He was very thoughtful and very merry. One would have said that he was taking advantage of every occasion to laugh uproariously.
He tenderly embraced some man or other from the provinces, who was presented to him.
A circle of students formed round the table, and they spoke of the nonsense paid for by the State which was uttered from the rostrum in the Sorbonne, then the conversation fell upon the faults and omissions in Guicherat''s dictionaries and grammars.
Marius interrupted the discussion to exclaim:
"But it is very agreeable, all the same to have the cross!"
"That''s queer!" whispered Courfeyrac to Jean Prouvaire.
"No," responded Prouvaire, "that''s serious."
It was serious; in fact, Marius had reached that first violent and charming hour with which grand passions begin.
A glance had wrought all this.
When the mine is charged, when the conflagration is ready, nothing is more simple.
A glance is a spark.
It was all over with him.
Marius loved a woman.
His fate was entering the unknown.
The glance of women resembles certain combinations of wheels, which are tranquil in appearance yet formidable.
You pass close to them every day, peaceably and with impunity, and without a suspicion of anything.
A moment arrives when you forget that the thing is there.