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 cafe, 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!
Moliere 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:—