‘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.