"Sir," said Marius, with the look of a man who feels that he is going to fall over a precipice, "I have come to ask your permission to marry." M. Gillenormand rang the bell, and Basque poked his head into the door. "Send my daughter here." A second later the door opened again, and Mlle. Gillenormand did not enter, but showed herself. Marius was standing silently, with drooping arms and the face of a criminal, while M. Gillenormand walked up and down the room. He turned to his daughter and said to her,-- "It is nothing. This is M. Marius; wish him good-evening. This gentleman desires to marry That will do. Be off!" The sound of the old man's sharp, hoarse voice announced a mighty fury raging within him. The aunt looked at Marius in terror, seemed scarce to recognize him, did not utter a syllable, and disappeared before her father's breath like a straw before a hurricane. In the mean while M. Gillenormand had turned back, and was now leaning against the mantel-piece. "You marry! at the age of one-and-twenty! You have settled all that, and have only a permission to ask, a mere formality! Sit down, sir. Well, you have had a revolution since I had the honor of seeing you last; the Jacobins had the best of it, and you are of course pleased. Are you not a republican since you became a baron? Those two things go famously together, and the republic is a sauce for the barony. Are you one of the decorated of July? Did you give your small aid to take the Louvre, sir? Close by, in the Rue St. Antoine, opposite the Rue des Nonaindières, there is a cannon-ball imbedded in the wall of a house three stories up, with the inscription, 'July 28, 1830.' Go and look at it, for it produces a famous effect. Ah! your friends do very pretty things! By the way, are they not erecting a fountain on the site of the Duc de Berry's monument? So you wish to marry? May I ask, without any indiscretion, who the lady is?" He stopped, and before Marius had time to answer, he added violently,-- "Ah! have you a profession, a fortune? How much do you earn by your trade as a lawyer?" "Nothing," said Marius, with a sort of fierceness and almost stern resolution. "Nothing? Then you have only the twelve hundred livres which I allow you to live on?" Marius made no reply, and M. Gillenormand continued,-- "In that case, I presume that the young lady is wealthy?" "Like myself." "What! no dowry?" "No." "Any expectations?" "I do not think so." "Quite naked! And what is the father?" "I do not know." "And what is her name?" "Mademoiselle Fauchelevent." "Mademoiselle Fauchewhat?" "Fauchelevent." "Ptt!" said the old gentleman.-- "Monsieur!" Marius exclaimed. M. Gillenormand interrupted him, with the air of a man who is talking to himself,-- "That is it, one-and-twenty, no profession, twelve hundred livres a year, and the Baroness Pontmercy will go and buy two sous' worth of parsley at the green-grocer's!"