Bab Bab 343 · MARIUS ATTACKED

One day, M. Gillenormand, while his daughter was putting in order the

phials and cups on the marble of the commode, bent over Marius and said

to him in his tenderest accents: “Look here, my little Marius, if I

were in your place, I would eat meat now in preference to fish. A fried

sole is excellent to begin a convalescence with, but a good cutlet is

needed to put a sick man on his feet.”

Marius, who had almost entirely recovered his strength, collected the

whole of it, drew himself up into a sitting posture, laid his two

clenched fists on the sheets of his bed, looked his grandfather in the

face, assumed a terrible air, and said:

“This leads me to say something to you.”

“What is it?”

“That I wish to marry.”

“Agreed,” said his grandfather.—And he burst out laughing.

“How agreed?”

“Yes, agreed. You shall have your little girl.”

Marius, stunned and overwhelmed with the dazzling shock, trembled in

every limb.

M. Gillenormand went on:

“Yes, you shall have her, that pretty little girl of yours. She comes

every day in the shape of an old gentleman to inquire after you. Ever

since you were wounded, she has passed her time in weeping and making

lint. I have made inquiries. She lives in the Rue de l’Homme Armé, No.

7. Ah! There we have it! Ah! so you want her! Well, you shall have her.

You’re caught. You had arranged your little plot, you had said to

yourself:—‘I’m going to signify this squarely to my grandfather, to

that mummy of the Regency and of the Directory, to that ancient beau,

to that Dorante turned Géronte; he has indulged in his frivolities

also, that he has, and he has had his love affairs, and his grisettes

and his Cosettes; he has made his rustle, he has had his wings, he has

eaten of the bread of spring; he certainly must remember it.’ Ah! you

take the cockchafer by the horns. That’s good. I offer you a cutlet and

you answer me: ‘By the way, I want to marry.’ There’s a transition for

you! Ah! you reckoned on a bickering! You do not know that I am an old

coward. What do you say to that? You are vexed? You did not expect to

find your grandfather still more foolish than yourself, you are wasting

the discourse which you meant to bestow upon me, Mr. Lawyer, and that’s

vexatious. Well, so much the worse, rage away. I’ll do whatever you

wish, and that cuts you short, imbecile! Listen. I have made my

inquiries, I’m cunning too; she is charming, she is discreet, it is not

true about the lancer, she has made heaps of lint, she’s a jewel, she

adores you, if you had died, there would have been three of us, her

coffin would have accompanied mine. I have had an idea, ever since you

have been better, of simply planting her at your bedside, but it is

only in romances that young girls are brought to the bedsides of

handsome young wounded men who interest them. It is not done. What

would your aunt have said to it? You were nude three quarters of the

time, my good fellow. Ask Nicolette, who has not left you for a moment,

if there was any possibility of having a woman here. And then, what

would the doctor have said? A pretty girl does not cure a man of fever.

In short, it’s all right, let us say no more about it, all’s said,

all’s done, it’s all settled, take her. Such is my ferocity. You see, I

perceived that you did not love me. I said to myself: ‘Here now, I have

my little Cosette right under my hand, I’m going to give her to him, he

will be obliged to love me a little then, or he must tell the reason

why.’ Ah! so you thought that the old man was going to storm, to put on

a big voice, to shout no, and to lift his cane at all that aurora. Not

a bit of it. Cosette, so be it; love, so be it; I ask nothing better.

Pray take the trouble of getting married, sir. Be happy, my

well-beloved child.”

That said, the old man burst forth into sobs.

And he seized Marius’ head, and pressed it with both arms against his

breast, and both fell to weeping. This is one of the forms of supreme

happiness.

“Father!” cried Marius.

“Ah, so you love me!” said the old man.

An ineffable moment ensued. They were choking and could not speak.

At length the old man stammered:

“Come! his mouth is unstopped at last. He has said: ‘Father’ to me.”

Marius disengaged his head from his grandfather’s arms, and said

gently:

“But, father, now that I am quite well, it seems to me that I might see

her.”

“Agreed again, you shall see her to-morrow.”

“Father!”

“What?”

“Why not to-day?”

“Well, to-day then. Let it be to-day. You have called me ‘father’ three

times, and it is worth it. I will attend to it. She shall be brought

hither. Agreed, I tell you. It has already been put into verse. This is

the ending of the elegy of the ‘Jeune Malade’ by André Chénier, by

André Chénier whose throat was cut by the ras . . . by the giants of

’93.”

M. Gillenormand fancied that he detected a faint frown on the part of

Marius, who, in truth, as we must admit, was no longer listening to

him, and who was thinking far more of Cosette than of 1793.

The grandfather, trembling at having so inopportunely introduced André

Chénier, resumed precipitately:

“Cut his throat is not the word. The fact is that the great

revolutionary geniuses, who were not malicious, that is incontestable,

who were heroes, pardi! found that André Chénier embarrassed them

somewhat, and they had him guillot . . . that is to say, those great

men on the 7th of Thermidor, besought André Chénier, in the interests

of public safety, to be so good as to go....”

M. Gillenormand, clutched by the throat by his own phrase, could not

proceed. Being able neither to finish it nor to retract it, while his

daughter arranged the pillow behind Marius, who was overwhelmed with so

many emotions, the old man rushed headlong, with as much rapidity as

his age permitted, from the bed-chamber, shut the door behind him, and,

purple, choking and foaming at the mouth, his eyes starting from his

head, he found himself nose to nose with honest Basque, who was

blacking boots in the anteroom. He seized Basque by the collar, and

shouted full in his face in fury:—“By the hundred thousand Javottes of

the devil, those ruffians did assassinate him!”

“Who, sir?”

“André Chénier!”

“Yes, sir,” said Basque in alarm.