he flesh to gaze into the consciences of others, we should
be able to judge a man much more surely according to what he dreams,
than according to what he thinks. There is will in thought, there is
none in dreams. Revery, which is utterly spontaneous, takes and keeps,
even in the gigantic and the ideal, the form of our spirit. Nothing
proceeds more directly and more sincerely from the very depth of our
soul, than our unpremeditated and boundless aspirations towards
the splendors of destiny. In these aspirations, much more than in
deliberate, rational coordinated ideas, is the real character of a man
to be found. Our chimeras are the things which the most resemble us.
Each one of us dreams of the unknown and the impossible in accordance
with his nature.

Towards the middle of this year 1831, the old woman who waited on Marius
told him that his neighbors, the wretched Jondrette family, had been
turned out of doors. Marius, who passed nearly the whole of his days out
of the house, hardly knew that he had any neighbors.

"Why are they turned out?" he asked.

"Because they do not pay their rent; they owe for two quarters."

"How much is it?"

"Twenty francs," said the old woman.

Marius had thirty francs saved up in a drawer.

"Here," he said to the old woman, "take these twenty-five francs. Pay
for the poor people and give them five francs, and do not tell them that
it was I."

CHAPTER VI--THE SUBSTITUTE

It chanced that the regiment to which Lieutenant Theodule belonged came
to perform garrison duty in Paris. This inspired Aunt Gillenormand with
a second idea. She had, on the first occasion, hit upon the plan of
having Marius spied upon by Theodule; now she plotted to have Theodule
take Marius' place.

At all events and in case the grandfather should feel the vague need of
a young face in the house,--these rays of dawn are sometimes sweet to
ruin,--it was expedient to find another Marius. "Take it as a simple
erratum," she thought, "such as one sees in books. For Marius, read
Theodule."

A grandnephew is almost the same as a grandson; in default of a lawyer
one takes a lancer.

One morning, when M. Gillenormand was about to read something in the
Quotidienne, his daughter entered and said to him in her sweetest voice;
for the question concerned her favorite:--

"Father, Theodule is coming to present his respects to you this
morning."

"Who's Theodule?"

"Your grandnephew."

"Ah!" said the grandfa