e man
of Saint-Sulpice. The warden had mentioned the circumstance to the cure,
and both had paid the colonel a visit, on some pretext or other. This
visit led to others. The colonel, who had been extremely reserved at
first, ended by opening his heart, and the cure and the warden finally
came to know the whole history, and how Pontmercy was sacrificing his
happiness to his child's future. This caused the cure to regard him with
veneration and tenderness, and the colonel, on his side, became fond
of the cure. And moreover, when both are sincere and good, no men so
penetrate each other, and so amalgamate with each other, as an old
priest and an old soldier. At bottom, the man is the same. The one has
devoted his life to his country here below, the other to his country on
high; that is the only difference.

Twice a year, on the first of January and on St. George's day, Marius
wrote duty letters to his father, which were dictated by his aunt, and
which one would have pronounced to be copied from some formula; this was
all that M. Gillenormand tolerated; and the father answered them with
very tender letters which the grandfather thrust into his pocket unread.

CHAPTER III--REQUIESCANT

Madame de T.'s salon was all that Marius Pontmercy knew of the world. It
was the only opening through which he could get a glimpse of life. This
opening was sombre, and more cold than warmth, more night than day, came
to him through this skylight. This child, who had been all joy and light
on entering this strange world, soon became melancholy, and, what is
still more contrary to his age, grave. Surrounded by all those singular
and imposing personages, he gazed about him with serious amazement.
Everything conspired to increase this astonishment in him. There were
in Madame de T.'s salon some very noble ladies named Mathan, Noe,
Levis,--which was pronounced Levi,--Cambis, pronounced Cambyse. These
antique visages and these Biblical names mingled in the child's mind
with the Old Testament which he was learning by heart, and when they
were all there, seated in a circle around a dying fire, sparely lighted
by a lamp shaded with green, with their severe profiles, their gray or
white hair, their long gowns of another age, whose lugubrious colors
could not be distinguished, dropping, at rare intervals, words which
were both majestic and severe, little Marius stared at them with
frightened eyes, in the conviction that he beheld not women, but