It was in truth serious; Marius had reached that startling and charming hour which commences great passions. A look had effected all this. When the mine is loaded, when the fire is ready, nothing is more simple, and a glance is a spark. It was all over; Marius loved a woman, and his destiny was entering the unknown. The glance of a woman resembles certain wheels which are apparently gentle but are formidable: you daily pass by their side with impunity, and without suspecting anything, and the moment arrives when you even forget that the thing is there. You come, you go, you dream, you speak, you laugh, and all in a minute you feel yourself caught, and it is all over with you. The wheel holds you, the glance has caught you; it has caught, no matter where or how, by some part of your thought which dragged after you, or by some inattention on your part. You are lost, and your whole body will be drawn in; a series of mysterious forces seizes you, and you struggle in vain, for human aid is no longer possible. You pass from cog-wheel to cog-wheel, from agony to agony, from torture to torture, --you and your mind, your fortune, your future, and your soul; and, according as you are in the power of a wicked creature or of a noble heart, you will issue from this frightful machinery either disfigured by shame or transfigured by passion. CHAPTER VII. ADVENTURES OF THE LETTER "U" LEFT TO CONJECTURES. Isolation, separation from everything, pride, independence, a taste for nature, the absence of daily and material labor, the soul-struggles of chastity, and his benevolent ecstasy in the presence of creation, had prepared Marius for that possession which is called passion. His reverence for his father had gradually become a religion, and, like all religions, withdrew into the depths of the soul: something was wanting for the foreground, and love came. A whole month passed, during which Marius went daily to the Luxembourg: when the hour arrived nothing could stop him. "He is on duty," Courfeyrac said. Marius lived in rapture, and it is certain that the young lady looked at him. In the end he had grown bolder, and went nearer the bench; still he did not pass in front of it, obeying at once the timid instincts and prudent instincts of lovers. He thought it advisable not to attract the father's attention, and hence arranged his stations behind trees and the pedestals of statues, with profound Machiavellism, so as to be seen as much as possible by the young lady and as little as possible by the old gentleman. At times he would be standing for half an hour motionless in the shadow of some Leonidas or Spartacus, holding in one hand a book, over which his eyes, gently raised, sought the lovely girl; and she, for her part, turned her charming profile toward him with a vague smile. While talking most naturally and quietly with the white-haired man, she fixed upon Marius all the reveries of a virginal and impassioned glance.