1752 Les Miserables
undressing, on his mattress. The sun was shining brightly
when he sank into that frightful leaden slumber which per-
mits ideas to go and come in the brain. When he awoke, he
saw Courfeyrac, Enjolras, Feuilly, and Combeferre standing
in the room with their hats on and all ready to go out.
Courfeyrac said to him:—
‘Are you coming to General Lamarque’s funeral?’
It seemed to him that Courfeyrac was speaking Chi-
nese.
He went out some time after them. He put in his pocket
the pistols which Javert had given him at the time of the ad-
venture on the 3d of February, and which had remained in
his hands. These pistols were still loaded. It would be diffi-
cult to say what vague thought he had in his mind when he
took them with him.
All day long he prowled about, without knowing where
he was going; it rained at times, he did not perceive it; for
his dinner, he purchased a penny roll at a baker’s, put it in
his pocket and forgot it. It appears that he took a bath in the
Seine without being aware of it. There are moments when
a man has a furnace within his skull. Marius was passing
through one of those moments. He no longer hoped for
anything; this step he had taken since the preceding eve-
ning. He waited for night with feverish impatience, he had
but one idea clearly before his mind;—this was, that at nine
o’clock he should see Cosette. This last happiness now con-
stituted his whole future; after that, gloom. At intervals, as
he roamed through the most deserted boulevards, it seemed
to him that he heard strange noises in Paris. He thrust his