very time that that chance which meddles with the strolls of
persons whose gaze is turned inwards, led Marius to that walk,--and it
was nearly every day,--he found this couple there. The man appeared to
be about sixty years of age; he seemed sad and serious; his whole person
presented the robust and weary aspect peculiar to military men who have
retired from the service. If he had worn a decoration, Marius would have
said: "He is an ex-officer." He had a kindly but unapproachable air,
and he never let his glance linger on the eyes of any one. He wore
blue trousers, a blue frock coat and a broad-brimmed hat, which always
appeared to be new, a black cravat, a quaker shirt, that is to say, it
was dazzlingly white, but of coarse linen. A grisette who passed near
him one day, said: "Here's a very tidy widower." His hair was very
white.

The first time that the young girl who accompanied him came and seated
herself on the bench which they seemed to have adopted, she was a sort
of child thirteen or fourteen years of age, so thin as to be almost
homely, awkward, insignificant, and with a possible promise of
handsome eyes. Only, they were always raised with a sort of displeasing
assurance. Her dress was both aged and childish, like the dress of the
scholars in a convent; it consisted of a badly cut gown of black merino.
They had the air of being father and daughter.

Marius scanned this old man, who was not yet aged, and this little
girl, who was not yet a person, for a few days, and thereafter paid no
attention to them. They, on their side, did not appear even to see him.
They conversed together with a peaceful and indifferent air. The girl
chattered incessantly and merrily. The old man talked but little, and,
at times, he fixed on her eyes overflowing with an ineffable paternity.

Marius had acquired the mechanical habit of strolling in that walk. He
invariably found them there.

This is the way things went:--

Marius liked to arrive by the end of the alley which was furthest from
their bench; he walked the whole length of the alley, passed in front
of them, then returned to the extremity whence he had come, and began
again. This he did five or six times in the course of his promenade,
and the promenade was taken five or six times a week, without its
having occurred to him or to these people to exchange a greeting. That
personage, and that young girl, although they appeared,--and perhaps
because they appeared,--to shun al