ever inquired about him, but he thought of him incessantly. He lived in the Marais in a more and more retired manner; he was still merry and violent as of old, but his merriment had a convulsive harshness, and his violences always terminated in a sort of gentle and gloomy dejection.
He sometimes said: "Oh! if he only would return, what a good box on the ear I would give him!"
As for his aunt, she thought too little to love much; Marius was no longer for her much more than a vague black form; and she eventually came to occupy herself with him much less than with the cat or the paroquet which she probably had.
What augmented Father Gillenormand''s secret suffering was, that he locked it all up within his breast, and did not allow its existence to be divined. His sorrow was like those recently invented furnaces which consume their own smoke.
It sometimes happened that officious busybodies spoke to him of Marius, and asked him:
"What is your grandson doing?" "What has become of him?"
The old bourgeois replied with a sigh, that he was a sad case, and giving a fillip to his cuff, if he wished to appear gay:
"Monsieur le Baron de Pontmercy is practising pettifogging in some corner or other."
While the old man regretted, Marius applauded himself. As is the case with all good-hearted people, misfortune had eradicated his bitterness.