They crouch, back to back, in a sort of hut of fate. They exchange woe-begone glances.
Oh, the unfortunate wretches! How pale they are!
How cold they are!
It seems as though they dwelt in a planet much further from the sun than ours.
This young girl was to Marius a sort of messenger from the realm ┅本┅作┅品┅由┅思┅兔┅在┅線┅閱┅讀┅網┅友┅整┅理┅上┅傳┅
of sad shadows.
She revealed to him a hideous side of the night.
Marius almost reproached himself for the preoccupations of revery and passion which had prevented his bestowing a glance on his neighbors up to that day.
The payment of their rent had been a mechanical movement, which any one would have yielded to; but he, Marius, should have done better than that.
What! only a wall separated him from those abandoned beings who lived gropingly in the dark outside the pale of the rest of the world, he was elbow to elbow with them, he was, in some sort, the last link of the human race which they touched, he heard them live, or rather, rattle in the death agony beside him, and he paid no heed to them! Every day, every instant, he heard them walking on the other side of the wall, he heard them go, and come, and speak, and he did not even lend an ear!