Les Misérables, v. 4

CHAPTER III

WHILE COSETTE AND TOUSSAINT SLEEP

Jean Valjean re-entered with Marius's letter: he groped his way up-stairs, pleased with the darkness like an owl that holds its prey, gently opened and closed the door, listened whether he could hear any sound, convinced himself that Cosette and Toussaint were, according to all appearances, asleep, and plunged into the Fumade lighting-bottle three or four matches before he could procure a spark, for his hand trembled so, as what he had just done was a robbery. At last his candle was lit, he sat down at the table, opened the letter, and read. In such violent emotions men do not read, they hurl down, so to speak, the paper they hold, clutch it like a victim, crumple it, bury in it the nails of their fury or delight, they run to the end, they dash at the beginning: the attention is feverish, it understands the essential facts, it seizes on one point, and all the rest disappears. In the note from Marius to Cosette Jean Valjean only saw these words, —

In the presence of this line he felt a horrible bedazzlement; he remained for a moment as if crushed by the change of emotion which took place in him. He gazed at Marius's letter with a species of drunken amazement, he had before his eyes this splendor, – the death of the hated being. He uttered a frightful cry of internal joy. So all was over, and the dénouement arrived more quickly than he could have dared to hope. The being that encumbered his destiny was disappearing; he went away of his own accord, freely and willingly, without his doing anything in the matter, without any fault on the part of him, Jean Valjean; "that man" was going to die, perhaps was already dead. Here his fever made its calculations; "No, he is not yet dead. The letter was evidently written to be read by Cosette on the next morning: since the two volleys he had heard between eleven o'clock and midnight nothing had occurred: the barricade would not be seriously attacked till daybreak; but no matter, from the moment when 'that man' is mixed up in this war, he is lost, he is caught in the cog-wheels." Jean Valjean felt himself delivered; he was going to find himself once more alone with Cosette; the rivalry ceased and the future began again. He need only keep the note in his pocket, and Cosette would never know what had become of "that man;" "I have only to let things take their course. That man cannot escape, and if he is not dead yet, it is certain that he is going to die. What happiness!" All this said internally, he became gloomy: he went down and aroused the porter. About an hour later Jean Valjean left the house in the uniform of a National Guard and armed. The porter had easily obtained for him in the neighborhood the articles to complete his equipment: he had a loaded musket and a full cartouche-box. He proceeded in the direction of the markets.

CHAPTER IV

GAVROCHE'S EXCESS OF ZEAL

In the mean while an adventure had happened to Gavroche; after conscientiously stoning the lamp in the Rue du Chaume, he approached the Rue des Vieilles Haudriettes, and not seeing "a cat" there, found the opportunity excellent for striking up a song at the full pitch of his lungs. His march, far from being checked by the singing, became accelerated, and he sowed along the sleeping or terrified houses the following incendiary verses: —

Gavroche, while singing, was lavish of his pantomime, for gesture is the mainstay of a chorus. His face, an inexhaustible repertory of masks, made grimaces more convulsive and more fantastic than the mouths of a torn sheet in a stiff breeze. Unluckily, as he was alone and in the dark, this was neither seen nor visible. Much wealth is lost in this way. Suddenly he stopped short.

"We must interrupt the romance," he said.

His catlike eye had just distinguished inside a gateway what is called in painting an ensemble, that is to say, a being and a thing; the thing was a handcart, the being an Auvergnat sleeping inside it. The shafts of the cart were upon the pavement, and the Auvergnat's head leaned on the backboard of the truck. His body lay along this inclined plane, and his feet touched the ground. Gavroche, with his experience of the things of this world, recognized a drunkard: it was some street-corner porter who had drunk too much and was sleeping too much.

"Such is the use," Gavroche thought, "to which summer nights may be turned. The Auvergnat sleeps in his truck. I take the truck for the republic, and leave the Auvergnat for the monarchy."

His mind had just been illumined by this flash.

"That truck would be famous on our barricade!"

The Auvergnat was snoring. Gavroche gently pulled the truck behind and the Auvergnat in front, that is to say, by the feet, and in a second the porter was lying imperturbably flat on the pavement. The truck was liberated. Gavroche, accustomed constantly to face unexpected events, had always everything about him. He felt in one of his pockets and pulled out a scrap of paper and a piece of red pencil stolen from some carpenter. He wrote

République Française

Received this truck.

And he signed, GAVROCHE.

This done, he placed the paper in the snoring porter's velvet waistcoat pocket, seized the handcart, and started in the direction of the markets, thrusting the truck before him at a gallop with a glorious triumphal row. This was dangerous, for there was a post at the Royal Printing Office, and Gavroche did not think of that. This post was held by suburban National Guards; a certain amount of alarm was beginning to arouse the squad, and heads were raised in the guard-beds. Two lamps broken so shortly after each other, and this singing at the pitch of the lungs, were a good deal for these cowardly streets, which like to go to bed at sunset, and put the extinguisher on their candle at so early an hour. For an hour past the gamin had been making in this peaceful district the noise of a fly in a bottle. The suburban sergeant listened and waited, for he was a prudent man. The wild rolling of the truck filled up the measure of possible awaiting, and determined the sergeant to attempt a reconnoisance.

"There must be a whole band of them," he said, "so we will advance gently."

It was clear that the hydra of anarchy had emerged from its box, and was playing the deuce in the quarter, so the sergeant ventured out of the guard-house on tiptoe. All at once, Gavroche, pushing his truck, found himself, just as he was turning out of the Rue des Vieilles Haudriettes, face to face with a uniform, a shako, a pompon, and a musket. For the second time he stopped short.

"Hilloh!" he said, "it's he. Good-day, public order."

Gavroche's surprises were short and rapidly thawed.

"Where are you going, scamp?" the sergeant cried.

"Citizen," said Gavroche, "I have not yet called you bourgeois, so why do you insult me?"

"Where are you going, scoundrel?"

"Sir," Gavroche continued, "it is possible that you were a man of sense yesterday, but you must have sent in your resignation this morning."

"I ask you where you are going, villain?"

Gavroche answered, —

"You speak politely. Really, no one would fancy you that age. You ought to sell your hair at one hundred francs apiece, and that would bring you in five hundred francs."

"Where are you going, where are you going, where are you going, bandit?"

Gavroche retorted, —

"Those are ugly words. The first time they give you the breast they ought to wash your mouth out better."

The sergeant levelled his bayonet.

"Will you tell me where you are going or not, wretch?"

"My general," said Gavroche, "I am going to fetch the doctor for my wife, who is taken in labor."

"To arms!" the sergeant shouted.

It is the masterpiece of powerful minds to save themselves by what has ruined them; and Gavroche measured the whole situation at a glance. It was the truck that had compromised him, and so the truck must now protect him. At the moment when the sergeant was going to rush on Gavroche, the truck, converted into a projectile and launched at full speed, rolled upon him furiously, and the sergeant, struck in the stomach, fell back into the gutter, while his musket was discharged in the air. On hearing their sergeant's cry, the guard hurried forth pell-mell; the shot produced a general discharge blindly, after which the guns were reloaded, and they began again. This blindman's buff firing lasted a good quarter of an hour, and killed sundry panes of glass. In the mean while, Gavroche, who had turned back, stopped five or six streets off, and sat down panting on the bench at the corner of the Enfants Rouges, and listened. After breathing for a few minutes, he turned in the direction where the musketry was raging, raised his left hand to the level of his nose, and thrust it out thrice, while striking the back of his head with his right hand, – a sovereign gesture, in which the Parisian gamins have condensed French irony, and which is evidently effective, as it has already lasted more than half a century. This gayety was troubled by a bitter reflection.

"Yes," he said, "I am delighted, I overflow with joy, I crack my sides, but I am losing my way, and shall be obliged to steer a roundabout course. I only hope I shall reach the barricade betimes."

After saying this he ran off again, and while running asked himself, "Where was I?" and he began his song again, which gradually died out in the darkness of the streets.

The turn-out of the Guard produced some results, for a truck was captured and the drunkard made prisoner. The first was placed in the Green Yard, while the second was afterwards brought before a court-martial as an accomplice. The public minister of that day displayed in this circumstance his indefatigable zeal in the defence of society. Gavroche's adventure, which has remained as a tradition in the Temple quarter, is one of the most terrible reminiscences of the old bourgeois of the Marais, and is entitled in their memory, – "The night attack on the guard-house of the Royal Printing Office."

1

Écoute ce que je te dis, garçon, si j'étais sur la place, avec mon dogue, ma dague, et ma digue, et si vous me prodiguiez dix gros sous, je ne refuserais pas d'y goupiner, mais nous ne sommes pas le Mardi Gras.

2

Le dernier Jour d'un Condamné.

3

"You will find in that tittle-tattle a multitude of reasons why I should take my liberty."

4

The archer Cupid.

5

The hammer of a pistol is called a dog in France.

6

Another allusion to the hammer (chien) of the pistol.

7

The original malapropism, "les loups-de-gorge chanter dans les ogrépines," is utterly untranslatable. The above is only an attempt to convey some approximative idea.