her, and he was immovably resolved to exact of
any person whatever, who should desire to force him to live,--from his
grandfather, from fate, from hell,--the restitution of his vanished
Eden.

He did not conceal from himself the fact that obstacles existed.

Let us here emphasize one detail, he was not won over and was but little
softened by all the solicitude and tenderness of his grandfather. In
the first place, he was not in the secret; then, in his reveries of
an invalid, which were still feverish, possibly, he distrusted this
tenderness as a strange and novel thing, which had for its object his
conquest. He remained cold. The grandfather absolutely wasted his poor
old smile. Marius said to himself that it was all right so long as he,
Marius, did not speak, and let things take their course; but that when
it became a question of Cosette, he would find another face, and that
his grandfather's true attitude would be unmasked. Then there would
be an unpleasant scene; a recrudescence of family questions, a
confrontation of positions, every sort of sarcasm and all manner of
objections at one and the same time, Fauchelevent, Coupelevent, fortune,
poverty, a stone about his neck, the future. Violent resistance;
conclusion: a refusal. Marius stiffened himself in advance.

And then, in proportion as he regained life, the old ulcers of his
memory opened once more, he reflected again on the past, Colonel
Pontmercy placed himself once more between M. Gillenormand and him,
Marius, he told himself that he had no true kindness to expect from
a person who had been so unjust and so hard to his father. And
with health, there returned to him a sort of harshness towards his
grandfather. The old man was gently pained by this. M. Gillenormand,
without however allowing it to appear, observed that Marius, ever since
the latter had been brought back to him and had regained consciousness,
had not once called him father. It is true that he did not say
"monsieur" to him; but he contrived not to say either the one or the
other, by means of a certain way of turning his phrases. Obviously, a
crisis was approaching.

As almost always happens in such cases, Marius skirmished before giving
battle, by way of proving himself. This is called "feeling the ground."
One morning it came to pass that M. Gillenormand spoke slightingly of
the Convention, apropos of a newspaper which had fallen into his
hands, and gave vent to a Royalist harangue on Danton,