The hair was the same, also the profile, so far as the cap permitted a view of it, the mien identical, only more depressed.
But why these workingman''s clothes? What was the meaning of this?
What signified that disguise? Marius was greatly astonished.
When he recovered himself, his first impulse was to follow the man; who knows whether he did not hold at last the clue which he was seeking?
In any case, he must see the man near at hand, and clear up the mystery. But the idea occurred to him too late, the man was no longer there. He had turned into some little side street, and Marius could not find him.
This encounter occupied his mind for three days and then was effaced.
"After all," he said to himself, "it was probably only a resemblance."
BOOK EIGHTH.--THE WICKED POOR MAN
CHAPTER II
TREASURE TROVE
Marius had not left the Gorbeau house.
He paid no attention to any one there.
At that epoch, to tell the truth, there were no other inhabitants in the house, except himself and those Jondrettes whose rent he had once paid, without, moreover, ever having spoken to either father, mother, or daughters.
The other lodgers had moved away or had died, or had been turned out in default of payment.
One day during that winter, the sun had shown itself a little in the afternoon, but it was the 2d of February, that ancient Candlemas day whose treacherous sun, the precursor of a six weeks'' cold spell, inspired Mathieu Laensberg with these two lines, which have with justice remained classic:--