presided over by Enjolras. They had remained good friends; they were ready to assist each other on occasion in every possible way; but nothing more. Marius had two friends:
one young, Courfeyrac; and one old, M. Mabeuf.
He inclined more to the old man.
In the first place, he owed to him the revolution which had taken place within him; to him he was indebted for having known and loved his father. "He operated on me for a cataract," he said.
The churchwarden had certainly played a decisive part.
It was not, however, that M. Mabeuf had been anything but the calm and impassive agent of Providence in this connection.
He had enlightened Marius by chance and without being aware of the fact, as does a candle which some one brings; he had been the candle and not the some one.
As for Marius'' inward political revolution, M. Mabeuf was totally incapable of comprehending it, of willing or of directing it.
As we shall see M. Mabeuf again, later on, a few words will not be superfluous.
BOOK FIFTH.--THE EXCELLENCE OF MISFORTUNE
CHAPTER IV
M. MABEUF
On the day when M. Mabeuf said to Marius:
"Certainly I approve of political opinions," he expressed the real state of his mind. All political opinions were matters of indifference to him, and he approved them all, without distinction, provided they left him in peace, as the Greeks called the Furies "the beautiful, the good, the charming," the Eumenides.