Page 1733 - les-miserables

clank of the scabbard on the pavement. And then, throw-
ing out your chest like a bully and lacing yourself like a girl,
with stays under your cuirass, is doubly ridiculous. When
one is a veritable man, one holds equally aloof from swagger
and from affected airs. He is neither a blusterer nor a finn-
icky-hearted man. Keep your Theodule for yourself.’
It was in vain that his daughter said to him: ‘But he is
your grandnephew, nevertheless,’—it turned out that M.
Gillenormand, who was a grandfather to the very finger-
tips, was not in the least a grand-uncle.
In fact, as he had good sense, and as he had compared the
two, Theodule had only served to make him regret Marius
all the more.
One evening,—it was the 24th of June, which did not
prevent Father Gillenormand having a rousing fire on the
hearth,—he had dismissed his daughter, who was sewing in
a neighboring apartment. He was alone in his chamber, amid
its pastoral scenes, with his feet propped on the andirons,
half enveloped in his huge screen of coromandel lacquer,
with its nine leaves, with his elbow resting on a table where
burned two candles under a green shade, engulfed in his
tapestry armchair, and in his hand a book which he was not
reading. He was dressed, according to his wont, like an in-
croyable, and resembled an antique portrait by Garat. This
would have made people run after him in the street, had not
his daughter covered him up, whenever he went out, in a
vast bishop’s wadded cloak, which concealed his attire. At
home, he never wore a dressing gown, except when he rose
and retired. ‘It gives one a look of age,’ said he.

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