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, a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.sed her time in weeping and making lint. I have made inquiries. She lives in the Rue de l"Homme Arme, 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 Geronte; 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 c.o.c.kchafer 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 Andre Chenier, by Andre Chenier 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 Andre Chenier, 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 Andre Chenier embarra.s.sed them somewhat, and they had him guillot ... that is to say, those great men on the 7th of Thermidor, besought Andre Chenier, 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 a.s.sa.s.sinate him!"
"Who, sir?"
"Andre Chenier!"
"Yes, sir," said Basque in alarm.
CHAPTER IV--MADEMOISELLE GILLENORMAND ENDS BY NO LONGER THINKING IT A BAD THING THAT M. FAUCHELEVENT SHOULD HAVE ENTERED WITH SOMETHING UNDER HIS ARM
Cosette and Marius beheld each other once more.
What that interview was like we decline to say. There are things which one must not attempt to depict; the sun is one of them.
The entire family, including Basque and Nicolette, were a.s.sembled in Marius" chamber at the moment when Cosette entered it.
Precisely at that moment, the grandfather was on the point of blowing his nose; he stopped short, holding his nose in his handkerchief, and gazing over it at Cosette.
She appeared on the threshold; it seemed to him that she was surrounded by a glory.
"Adorable!" he exclaimed.
Then he blew his nose noisily.
Cosette was intoxicated, delighted, frightened, in heaven. She was as thoroughly alarmed as any one can be by happiness. She stammered all pale, yet flushed, she wanted to fling herself into Marius" arms, and dared not. Ashamed of loving in the presence of all these people. People are pitiless towards happy lovers; they remain when the latter most desire to be left alone. Lovers have no need of any people whatever.
With Cosette, and behind her, there had entered a man with white hair who was grave yet smiling, though with a vague and heartrending smile.
It was "Monsieur Fauchelevent"; it was Jean Valjean.
He was very well dressed, as the porter had said, entirely in black, in perfectly new garments, and with a white cravat.
The porter was a thousand leagues from recognizing in this correct bourgeois, in this probable notary, the fear-inspiring bearer of the corpse, who had sprung up at his door on the night of the 7th of June, tattered, muddy, hideous, haggard, his face masked in blood and mire, supporting in his arms the fainting Marius; still, his porter"s scent was aroused. When M. Fauchelevent arrived with Cosette, the porter had not been able to refrain from communicating to his wife this aside: "I don"t know why it is, but I can"t help fancying that I"ve seen that face before."
M. Fauchelevent in Marius" chamber, remained apart near the door. He had under his arm, a package which bore considerable resemblance to an octavo volume enveloped in paper. The enveloping paper was of a greenish hue, and appeared to be mouldy.
"Does the gentleman always have books like that under his arm?"
Mademoiselle Gillenormand, who did not like books, demanded in a low tone of Nicolette.
"Well," retorted M. Gillenormand, who had overheard her, in the same tone, "he"s a learned man. What then? Is that his fault? Monsieur Boulard, one of my acquaintances, never walked out without a book under his arm either, and he always had some old volume hugged to his heart like that."