Page 1745 - les-miserables

boy, you shall pass it on to your grandson. Here are two hun-
dred pistoles. Amuse yourself, deuce take it!’ Nothing better!
That’s the way the affair should be treated. You don’t marry,
but that does no harm. You understand me?’
Marius, petrified and incapable of uttering a syllable,
made a sign with his head that he did not.
The old man burst out laughing, winked his aged eye,
gave him a slap on the knee, stared him full in the face with
a mysterious and beaming air, and said to him, with the
tenderest of shrugs of the shoulder:—
‘Booby! make her your mistress.’
Marius turned pale. He had understood nothing of what
his grandfather had just said. This twaddle about the Rue
Blomet, Pamela, the barracks, the lancer, had passed before
Marius like a dissolving view. Nothing of all that could bear
any reference to Cosette, who was a lily. The good man was
wandering in his mind. But this wandering terminated in
words which Marius did understand, and which were a mor-
tal insult to Cosette. Those words, ‘make her your mistress,’
entered the heart of the strict young man like a sword.
He rose, picked up his hat which lay on the floor, and
walked to the door with a firm, assured step. There he turned
round, bowed deeply to his grandfather, raised his head erect
again, and said:—
‘Five years ago you insulted my father; to-day you have
insulted my wife. I ask nothing more of you, sir. Farewell.’
Father Gillenormand, utterly confounded, opened his
mouth, extended his arms, tried to rise, and before he could
utter a word, the door closed once more, and Marius had

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