Chapter 7: SOME PETTICOAT

We have mentioned a lancer.

He was a great-grand-nephew of M. Gillenormand, on the paternal side, who led a garrison life, outside the family and far from the domestic hearth. Lieutenant Théodule Gillenormand fulfilled all the conditions required to make what is called a fine officer. He had “a lady’s waist,” a victorious manner of trailing his sword and of twirling his moustache in a hook. He visited Paris very rarely, and so rarely that Marius had never seen him. The cousins knew each other only by name. We think we have said that Théodule was the favorite of Aunt Gillenormand, who preferred him because she did not see him. Not seeing people permits one to attribute to them all possible perfections.

One morning, Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder returned to her apartment as much disturbed as her placidity was capable of allowing. Marius had just asked his grandfather’s permission to take a little trip, adding that he meant to set out that very evening. “Go!” had been his grandfather’s reply, and M. Gillenormand had added in an aside, as he raised his eyebrows to the top of his forehead: “Here he is passing the night out again.” Mademoiselle Gillenormand had ascended to her chamber greatly puzzled, and on the staircase had dropped this exclamation: “This is too much!”—and this interrogation: “But where is it that he goes?” She espied some adventure of the heart, more or less illicit, a woman in the shadow, a rendezvous, a mystery, and she would not have been sorry to thrust her spectacles into the affair. Tasting a mystery resembles getting the first flavor of a scandal; sainted souls do not detest this. There is some curiosity about scandal in the secret compartments of bigotry.

So she was the prey of a vague appetite for learning a history.

In order to get rid of this curiosity which agitated her a little beyond her wont, she took refuge in her talents, and set about scalloping, with one layer of cotton after another, one of those embroideries of the Empire and the Restoration, in which there are numerous cart-wheels. The work was clumsy, the worker cross. She had been seated at this for several hours when the door opened. Mademoiselle Gillenormand raised her nose. Lieutenant Théodule stood before her, making the regulation salute. She uttered a cry of delight. One may be old, one may be a prude, one may be pious, one may be an aunt, but it is always agreeable to see a lancer enter one’s chamber.

“You here, Théodule!” she exclaimed.

“On my way through town, aunt.”

“Embrace me.”

“Here goes!” said Théodule.

And he kissed her. Aunt Gillenormand went to her writing-desk and opened it.

“You will remain with us a week at least?”

“I leave this very evening, aunt.”

“It is not possible!”

“Mathematically!”

“Remain, my little Théodule, I beseech you.”

“My heart says ‘yes,’ but my orders say ‘no.’ The matter is simple. They are changing our garrison; we have been at Melun, we are being transferred to Gaillon. It is necessary to pass through Paris in order to get from the old post to the new one. I said: ‘I am going to see my aunt.’”

“Here is something for your trouble.”

And she put ten louis into his hand.

“For my pleasure, you mean to say, my dear aunt.”

Théodule kissed her again, and she experienced the joy of having some of the skin scratched from her neck by the braidings on his uniform.

“Are you making the journey on horseback, with your regiment?” she asked him.

“No, aunt. I wanted to see you. I have special permission. My servant is taking my horse; I am travelling by diligence. And, by the way, I want to ask you something.”

“What is it?”

“Is my cousin Marius Pontmercy travelling so, too?”

“How do you know that?” said his aunt, suddenly pricked to the quick with a lively curiosity.

“On my arrival, I went to the diligence to engage my seat in the coupé.”

“Well?”

“A traveller had already come to engage a seat in the imperial. I saw his name on the card.”

“What name?”

“Marius Pontmercy.”

“The wicked fellow!” exclaimed his aunt. “Ah! your cousin is not a steady lad like yourself. To think that he is to pass the night in a diligence!”

“Just as I am going to do.”

“But you—it is your duty; in his case, it is wildness.”

“Bosh!” said Théodule.

Here an event occurred to Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder, —an idea struck her. If she had been a man, she would have slapped her brow. She apostrophized Théodule:—

“Are you aware whether your cousin knows you?”

“No. I have seen him; but he has never deigned to notice me.”

“So you are going to travel together?”

“He in the imperial, I in the coupé.”

“Where does this diligence run?”

“To Andelys.”

“Then that is where Marius is going?”

“Unless, like myself, he should stop on the way. I get down at Vernon, in order to take the branch coach for Gaillon. I know nothing of Marius’ plan of travel.”