And then, Lieutenant Gillenormand sometimes came in his uniform, with the tricolored cockade.
This rendered him downright intolerable.
Finally, Father Gillenormand had said to his daughter:
"I''ve had enough of that Theodule.
I haven''t much taste for warriors in time of peace.
Receive him if you choose. I don''t know but I prefer slashers to fellows that drag their swords. The clash of blades in battle is less dismal, after all, than the clank of the scabbard on the pavement.
And then, throwing out your chest like a bully and lacing yourself like a girl, with stays under your cuirass, is doubly ridiculous.
When one is a veritable man, one holds equally aloof from swagger and from affected airs.
He is neither a blusterer nor a finnicky-hearted man.
Keep your Theodule for yourself."⊿本⊿作⊿品⊿由⊿思⊿兔⊿網⊿提⊿供⊿線⊿上⊿閱⊿讀⊿
It was in vain that his daughter said to him:
"But he is your grandnephew, nevertheless,"--it turned out that M. Gillenormand, who was a grandfather to the very finger-tips, was not in the least a grand-uncle.
In fact, as he had good sense, and as he had compared the two, Theodule had only served to make him regret Marius all the more.
One evening,--it was the 24th of June, which did not prevent Father Gillenormand having a rousing fire on the hearth,--he had dismissed his daughter, who was sewing in a neighboring apartment. He was alone in his chamber, amid its pastoral scenes, with his feet propped on the andirons, half enveloped in his huge screen of coromandel lacquer, with its nine leaves, with his elbow resting on a table where burned two candles under a green shade, engulfed in his tapestry armchair, and in his hand a book which he was not reading. He was dressed, according to his wont, like an incroyable, and resembled an antique portrait by Garat.