Chapter 342 Twelve grandfathers

Basque and the porter carried into the living room Marius, who had been lying motionless on the couch when he first arrived.The doctor, after they had called, had arrived, and Aunt Gillenormand was up. Aunt Gillenormand walked up and down, flustered, clasping her hands, unable to do anything but say: "My God! How is this possible!" Sometimes she added: "There will be blood everywhere! ’ After the initial horror had passed, a certain philosophy of reality came to her mind, and she expressed it by exclaiming, “It must have turned out this way!” Before she added, “I’ve been I said it!" This is a common phrase used by people on such occasions.

As the doctor ordered, a cot was set up beside the couch.The doctor examined Marius, and when he knew that the injured man's pulse was still beating, that there was no serious injury in the chest, and that the blood from the corners of his lips came from the nasal cavity, the doctor made him lie on his back on the bed without a pillow, with his head as flat as his body, even more flat than his body. The body is still a little lower, and the upper body is naked in order to make the breathing unobstructed.Mademoiselle Gillenormand withdrew when she saw Marius undressing.She went to the dormitory to read scriptures.

Marius had no internal wounds in the upper body, but a bullet, caught in the wallet, deflected along the ribs, leaving a terrible gash, but not deep enough to be dangerous.The shattered collarbone dislocated from the long walk underground was a serious injury.He had stab wounds on both arms.There is no disfiguring wound on the face, but the head seems to be covered with knife marks. What consequences will the wound on the head have?Does the injury only stay on the surface of the scalp?Or hurt the skull?Can't tell yet.A serious symptom is a coma caused by the wound, which not all people can wake up from.In addition, the bleeding has left the wounded extremely debilitated.From the waist down, the lower body is protected by barricades.

Basque and Nicolette were ripping sheets and clothes for bandages, Nicolette sewing strips and Basque rolling them up.Due to the lack of old cloth gauze to wrap the wound, the doctor temporarily used cotton rolls to stanch the blood from the wound.Beside the couch, three lit candles are placed on a table displaying surgical instruments.The doctor washed Marius' face and hair with cold water.A bucket of water turned red in a short while.The porter held a candle in his hand and lit it. The doctor seemed to be thinking sadly.He shook his head from time to time, as if answering the question in his heart.This kind of secret questioning and answering by the doctor is not good for the patient.

While the doctor was swabbing his face and touching his closed eyelids lightly with his fingers, a door at the far end of the living room opened and a long pale face appeared. This is grandfather. For two days, the riot had made M. Gillenormand very nervous. He was angry and worried. He could not sleep the night before and had a fever all day yesterday.At night, he went to bed early, ordered his family to bolt up the house, and fell asleep in a daze from exhaustion. The sleep of the elderly is easy to wake up; Mr. Gillenormand's bedroom is adjacent to the living room, and although everyone is careful, there are still noises that wake him up.He was surprised to see the candlelight leaking from the crack of the door, so he got up and walked out in the dark.

He stood at the door, holding the handle of the half-open door with one hand, his head tilted slightly forward and shaking, his body was wrapped in a white dressing gown, straight and without folds, like a shroud, his expression was astonished, like a shroud. A ghost peers into the grave. He saw the bed, the bloody young man on the mattress, pale as white wax, his eyes closed, his mouth open, his lips bloodless, his upper body naked, covered with purple wounds, motionless, all of this It was clearly illuminated. Grandfather's bony body trembled from head to toe, his eyes with yellow corneas due to old age were covered with a kind of transparent light, and the whole face showed gray edges and corners like a skeleton in an instant, with his arms hung down, His astonishment was expressed in the parting of the fingers of his old, trembling hands as if the spring inside had snapped.Knees bent forward, his poor white-haired legs visible through the open dressing gown, he whispered:

"Marius!" "Sir," Musk said, "someone sent the young master back, he went to the barricades, and..." "He's dead!" cried the old man in a terrible voice. "Ah! the rascal!" At this moment a gloomy metamorphosis made the centenarian erect like a young man. "Sir," said he, "you are the doctor, and tell me one thing first. He's dead, isn't he?" The doctor, very anxious, did not answer. M. Gillenormand wrung his hands and laughed horribly: "He's dead! He's dead! He went to the barricades to be killed! He did it to hate me! He did it to me! Ah! Vampire! Come back to me like this! I've been hit and miss, he's dead!"

He went to a window, opened it as if he were suffocated, and standing facing the darkness, he spoke to the street into the night: "Punctured, stabbed, throat slit, destroyed, torn, cut to pieces! Look, the scoundrel! He knows I'm waiting for him, I have his quarters made up, I put him The picture of my childhood is next to my bed; he knows he can come home any time, he knows I have been calling him back for years, every night I sit by the fire with my hands on my lap, I don’t know what to do, he knows I am so Thinner! You know it all, you know that as soon as you come back and say 'it's me', you'll be the head of the house and I'll obey you; you can have your foolish grandpa at your mercy! You're very Clear, but you say 'no, he's a royalist, I'm not going home!' and you go to the barricades and seek death with malice! To answer what I said to you about M. de Berry Revenge! How vile it is! Go to sleep, sleep in peace! He's dead. That's what I found when I awoke."

The doctor began to worry about the grandparents. He left Marius for a while, went up to M. Gillenormand, and took his arm.The grandfather turned and looked at him with eyes that seemed to be wide and bloodshot, and said to him calmly: "Monsieur, I thank you, I am quiet, I am a man, I have seen the death of Louis XVI, I can bear events, there is a terrible thing, it is the thought that your paper makes everything worse, you can have Bad writers, gabs, lawyers, orators, courts, debates, progress, light, human rights, freedom of the press, and the result is that someone else sends your children home! Cough! Marius! Terrible He was killed! Died before me! A barricade! Cough! The robber! Doctor, I suppose you live in this district? Ah! I know you. I saw your car go by from my window. I I tell you, if you think I am angry, you are wrong. One cannot be angry at a dead man. It would be foolish. He was my child. I was old and he was little. He Playing in the gardens of the Tuileries Palace with his little chair and shovel, in order not to be scolded by the guards, he used the shovel to dig holes in the ground, and I followed to fill the holes with my walking stick. One day he cried 'Down with Louis XVIII!' and went away. It was not my fault. He was rosy-faced and fair-haired. His mother was dead. Did you notice that all the children were fair-haired? It was For what reason? He was the son of a robber in the Loire. Children are innocent of the crimes of their fathers. I remember when he was only this little tall, he couldn't say the d-word. His voice was soft and muffled, It makes one feel like a little bird. I remember once in Farnese before the "Hercules" statue, many people surrounded him, everyone was admiring and admiring him, because this child is really beautiful! He His face was like in a painting. I yelled at him and threatened him with my crutches, but he knew it was a joke. He came to my bedroom early in the morning and I scolded him, but he made me feel as if I was being sunburned. As warm as ever. There is nothing one can do with such children. They catch you, entangle you, and never let you go. Indeed, there is nothing cuter than this child. Now, you think your Raphael De, what about your Bangaman Constant, and your Dirgul de Gosseler? They killed my children! That's not right."

He approached Marius, pale and motionless.The doctor returned to the patient, and the grandfather began to twist his arm again.The old man's pale lips trembled mechanically, and he uttered an unintelligible words that sounded like he was on his deathbed: "Cough! A thing without a conscience! Ah! A member of a political group! Huh! A rascal! September tortured and killed the royalists!" He reproached a dead man with the whisper of a dying man. Gradually, just as the volcano in his heart was always about to erupt, grandfather began to speak again, but he seemed unable to speak out, his voice was so low and weak that it seemed to come from the bottom of the abyss:

"Never mind, I'm going to die too. Just think, there's not a single woman in Paris who wouldn't give herself to this guy. Instead of having fun and enjoying life to the fullest, the rascal is going to war and be machine-gunned like a beast." Shooting! For whom? For what reason? For the republic! Better not to dance at Schumiers, that's the business of young people! Twenty youths are wasted in vain. The republic, a sleazy nonsense! Poor mothers , why did you give birth to these beautiful children! Come on, he is dead. There will be two funerals under the great hall. You were murdered like this to win the favor of General Lamarck! What did this General Lamarck give you A brutal and ignorant soldier! A man of nonsense! Desperate for a dead man! Why don't you drive people crazy! Think about it! Only twenty years old! Don't look back to see if there is anything left behind! This time, poor Old men have to die alone. Die in your corner, loner! This one, to tell the truth, is all I wish for, and it will kill me. I am too old, I I am a hundred years old, and I am a hundred thousand years old. I have the right to die a long time ago. Now, it is done. Everything is over, so happy! Why give him smelling ammonia, and all these piles Medicine? You're wasting your efforts, silly doctor! Come on, he's dead, quite dead. I'm an expert, and I'm dead myself. He didn't do it halfway. Truth be told, the times are ugly. ugly, ugly, this is what I think of you, of your ideas, of your institutions, of your masters, of your oracles, of your doctors, of your rogue writers, of your beggar-philosopher, and of all those revolutions that have terrified the crows of the Tuileries for sixty years. If you go to your death without mercy, I will have no mercy for yours. No regrets, you hear me, murderer!" At this moment, Marius slowly opened his eyes, and his eyes, still shrouded in the astonishment of awakening from sleep, rested on M. Gillenormand's face. "Marius," cried the old man, "Marius! My little Marius! My child! My dear son! You have opened your eyes, you have looked at me, you are alive, thank you!" So he passed out.