1.2.2-Primeideal

ClubNinetyThree 1.2.2 A Night on Shipboard, and concerning the Passenger
“Now and then he drew out of his pocket a cake of chocolate, broke off a piece and ate it; although his hair was white, he had all his teeth.”

The chocolate is being discussed elsewhere! I’m more curious about the second half of the sentence. Describing an old guy by still having all his teeth is one of the ways Gillenormand came on the scene in Les Misérables (the chapter title in Hapgood is “Ninety Years and Thirty-Two Teeth.”) In the midst of 1832, Gillenormand can be identified by his actual age and the narrator can just tell us how he lived through 1793 and badmouths the revolutionaries of the period. Mysterious Stranger Dude, however, is in the midst of all the action at the moment. No matter what he thinks of the various politicians of the day, he can’t simply call everyone scoundrels and leave it at that. We don’t even get a specific age for him yet, just various guesses, and now the description of his white hair.

And we definitely don’t have a name for him at all; only two people aboard know it, and they’d keep the secret to their death. Which is…I’m gonna guess more loyalty than Gillenormand’s servants had for him.

There’s no clear parallel to, say, Marius or Mademoiselle Gillenormand at this point either. But there’s more to come.

Also I guess eating all that chocolate hasn’t been bad for his teeth, even at his age? Even that or he just has access to high-quality eighteenth-century dental care.

Commentary
Pilferingapples I can see where “still have all my teeth” is a direct indicator of social status (it still is, really), because it means he’s been able to afford better foods— not just the starch-heavy diet of the poor, but also nutritional deficiencies and general stress made tooth loss more likely even before modern (often unaffordable) dental care increased the dental care divide. But beyond that— maybe that teeth are a predatory thing, given some other comparisons being described?