he spoke softly, bowed his head, lowered his eyes, smiled with embarrassment, dressed badly, had an awkward air, blushed at a mere nothing, and was very timid.
'i desire to forget life. life is a hideous invention by somebody i don't know. it doesn't last, and it's good for nothing. you break your neck simply living.'
joly deposited a kiss on mame hucheloup’s fat, red, wrinkled neck, and said to grantaire: 'my dear fellow, i have always regarded a woman’s neck as aninfinitely delicate thing.'
combeferre lived the life of all the rest of the world more than did enjolras. if it had been granted to these two young men to attain to history, the one would have been the just, the other the wise man.
combeferre was inclined to let progress, good progress, take its own course; he may have been cold, but he was pure; methodical, but irreproachable; phlegmatic, but imperturbable.
grantaire, enjolras’ true satellite, inhabited this circle of young men; he lived there, he took no pleasure anywhere but there; he followed them everywhere.