Les Misérables, page 184
CHAPTER VIII--MARBLE AGAINST GRANITE
It was hither that Marius had come on the first occasion of hisabsenting himself from Paris. It was hither that he had come every timethat M. Gillenormand had said: "He is sleeping out."
Lieutenant Théodule was absolutely put out of countenance by thisunexpected encounter with a sepulchre; he experienced a singular anddisagreeable sensation which he was incapable of analyzing, and whichwas composed of respect for the tomb, mingled with respect for thecolonel. He retreated, leaving Marius alone in the cemetery, andthere was discipline in this retreat. Death appeared to him with largeepaulets, and he almost made the military salute to him. Not knowingwhat to write to his aunt, he decided not to write at all; and it isprobable that nothing would have resulted from the discovery madeby Théodule as to the love affairs of Marius, if, by one of thosemysterious arrangements which are so frequent in chance, the scene atVernon had not had an almost immediate counter-shock at Paris.
Marius returned from Vernon on the third day, in the middle of themorning, descended at his grandfather's door, and, wearied by the twonights spent in the diligence, and feeling the need of repairing hisloss of sleep by an hour at the swimming-school, he mounted rapidly tohis chamber, took merely time enough to throw off his travelling-coat,and the black ribbon which he wore round his neck, and went off to thebath.
M. Gillenormand, who had risen betimes like all old men in good health,had heard his entrance, and had made haste to climb, as quickly as hisold legs permitted, the stairs to the upper story where Marius lived,in order to embrace him, and to question him while so doing, and to findout where he had been.
But the youth had taken less time to descend than the old man had toascend, and when Father Gillenormand entered the attic, Marius was nolonger there.
The bed had not been disturbed, and on the bed lay, outspread, but notdefiantly the great-coat and the black ribbon.
"I like this better," said M. Gillenormand.
And a moment later, he made his entrance into the salon, whereMademoiselle Gillenormand was already seated, busily embroidering hercart-wheels.
The entrance was a triumphant one.
M. Gillenormand held in one hand the great-coat, and in the other theneck-ribbon, and exclaimed:--
"Victory! We are about to penetrate the mystery! We are going tolearn the most minute details; we are going to lay our finger on thedebaucheries of our sly friend! Here we have the romance itself. I havethe portrait!"
In fact, a case of black shagreen, resembling a medallion portrait, wassuspended from the ribbon.
The old man took this case and gazed at it for some time without openingit, with that air of enjoyment, rapture, and wrath, with which a poorhungry fellow beholds an admirable dinner which is not for him, passunder his very nose.
"For this evidently is a portrait. I know all about such things. That isworn tenderly on the heart. How stupid they are! Some abominable frightthat will make us shudder, probably! Young men have such bad tastenowadays!"
"Let us see, father," said the old spinster.
The case opened by the pressure of a spring. They found in it nothingbut a carefully folded paper.
_"From the same to the same,"_ said M. Gillenormand, bursting withlaughter. "I know what it is. A billet-doux."
"Ah! let us read it!" said the aunt.
And she put on her spectacles. They unfolded the paper and read asfollows:--
"_For my son_.--The Emperor made me a Baron on the battlefield ofWaterloo. Since the Restoration disputes my right to this title which Ipurchased with my blood, my son shall take it and bear it. That he willbe worthy of it is a matter of course."
The feelings of father and daughter cannot be described. They feltchilled as by the breath of a death's-head. They did not exchange aword.
Only, M. Gillenormand said in a low voice and as though speaking tohimself:--
"It is the slasher's handwriting."
The aunt examined the paper, turned it about in all directions, then putit back in its case.
At the same moment a little oblong packet, enveloped in blue paper, fellfrom one of the pockets of the great-coat. Mademoiselle Gillenormandpicked it up and unfolded the blue paper.
It contained Marius' hundred cards. She handed one of them to M.Gillenormand, who read: _Le Baron Marius Pontmercy_.
The old man rang the bell. Nicolette came. M. Gillenormand took theribbon, the case, and the coat, flung them all on the floor in themiddle of the room, and said:--
"Carry those duds away."
A full hour passed in the most profound silence. The old man and the oldspinster had seated themselves with their backs to each other, and werethinking, each on his own account, the same things, in all probability.
At the expiration of this hour, Aunt Gillenormand said:--"A pretty stateof things!"
A few moments later, Marius made his appearance. He entered. Even beforehe had crossed the threshold, he saw his grandfather holding one ofhis own cards in his hand, and on catching sight of him, the latterexclaimed with his air of bourgeois and grinning superiority which wassomething crushing:--
"Well! well! well! well! well! so you are a baron now. I present you mycompliments. What is the meaning of this?"
Marius reddened slightly and replied:--
"It means that I am the son of my father."
M. Gillenormand ceased to laugh, and said harshly:--
"I am your father."
"My father," retorted Marius, with downcast eyes and a severe air, "wasa humble and heroic man, who served the Republic and France gloriously,who was great in the greatest history that men have ever made, wholived in the bivouac for a quarter of a century, beneath grape-shot andbullets, in snow and mud by day, beneath rain at night, who captured twoflags, who received twenty wounds, who died forgotten and abandoned, andwho never committed but one mistake, which was to love too fondly twoingrates, his country and myself."
This was more than M. Gillenormand could bear to hear. At the word_republic_, he rose, or, to speak more correctly, he sprang to his feet.Every word that Marius had just uttered produced on the visage of theold Royalist the effect of the puffs of air from a forge upon a blazingbrand. From a dull hue he had turned red, from red, purple, and frompurple, flame-colored.
"Marius!" he cried. "Abominable child! I do not know what your fatherwas! I do not wish to know! I know nothing about that, and I do not knowhim! But what I do know is, that there never was anything but scoundrelsamong those men! They were all rascals, assassins, red-caps, thieves! Isay all! I say all! I know not one! I say all! Do you hear me, Marius!See here, you are no more a baron than my slipper is! They were allbandits in the service of Robespierre! All who served B-u-o-naparté werebrigands! They were all traitors who betrayed, betrayed, betrayed theirlegitimate king! All cowards who fled before the Prussians and theEnglish at Waterloo! That is what I do know! Whether Monsieur yourfather comes in that category, I do not know! I am sorry for it, so muchthe worse, your humble servant!"
In his turn, it was Marius who was the firebrand and M. Gillenormandwho was the bellows. Marius quivered in every limb, he did not know whatwould happen next, his brain was on fire. He was the priest who beholdsall his sacred wafers cast to the winds, the fakir who beholds apasser-by spit upon his idol. It could not be that such things had beenuttered in his presence. What was he to do? His father had just beentrampled under foot and stamped upon in his presence, but by whom? Byhis grandfather. How was he to avenge the one without outraging theother? It was impossible for him to insult his grandfather and it wasequally impossible for him to leave his father unavenged. On the onehand was a sacred grave, on the other hoary locks.
He stood there for several moments, staggering as though intoxicated,with all this whirlwind dashing through his head; then he raisedhis eyes, gazed fixedly at his grandfather, and cried in a voice ofthunder:--
"Down with the Bourbons, and that great hog of a Louis XVIII.!"
Louis XVIII. had been dead for four years; but it was all the same tohim.
The old man, who had been crimson, turned whiter than his hair. Hewheeled round towards a bust of M. le Duc de Berry, which stood on thechimney-piece, and made a profound bow, with a sort of peculiar majesty.Then he paced twice, slowly and in silence, from the fireplace to thewindow and from the window to the fireplace, traversing the whole lengthof the room, and making the polished floor creak as though he had been astone statue walking.
On his second turn, he bent over his daughter, who was watching thisencounter with the stupefied air of an antiquated lamb, and said to herwith a smile that was almost calm: "A baron like this gentleman, and abourgeois like myself cannot remain under the same roof."
And drawing himself up, all at once, pallid, trembling, terrible, withhis brow rendered more lofty by the terrible radiance of wrath, heextended his arm towards Marius and shouted to him:--
"Be off!"
Marius left the house.
On the following day, M. Gillenormand said to his daughter:
"You will send sixty pistoles every six months to that blood-drinker,and you will never mention his name to me."
Having an immense reserve fund of wrath to get rid of, and not knowingwhat to do with it, he continued to address his daughter as _you_instead of _thou_ for the next three months.
Marius, on his side, had gone forth in indignation. There was onecircumstance which, it must be admitted, aggravated his exasperation.There are always petty fatalities of the sort which complicate domesticdramas. They augment the grievances in such cases, although, in reality,the wrongs are not increased by them. While carrying Marius' "duds"precipitately to his chamber, at his grandfather's command, Nicolettehad, inadvertently, let fall, probably, on the attic staircase, whichwas dark, that medallion of black shagreen which contained the paperpenned by the colonel. Neither paper nor case could afterwards be found.Marius was convinced that "Monsieur Gillenormand"--from that day forthhe never alluded to him otherwise--had flung "his father's testament" inthe fire. He knew by heart the few lines which the colonel had written,and, consequently, nothing was lost. But the paper, the writing, thatsacred relic,--all that was his very heart. What had been done with it?
Marius had taken his departure without saying whither he was going, andwithout knowing where, with thirty francs, his watch, and a few clothesin a hand-bag. He had entered a hackney-coach, had engaged it by thehour, and had directed his course at hap-hazard towards the Latinquarter.
What was to become of Marius?
BOOK FOURTH.--THE FRIENDS OF THE A B C
