Les Miserables (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (115 page)

“Be humane. We must take pity on the animals.”

And, taking the cake from his son, he threw it into the basin.

The cake fell near the edge.

The swans were at a distance, in the centre of the basin, and busy with some prey. They saw neither the bourgeois nor the bun.

The bourgeois, feeling that the cake was in danger of being lost, and aroused by this useless shipwreck, devoted himself to a telegraphic agitation which finally attracted the attention of the swans.

They perceived something floating, veered about like the ships they are, and directed themselves slowly towards the bun with that serene majesty which is fitting to white animals.

“Cygnes
[swans] understand
signes
[signs],” said the bourgeois, delighted at his wit.

Just then the distant tumult in the city suddenly increased again. This time it was ominous. There are some gusts of wind that speak more distinctly than others. That which blew at that moment brought clearly the rolls of drums, shouts, platoon firing, and the dismal replies of the tocsin and the cannon. This was coincident with a black cloud which abruptly shut out the sun.

The swans had not yet reached the bun.

“Come home,” said the father, “they are attacking the Tuileries.”

He seized his son’s hand again. Then he continued:

“From the Tuileries to the Luxembourg, there is only the distance which separates royalty from the peerage; it is not far. It is going to rain musket-balls.”

He looked at the cloud.

“And perhaps also the rain itself is going to rain; the heavens are joining in; the younger branch is condemned. Come home, quick.”

“I should like to see the swans eat the bun,” said the child.

The father answered:

“That would be an imprudence.”

And he led away his little bourgeois.

The son, regretting the swans, turned his head towards the basin, until a turn in the rows of trees hid it from him.

Meanwhile, at the same time with the swans, the two little wanderers had approached the bun. It was floating on the water. The smaller was looking at the cake, the larger was looking at the bourgeois who was going away.

The father and the son entered the labyrinth of walks which leads to the grand stairway of the cluster of trees on the side towards the Rue Madame.

As soon as they were out of sight, the elder quickly lay down with his face over the rounded edge of the basin, and, holding by it with his left hand, hanging over the water, almost falling in, with his right hand reached his stick towards the cake. The swans, seeing the enemy, made haste, and in making haste produced an effect with their breasts which was useful to the little fisher; the water flowed back before the swans, and one of those smooth concentric waves pushed the bun gently towards the child’s stick. As the swans came up, the stick touched the cake. The child made a quick movement, drew in the bun, frightened the swans, seized the cake, and got up. The cake was soaked; but they were hungry and thirsty. The eldest broke the bun into two pieces, one large and one small, took the small one for himself, gave the large one to his little brother, and said to him:

MARIUS had sprung out of the barricade. Combeferre had followed him. But it was too late. Gavroche was dead. Combeferre brought back the basket of cartridges; Marius brought back the child.

“Alas!” thought he, “what the father had done for his father he was returning to the son; only Thénardier had brought back his father living, while he brought back the child dead.”

When Marius re-entered the redoubt with Gavroche in his arms, his face, like the child‘s, was covered with blood.

Just as he had stooped down to pick up Gavroche, a ball grazed his skull; he did not perceive it.

Courfeyrac took off his cravat and bound up Marius’ forehead.

Combeferre distributed the cartridges from the basket which he had brought back.

This gave each man fifteen shots.

Jean Valjean was still at the same place, motionless upon his block. When Combeferre presented him his fifteen cartridges, he shook his head.

“There is a rare eccentric,” said Combeferre in a low tone to Enjolras. “He finds means not to fight in this barricade.”

“Which does not prevent him from defending it,” answered Enjolras.

“Heroism has its originals,” replied Combeferre.

Suddenly between two discharges they heard the distant sound of a clock striking.

“It is noon,” said Combeferre.

The twelve strokes had not sounded when Enjolras sprang to his feet, and flung down from the top of the barricade this thundering shout:

“Carry some paving-stones into the house. Fortify the windows with them. Half the men to the muskets, the other half to the stones. Not a minute to lose.”

A platoon of sappers, their axes on their shoulders, had just appeared in order of battle at the end of the street.

This could only be the head of a column; and of what column? The column of attack, evidently. The sappers, whose duty it is to demolish the barricade, must always precede the soldiers whose duty it is to scale it.

Enjolras’ order was executed with the correct haste peculiar to ships and barricades, the only places of combat whence escape is impossible. In less than a minute, two-thirds of the paving-stones which Enjolras had had piled up at the door of Corinth were carried up to the first story and to the garret; and before a second minute had elapsed, these stones, artistically laid one upon another, walled up half the height of the window on the first story and the dormer windows of the attic. A few openings, carefully arranged by Feuilly, chief builder, allowed musket barrels to pass through. This armament of the windows could be performed the more easily since the grapeshot had ceased. The two pieces were now firing balls upon the centre of the wall, in order to make a hole, and if it were possible, a breach for the assault.

Then they barricaded the basement window, and they held in readiness the iron cross-pieces which served to bar the door of the tavern on the inside at night.

The fortress was complete. The barricade was the rampart, the tavern was the donjon.

With the paving-stones which remained, they closed up the opening beside the barricade.

As the defenders of a barricade are always obliged to husband their ammunition, and as the besiegers know it, the besiegers perfect their arrangements with a sort of provoking leisure, expose themselves to fire before the time, but in appearance more than in reality, and take their ease. The preparations for attack are always made with a certain methodical slowness, after which, the thunderbolt.

This slowness allowed Enjolras to look over the whole, and to perfect the whole. He felt that since such men were to die, their death should be a masterpiece.

He said to Marius: “We are the two chiefs; I will give the last orders within. You stay outside and watch.”

Marius posted himself for observation upon the crest of the barricade.

Enjolras had the door of the kitchen, which, we remember, was the hospital, nailed up.

“No spattering on the wounded,” said he.

He gave his last instructions in the basement-room in a quick, but deep and calm voice; Feuilly listened, and answered in the name of all.

“Second story, hold your axes ready to cut the staircase. You have them?”

“Yes,” said Feuilly.

“How many?”

“Two axes and a pole-axe.”

“Very well. There are twenty-six effective men left.”

“How many muskets are there?”

“Thirty-four.”

“Eight too many. Keep these eight muskets loaded like the rest, and at hand. Swords and pistols in your belts. Twenty men to the barricade. Six in ambush at the dormer windows and at the window on the second story to fire upon the assailants through the loopholes in the paving-stones. Let there be no useless labourer here. Immediately, when the drum beats the charge, let the twenty from below rush to the barricade. The first there will get the best places.”

These dispositions made, he turned towards Javert, and said to him:

“I won’t forget you.”

And, laying a pistol on the table, he added:

“The last man to leave this room will blow out the spy’s brains!” “Here?” inquired a voice.

“No, do not leave this corpse with ours. You can climb over the little barricade on the Rue Mondétour. It is only four feet high. The man is well tied. You will take him there, and execute him there.”

There was one man, at that moment, who was more impassible than Enjolras; it was Javert.

Here Jean Valjean appeared.

He was in the throng of insurgents. He stepped forward, and said to Enjolras:

“You are the commander?”

“Yes.”

“You thanked me just now.”

“In the name of the republic. The barricade has two saviours, Marius Pontmercy and you.”

“Do you think that I deserve a reward?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, I ask one.”

“What?”

“To blow out that man’s brains myself.”

Javert raised his head, saw Jean Valjean, made an imperceptible movement, and said:

“That is appropriate.”

As for Enjolras, he had begun to reload his carbine; he cast his eyes about him:

“No objection.”

And turning towards Jean Valjean: “Take the spy.”

Jean Valjean, in fact, took possession of Javert by sitting down on the end of the table. He caught up the pistol, and a slight click announced that he had cocked it.

Almost at the same moment, they heard a flourish of trumpets.

“Come on!” cried Marius, from the top of the barricade.

Javert began to laugh with that noiseless laugh which was peculiar to him, and, looking fixedly upon the insurgents, said to them:

“Your health is hardly better than mine.”

“All outside?” cried Enjolras.

The insurgents sprang forward in a tumult, and, as they went out, they received in the back, allow us the expression, this speech from Javert:

“Farewell till immediately!”

WHEN Jean Valjean was alone with Javert, he untied the rope that held the prisoner by the middle of the body, the knot of which was under the table. Then he motioned to him to get up.

Javert obeyed, with that undefinable smile into which the supremacy of enchained authority is condensed.

Jean Valjean took Javert by the martingale as you would take a beast of burden by a strap, and, drawing him after him, went out of the tavern slowly, for Javert, with his legs fettered, could take only very short steps.

Jean Valjean had the pistol in his hand.

They crossed thus the interior trapezium of the barricade. The insurgents, intent upon the imminent attack, were looking the other way.

Marius, alone, placed towards the left extremity of the wall, saw them pass. This group of the victim and the executioner borrowed a light from the sepulchral gleam which he had in his soul.

Jean Valjean, with some difficulty, bound as Javert was, but without letting go of him for a single instant, made him scale the little intrenchment on the Rue Mondétour.

When they had climbed over this wall, they found themselves alone in the little street. Nobody saw them now. The corner of the house hid them from insurgents. The corpses carried out from the barricades made a terrible mound a few steps off.

They distinguished in a heap of dead, a livid face, a flowing head of hair, a wounded hand, and a woman’s breast half naked. It was Eponine.

Javert looked aside at this dead body, and, perfectly calm, said in an undertone:

“It seems to me that I know that girl.”

Then he turned towards Jean Valjean.

Jean Valjean put the pistol under his arm, and fixed upon Javert a look which had no need of words to say: “Javert, it is I.”

Javert answered.

“Take your revenge.”

Jean Valjean took a knife out of his pocket, and opened it.

“A
surin!”
exclaimed Javert. “You are right. That suits you better.”

Jean Valjean cut the martingale which Javert had about his neck, then he cut the ropes which he had on his wrists, then, stooping down, he cut the cord which he had on his feet; and, rising, he said to him:

“You are free.”

Javert was not easily astonished. Still, complete master as he was of himself, he could not escape an emotion. He stood aghast and motionless.

Jean Valjean continued:

“I don’t expect to leave this place. Still, if by chance I should, I live, under the name of Fauchelevent, in the Rue de l‘Homme Armé, Number Seven.”

Javert had the scowl of a tiger half opening the comer of his mouth, and he muttered between his teeth:

“Take care.”

“Go,” said Jean Valjean.

Javert resumed:

“You said Fauchelevent, Rue de l‘Homme Armé?”

“Number Seven.”

Javert repeated in an undertone: “Number seven.” He buttoned his coat, restored the military stiffness between his shoulders, turned half round, folded his arms, supporting his chin with one hand, and walked off in the direction of the markets. Jean Valjean followed him with his eyes. After a few steps, Javert turned back, and cried to Jean Valjean:

“You annoy me. Kill me rather.”

Javert did not notice that his tone was more respectful towards Jean Valjean.

“Go away,” said Jean Valjean.

Javert receded with slow steps. A moment afterwards, he turned the corner of the Rue des Prêcheurs.

When Javert was gone, Jean Valjean fired the pistol in the air.