Les Misérables
he saw Marius through a dazzling light. It certainly was he, it
certainly was Marius.
At last! After the lapse of four years! He grasped him entire, so to
speak, in a single glance. He found him noble, handsome, distinguished,
well-grown, a complete man, with a suitable mien and a charming air. He
felt a desire to open his arms, to call him, to fling himself forward;
his heart melted with rapture, affectionate words swelled and
overflowed his breast; at length all his tenderness came to the light
and reached his lips, and, by a contrast which constituted the very
foundation of his nature, what came forth was harshness. He said
abruptly:—
“What have you come here for?”
Marius replied with embarrassment:—
“Monsieur—”
M. Gillenormand would have liked to have Marius throw himself into his
arms. He was displeased with Marius and with himself. He was conscious
that he was brusque, and that Marius was cold. It caused the goodman
unendurable and irritating anxiety to feel so tender and forlorn
within, and only to be able to be hard outside. Bitterness returned. He
interrupted Marius in a peevish tone:—
“Then why did you come?”
That “then” signified: _If you do not come to embrace me_. Marius
looked at his grandfather, whose pallor gave him a face of marble.
“Monsieur—”
“Have you come to beg my pardon? Do you acknowledge your faults?”
He thought he was putting Marius on the right road, and that “the
child” would yield. Marius shivered; it was the denial of his father
that was required of him; he dropped his eyes and replied:—
“No, sir.”
“Then,” exclaimed the old man impetuously, with a grief that was
poignant and full of wrath, “what do you want of me?”
Marius clasped his hands, advanced a step, and said in a feeble and
trembling voice:—
“Sir, have pity on me.”
These words touched M. Gillenormand; uttered a little sooner, they
would have rendered him tender, but they came too late. The grandfather
rose; he supported himself with both hands on his cane; his lips were
white, his brow wavered, but his lofty form towered above Marius as he
bowed.
“Pity on you, sir! It is youth demanding pity of the old man of
ninety-one! You are entering into life, I am leaving it; you go to the
play, to balls, to the café, to the billiard-hall; you have wit, you
please the women, you are a handsome fellow; as for me, I spit on my
brands in the heart of summer; you are rich with the only riches that
are really such, I possess all the poverty of age; infirmity,
isolation! You have your thirty-two teeth, a good digestion, bright
eyes, strength, appetite, health, gayety, a forest of black hair; I
have no longer even white hair, I have lost my teeth, I am losing my
legs, I am losing my memory; there are three names of streets that I
confound incessantly, the Rue Charlot, the Rue du Chaume, and the Rue
Saint-Claude, that is what I have come to; you have before you the
whole future, full of sunshine, and I am beginning to lose my sight, so
far am I advancing into the night; you are in love, that is a matter of
course, I am beloved by no one in all the world; and you ask pity of
me! Parbleu! Molière forgot that. If that is the way you jest at the
courthouse, Messieurs the lawyers, I sincerely compliment you. You are
droll.”
And the octogenarian went on in a grave and angry voice:—
“Come, now, what do you want of me?”
“Sir,” said Marius, “I know that my presence is displeasing to you, but
I have come merely to ask one thing of you, and then I shall go away
immediately.”
“You are a fool!” said the old man. “Who said that you were to go
away?”
This was the translation of the tender words which lay at the bottom of
his heart:—
“Ask my pardon! Throw yourself on my neck!”
M. Gillenormand felt that Marius would leave him in a few moments, that
his harsh reception had repelled the lad, that his hardness was driving
him away; he said all this to himself, and it augmented his grief; and
as his grief was straightway converted into wrath, it increased his
harshness. He would have liked to have Marius understand, and Marius
did not understand, which made the goodman furious.
He began again:—
“What! you deserted me, your grandfather, you left my house to go no
one knows whither, you drove your aunt to despair, you went off, it is
easily guessed, to lead a bachelor life; it’s more convenient, to play
the dandy, to come in at all hours, to amuse yourself; you have given
me no signs of life, you have contracted debts without even telling me
to pay them, you have become a smasher of windows and a blusterer, and,
at the end of four years, you come to me, and that is all you have to
say to me!”
This violent fashion of driving a grandson to tenderness was productive
only of silence on the part of Marius. M. Gillenormand folded his arms;
a gesture which with him was peculiarly imperious, and apostrophized
Marius bitterly:—
“Let us make an end of this. You have come to ask something of me, you
say? Well, what? What is it? Speak!”
“Sir,” said Marius, with the look of a man who feels that he is falling
over a precipice, “I have come to ask your permission to marry.”
M. Gillenormand rang the bell. Basque opened the door half-way.
“Call my daughter.”
A second later, the door was opened once more, Mademoiselle
Gillenormand did not enter, but showed herself; Marius was standing,
mute, with pendant arms and the face of a criminal; M. Gillenormand was
pacing back and forth in the room. He turned to his daughter and said
to her:—
“Nothing. It is Monsieur Marius. Say good day to him. Monsieur wishes
to marry. That’s all. Go away.”
The curt, hoarse sound of the old man’s voice announced a strange
degree of excitement. The aunt gazed at Marius with a frightened air,
hardly appeared to recognize him, did not allow a gesture or a syllable
to escape her, and disappeared at her father’s breath more swiftly than
a straw before the hurricane.
In the meantime, Father Gillenormand had returned and placed his back
against the chimney-piece once more.
“You marry! At one and twenty! You have arranged that! You have only a
permission to ask! a formality. Sit down, sir. Well, you have had a
revolution since I had the honor to see you last. The Jacobins got the
upper hand. You must have been delighted. Are you not a Republican
since you are a Baron? You can make that agree. The Republic makes a
good sauce for the barony. Are you one of those decorated by July? Have
you taken the Louvre at all, sir? Quite near here, in the Rue
Saint-Antoine, opposite the Rue des Nonamdières, there is a cannon-ball
incrusted in the wall of the third story of a house with this
inscription: ‘July 28th, 1830.’ Go take a look at that. It produces a
good effect. Ah! those friends of yours do pretty things. By the way,
aren’t they erecting a fountain in the place of the monument of M. le
Duc de Berry? So you want to marry? Whom? Can one inquire without
indiscretion?”
He paused, and, before Marius had time to answer, he added violently:—
“Come now, you have a profession? A fortune made? How much do you earn
at your trade of lawyer?”
“Nothing,” said Marius, with a sort of firmness and resolution that was
almost fierce.
“Nothing? Then all that you have to live upon is the twelve hundred
livres that I allow you?”
Marius did not reply. M. Gillenormand continued:—
“Then I understand the girl is rich?”
“As rich as I am.”
“What! No dowry?”
“No.”
“Expectations?”
“I think not.”
“Utterly naked! What’s the father?”
“I don’t know.”
“And what’s her name?”
“Mademoiselle Fauchelevent.”
“Fauchewhat?”
“Fauchelevent.”
“Pttt!” ejaculated the old gentleman.
“Sir!” exclaimed Marius.
M. Gillenormand interrupted him with the tone of a man who is speaking
to himself:—
“That’s right, one and twenty years of age, no profession, twelve
hundred livres a year, Madame la Baronne de Pontmercy will go and
purchase a couple of sous’ worth of parsley from the fruiterer.”
“Sir,” repeated Marius, in the despair at the last hope, which was
vanishing, “I entreat you! I conjure you in the name of Heaven, with
clasped hands, sir, I throw myself at your feet, permit me to marry
her!”
The old man burst into a shout of strident and mournful laughter,
coughing and laughing at the same time.
“Ah! ah! ah! You said to yourself: ‘Pardine! I’ll go hunt up that old
blockhead, that absurd numskull! What a shame that I’m not twenty-five!
How I’d treat him to a nice respectful summons! How nicely I’d get
along without him! It’s nothing to me, I’d say to him: “You’re only too
happy to see me, you old idiot, I want to marry, I desire to wed
Mamselle No-matter-whom, daughter of Monsieur No-matter-what, I have no
shoes, she has no chemise, that just suits; I want to throw my career,
my future, my youth, my life to the dogs; I wish to take a plunge into
wretchedness with a woman around my neck, that’s an idea, and you must
consent to it!” and the old fossil will consent.’ Go, my lad, do as you
like, attach your paving-stone, marry your Pousselevent, your
Coupelevent—Never, sir, never!”
“Father—”
“Never!”
At the tone in which that “never” was uttered, Marius lost all hope. He
traversed the chamber with slow steps, with bowed head, tottering and
more like a dying man than like one merely taking his departure. M.
Gillenormand followed him with his eyes, and at the moment when the
door opened, and Marius was on the point of going out, he advanced four
paces, with the senile vivacity of impetuous and spoiled old gentlemen,
seized Marius by the collar, brought him back energetically into the
room, flung him into an armchair and said to him:—
“Tell me all about it!”
“It was that single word “father” which had effected this revolution.
Marius stared at him in bewilderment. M. Gillenormand’s mobile face was
no longer expressive of anything but rough and ineffable good-nature.
The grandsire had given way before the grandfather.
“Come, see here, speak, tell me about your love affairs, jabber, tell
me everything! Sapristi! how stupid young folks are!”
“Father—” repeated Marius.
The old man’s entire countenance lighted up with indescribable
radiance.
“Yes, that’s right, call me father, and you’ll see!”
There was now something so kind, so gentle, so openhearted, and so
paternal in this brusqueness, that Marius, in the sudden transition
from discouragement to hope, was stunned and intoxicated by it, as it
were. He was seated near the table, the light from the candles brought
out the dilapidation of his costume, which Father Gillenormand regarded
with amazement.
“Well, father—” said Marius.
“Ah, by the way,” interrupted M. Gillenormand, “you really have not a
penny then? You are dressed like a pickpocket.”
He rummaged in a drawer, drew forth a purse, which he laid on the
table: “Here are a hundred louis, buy yourself a hat.”
“Father,” pursued Marius, “my good father, if you only knew! I love
her. You cannot imagine it; the first time I saw her was at the
Luxembourg, she came there; in the beginning, I did not pay much heed
to her, and then, I don’t know how it came about, I fell in love with
her. Oh! how unhappy that made me! Now, at last, I see her every day,
at her own home, her father does not know it, just fancy, they are
going away, it is in the garden that we meet, in the evening, her
father means to take her to England, then I said to myself: ‘I’ll go
and see my grandfather and tell him all about the affair. I should go
mad first, I should die, I should fall ill, I should throw myself into
the water. I absolutely must marry her, since I should go mad