Les Misérables, v. 5/5: Jean Valjean

by Victor Hugo

  CHAPTER XII.

  THE GRANDFATHER.

  Basque and the porter had carried Marius, who was still lyingmotionless on the sofa on which he had been laid on arriving, intothe drawing-room. The physician, who had been sent for, hurried in,and Aunt Gillenormand had risen. Aunt Gillenormand came and went,horrified, clasping her hands, and incapable of doing anything butsaying, "Can it be possible?" She added at intervals, "Everythingwill be stained with blood." When the first horror had passed away acertain philosophy of the situation appeared even in her mind, and wastranslated by the exclamation, "It must end in that way." She did notgo so far, though, as "Did I not say so?" which is usual on occasionsof this nature.

  By the surgeon's orders a folding-bed was put up near the sofa. Heexamined Marius, and after satisfying himself that the pulse stillbeat, that the patient had no penetrating wound in the chest, and thatthe blood at the corners of the lips came from the nostrils, he had himlaid flat on the bed, without a pillow, the head level with the body,and even a little lower, the chest bare, in order to facilitate thebreathing. Mademoiselle Gillenormand, seeing that Marius was beingundressed, withdrew, and told her beads in her bed-room. The body hadreceived no internal injury; a ball, deadened by the pocket-book, haddeviated, and passed round the ribs with a frightful gash, but as itwas not deep, it was therefore not dangerous. The long subterraneanmarch had completed the dislocation of the collar-bone, and there wereserious injuries there. The arms were covered with sabre-cuts; no scardisfigured the face, but the head was cut all over with gashes. Whatwould be the state of these wounds on the head,--did they stop at thescalp, or did they reach the brain? It was impossible to say yet. Itwas a serious symptom that they had caused the faintness. And men donot always awake from such fainting-fits; the hemorrhage, moreover, hadexhausted the wounded man. From the waist downward the lower part ofthe body had been protected by the barricade.

  Basque and Nicolette tore up linen and prepared bandages: Nicolettesewed them and Basque rolled them. As they had no lint, the physicianhad temporarily checked the effusion of blood with cakes of wadding.By the side of the bed three candles burned on the table on which thesurgeon's pocket-book lay open. He washed Marius's face and hair withcold water, and a bucketful was red in an instant. The porter, candlein hand, lighted him. The surgeon seemed to be thinking sadly: fromtime to time he gave a negative shake of the head, as if answeringsome question which he mentally addressed to himself. Such mysteriousdialogues of the physician with himself are a bad sign for the patient.At the moment when the surgeon was wiping the face and gently touchingwith his finger the still closed eyelids, a door opened at the end ofthe room, and a tall, pale figure appeared: it was the grandfather.The riot during the last two days had greatly agitated, offended, andoccupied M. Gillenormand; he had not been able to sleep on the previousnight, and he had been feverish all day. At night he went to bed at avery early hour, bidding his people bar up the house, and had fallenasleep through weariness.

  Old men have a fragile sleep. M. Gillenormand's bed-room joined thedrawing-room, and whatever precautions had been taken, the noise awokehim. Surprised by the crack of light which he saw in his door, he hadgot out of bed and groped his way to the door. He was standing onthe threshold, with one hand on the door-handle, his head slightlybent forward and shaking, his body enfolded in a white dressing-gownas straight and creaseless as a winding-sheet: he was surprised, andlooked like a ghost peering into a tomb. He noticed the bed, and on themattress this young bleeding man, of the whiteness of wax, with closedeyes, open mouth, livid cheeks, naked to the waist, marked all overwith vermilion, wounded, motionless, and brightly illumined.

  The grandfather had from head to foot that shudder which ossified limbscan have. His eyes, whose cornea was yellow owing to their great age,were veiled by a sort of glassy stare; his entire face assumed in aninstant the earthly angles of a skeleton's head; his arms fell pendentas if a spring had been broken in them, and his stupor was displayedby the outspreading of all the fingers of his two old trembling hands.His knees formed a salient angle, displaying through the opening of hisdressing-gown his poor naked legs bristling with white hairs, and hemurmured,--

  "Marius!"

  "He has just been brought here, sir," said Basque; "he went to thebarricade, and--"

  "He is dead," the old gentleman exclaimed in a terrible voice. "Oh, thebrigand!"

  Then a sort of sepulchral transfiguration drew up this centenarian asstraight as a young man.

  "You are the surgeon, sir," he said; "begin by telling me one thing. Heis dead, is he not?"

  The surgeon, who was frightfully anxious, maintained silence, and M.Gillenormand wrung his hands with a burst of terrifying laughter.

  "He is dead, he is dead! He has let himself be killed at the barricadethrough hatred of me; it was against me that he did it! Ah, theblood-drinker, that is the way in which he returns to me! Woe of mylife, he is dead!"

  He went to a window, opened it quite wide, as if he were stifling, andstanding there began speaking to the night in the street.

  "Stabbed, sabred, massacred, exterminated, slashed, cut to pieces!Do you see that, the beggar! He knew very well that I expected him,and that I had his room ready, and that I had placed at my bed-headhis portrait when he was a child! He knew very well that he need onlyreturn, and that for years I had been recalling him, and that I sat atnight by my fire-side with my hands on my knees, not knowing what todo, and that I was crazy about him! You knew that very well; you hadonly to return and say, 'It is I,' and you would be the master of thehouse, and I would obey you, and you could do anything you liked withyour old ass of a grandfather! You knew it very well, and said, 'No,he is a royalist, I will not go!' and you went to the barricades, andhave let yourself be killed out of spite, in order to revenge yourselffor what I said on the subject of Monsieur le Due de Berry! Is notthat infamous! Go to bed and sleep quietly, for he is dead. This is myawaking."

  The surgeon, who was beginning to be anxious for both, left Marius,and going up to M. Gillenormand, took his arm. The grandfather turned,looked at him with eyes that seemed dilated and bloodshot, and saidcalmly,--

  "I thank you sir, I am calm. I am a man. I saw the death of Louis XVI.,and can endure events. There is one thing that is terrible,--it isthe thought that it is your newspapers which do all the mischief. Youhave scribblers, speakers, lawyers, orators, tribunes, discussions,progress, lights, rights of man, liberty of the press, and that isthe way in which your children are brought back to your houses. Oh,Marius, it is abominable! Killed! dead before me! a barricade! Oh, thebandit! Doctor, you live in the quarter, I believe? Oh yes, I knowyou well. I have seen your cab pass from my window. Well, I will tellyou. You are wrong if you think that I am in a passion, for people donot get in a passion with a dead man, it would be stupid. That is aboy I brought up; I was old when he was still quite little. He playedin the Tuileries with his little spade and his little chair, and, inorder that the inspectors should not scold, I used to fill up with mycane the holes which he made with his spade. One day he cried, 'Downwith Louis XVIII.!' and went off. It is not my fault. He was all pinkand white, and his mother is dead: have you noticed that all littlechildren are light-haired? He is a son of one of those brigands of theLoire, but children are innocent of their fathers' crimes. I rememberhim when he was so high, and he could never manage to pronounce a _d._He spoke so sweetly and incomprehensibly that you might have fanciedhim a bird. I remember one day that a circle was formed in front of theFarnese Hercules to admire that child, he was so lovely. He had a headsuch as you see in pictures. I used to speak loud to him, and threatenhim with my cane; but he knew very well that it was a joke. In themorning, when he entered my room, I scolded; but it produced the effectof sunshine upon me. It is not possible to defend yourself againstthese brats, for they take you, and hold you, and do not let you goagain. It is the fact that there never was a Cupid like that child. Andnow what do you say of your Lafayette, your Benjamin Constant, and yourTirecuir de Corcel
les, who kill him for me? Oh, it cannot pass awaylike that!"

  He went up to Marius, who was still livid and motionless, and beganwringing his hands again. The old gentleman's white lips moved as itwere mechanically, and allowed indistinct sentences to pass, whichwere scarce audible. "Ah, heartless! ah, clubbist! ah, scoundrel! ah,Septembrizer!"--reproaches uttered in a low voice by a dying man to acorpse. By degrees, as such internal eruptions must always burst forth,the flood of words returned; but the grandfather seemed no longer tohave the strength to utter them; his voice was so hollow and chokedthat it seemed to come from the other brink of an abyss.

  "I do not care a bit; I will die too. And then to think there is nota wench in Paris who would not be happy to produce the happiness ofthat scoundrel,--a scamp, who, instead of amusing himself and enjoyinglife, went to fight, and let himself be shot like a brute! And forwhom, and for what? For the republic, instead of going to dance at theChaumière, as is the duty of young men! It is really worth while beingtwenty years of age. The republic,--a fine absurdity! Poor mothersbring pretty boys into the world for that! Well, he is dead; that willmake two hearses under the gateway. So you have got yourself served inthat way for love of General Lamarque! What did General Lamarque do foryou? A sabrer! a chatterer! to get one's self killed for a dead man!Is it not enough to drive one mad? Can you understand that? At twenty!and without turning his head to see whether he left anything behindhim! Now, see the poor old fellows who are obliged to die all alone.Rot in your corner, owl! Well, after all, that is what I hoped for, andis for the best, as it will kill me right off. I am too old; I am onehundred; I am a hundred thousand, and I had a right to be dead longago. Well, this blow settles it. It is all over. What happiness! Whatis the use of making him inhale ammonia and all that pile of drugs? Youass of a doctor, you are wasting your time. There, he's dead, quitedead! I know it, for I am dead too. He did not do the thing by halves.Yes, the present age is infamous, infamous, infamous! And that is whatI think of you, your ideas, your systems, your masters, your oracles,your doctors, your scamps of writers, your rogues of philosophers, andall the revolutions which have startled the Tuileries ravens duringthe last sixty years. And since you were pitiless in letting yourselfbe killed so, I will not even feel sorry at your death. Do your hear,assassin?"

  At this moment Marius slowly opened his eyes, and his glance, stillveiled by lethargic surprise, settled on M. Gillenormand.

  "Marius!" the old man cried; "Marius, my little Marius! My child! Mybeloved son! You open your eyes! You look at me! You are alive! Thanks!"

  And he fell down in a fainting fit.