Run after him, aunty. What the devil am I to write to that good old soul?”
At that moment a pair of black trousers descending from the imperial, made its appearance at the window of the coupé.
“Can that be Marius?” said the lieutenant.
It was Marius.
A little peasant girl, all entangled with the horses and the postilions at the end of the vehicle, was offering flowers to the travellers. “Give your ladies flowers!” she cried.
Marius approached her and purchased the finest flowers in her flat basket.
“Come now,” said Théodule, leaping down from the coupé, “this piques my curiosity. Who the deuce is he going to carry those flowers to? She must be a splendidly handsome woman for so fine a bouquet. I want to see her.”
And no longer in pursuance of orders, but from personal curiosity, like dogs who hunt on their own account, he set out to follow Marius.
Marius paid no attention to Théodule. Elegant women descended from the diligence; he did not glance at them. He seemed to see nothing around him.
“He is pretty deeply in love!” thought Théodule.
Marius directed his steps towards the church.
“Capital,” said Théodule to himself. “Rendezvous seasoned with a bit of mass are the best sort. Nothing is so exquisite as an ogle which passes over the good God’s head.”
On arriving at the church, Marius did not enter it, but skirted the apse. He disappeared behind one of the angles of the apse.
“The rendezvous is appointed outside,” said Théodule. “Let’s have a look at the lass.”
And he advanced on the tips of his boots towards the corner which Marius had turned.
On arriving there, he halted in amazement.
Marius, with his forehead clasped in his hands, was kneeling upon the grass on a grave. He had strewn his bouquet there. At the extremity of the grave, on a little swelling which marked the head, there stood a cross of black wood with this name in white letters: Colonel Baron Pontmercy. Marius’ sobs were audible.
The “lass” was a grave.
VIII
Marble Against Granite
It was hither that Marius had come on the first occasion of his absenting himself from Paris. It was hither that he had come every time that M. Gillenormand had said: “He is sleeping out.”
Lieutenant Théodule was absolutely put out of countenance by this unexpected encounter with a sepulchre; he experienced a singular and disagreeable sensation which he was incapable of analyzing, and which was composed of respect for the tomb, mingled with respect for the colonel. He retreated, leaving Marius alone in the cemetery, and there was discipline in this retreat. Death appeared to him with large epaulets, and he almost made the military salute to him. Not knowing what to write to his aunt, he decided not to write at all; and it is probable that nothing would have resulted from the discovery made by Théodule as to the love affairs of Marius, if, by one of those mysterious arrangements which are so frequent in chance, the scene at Vernon had not had an almost immediate counter-shock at Paris.
Marius returned from Vernon on the third day, in the middle of the morning, descended at his grandfather’s door, and, wearied by the two nights spent in the diligence, and feeling the need of repairing his loss of sleep by an hour at the swimming-school, he mounted rapidly to his chamber, took merely time enough to throw off his travelling-coat, and the black ribbon which he wore round his neck, and went off to the bath.
M. Gillenormand, who had risen betimes like all old men in good health, had heard his entrance, and had made haste to climb, as quickly as his old legs permitted, the stairs to the upper story where Marius lived, in order to embrace him, and to question him while so doing, and to find out where he had been.
But the youth had taken less time to descend than the old man had to ascend, and when Father Gillenormand entered the attic, Marius was no longer there.
The bed had not been disturbed, and on the bed lay, outspread, but not defiantly the greatcoat and the black ribbon.
“I like this better,” said M. Gillenormand.
And a moment later, he made his entrance into the salon, where Mademoiselle Gillenormand was already seated, busily embroidering her cartwheels.
The entrance was a triumphant one.
M. Gillenormand held in one hand the greatcoat, and in the other the neck-ribbon, and exclaimed:—
“Victory! We are about to penetrate the mystery! We are going to learn the most minute details; we are going to lay our finger on the debaucheries of our sly friend! Here we have the romance itself. I have the portrait!”
In fact, a case of black shagreen, resembling a medallion portrait, was suspended from the ribbon.
The old man took this case and gazed at it for some time without opening it, with that air of enjoyment, rapture, and wrath, with which a poor hungry fellow beholds an admirable dinner which is not for him, pass under his very nose.
“For this evidently is a portrait. I know all about such things. That is worn tenderly on the heart. How stupid they are! Some abominable fright that will make us shudder, probably! Young men have such bad taste nowadays!”
“Let us see, father,” said the old spinster.
The case opened by the pressure of a spring. They found in it nothing but a carefully folded paper.
“From the same to the same,” said M. Gillenormand, bursting with laughter. “I know what it is. A billet-doux.”
“Ah! let us read it!” said the aunt.
And she put on her spectacles. They unfolded the paper and read as follows:—
For my son.—
The Emperor made me a Baron on the battlefield of Waterloo. Since the Restoration disputes my right to this title which I purchased with my blood, my son shall take it and bear it. That he will be worthy of it is a matter of course.
The feelings of father and daughter cannot be described. They felt chilled as by the breath of a death’s-head.