusing these four letters, Marius did not find himself much further advanced. Not one of the signers gave his address. They seemed to come from four different individuals. But the singular thing was that all four were written by the same hand. The coarse and yellow paper was the same, the odour of tobacco was the same, and although an attempt had been made to vary the style, the same faults were reproduced with the greatest tranquillity. What conclusion was to be drawn, except that they all came from the same person?
It was waste of trouble to try to solve this petty mystery. Marius was too melancholy to take even a chance pleasantry well. It seemed to him that he was playing the part of the blind man in the blindfolded game between the four letters, and that they were making sport of him. Nothing indicated that these letters belonged to the two girls. They were evidently papers of no value. Marius replaced them in their envelope, flung the whole into a corner, and went to bed. About seven o'clock in the morning he had just risen and breakfasted, and was trying to settle down to work, when there came a soft knock at his door. As he owned nothing, he never locked his door. You will be robbed, said Ma'am Bougon. Of what? said Marius. There came a second knock, as gentle as the first. Come in, said Marius. What do you want, Ma'am Bougon? he asked, without raising his eyes. A voice which did not belong to Ma'am Bougon replied: Excuse me, sir. It was a dull, broken, hoarse, strangled voice, the voice of an old man, roughened with brandy. Marius turned round hastily, and beheld a young girl.
Coming Up in Chapter 204
A very young girl was standing in the half-open door. The dormer window illuminated her with a wan light. She was a frail, emaciated creature, with nothing but a chemise and a petticoat on that shivering nakedness. Fifty years were already mingled with fifteen.
