Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [346]
“Father!”
“Never!”
At the tone in which this “never” was pronounced Marius lost all hope. He walked the room with slow steps, his head bowed down, tottering, more like a man who is dying than like one who is going away. M. Gillenormand followed him with his eyes, and, at the moment the door opened and Marius was going out, he took four steps with the senile vivacity of impetuous and self-willed old men, seized Marius by the collar, drew him back forcibly into the room, threw him into an armchair, and said to him:
“Tell me about it!”
It was that single word, father, dropped by Marius, which had caused this revolution.
Marius looked at him in bewilderment. The changing countenance of M. Gillenormand expressed nothing now but a rough and ineffable good-nature. The guardian had given place to the grandfather.
“Come, let us see, speak, tell me about your love scrapes, jabber, tell me all! Lord! how foolish these young folks are!”
“Father,” resumed Marius—
The old man’s whole face shone with an unspeakable radiance.
“Yes! that is it! call me father, and you shall see!”
There was now something so kind, so sweet, so open, so paternal in this abruptness, that Marius, in this sudden passage from discouragement to hope, was, as it were, intoxicated, stupefied. He was sitting near the tables, the light of the candle made the wretchedness of his dress apparent, and the grandfather gazed at it in astonishment.
“Well, father,” said Marius—
“Come now,” interrupted M. Gillenormand, “then you really haven’t a sou? you are dressed like a robber.”
He fumbled in a drawer and took out a purse, which he laid upon the table:
“Here, there is a hundred louis, buy yourself a hat.”
“Father,” pursued Marius, “my good father, if you knew. I love her. You don’t realise it; the first time that I saw her was at the Luxembourg Gardens, she came there; in the beginning I did not pay much attention to her, and then I do not know how it came about, I fell in love with her. Oh! how wretched it has made me! Now at last I see her every day, at her own house, her father does not know it, only think that they are going away, we see each other in the garden in the evening, her father wants to take her to England, then I said to myself: I will go and see my grandfather and tell him about it. I should go crazy in the first place, I should die, I should make myself sick, I should throw myself into the river. I must marry her because I should go crazy. Now, that is the whole truth, I do not believe that I have forgotten anything. She lives in a garden where there is a railing, in the Rue Plumet. It is near the Invalides.”
Grandfather Gillenormand, radiant with joy, had sat down by Marius’ side. While listening to him and enjoying the sound of his voice, he enjoyed at the same time a long pinch of snuff. At that word, Rue Plumet, he checked his inspiration and let the rest of his snuff fall on his knees.
“Rue Plumet!—you say Rue Plumet?—Let us see now!—Are there not some barracks down there? Why yes, that is it. Your cousin Théodule has told me about her. The lancer, the officer.—A lassie, my good friend, a lassie!—Lord yes, Rue Plumet. That is what used to be called Rue Blomet. It comes back to me now. I have heard tell about this little girl of the grating in the Rue Plumet. In a garden, a Pamela. Your taste is not bad. They say she is nice. Between ourselves, I believe that ninny of a lancer has paid his court to her a little. I do not know how far it went. After all that does not amount to anything. And then, we must not believe him. He is a boaster. Marius! I think it is very well for a young man like you to be in love. It belongs to your age. I like you better in love than as a Jacobin. I like you better taken by a petticoat, Lord! by twenty petticoats, than by Monsieur de Robespierre.