Les Misérables, page 199
CHAPTER III--EFFECT OF THE SPRING
One day, the air was warm, the Luxembourg was inundated with lightand shade, the sky was as pure as though the angels had washed it thatmorning, the sparrows were giving vent to little twitters in the depthsof the chestnut-trees. Marius had thrown open his whole soul to nature,he was not thinking of anything, he simply lived and breathed, he passednear the bench, the young girl raised her eyes to him, the two glancesmet.
What was there in the young girl's glance on this occasion? Marius couldnot have told. There was nothing and there was everything. It was astrange flash.
She dropped her eyes, and he pursued his way.
What he had just seen was no longer the ingenuous and simple eye of achild; it was a mysterious gulf which had half opened, then abruptlyclosed again.
There comes a day when the young girl glances in this manner. Woe to himwho chances to be there!
That first gaze of a soul which does not, as yet, know itself, islike the dawn in the sky. It is the awakening of something radiantand strange. Nothing can give any idea of the dangerous charm of thatunexpected gleam, which flashes suddenly and vaguely forth from adorableshadows, and which is composed of all the innocence of the present, andof all the passion of the future. It is a sort of undecided tendernesswhich reveals itself by chance, and which waits. It is a snare whichthe innocent maiden sets unknown to herself, and in which she captureshearts without either wishing or knowing it. It is a virgin looking likea woman.
It is rare that a profound revery does not spring from that glance,where it falls. All purities and all candors meet in that celestialand fatal gleam which, more than all the best-planned tender glances ofcoquettes, possesses the magic power of causing the sudden blossoming,in the depths of the soul, of that sombre flower, impregnated withperfume and with poison, which is called love.
That evening, on his return to his garret, Marius cast his eyes overhis garments, and perceived, for the first time, that he had been soslovenly, indecorous, and inconceivably stupid as to go for his walk inthe Luxembourg with his "every-day clothes," that is to say, with ahat battered near the band, coarse carter's boots, black trouserswhich showed white at the knees, and a black coat which was pale at theelbows.
