Chapter 167 Six Brief Talks about Manon and Her Two Children

M. Gillenormand's misery often took the form of sullenness, and he was fond of getting angry when he was disappointed.He has all kinds of prejudices, but he is completely wild.One of the expressions he used to complete his outward distinction and inner contentment was to be always coquettish, and to pretend that he really was.He called that what he called being "everyone's way."That kind of everyone's demeanor sometimes brings him unexpected luck.One day, someone brought a basket, the kind used to hold oysters, to his home. In the basket was a strong newborn boy, crying loudly and wrapped in warm clothes. The baby was a six-month-old baby. The female worker who was expelled from his home was sent back to him by someone.M. Gillenormand was at that time exactly eighty-four years old.Neighbors on the left and right expressed their indignation in unison.That shameless bitch, who does she want to believe her nonsense?How bold!What a despicable slander!And he, Monsieur Gillenormand, was not angry at all.He looked at the baby with a pleasant face and said to the side: "Why? Why do you want to do this? What's the matter? What's the big deal? You make such a fuss, frankly, you are too ignorant. Mr. Duke of Angoulême, Charles IX His Majesty's illegitimate son, married at eighty-five years to a charming girl of fifteen; At the age of thirteen, he also gave birth to a son with the maid of the dean Yagan's wife, a crystallization of true love, that is, the knight of Malta and the former military counselor in the future; one of the great men of this century, Father Daballo, is also an eighth The son of a seventeen-year-old man. These are the most common things. And the Bible! Having said this, I declare that this young man is not mine. Let us all take care of him. It is not his fault .” This is the practice of bad people.That guy, Manon, gave him another gift a year later.Still a boy.Now M. Gillenormand was about to make terms.He handed over the two children to their mother, and promised eighty francs a month for their maintenance, but the mother would never do this again.He also said: "I charge the mother to take good care of them. I will visit them at any time." And he did visit.He had a brother who was a priest, and was rector of the Poitiers College for thirty-three years, and lived to be seventy-nine. "He left me when he was so young," he used to say.The brother, who was a quiet and miserly man of limited life, thought that since he was a priest he must do something to the poor he met, but he only gave a few small coins, or a few devalued sous. , which he found a way to go to hell through heaven.As for Monsieur Ginomanta, he had no qualms about giving, and he gave money freely and generously.His character was earnest, forthright, and kind, and if he had been rich he might have been more generous.He wanted everything that had to do with him to be done with dignity, even when it came to theft and fraud.One day, in an inheritance distribution occasion, he was blackmailed by a businessman with obvious rudeness, and he spewed out such an indignant and solemn sentence: "Pfft! This is not very smart! Such a trick of chicken and dog robbery!" It really shames me. In this day and age everything degenerates, even the bad ones. Damn it! It's a disgrace to rob me like that. I seem to be robbed in the woods, I don’t feel any pain or itching to rob me. I don’t know Taishan with my eyes!” As we said, he was married twice.His first wife had a daughter who was unmarried; the second wife also had a daughter who died at thirty, and who, by love, chance, or otherwise, married a lucky soldier, The soldier had served in both the Republican and Imperial armies, was awarded the Order of Austerlitz, and was made a colonel at Waterloo. "It's my scandal," the old gentleman used to say.He sniffed a fair amount of snuff, and he had a peculiar manner of brushing the lace of his bosom with the back of his hand.He doesn't really believe in God.