Marius, Emerging from CIVIL War, Makes Ready for Domestic War — Les Misérables

For a long time, Marius was neither dead nor alive. For many weeks he lay in a fever accompanied by delirium, and by grave cerebral symptoms, caused more by the shocks of the wounds on the head than by the wounds themselves. He repeated Cosette's name for whole nights. The doctor was uneasy at every change of weather. Above all things, let the wounded man be subjected to no emotion. Nicolette used up a sheet as big as the ceiling for lint. As long as there was any danger, the grandfather, seated in despair at his grandson's pillow, was, like Marius, neither alive nor dead. Every day, sometimes twice a day, a very well dressed gentleman with white hair came to inquire about the wounded man, and left a large package of lint. Finally, four months to a day after the night he had been brought back, the doctor declared that he would answer for Marius. Convalescence began. He was forced to remain for two months more on a long chair, because of the collar-bone that would not close. This long illness saved him from all pursuit. Six months extinguish even a public wrath. An order that doctors inform against the wounded had outraged opinion, and the wounded were covered by that indignation. Marius was left in peace.

The grandfather first passed through all manner of anguish, and then through every form of ecstasy. He had his big armchair carried to the bedside. He required the finest linen for bandages, and the aunt contrived to spare it while allowing him to think that he was obeyed. He was present at all the dressings. When the dead flesh was cut away, he said aie. On the day the doctor announced that Marius was out of danger, the old man was in a delirium. He made his porter a present of three louis. That evening he danced a gavotte in his own chamber, then knelt upon a chair, and Basque, watching through the half-open door, made sure that he was praying. Up to that time, he had not believed in God. At each improvement he raved. He sent a neighbour a big bouquet. He tried to draw Nicolette upon his knees. He called Marius baron. He shouted: Long live the Republic. He no longer knew himself. Marius was the master of the house. There was abdication in his joy. He was the grandson of his grandson. When grace is mingled with wrinkles, it is adorable.

As for Marius, he had but one fixed idea: Cosette. After the fever he did not again pronounce her name, precisely because his soul was there. He did not know what had become of her. The barricade was a cloud. The strange passage of Fauchelevent through that adventure produced on him the effect of a puzzle in a tempest. No one around him knew how he had been saved. Past, present, future were a mist. But in that fog there was one immovable point, something made of granite: to find Cosette once more. He would not accept life without her. He was not won over by his grandfather's tenderness. He distrusted it as a strange and novel thing, which had for its object his conquest. He remained cold. The old man absolutely wasted his poor old smile. Marius told himself that when it became a question of Cosette, another face would be unmasked: a refusal. Then the old ulcers of his memory opened. The colonel placed himself once more between them. With health there returned a sort of harshness. The grandfather observed that Marius had not once called him father. Obviously, a crisis was approaching. One morning the old man spoke slightingly of the Convention, and Marius said with severity that the men of that year were giants. The old man held his peace the remainder of that day. Marius interpreted the silence as wrath, and decided that, in case of a refusal, he would tear off his bandages, dislocate his collar-bone, and reject all food. His wounds were his munitions of war. He would have Cosette or die. He awaited the propitious moment with the crafty patience of the sick. That moment arrived.