Summer passes, then fall. Winter comes. Neither M. Leblanc nor the young girl have reappeared at the Luxembourg Gardens. Marius is overwhelmed by an immense despair and a profound listlessness. One day he goes to a dance hall with the vague hope of encountering his lost love. The inevitable disappointment leaves him more depressed than ever, weary of people, obsessed with his anguish. Another day he has a strange encounter. He meets a man with long white hair who much resembles M. Leblanc but who is dressed as a workingman. Perplexed, Marius decides to investigate the mystery, but the passerby disappears before he can follow him.
On February 2, Marius witnesses a depressing scene that seems to be in keeping with his somber mood. He is passed by two girls, emaciated, ragged, barefoot. They are running, and from a word or two he overhears, Marius gathers that they are fleeing from the police. In their haste, one of them drops an envelope and Marius picks it up. Before he can call them, they are out of earshot. He puts the envelope in his pocket and forgets it.
Undressing in the evening, he comes upon the envelope and examines it. In it he finds four letters addressed to prominent people, containing pleas for money and signed with the names of four different petitioners, but certain signs indicate the same author wrote all four. The handwriting, the paper, a peculiar tobacco odor, the spelling mistakes are all identical. However, none of the letters bears an address, so Marius dismisses the mystery from his mind.
The next day as he is working, someone knocks on his door, and a young girl enters. She is no more than fifteen, but misery has already made her haggard. She gives Marius a letter from her father, Jondrette, asking for money. The face of the girl is not absolutely unknown to Marius. He seems to remember that he has seen her somewhere before. She calls Marius by name. He could not doubt that she means him, but who is this girl? How does she know his name? Even though Marius has been living in the house for some time, he has had, as we have said, very few occasions to observe his squalid neighborhood. His mind has been elsewhere, and where the mind is, there also are the eyes.
The letter from Jondrette is in the same handwriting as those in the packet Marius had picked up the day before. While Marius ponders the coincidence, the young girl frolics boldly around the room, sings, examines Marius' possessions, looks in the mirror. Finally, she tells him how handsome he is and accompanies her compliment with a meaningful look. Ignoring the hint, Marius hands her the package she has lost. Her manner changes; she is incredibly grateful and pours out to him a tale of constant hunger, suffering, hallucinations, and suicidal thoughts. Touched, Marius gives her his last five francs, and she thanks him in a flood of revolting but pathetic slang.
When she has left, Marius reflects on the depths of misery and degradation to which society allows a human being to sink. As he muses, he notices a triangular hole near the ceiling in the wall that divides his room from the Jondrettes'. Compassion is a spur to his curiosity, and he climbs on a dresser to observe his wretched neighbors. What he sees is a den: "abject, dirty, fetid, infected, dark, sordid." At a table sits a fairly old man who resembles both a shady businessman and a bird of prey. He is in the process of writing another begging letter and ranting against the injustices of life. Near the chimney sits his wife, a virago of indeterminate age A listless, wan girl—the second fugitive of the day before—is resting on an old mattress.
Marius is about to leave his observation post when the older daughter walks in. She announces the imminent arrival of a potential benefactor, whom she has accosted during one of his frequent visits to St. Jacques Church. The father springs into action and orders various actions taken to worsen the squalid appearance of the room. He tells his wife to put out the fire, the younger daughter to break the seat of a chair, the eldest to break a window. The room is suitably devastated when the philanthropist walks in.
His entrance causes Marius an incredible shock. It is "M. Leblanc," and he is accompanied by his daughter, who is as lovely as ever. Meanwhile Jondrette, posing for this occasion as Fabantou, an actor down on his luck, launches into an emotional lament. As he details his real and pretended misfortunes, he stares hard at the visitor, as if trying to remember a familiar face. The latter, moved by the evident misery of the family, hands Jondrette five francs and a package of clothing, and promises to return at 6 P.M. with money for his rent.
Marius is an indifferent eyewitness to the whole scene. His only interest is the young girl. A moment after she leaves, he runs after her. He reaches the street just in time to see her depart in a cab. He hails another, but since he has no money on him, the driver refuses to take him. In despair he turns back to his room. As he is about to climb the stairs, he notices Jondrette in deep conversation with a man of menacing appearance. It is one of the most notorious hoodlums in the neighborhood.
