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 beaming 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 lancer, the officer. A gay girl,
my good friend, a gay girl!--Pardieu, yes, the Rue Plumet. It is what
used to be called the Rue Blomet.--It all comes back to me now. I have
heard of that little girl of the iron railing in the Rue Plumet. In a
garden, a Pamela. Your taste is not bad. She is said to be a very tidy
creature. Between ourselves, I think that simpleton of a lancer has been
courting her a bit. I don't know where he did it. However, that's not
to the purpose. Besides, he is not to be believed. He brags, Marius! I
think it quite proper that a young man like you should be in love. It's
the right thing at your age. I like you better as a lover than as a
Jacobin. I like you better in love with a petticoat, sapristi! with
twenty petticoats, than with M. de Robespierre. For my part, I will do
myself the justice to say, that in the line of sans-culottes, I have
never loved any one but women. Pretty girls are pretty girls, the deuce!
There's no objection to that. As for the little one, she receives you
without her father's knowledge. That's in the established order of
things. I have had adventures of that same sort myself. More than one.
Do you know what is done then? One does not take the matter ferociously;
one does not precipitate himself into the tragic; one does not make
one's mind to marriage and M. le Maire with his scarf. One simply
behaves like a fellow of spirit. One shows good sense. Slip along,
mortals; don't marry. You come and look up your grandfather, who is a
good-natured fellow at bottom, and who always has a few rolls of louis
in an ol