Kabanata Kabanata 263 · THE OLD HEART AND THE YOUNG HEART IN THE PRESENCE OF EACH

OTHER

At that epoch, Father Gillenormand was well past his ninety-first

birthday. He still lived with Mademoiselle Gillenormand in the Rue des

Filles-du-Calvaire, No. 6, in the old house which he owned. He was, as

the reader will remember, one of those antique old men who await death

perfectly erect, whom age bears down without bending, and whom even

sorrow cannot curve.

Still, his daughter had been saying for some time: “My father is

sinking.” He no longer boxed the maids’ ears; he no longer thumped the

landing-place so vigorously with his cane when Basque was slow in

opening the door. The Revolution of July had exasperated him for the

space of barely six months. He had viewed, almost tranquilly, that

coupling of words, in the _Moniteur:_ M. Humblot-Conté, peer of France.

The fact is, that the old man was deeply dejected. He did not bend, he

did not yield; this was no more a characteristic of his physical than

of his moral nature, but he felt himself giving way internally. For

four years he had been waiting for Marius, with his foot firmly

planted, that is the exact word, in the conviction that that

good-for-nothing young scamp would ring at his door some day or other;

now he had reached the point, where, at certain gloomy hours, he said

to himself, that if Marius made him wait much longer—It was not death

that was insupportable to him; it was the idea that perhaps he should

never see Marius again. The idea of never seeing Marius again had never

entered his brain until that day; now the thought began to recur to

him, and it chilled him. Absence, as is always the case in genuine and

natural sentiments, had only served to augment the grandfather’s love

for the ungrateful child, who had gone off like a flash. It is during

December nights, when the cold stands at ten degrees, that one thinks

oftenest of the son.

M. Gillenormand was, or thought himself, above all things, incapable of

taking a single step, he—the grandfather, towards his grandson; “I

would die rather,” he said to himself. He did not consider himself as

the least to blame; but he thought of Marius only with profound

tenderness, and the mute despair of an elderly, kindly old man who is

about to vanish in the dark.

He began to lose his teeth, which added to his sadness.

M. Gillenormand, without however acknowledging it to himself, for it

would have rendered him furious and ashamed, had never loved a mistress

as he loved Marius.

He had had placed in his chamber, opposite the head of his bed, so that

it should be the first thing on which his eyes fell on waking, an old

portrait of his other daughter, who was dead, Madame Pontmercy, a

portrait which had been taken when she was eighteen. He gazed

incessantly at that portrait. One day, he happened to say, as he gazed

upon it:—

“I think the likeness is strong.”

“To my sister?” inquired Mademoiselle Gillenormand. “Yes, certainly.”

The old man added:—

“And to him also.”

Once as he sat with his knees pressed together, and his eyes almost

closed, in a despondent attitude, his daughter ventured to say to him:—

“Father, are you as angry with him as ever?”

She paused, not daring to proceed further.

“With whom?” he demanded.

“With that poor Marius.”

He raised his aged head, laid his withered and emaciated fist on the

table, and exclaimed in his most irritated and vibrating tone:—

“Poor Marius, do you say! That gentleman is a knave, a wretched

scoundrel, a vain little ingrate, a heartless, soulless, haughty, and

wicked man!”

And he turned away so that his daughter might not see the tear that

stood in his eye.

Three days later he broke a silence which had lasted four hours, to say

to his daughter point-blank:—

“I had the honor to ask Mademoiselle Gillenormand never to mention him

to me.”

Aunt Gillenormand renounced every effort, and pronounced this acute

diagnosis: “My father never cared very much for my sister after her

folly. It is clear that he detests Marius.”

“After her folly” meant: “after she had married the colonel.”

However, as the reader has been able to conjecture, Mademoiselle

Gillenormand had failed in her attempt to substitute her favorite, the

officer of lancers, for Marius. The substitute, Théodule, had not been

a success. M. Gillenormand had not accepted the _quid pro quo_. A

vacancy in the heart does not accommodate itself to a stop-gap.

Théodule, on his side, though he scented the inheritance, was disgusted

at the task of pleasing. The goodman bored the lancer; and the lancer

shocked the goodman. Lieutenant Théodule was gay, no doubt, but a

chatter-box, frivolous, but vulgar; a high liver, but a frequenter of

bad company; he had mistresses, it is true, and he had a great deal to

say about them, it is true also; but he talked badly. All his good

qualities had a defect. M. Gillenormand was worn out with hearing him

tell about the love affairs that he had in the vicinity of the barracks

in the Rue de Babylone. And then, Lieutenant Gillenormand sometimes

came in his uniform, with the tricolored cockade. This rendered him

downright intolerable. Finally, Father Gillenormand had said to his

daughter: “I’ve had enough of that Théodule. I haven’t much taste for

warriors in time of peace. Receive him if you choose. I don’t know but

I prefer slashers to fellows that drag their swords. The clash of

blades in battle is less dismal, after all, than the clank of the

scabbard on the pavement. And then, throwing out your chest like a

bully and lacing yourself like a girl, with stays under your cuirass,

is doubly ridiculous. When one is a veritable man, one holds equally

aloof from swagger and from affected airs. He is neither a blusterer

nor a finnicky-hearted man. Keep your Théodule for yourself.”

It was in vain that his daughter said to him: “But he is your

grandnephew, nevertheless,”—it turned out that M. Gillenormand, who was

a grandfather to the very finger-tips, was not in the least a

grand-uncle.

In fact, as he had good sense, and as he had compared the two, Théodule

had only served to make him regret Marius all the more.

One evening,—it was the 24th of June, which did not prevent Father

Gillenormand having a rousing fire on the hearth,—he had dismissed his

daughter, who was sewing in a neighboring apartment. He was alone in

his chamber, amid its pastoral scenes, with his feet propped on the

andirons, half enveloped in his huge screen of coromandel lacquer, with

its nine leaves, with his elbow resting on a table where burned two

candles under a green shade, engulfed in his tapestry armchair, and in

his hand a book which he was not reading. He was dressed, according to

his wont, like an _incroyable_, and resembled an antique portrait by

Garat. This would have made people run after him in the street, had not

his daughter covered him up, whenever he went out, in a vast bishop’s

wadded cloak, which concealed his attire. At home, he never wore a

dressing gown, except when he rose and retired. “It gives one a look of

age,” said he.

Father Gillenormand was thinking of Marius lovingly and bitterly; and,

as usual, bitterness predominated. His tenderness once soured always

ended by boiling and turning to indignation. He had reached the point

where a man tries to make up his mind and to accept that which rends

his heart. He was explaining to himself that there was no longer any

reason why Marius should return, that if he intended to return, he

should have done it long ago, that he must renounce the idea. He was

trying to accustom himself to the thought that all was over, and that

he should die without having beheld “that gentleman” again. But his

whole nature revolted; his aged paternity would not consent to this.

“Well!” said he,—this was his doleful refrain,—“he will not return!”

His bald head had fallen upon his breast, and he fixed a melancholy and

irritated gaze upon the ashes on his hearth.

In the very midst of his reverie, his old servant Basque entered, and

inquired:—

“Can Monsieur receive M. Marius?”

The old man sat up erect, pallid, and like a corpse which rises under

the influence of a galvanic shock. All his blood had retreated to his

heart. He stammered:—

“M. Marius what?”

“I don’t know,” replied Basque, intimidated and put out of countenance

by his master’s air; “I have not seen him. Nicolette came in and said

to me: ‘There’s a young man here; say that it is M. Marius.’”

Father Gillenormand stammered in a low voice:—

“Show him in.”

And he remained in the same attitude, with shaking head, and his eyes

fixed on the door. It opened once more. A young man entered. It was

Marius.

Marius halted at the door, as though waiting to be bidden to enter.

His almost squalid attire was not perceptible in the obscurity caused

by the shade. Nothing could be seen but his calm, grave, but strangely

sad face.

It was several minutes before Father Gillenormand, dulled with

amazement and joy, could see anything except a brightness as when one

is in the presence of an apparition. He was on the point of swooning;

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

otherwise.’ This is the whole truth, and I do not think that I have

omitted anything. She lives in a garden with an iron fence, in the Rue

Plumet. It is in the neighborhood of the Invalides.”

Father Gillenormand had seated himself, with a beaming countenance,

beside Marius. As he listened to him and drank in the sound of his

voice, he enjoyed at the same time a protracted pinch of snuff. At the

words “Rue Plumet” he interrupted his inhalation and allowed the

remainder of his snuff to fall upon his knees.

“The Rue Plumet, the Rue Plumet, did you say?—Let us see!—Are there not

barracks in that vicinity?—Why, yes, that’s it. Your cousin Théodule

has spoken to me about it. The lancer, the officer. A gay girl, my good

friend, a gay girl!—Pardieu, yes, the Rue Plumet. It is what used to be

called the Rue Blomet.—It all comes back to me now. I have heard of

that little girl of the iron railing in the Rue Plumet. In a garden, a

Pamela. Your taste is not bad. She is said to be a very tidy creature.

Between ourselves, I think that simpleton of a lancer has been courting

her a bit. I don’t know where he did it. However, that’s not to the

purpose. Besides, he is not to be believed. He brags, Marius! I think

it quite proper that a young man like you should be in love. It’s the

right thing at your age. I like you better as a lover than as a

Jacobin. I like you better in love with a petticoat, sapristi! with

twenty petticoats, than with M. de Robespierre. For my part, I will do

myself the justice to say, that in the line of _sans-culottes_, I have

never loved any one but women. Pretty girls are pretty girls, the

deuce! There’s no objection to that. As for the little one, she

receives you without her father’s knowledge. That’s in the established

order of things. I have had adventures of that same sort myself. More

than one. Do you know what is done then? One does not take the matter

ferociously; one does not precipitate himself into the tragic; one does

not make one’s mind to marriage and M. le Maire with his scarf. One

simply behaves like a fellow of spirit. One shows good sense. Slip

along, mortals; don’t marry. You come and look up your grandfather, who

is a good-natured fellow at bottom, and who always has a few rolls of

louis in an old drawer; you say to him: ‘See here, grandfather.’ And

the grandfather says: ‘That’s a simple matter. Youth must amuse itself,

and old age must wear out. I have been young, you will be old. Come, my

boy, you shall pass it on to your grandson. Here are two hundred

pistoles. Amuse yourself, deuce take it!’ Nothing better! That’s the

way the affair should be treated. You don’t marry, but that does no

harm. You understand me?”

Marius, petrified and incapable of uttering a syllable, made a sign

with his head that he did not.

The old man burst out laughing, winked his aged eye, gave him a slap on

the knee, stared him full in the face with a mysterious and beaming

air, and said to him, with the tenderest of shrugs of the shoulder:—

“Booby! make her your mistress.”

Marius turned pale. He had understood nothing of what his grandfather

had just said. This twaddle about the Rue Blomet, Pamela, the barracks,

the lancer, had passed before Marius like a dissolving view. Nothing of

all that could bear any reference to Cosette, who was a lily. The good

man was wandering in his mind. But this wandering terminated in words

which Marius did understand, and which were a mortal insult to Cosette.

Those words, “make her your mistress,” entered the heart of the strict

young man like a sword.

He rose, picked up his hat which lay on the floor, and walked to the

door with a firm, assured step. There he turned round, bowed deeply to

his grandfather, raised his head erect again, and said:—

“Five years ago you insulted my father; to-day you have insulted my

wife. I ask nothing more of you, sir. Farewell.”

Father Gillenormand, utterly confounded, opened his mouth, extended his

arms, tried to rise, and before he could utter a word, the door closed

once more, and Marius had disappeared.

The old man remained for several minutes motionless and as though

struck by lightning, without the power to speak or breathe, as though a

clenched fist grasped his throat. At last he tore himself from his

armchair, ran, so far as a man can run at ninety-one, to the door,

opened it, and cried:—

“Help! Help!”

His daughter made her appearance, then the domestics. He began again,

with a pitiful rattle: “Run after him! Bring him back! What have I done

to him? He is mad! He is going away! Ah! my God! Ah! my God! This time

he will not come back!”

He went to the window which looked out on the street, threw it open

with his aged and palsied hands, leaned out more than half-way, while

Basque and Nicolette held him behind, and shouted:—

“Marius! Marius! Marius! Marius!”

But Marius could no longer hear him, for at that moment he was turning

the corner of the Rue Saint-Louis.

The octogenarian raised his hands to his temples two or three times

with an expression of anguish, recoiled tottering, and fell back into

an armchair, pulseless, voiceless, tearless, with quivering head and

lips which moved with a stupid air, with nothing in his eyes and

nothing any longer in his heart except a gloomy and profound something

which resembled night.

BOOK NINTH—WHITHER ARE THEY GOING?