cs while
you are learning English, and five while learning German. That will be
swallowing a tongue very fast, or a hundred sous very slowly."

In the meantime Aunt Gillenormand, a rather good-hearted person at
bottom in difficulties, had finally hunted up Marius' abode.

One morning, on his return from the law-school, Marius found a letter
from his aunt, and the sixty pistoles, that is to say, six hundred
francs in gold, in a sealed box.

Marius sent back the thirty louis to his aunt, with a respectful letter,
in which he stated that he had sufficient means of subsistence and that
he should be able thenceforth to supply all his needs. At that moment,
he had three francs left.

His aunt did not inform his grandfather of this refusal for fear of
exasperating him. Besides, had he not said: "Let me never hear the name
of that blood-drinker again!"

Marius left the hotel de la Porte Saint-Jacques, as he did not wish to
run in debt there.

BOOK FIFTH.--THE EXCELLENCE OF MISFORTUNE

CHAPTER I--MARIUS INDIGENT

[Illustration: Excellence of Misfortune 3b5-1-misfortune]

Life became hard for Marius. It was nothing to eat his clothes and his
watch. He ate of that terrible, inexpressible thing that is called de la
vache enrage; that is to say, he endured great hardships and privations.
A terrible thing it is, containing days without bread, nights without
sleep, evenings without a candle, a hearth without a fire, weeks without
work, a future without hope, a coat out at the elbows, an old hat which
evokes the laughter of young girls, a door which one finds locked on one
at night because one's rent is not paid, the insolence of the porter
and the cook-shop man, the sneers of neighbors, humiliations, dignity
trampled on, work of whatever nature accepted, disgusts, bitterness,
despondency. Marius learned how all this is eaten, and how such are
often the only things which one has to devour. At that moment of his
existence when a man needs his pride, because he needs love, he felt
that he was jeered at because he was badly dressed, and ridiculous
because he was poor. At the age when youth swells the heart with
imperial pride, he dropped his eyes more than once on his dilapidated
boots, and he knew the unjust shame and the poignant blushes of
wretchedness. Admirable and terrible trial from which the feeble emerge
base, from which the strong emerge sublime. A crucible into which
destiny casts a man, whenever it de