The Part Where We Stop Hating Marius

----So Marius, being a jerk at this point, goes through the motions of mourning and life. Then, finally, he meets the man who saw his father spying on him. He is completely moved, and, having never known anything about his father before, starts reading the chronicles of what happened in the war. With growing pride and adoration for his father, his patriotism grows. Over about a month, Marius becomes a passionate radicalist Republican. He loves his country dearly, and his father even more. But he misses him now.
----Soon Guillenormand, the grandfather, finds out about Marius's conversion. He is outraged because he hates the father and thinks the monarchy was a lot better than this Napoleon zealot. He and Marius end up in a huge screaming confrontation where people's faces turn red, purple, and black, but that's not important. The best part of the whole scene, in my opinion, is Marius's line, which made me stop hating him and bumped him into being my new favorite character. The grandfather says:
--"...What does this mean?"
--Marius coloured slightly, and answered:
--"It means I am my father's son."
--M. Gillenormand checked his laugh, and said harshly:
--"Your father; I am your father."
--[Focus, this is my favorite part!] "My father," resumed Marius with downcast eyes and stern manner, "was a humble and heroic man, who served the republic and France gloriously, who was great in the greatest history that men have ever made, who lived a quarter of a century in the camp, by day under grape and under balls [artillary fire], by night in the snow, in the mud, and in the rain, who captured colours, who received twenty wounds, and who had but one fault; that was in losing too dearly two ingrates, his country and me."
----Aaaawwww! How sweet! But M. Gillenormand is deeply insulted and tells his grandson to "be off." He will send money every so often but never speak of him again.
----Poor Marius hits the road with some money, a few clothes in a bag, and his watch. He doesn't even have his father's note anymore; Gillenormand burned it. Then comes perhaps the most hopeless, accurate line in the book-
--"What was Marius to do?"