2210 Les Miserables
killed on the barricades! Out of hatred to me! He did that to
spite me! Ah! You blood-drinker! This is the way he returns
to me! Misery of my life, he is dead!’
He went to the window, threw it wide open as though
he were stifling, and, erect before the darkness, he began to
talk into the street, to the night:
‘Pierced, sabred, exterminated, slashed, hacked in pieces!
Just look at that, the villain! He knew well that I was wait-
ing for him, and that I had had his room arranged, and that
I had placed at the head of my bed his portrait taken when
he was a little child! He knew well that he had only to come
back, and that I had been recalling him for years, and that
I remained by my fireside, with my hands on my knees, not
knowing what to do, and that I was mad over it! You knew
well, that you had but to return and to say: ‘It is I,’ and you
would have been the master of the house, and that I should
have obeyed you, and that you could have done whatever
you pleased with your old numskull of a grandfather! you
knew that well, and you said:
‘No, he is a Royalist, I will not go! And you went to the
barricades, and you got yourself killed out of malice! To re-
venge yourself for what I said to you about Monsieur le Duc
de Berry. It is infamous! Go to bed then and sleep tranquil-
ly! he is dead, and this is my awakening.’
The doctor, who was beginning to be uneasy in both
quarters, quitted Marius for a moment, went to M. Gille-
normand, and took his arm. The grandfather turned round,
gazed at him with eyes which seemed exaggerated in size
and bloodshot, and said to him calmly: