As he owned nothing, he never locked his door, unless occasionally,
though very rarely, when he was engaged in some pressing work. Even when
absent he left his key in the lock. "You will be robbed," said Ma'am
Bougon. "Of what?" said Marius. The truth is, however, that he had, one
day, been robbed of an old pair of boots, to the great triumph of Ma'am
Bougon.

There came a second knock, as gentle as the first.

"Come in," said Marius.

The door opened.

"What do you want, Ma'am Bougon?" asked Marius, without raising his eyes
from the books and manuscripts on his table.

A voice which did not belong to Ma'am Bougon replied:--

"Excuse me, sir--"

It was a dull, broken, hoarse, strangled voice, the voice of an old man,
roughened with brandy and liquor.

Marius turned round hastily, and beheld a young girl.

CHAPTER IV--A ROSE IN MISERY

[Illustration: Rose in Misery 3b8-4-rose-in-misery]

A very young girl was standing in the half-open door. The dormer window
of the garret, through which the light fell, was precisely opposite
the door, and illuminated the figure with a wan light. She was a frail,
emaciated, slender creature; there was nothing but a chemise and a
petticoat upon that chilled and shivering nakedness. Her girdle was a
string, her head ribbon a string, her pointed shoulders emerged from her
chemise, a blond and lymphatic pallor, earth-colored collar-bones, red
hands, a half-open and degraded mouth, missing teeth, dull, bold, base
eyes; she had the form of a young girl who has missed her youth, and the
look of a corrupt old woman; fifty years mingled with fifteen; one of
those beings which are both feeble and horrible, and which cause those
to shudder whom they do not cause to weep.

Marius had risen, and was staring in a sort of stupor at this being, who
was almost like the forms of the shadows which traverse dreams.

The most heart-breaking thing of all was, that this young girl had not
come into the world to be homely. In her early childhood she must even
have been pretty. The grace of her age was still struggling against the
hideous, premature decrepitude of debauchery and poverty. The remains of
beauty were dying away in that face of sixteen, like the pale sunlight
which is extinguished under hideous clouds at dawn on a winter's day.

That face was not wholly unknown to Marius. He thought he remembered
having seen it somewhere.

"What do you wish, Mademoiselle?" he asked.

The