an. It almost seemed to him that unknown craters
were forming in his bosom.

What! he was there, that creature! What was he there for? He came
creeping about, smelling out, examining, trying! He came, saying: "Hey!
Why not?" He came to prowl about his, Jean Valjean's, life! to prowl
about his happiness, with the purpose of seizing it and bearing it away!

Jean Valjean added: "Yes, that's it! What is he in search of? An
adventure! What does he want? A love affair! A love affair! And I? What!
I have been first, the most wretched of men, and then the most unhappy,
and I have traversed sixty years of life on my knees, I have suffered
everything that man can suffer, I have grown old without having been
young, I have lived without a family, without relatives, without
friends, without life, without children, I have left my blood on every
stone, on every bramble, on every mile-post, along every wall, I have
been gentle, though others have been hard to me, and kind, although
others have been malicious, I have become an honest man once more, in
spite of everything, I have repented of the evil that I have done and
have forgiven the evil that has been done to me, and at the moment
when I receive my recompense, at the moment when it is all over, at the
moment when I am just touching the goal, at the moment when I have what
I desire, it is well, it is good, I have paid, I have earned it, all
this is to take flight, all this will vanish, and I shall lose Cosette,
and I shall lose my life, my joy, my soul, because it has pleased a
great booby to come and lounge at the Luxembourg."

Then his eyes were filled with a sad and extraordinary gleam.

It was no longer a man gazing at a man; it was no longer an enemy
surveying an enemy. It was a dog scanning a thief.

The reader knows the rest. Marius pursued his senseless course. One day
he followed Cosette to the Rue de l'Ouest. Another day he spoke to
the porter. The porter, on his side, spoke, and said to Jean Valjean:
"Monsieur, who is that curious young man who is asking for you?" On the
morrow Jean Valjean bestowed on Marius that glance which Marius at last
perceived. A week later, Jean Valjean had taken his departure. He swore
to himself that he would never again set foot either in the Luxembourg
or in the Rue de l'Ouest. He returned to the Rue Plumet.

Cosette did not complain, she said nothing, she asked no questions, she
did not seek to learn his reasons; she had already reached