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CHAPTER II
MARIUS, EMERGING FROM
CIVIL WAR, MAKES READY
FOR DOMESTIC WAR
For a long time, Marius was neither dead nor alive. For
many weeks he lay in a fever accompanied by delirium,
and by tolerably grave cerebral symptoms, caused more by
the shocks of the wounds on the head than by the wounds
themselves.
He repeated Cosette’s name for whole nights in the mel-
ancholy loquacity of fever, and with the sombre obstinacy
of agony. The extent of some of the lesions presented a seri-
ous danger, the suppuration of large wounds being always
liable to become re-absorbed, and consequently, to kill the
sick man, under certain atmospheric conditions; at every
change of weather, at the slightest storm, the physician was
u neasy.
‘Above all things,’ he repeated, ‘let the wounded man be
subjected to no emotion.’ The dressing of the wounds was
complicated and difficult, the fixation of apparatus and