Convalescence began.
But Marius was forced to remain for two months more stretched out on a long chair, on account of the results called up by the fracture of his collar-bone.
There always is a last wound like that which will not close, and which prolongs the dressings indefinitely, to the great annoyance of the sick person.
However, this long illness and this long convalescence saved him from all pursuit.
In France, there is no wrath, not even of a public character, which six months will not extinguish.
Revolts, in the present state of society, are so much the fault of every one, that they are followed by a certain necessity of shutting the eyes.
Let us add, that the inexcusable Gisquet order, which enjoined doctors to lodge information against the wounded, having outraged public opinion, and not opinion alone, but the King first of all, the wounded were covered and protected by this indignation; and, with the exception of those who had been made prisoners in the very act of combat, the councils of war did not dare to trouble any one.
So Marius was left in peace.
M. Gillenormand first passed through all manner of anguish, and then through every form of ecstasy.
It was found difficult to prevent his passing every night beside the wounded man; he had his big armchair carried to Marius’ bedside; he required his daughter to take the finest linen in the house for compresses and bandages.
Mademoiselle Gillenormand, like a sage and elderly person, contrived to spare the fine linen, while allowing the grandfather to think that he was obeyed.
M. Gillenormand would not permit any one to explain to him, that for the preparation of lint batiste is not nearly so good as coarse linen, nor new linen as old linen.
He was present at all the dressings of the wounds from which Mademoiselle Gillenormand modestly absented herself.
When the dead flesh was cut away with scissors, he said: “Aie! aie!”
Nothing was more touching than to see him with his gentle, senile palsy, offer the wounded man a cup of his cooling-draught.
He overwhelmed the doctor with questions. He did not observe that he asked the same ones over and over again.
On the day when the doctor announced to him that Marius was out of danger, the good man was in a delirium.
He made his porter a present of three louis.
That evening, on his return to his own chamber, he danced a gavotte, using his thumb and forefinger as castanets, and he sang the following song:
“Amour, tu vis en elle; Car c’est dans sa prunelle Que tu mets ton carquois. Narquois! “Moi, je la chante, et j’aime, Plus que Diane meme, Jeanne et ses durs tetons Bretons."
Then he knelt upon a chair, and Basque, who was watching him through the half-open door, made sure that he was praying.
Up to that time, he had not believed in God.
At each succeeding phase of improvement, which became more and more pronounced, the grandfather raved.
He executed a multitude of mechanical actions full of joy; he ascended and descended the stairs, without knowing why.
A pretty female neighbor was amazed one morning at receiving a big bouquet; it was M. Gillenormand who had sent it to her.
The husband made a jealous scene.
M. Gillenormand tried to draw Nicolette upon his knees.
He called Marius, “M. le Baron.”
He shouted:
“Long live the Republic!”
Every moment, he kept asking the doctor:
“Is he no longer in danger?”
He gazed upon Marius with the eyes of a grandmother.
He brooded over him while he ate.
He no longer knew himself, he no longer rendered himself an account of himself.
Marius was the master of the house, there was abdication in his joy, he was the grandson of his grandson.
In the state of joy in which he then was, he was the most venerable of children.
In his fear lest he might fatigue or annoy the convalescent, he stepped behind him to smile.
He was content, joyous, delighted, charming, young.
His white locks added a gentle majesty to the gay radiance of his visage.
When grace is mingled with wrinkles, it is adorable.
There is an indescribable aurora in beaming old age.
As for Marius, as he allowed them to dress his wounds and care for him, he had but one fixed idea: Cosette.
After the fever and delirium had left him, he did not again pronounce her name, and it might have been supposed that he no longer thought of her.
He held his peace, precisely because his soul was there.
He did not know what had become of Cosette; the whole affair of the Rue de la Chanvrerie was like a cloud in his memory; shadows that were almost indistinct, floated through his mind, Eponine, Gavroche, Mabeuf, the Thenardiers, all his friends gloomily intermingled with the smoke of the barricade; the strange passage of M. Fauchelevent through that adventure produced on him the effect of a puzzle in a tempest; he understood nothing connected with his own life, he did not know how nor by whom he had been saved, and no one of those around him knew this; all that they had been able to tell him was, that he had been brought home at night in a hackney-coach, to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire; past, present, future were nothing more to him than the mist of a vague idea; but in that fog there was one immovable point, one clear and precise outline, something made of granite, a resolution, a will; to find Cosette once more.
For him, the idea of life was not distinct from the idea of Cosette.
He had decreed in his heart that he would not accept the one without the other, and he was immovably resolved to exact of any person whatever, who should desire to force him to live,—from his grandfather, from fate, from hell,—the restitution of his vanished Eden.
He did not conceal from himself the fact that obstacles existed.
Let us here emphasize one detail, he was not won over and was but little softened by all the solicitude and tenderness of his grandfather.