Not Meaning To Pry

Courfeyrac was the first to notice the change in Marius after the Gorbeau ambuscade. While Marius had always been reserved, now he seemed to have become even more silent and yet more dissipated than ever. It was as if thought had left little energy for speech, much less action.

"What's happened to you? Has something in that house eaten all your words?" Courfeyrac once teased his friend. Marius had merely shrugged before walking off to the Field of the Lark, leaving his work abandoned yet again.

"It's not because I want to tell stories. I just want to know what's going on." Marius thought as he sat under the trees that day. "But I don't want to pry."

He did want to know what Courfeyrac and the rest of Les Amis del'ABC were up to. With all the bad news about, who knew what they were thinking?

He did want to know too what had happened to the Thenardiers. After all, he still gave five francs every week at the jails.

He sometimes wondered too how his friend M. Mabeuf was doing. Did he still have books in his house?

Most of all, Marius wondered about the girl he'd lost, the Lark. A thousand and one questions filled his mind when her image came to mind.

"There will come a time for such a word," Marius patiently reminded himself while he watched and waited.