Page 1731 - les-miserables

eyes fell on waking, an old portrait of his other daughter,
who was dead, Madame Pontmercy, a portrait which had
been taken when she was eighteen. He gazed incessantly at
that portrait. One day, he happened to say, as he gazed upon
it:—
‘I think the likeness is strong.’
‘To my sister?’ inquired Mademoiselle Gillenormand.
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘The old man added:—
‘And to him also.’
Once as he sat with his knees pressed together, and his
eyes almost closed, in a despondent attitude, his daughter
ventured to say to him:—
‘Father, are you as angry with him as ever?’
She paused, not daring to proceed further.
‘With whom?’ he demanded.
‘With that poor Marius.’
He raised his aged head, laid his withered and emaciated
fist on the table, and exclaimed in his most irritated and
vibrating tone:—
‘Poor Marius, do you say! That gentleman is a knave, a
wretched scoundrel, a vain little ingrate, a heartless, soul-
less, haughty, and wicked man!’
And he turned away so that his daughter might not see
the tear that stood in his eye.
Three days later he broke a silence which had lasted four
hours, to say to his daughter point-blank:—
‘I had the honor to ask Mademoiselle Gillenormand nev-
er to mention him to me.’

1731