Page 1743 - les-miserables

have not a penny then? You are dressed like a pickpocket.’
He rummaged in a drawer, drew forth a purse, which he
laid on the table: ‘Here are a hundred louis, buy yourself a
hat.’
‘Father,’ pursued Marius, ‘my good father, if you only
knew! I love her. You cannot imagine it; the first time I saw
her was at the Luxembourg, she came there; in the begin-
ning, I did not pay much heed to her, and then, I don’t know
how it came about, I fell in love with her. Oh! how unhappy
that made me! Now, at last, I see her every day, at her own
home, her father does not know it, just fancy, they are going
away, it is in the garden that we meet, in the evening, her fa-
ther means to take her to England, then I said to myself: ‘I’ll
go and see my grandfather and tell him all about the affair.
I should go mad first, I should die, I should fall ill, I should
throw myself into the water. I absolutely must marry her,
since I should go mad otherwise.’ This is the whole truth,
and I do not think that I have omitted anything. She lives in
a garden with an iron fence, in the Rue Plumet. It is in the
neighborhood of the Invalides.’
Father Gillenormand had seated himself, with a beam-
ing countenance, beside Marius. As he listened to him and
drank in the sound of his voice, he enjoyed at the same time
a protracted pinch of snuff. At the words ‘Rue Plumet’ he
interrupted his inhalation and allowed the remainder of his
snuff to fall upon his knees.
‘The Rue Plumet, the Rue Plumet, did you say?—Let us
see!—Are there not barracks in that vicinity?—Why, yes,
that’s it. Your cousin Theodule has spoken to me about it. The

1743