Les Misérables
that was not sufficient. In short, he had been administering to himself
little inward remonstrances and he feared Marius’ reproaches. In order
to extricate himself from the predicament, he took the simplest course;
he lied abominably.
“Citizen, I delivered the letter to the porter. The lady was asleep.
She will have the letter when she wakes up.”
Marius had had two objects in sending that letter: to bid farewell to
Cosette and to save Gavroche. He was obliged to content himself with
the half of his desire.
The despatch of his letter and the presence of M. Fauchelevent in the
barricade, was a coincidence which occurred to him. He pointed out M.
Fauchelevent to Gavroche.
“Do you know that man?”
“No,” said Gavroche.
Gavroche had, in fact, as we have just mentioned, seen Jean Valjean
only at night.
The troubled and unhealthy conjectures which had outlined themselves in
Marius’ mind were dissipated. Did he know M. Fauchelevent’s opinions?
Perhaps M. Fauchelevent was a republican. Hence his very natural
presence in this combat.
In the meanwhile, Gavroche was shouting, at the other end of the
barricade: “My gun!”
Courfeyrac had it returned to him.
Gavroche warned “his comrades” as he called them, that the barricade
was blocked. He had had great difficulty in reaching it. A battalion of
the line whose arms were piled in the Rue de la Petite Truanderie was
on the watch on the side of the Rue du Cygne; on the opposite side, the
municipal guard occupied the Rue des Prêcheurs. The bulk of the army
was facing them in front.
This information given, Gavroche added:
“I authorize you to hit ’em a tremendous whack.”
Meanwhile, Enjolras was straining his ears and watching at his
embrasure.
The assailants, dissatisfied, no doubt, with their shot, had not
repeated it.
A company of infantry of the line had come up and occupied the end of
the street behind the piece of ordnance. The soldiers were tearing up
the pavement and constructing with the stones a small, low wall, a sort
of side-work not more than eighteen inches high, and facing the
barricade. In the angle at the left of this epaulement, there was
visible the head of the column of a battalion from the suburbs massed
in the Rue Saint-Denis.
Enjolras, on the watch, thought he distinguished the peculiar sound
which is produced when the shells of grape-shot are drawn from the
caissons, and he saw the commander of the piece change the elevation
and incline the mouth of the cannon slightly to the left. Then the
cannoneers began to load the piece. The chief seized the lint-stock
himself and lowered it to the vent.
“Down with your heads, hug the wall!” shouted Enjolras, “and all on
your knees along the barricade!”
The insurgents who were straggling in front of the wine-shop, and who
had quitted their posts of combat on Gavroche’s arrival, rushed
pell-mell towards the barricade; but before Enjolras’ order could be
executed, the discharge took place with the terrifying rattle of a
round of grape-shot. This is what it was, in fact.
The charge had been aimed at the cut in the redoubt, and had there
rebounded from the wall; and this terrible rebound had produced two
dead and three wounded.
If this were continued, the barricade was no longer tenable. The
grape-shot made its way in.
A murmur of consternation arose.
“Let us prevent the second discharge,” said Enjolras.
And, lowering his rifle, he took aim at the captain of the gun, who, at
that moment, was bearing down on the breach of his gun and rectifying
and definitely fixing its pointing.
The captain of the piece was a handsome sergeant of artillery, very
young, blond, with a very gentle face, and the intelligent air peculiar
to that predestined and redoubtable weapon which, by dint of perfecting
itself in horror, must end in killing war.
Combeferre, who was standing beside Enjolras, scrutinized this young
man.
“What a pity!” said Combeferre. “What hideous things these butcheries
are! Come, when there are no more kings, there will be no more war.
Enjolras, you are taking aim at that sergeant, you are not looking at
him. Fancy, he is a charming young man; he is intrepid; it is evident
that he is thoughtful; those young artillery-men are very well
educated; he has a father, a mother, a family; he is probably in love;
he is not more than five and twenty at the most; he might be your
brother.”
“He is,” said Enjolras.
“Yes,” replied Combeferre, “he is mine too. Well, let us not kill him.”
“Let me alone. It must be done.”
And a tear trickled slowly down Enjolras’ marble cheek.
At the same moment, he pressed the trigger of his rifle. The flame
leaped forth. The artillery-man turned round twice, his arms extended
in front of him, his head uplifted, as though for breath, then he fell
with his side on the gun, and lay there motionless. They could see his
back, from the centre of which there flowed directly a stream of blood.
The ball had traversed his breast from side to side. He was dead.
He had to be carried away and replaced by another. Several minutes were
thus gained, in fact.
CHAPTER IX—EMPLOYMENT OF THE OLD TALENTS OF A POACHER AND THAT
INFALLIBLE MARKSMANSHIP WHICH INFLUENCED THE CONDEMNATION OF 1796
Opinions were exchanged in the barricade. The firing from the gun was
about to begin again. Against that grape-shot, they could not hold out
a quarter of an hour longer. It was absolutely necessary to deaden the
blows.
Enjolras issued this command:
“We must place a mattress there.”
“We have none,” said Combeferre, “the wounded are lying on them.”
Jean Valjean, who was seated apart on a stone post, at the corner of
the tavern, with his gun between his knees, had, up to that moment,
taken no part in anything that was going on. He did not appear to hear
the combatants saying around him: “Here is a gun that is doing
nothing.”
At the order issued by Enjolras, he rose.
It will be remembered that, on the arrival of the rabble in the Rue de
la Chanvrerie, an old woman, foreseeing the bullets, had placed her
mattress in front of her window. This window, an attic window, was on
the roof of a six-story house situated a little beyond the barricade.
The mattress, placed cross-wise, supported at the bottom on two poles
for drying linen, was upheld at the top by two ropes, which, at that
distance, looked like two threads, and which were attached to two nails
planted in the window frames. These ropes were distinctly visible, like
hairs, against the sky.
“Can some one lend me a double-barrelled rifle?” said Jean Valjean.
Enjolras, who had just re-loaded his, handed it to him.
Jean Valjean took aim at the attic window and fired.
One of the mattress ropes was cut.
The mattress now hung by one thread only.
Jean Valjean fired the second charge. The second rope lashed the panes
of the attic window. The mattress slipped between the two poles and
fell into the street.
The barricade applauded.
All voices cried:
“Here is a mattress!”
“Yes,” said Combeferre, “but who will go and fetch it?”
The mattress had, in fact, fallen outside the barricade, between
besiegers and besieged. Now, the death of the sergeant of artillery
having exasperated the troop, the soldiers had, for several minutes,
been lying flat on their stomachs behind the line of paving-stones
which they had erected, and, in order to supply the forced silence of
the piece, which was quiet while its service was in course of
reorganization, they had opened fire on the barricade. The insurgents
did not reply to this musketry, in order to spare their ammunition. The
fusillade broke against the barricade; but the street, which it filled,
was terrible.
Jean Valjean stepped out of the cut, entered the street, traversed the
storm of bullets, walked up to the mattress, hoisted it upon his back,
and returned to the barricade.
He placed the mattress in the cut with his own hands. He fixed it there
against the wall in such a manner that the artillery-men should not see
it.
That done, they awaited the next discharge of grape-shot.
It was not long in coming.
The cannon vomited forth its package of buckshot with a roar. But there
was no rebound. The effect which they had foreseen had been attained.
The barricade was saved.
“Citizen,” said Enjolras to Jean Valjean, “the Republic thanks you.”
Bossuet admired and laughed. He exclaimed:
“It is immoral that a mattress should have so much power. Triumph of
that which yields over that which strikes with lightning. But never
mind, glory to the mattress which annuls a cannon!”
CHAPTER X—DAWN
At that moment, Cosette awoke.
Her chamber was narrow, neat, unobtrusive, with a long sash-window,
facing the East on the back court-yard of the house.
Cosette knew nothing of what was going on in Paris. She had not been
there on the preceding evening, and she had already retired to her
chamber when Toussaint had said:
“It appears that there is a row.”
Cosette had slept only a few hours, but soundly. She had had sweet
dreams, which possibly arose from the fact that her little bed was very
white. Some one, who was Marius, had appeared to her in the light. She
awoke with the sun in her eyes, which, at first, produced on her the
effect of being a continuation of her dream. Her first thought on
emerging from this dream was a smiling one. Cosette felt herself
thoroughly reassured. Like Jean Valjean, she had, a few hours
previously, passed through that reaction of the soul which absolutely
will not hear of unhappiness. She began to cherish hope, with all her
might, without knowing why. Then she felt a pang at her heart. It was
three days since she had seen Marius. But she said to herself that he
must have received her letter, that he knew where she was, and that he
was so clever that he would find means of reaching her.—And that
certainly to-day, and perhaps that very morning.—It was broad daylight,
but the rays of light were very horizontal; she thought that it was
very early, but that she must rise, nevertheless, in order to receive
Marius.
She felt that she could not live without Marius, and that,
consequently, that was sufficient and that Marius would come. No
objection was valid. All this was certain. It was monstrous enough
already to have suffered for three days. Marius absent three days, this
was horrible on the part of the good God. Now, this cruel teasing from
on high had been gone through with. Marius was about to arrive, and he
would bring good news. Youth is made thus; it quickly dries its eyes;
it finds sorrow useless and does not accept it. Youth is the smile of
the future in the presence of an unknown quantity, which is itself. It
is natural to it to be happy. It seems as though its respiration were
made of hope.
Moreover, Cosette could not remember what Marius had said to her on the
subject of this absence which was to last only one day, and what
explanation of it he had given her. Every one has noticed with what
nimbleness a coin which one has dropped on the ground rolls away and
hides, and with what art it renders itself undiscoverable. There are
thoughts which play us the same trick; they nestle away in a corner of
our brain; that is the end of them; they are lost; it is impossible to
lay the memory on them. Cosette was somewhat vexed at the useless
little effort made by her memory. She told herself, that it was very
naughty and very wicked of her, to have forgotten the words uttered by
Marius.
She sprang out of bed and accomplished the two ablutions of soul and
body, her prayers and her toilet.
One may, in a case of exigency, introduce the reader into a nuptial
chamber, not into a virginal chamber. Verse would hardly venture it,
prose must not.