#3.8.2

Marius is too deep in his own melancholies to notice the world around him. He pays no attention to his neighbors, or really to anyone, although he has been forced to start eating again. Apparently melancholy is not as good a meal substitute as infatuation.

Anyway, he's going to to dinner when two girls almost run him over. They're poor and ragged and on the run from the police, and they pay him basically no attention, nor he them. But then he finds the letters they've dropped, and he can't help but keep thinking of them. And I'm glad that his first instinct is to return the package. Marius is a dork and kind of a jerk because he so deeply doesn't notice anything but his own head, but his first instinct always is to be kind. It's honestly kind of a miracle that he developed that, coming as he did from Gillenormand's house, but there we go. He is, despite his everything, a good person.

The main volume is titled The Villainous Pauper. I’m not sure the implication that poor = villain is a good one to make at this point. I get these chapters deal with the Thenardiers, but still it seems to imply that Eponine and Azelma’s poverty is bad because in these chapters we meet them again, compared to Marius’ noble poverty which made him a better person. There’s so many different confusing ways Hugo is talking about poverty. 

Marius searches for Cosette but fails to find her, which is his fault in the first place so I’m really not feeling very charitable. I do find it interesting that Marius has both been compared to a stray dog (more animal symbolism) and also that ‘he fell into a dark dejection’ (more dark symbolism parallels)

All of this seems to be linked to Marius’ internal state. Marius fell from being an impassioned dreamer and man of resolve to someone who is pining after Cosette according to the narrative.  

It feels once again as if the narrative and the reader are seeing different versions of Marius though. I did not think Marius acting like a stalker in the last few chapters was actually showing any resolve or boldness. He was never really a great thinker or an active resolute person even before, so I don’t really know what all the fuss is about. He is still the same dreamer he ever was.  

But it’s interesting that Marius has fallen into these dark shadows, since colour symbolism is so prevalent in this book. He was chasing Mademoiselle Lenoir who was herself shining with the blue light of symbolism but now there is no Mademoiselle Lenoir and Marius loses the light symbolism that used to appear in his chapters. 

Courfeyrac continues to be Marius’ only friend and Marius continues to keep things to himself. Marius goes with Courfeyrac, Grantaire and Bossuet to the ball at Sceaux but becomes even more pained and besotted with love and gets compared to a wolf in a trap, more animal imagery, which sort of solidifies the fact that Marius is maybe incomplete/in darkness without the ideal love.

Marius does find some glimmer of hope through spotting the white hair of Monsieur LeBlanc and I can’t help but think that it has to be more than coincidence that he sees some light symbolism while he has surrounded himself in darkness through his obsession (I can’t call it love because he’s still in love with the idea of Cosette and has yet to find anything meaningful about her). However, that light symbolism vanishes after a while since Valjean is spooked that Marius is looking at him and he disappears before Marius can track him.

3.8.2

Marius instead of noticing anyone is busy in his own world and that is shown by him completely ignoring Madame Bougon and her observations and he would have ignored the girls too if they hadn’t collided with him. It may have already been pointed out, but Marius is pretty annoying in this chapter in his attitude towards others. 

He sees two girls dressed in rags talking about escaping the police and observes that it is better for a mother to have a dead child than one leading a bad life, which is a lot of levels of nope. I can forgive him for being preoccupied and not noticing things around him including his neighbours' poverty but to make this observation comparing a dead child without knowing anything about the situation, to two girls he has rarely glanced at and does not know anything about, is pretty bad from whichever angle you look at it. He could have shown some compassion towards the girls or even not making this observation would have been great. 

Marius gets depressed. In my view, this has less to do with Cosette vanishing and more to do with Marius being faced with the reality of the dissociative way he’s been living, not that he is self aware enough to realize it. He gained, and then just as abruptly lost something that was connecting him to the world, it’s almost an echo of what happened with his father. He gained the ideal of the Colonel Baron, only to have the pedestal ripped away from him. He’s still struggling to figure out where in the world he’s meant to pin his hopes.

It’s a shame because we clearly see Les Amis are willing enough to have him as a friend, but he’s reluctant to commit most likely out of political reservation (and general social anxiety).

Ironically, when Marius actually gets the chance to follow Valjean (who we know is on one of his money retrieving escapade) he wavers and explains it away. Not that he should’ve tried, but the principle and all that.

Ok, I’m mystified by the chapter title translations here. Not as to their intentions (mostly), but the sheer disagreement is unusual. Also, who is the old man in this illustration? I went back and inspected this chapter heading multiple times, assuming I had made some mistake. The original title is “Trouvaille,” a word I have never heard before but is apparently a borrowed word in English meaning a lucky find or windfall. It’s literally translated as ‘a find’ in French but it has been interpreted as:

Marius Finds Something (Wraxall, above)

Treasure Trove (Hapgood)

A Waif (Wilbour, FMA...by archaic definition)

A Find (Rose, Denny)

These all feel a bit odd and the pattern of which translation chooses which phrase is even odder. If anyone has any insight...

Anyways, Marius is serving us some quality Millennial Moods™️. “It was his dinner hour; for it was still necessary for him to go to dinner, alas! oh, infirmity of the ideal passions.” He runs across two girls (who could they be??) looking worse for wear and keeps a package they leave behind, having entirely lost his ability to track down young girls to their residences in his melancholy state.

“How dark my life has become! Young girls still pass before me. Only formerly they were angels; now they are unattractive and I don’t know their addresses.” (real quote)

New Post has been published on https://www.allmoddedapk.com/drive-ahead-mod-apk/

Drive Ahead! Mod 3.8.2 Apk [Unlimited Money/No Ads]

Drive Ahead! 3.8.2 Mod Apk  – Trendy GoGames for Android Go + Normal + Mod (unlimited money| No Ads) individually tested with no problem running

Drive Ahead 2 3.8.2 Mod – A popular, popular and exciting game in the style of gaming from Dodreams Ltd’s Game Studio for Android tablets and phones, released on Google Play for free and to date over 50 million times by Android users around the world. The world has arrived and at your request, dear ones, we have decided to introduce the latest version of your presence and bring you more joy! Welcome to the Gladiator Battleground! Choose your vehicle from hundreds of vehicles including giant cars and flying saucers, step into the battlefield, hit the opponent’s car and try to destroy his driver’s helmet!

Jondrette insists that he knows Leblanc from a long time ago. He sends his daughters outside. Then he tells his wife that he also recognized Lanoire. His wife says she doesn’t believe it, that Lanoire is too well-dressed, too pretty, that it isn’t fair to her own daughters.

But Jondrette says they’re about to make a fortune. He says that the neighbors will all be gone when Leblanc comes back that evening and that he’s already made arrangements. He leaves to go talk to someone, but before he does, he gives his wife the five-franc piece and tells her to buy some charcoal but to save some of the money because he will need to buy something. 

Marius is still living in the Gorbeau hovel with the Jondrette family, whose rent he had once paid.

One day, as he’s walking home, two girls bump into him. He overhears them talking about the “bobbies” before they disappear into the night. Once they’re gone, Marius notices a little package at his feet. He assumes one of the girls dropped it and tries to find them, but they’re gone, so he puts it in his pocket. 

He passes by a child’s coffin, and he thinks to himself that the only thing worse for a parent than having a child die is having a child lead an evil life.

In which it’s now February, and Marius is still angsting over the stranger he spend 4-6 months stalking the previous summer.

Courf, I think we need a stronger intervention here.

While acquiring his dinner near sunset (~5:48pm), Marius encounters two ragged girls, his neighbors, Éponine and Azelma Thénardier, running from the cops, and then a child’s coffin; this prompts musings on morality, and on his own unhappiness in regards female companionship. I can’t claim any experience with raising children and relating to them on that level, but I have a very visceral negative reaction to any ‘better dead than X’ pronouncements, especially when ‘X= morality, strong purity overtones‘ and also especially when applied to one’s daughters.

Marius also picks up a package the girls dropped, which will clearly have no bearing on any future events.