At this epoch, Marius was twenty years of age. It was three years since he had left his grandfather. Both parties had remained on the same terms, without attempting to approach each other, and without seeking to see each other. Besides, what was the use of seeing each other?
Marius was the brass vase, while Father Gillenormand was the iron pot. We admit that Marius was mistaken as to his grandfather’s heart. He had imagined that M.
Gillenormand had never loved him, and that that crusty, harsh, and smiling old fellow who cursed, shouted, and stormed and brandished his cane, cherished for him, at the most, only that affection, which is at once slight and severe, of the dotards of comedy. Marius was in error.
There are fathers who do not love their children; there exists no grandfather who does not adore his grandson. At bottom, as we have said, M. Gillenormand idolized Marius.
He idolized him after his own fashion, with an accompaniment of snappishness and boxes on the ear; but, this child once gone, he felt a black void in his heart; he would allow no one to mention the child to him, and all the while secretly regretted that he was so well obeyed.
At first, he hoped that this Buonapartist, this Jacobin, this terrorist, this Septembrist, would return. But the weeks passed by, years passed; to M. Gillenormand’s great despair, the 'blood-drinker' did not make his appearance.
'I could not do otherwise than turn him out,' said the grandfather to himself, and he asked himself: 'If the thing were to do over again, would I do it? ' His pride instantly answered 'yes,' but his aged head, which he shook in silence, replied sadly 'no.
' He had his hours of depression. He missed Marius. Old men need