there only under the name of M. Marius.

Some of his father's old generals or old comrades had invited him to go
and see them, when they learned about him. Marius had not refused their
invitations. They afforded opportunities of talking about his father.
Thus he went from time to time, to Comte Pajol, to General Bellavesne,
to General Fririon, to the Invalides. There was music and dancing there.
On such evenings, Marius put on his new coat. But he never went to
these evening parties or balls except on days when it was freezing cold,
because he could not afford a carriage, and he did not wish to arrive
with boots otherwise than like mirrors.

He said sometimes, but without bitterness: "Men are so made that in a
drawing-room you may be soiled everywhere except on your shoes. In order
to insure a good reception there, only one irreproachable thing is asked
of you; your conscience? No, your boots."

All passions except those of the heart are dissipated by revery. Marius'
political fevers vanished thus. The Revolution of 1830 assisted in the
process, by satisfying and calming him. He remained the same, setting
aside his fits of wrath. He still held the same opinions. Only, they had
been tempered. To speak accurately, he had no longer any opinions, he
had sympathies. To what party did he belong? To the party of humanity.
Out of humanity he chose France; out of the Nation he chose the people;
out of the people he chose the woman. It was to that point above all,
that his pity was directed. Now he preferred an idea to a deed, a
poet to a hero, and he admired a book like Job more than an event like
Marengo. And then, when, after a day spent in meditation, he returned
in the evening through the boulevards, and caught a glimpse through
the branches of the trees of the fathomless space beyond, the nameless
gleams, the abyss, the shadow, the mystery, all that which is only human
seemed very petty indeed to him.

He thought that he had, and he really had, in fact, arrived at the truth
of life and of human philosophy, and he had ended by gazing at nothing
but heaven, the only thing which Truth can perceive from the bottom of
her well.

This did not prevent him from multiplying his plans, his combinations,
his scaffoldings, his projects for the future. In this state of revery,
an eye which could have cast a glance into Marius' interior would have
been dazzled with the purity of that soul. In fact, had it been given to
our eyes of t