At this moment Marius slowly opened his eyes, and his glance, still veiled by lethargic surprise, settled on M. Gillenormand. "Marius!" the old man cried; "Marius, my little Marius! My child! My beloved son! You open your eyes! You look at me! You are alive! Thanks!" And he fell down in a fainting fit. BOOK IV. JAVERT DERAILED. Javert retired slowly from the Rue de l'Homme Armé. He walked with drooping head for the first time in his life, and equally for the first time in his life with his hands behind his back. Up to that day Javert had only assumed, of Napoleon's two attitudes, the one which expresses resolution, the arms folded on the chest; the one indicating uncertainty, the arms behind the back, was unknown to him. Now a change had taken place, and his whole person, slow and sombre, was stamped with anxiety. He buried himself in the silent streets, but followed a certain direction. He went by the shortest road to the Seine, reached the Quai des Ormes, walked along it, passed the Grêve, and stopped, a little distance from the Place du Châtelet, at the corner of the Pont Nôtre Dame. The Seine makes there, between that bridge and the Pont au Change on one side, and the Quai de la Mégisserie and the Quai aux Fleurs on the other, a species of square hike traversed by a rapid. This point of the Seine is feared by sailors; nothing can be more dangerous than this rapid, at that period contracted and irrigated by the piles of the mill bridge, since demolished. The two bridges, so close to each other, heighten the danger, for the water hurries formidably through the arches. It rolls in broad, terrible waves, it increases, and is heaped up; the flood strives to root out the piles of the bridge with thick liquid cords. Men who fall in there do not reappear, and the best swimmers are drowned.