ther off, sometimes a little nearer.

One day he stopped at the corner of the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine and
looked at the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire from a distance. Then he
shook his head slowly from right to left, as though refusing himself
something, and retraced his steps.

Soon he no longer came as far as the Rue Saint-Louis. He got as far as
the Rue Pavee, shook his head and turned back; then he went no
further than the Rue des Trois-Pavillons; then he did not overstep the
Blancs-Manteaux. One would have said that he was a pendulum which was
no longer wound up, and whose oscillations were growing shorter before
ceasing altogether.

Every day he emerged from his house at the same hour, he undertook the
same trip, but he no longer completed it, and, perhaps without
himself being aware of the fact, he constantly shortened it. His whole
countenance expressed this single idea: What is the use?--His eye was
dim; no more radiance. His tears were also exhausted; they no longer
collected in the corner of his eye-lid; that thoughtful eye was dry. The
old man's head was still craned forward; his chin moved at times; the
folds in his gaunt neck were painful to behold. Sometimes, when the
weather was bad, he had an umbrella under his arm, but he never opened
it.

The good women of the quarter said: "He is an innocent." The children
followed him and laughed.

BOOK NINTH.--SUPREME SHADOW, SUPREME DAWN

CHAPTER I--PITY FOR THE UNHAPPY, BUT INDULGENCE FOR THE HAPPY

It is a terrible thing to be happy! How content one is! How
all-sufficient one finds it! How, being in possession of the false
object of life, happiness, one forgets the true object, duty!

Let us say, however, that the reader would do wrong were he to blame
Marius.

Marius, as we have explained, before his marriage, had put no questions
to M. Fauchelevent, and, since that time, he had feared to put any to
Jean Valjean. He had regretted the promise into which he had allowed
himself to be drawn. He had often said to himself that he had done
wrong in making that concession to despair. He had confined himself to
gradually estranging Jean Valjean from his house and to effacing him,
as much as possible, from Cosette's mind. He had, in a manner, always
placed himself between Cosette and Jean Valjean, sure that, in this
way, she would not perceive nor think of the latter. It was more than
effacement, it was an eclipse.

Marius did what he considere