trive to find him amid the
smoke and the grape-shot, and bear him off on his shoulders, and yet he
owed him nothing, and I, who owe so much to Thenardier, cannot join him
in this shadow where he is lying in the pangs of death, and in my
turn bring him back from death to life! Oh! I will find him!" To find
Thenardier, in fact, Marius would have given one of his arms, to rescue
him from his misery, he would have sacrificed all his blood. To see
Thenardier, to render Thenardier some service, to say to him: "You do
not know me; well, I do know you! Here I am. Dispose of me!" This was
Marius' sweetest and most magnificent dream.

CHAPTER III--MARIUS GROWN UP

At this epoch, Marius was twenty years of age. It was three years since
he had left his grandfather. Both parties had remained on the same
terms, without attempting to approach each other, and without seeking to
see each other. Besides, what was the use of seeing each other? Marius
was the brass vase, while Father Gillenormand was the iron pot.

We admit that Marius was mistaken as to his grandfather's heart. He had
imagined that M. Gillenormand had never loved him, and that that crusty,
harsh, and smiling old fellow who cursed, shouted, and stormed
and brandished his cane, cherished for him, at the most, only that
affection, which is at once slight and severe, of the dotards of comedy.
Marius was in error. There are fathers who do not love their children;
there exists no grandfather who does not adore his grandson. At bottom,
as we have said, M. Gillenormand idolized Marius. He idolized him after
his own fashion, with an accompaniment of snappishness and boxes on the
ear; but, this child once gone, he felt a black void in his heart;
he would allow no one to mention the child to him, and all the while
secretly regretted that he was so well obeyed. At first, he hoped that
this Buonapartist, this Jacobin, this terrorist, this Septembrist, would
return. But the weeks passed by, years passed; to M. Gillenormand's
great despair, the "blood-drinker" did not make his appearance. "I could
not do otherwise than turn him out," said the grandfather to himself,
and he asked himself: "If the thing were to do over again, would I do
it?" His pride instantly answered "yes," but his aged head, which he
shook in silence, replied sadly "no." He had his hours of depression.
He missed Marius. Old men need affection as they need the sun. It is
warmth. Strong as his nature was, the ab