Jondrette having terminated his colloquy with the man with the cudgel, turned once more to M. Leblanc, and repeated his question, accompanying it with that low, repressed, and terrible laugh which was peculiar to him:--
"So you do not recognize me?"
M. Leblanc looked him full in the face, and replied:--
"No."
Then Jondrette advanced to the table.
He leaned across the candle, crossing his arms, putting his angular and ferocious jaw close to M. Leblanc''s calm face, and advancing as far as possible without forcing M. Leblanc to retreat, and, in this posture of a wild beast who is about to bite, he exclaimed:--
"My name is not Fabantou, my name is not Jondrette, my name is Thenardier.
I am the inn-keeper of Montfermeil! Do you understand?
Thenardier!
Now do you know me?"
An almost imperceptible flush crossed M. Leblanc''s brow, and he replied with a voice which neither trembled nor rose above its ordinary level, with his accustomed placidity:--
"No more than before."
Marius did not hear this reply.
Any one who had seen him at that moment through the darkness would have perceived that he was haggard, stupid, thunder-struck. At the moment when Jondrette said: "My name is Thenardier," Marius had trembled in every limb, and had leaned against the wall, as though he felt the cold of a steel blade through his heart.