y of fate! His father
had commanded him from the depths of his coffin to do all the good in
his power to this Thenardier, and for four years Marius had cherished
no other thought than to acquit this debt of his father's, and at the
moment when he was on the eve of having a brigand seized in the very
act of crime by justice, destiny cried to him: "This is Thenardier!"
He could at last repay this man for his father's life, saved amid a
hail-storm of grape-shot on the heroic field of Waterloo, and repay it
with the scaffold! He had sworn to himself that if ever he found that
Thenardier, he would address him only by throwing himself at his feet;
and now he actually had found him, but it was only to deliver him over
to the executioner! His father said to him: "Succor Thenardier!" And he
replied to that adored and sainted voice by crushing Thenardier! He was
about to offer to his father in his grave the spectacle of that man who
had torn him from death at the peril of his own life, executed on the
Place Saint-Jacques through the means of his son, of that Marius to whom
he had entrusted that man by his will! And what a mockery to have so
long worn on his breast his father's last commands, written in his own
hand, only to act in so horribly contrary a sense! But, on the other
hand, now look on that trap and not prevent it! Condemn the victim and
to spare the assassin! Could one be held to any gratitude towards so
miserable a wretch? All the ideas which Marius had cherished for the
last four years were pierced through and through, as it were, by this
unforeseen blow.

He shuddered. Everything depended on him. Unknown to themselves, he
held in his hand all those beings who were moving about there before his
eyes. If he fired his pistol, M. Leblanc was saved, and Thenardier lost;
if he did not fire, M. Leblanc would be sacrificed, and, who knows?
Thenardier would escape. Should he dash down the one or allow the other
to fall? Remorse awaited him in either case.

What was he to do? What should he choose? Be false to the most imperious
souvenirs, to all those solemn vows to himself, to the most sacred duty,
to the most venerated text! Should he ignore his father's testament,
or allow the perpetration of a crime! On the one hand, it seemed to him
that he heard "his Ursule" supplicating for her father and on the other,
the colonel commending Thenardier to his care. He felt that he was going
mad. His knees gave way beneath him. And he