them, then returned to the extremity whence he had come, and began again. This he did five or six times in the course of his promenade, and the promenade was taken five or six times a week, without its having occurred to him or to these people to exchange a greeting. That personage, and that young girl, although they appeared—and perhaps because they appeared—to shun all glances, had, naturally, caused some attention on the part of the five or six students who strolled along the Pépinière from time to time; the studious after their lectures, the others after their game of billiards. Courfeyrac, who was among the last, had observed them several times, but, finding the girl homely, he had speedily and carefully kept out of the way. He had fled, discharging at them a sobriquet, like a Parthian dart. Impressed solely with the child’s gown and the old man’s hair, he had dubbed the daughter Mademoiselle Lanoire, and the father, Monsieur Leblanc, so that as no one knew them under any other title, this nickname became a law in the default of any other name. The students said: “Ah! Monsieur Leblanc is on his bench.” And Marius, like the rest, had found it convenient to call this unknown gentleman Monsieur Leblanc.
We shall follow their example, and we shall say M. Leblanc, in order to facilitate this tale.
So Marius saw them nearly every day, at the same hour, during the first year. He found the man to his taste, but the girl insipid.
II
Lux Facta Est
During the second year, precisely at the point in this history which the reader has now reached, it chanced that this habit of the Luxembourg was interrupted, without Marius himself being quite aware why, and nearly six months elapsed, during which he did not set foot in the alley.