Page 1082 - les-miserables

cards with any porter, he put them in his pocket.
By another natural consequence, in proportion as he
drew nearer to his father, to the latter’s memory, and to
the things for which the colonel had fought five and twen-
ty years before, he receded from his grandfather. We have
long ago said, that M. Gillenormand’s temper did not please
him. There already existed between them all the dissonanc-
es of the grave young man and the frivolous old man. The
gayety of Geronte shocks and exasperates the melancholy of
Werther. So long as the same political opinions and the same
ideas had been common to them both, Marius had met M.
Gillenormand there as on a bridge. When the bridge fell, an
abyss was formed. And then, over and above all, Marius ex-
perienced unutterable impulses to revolt, when he reflected
that it was M. Gillenormand who had, from stupid motives,
torn him ruthlessly from the colonel, thus depriving the fa-
ther of the child, and the child of the father.
By dint of pity for his father, Marius had nearly arrived at
aversion for his grandfather.
Nothing of this sort, however, was betrayed on the ex-
terior, as we have already said. Only he grew colder and
colder; laconic at meals, and rare in the house. When his
aunt scolded him for it, he was very gentle and alleged his
studies, his lectures, the examinations, etc., as a pretext. His
grandfather never departed from his infallible diagnosis:
‘In love! I know all about it.’
From time to time Marius absented himself.
‘Where is it that he goes off like this?’ said his aunt.
On one of these trips, which were always very brief, he

1082 Les Miserables