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 Theodule 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.