So long as the same political opinions and the same ideas had been common to them both, Marius had met M. Gillenormand there as on a bridge.
When the bridge fell, an abyss was formed. And then, over and above all, Marius experienced unutterable impulses to revolt, when he reflected that it was M. Gillenormand who had, from stupid motives, torn him ruthlessly from the colonel, thus depriving the father of the child, and the child of the father.
By dint of pity for his father, Marius had nearly arrived at aversion for his grandfather.
Nothing of this sort, however, was betrayed on the exterior, as we have already said.
Only he grew colder and colder; laconic at meals, and rare in the house.
When his aunt scolded him for it, he was very gentle and alleged his studies, his lectures, the examinations, etc., as a pretext.
His grandfather never departed from his infallible diagnosis:
"In love!
I know all about it."
From time to time Marius absented himself.
"Where is it that he goes off like this?" said his aunt.
On one of these trips, which were always very brief, he went to Montfermeil, in order to obey the injunction which his father had left him, and he sought the old sergeant to Waterloo, the inn-keeper Thenardier.
Thenardier had failed, the inn was closed, and no one knew what had become of him. Marius was away from the house for four days on this quest.