CHAPTER IV

AN ATTEMPT TO CONSOLE THE WIDOW HUCHELOUP


Bahorel, in ecstasies over the barricade, shouted:--

"Here's the street in its low-necked dress! How well it looks!"

Courfeyrac, as he demolished the wine-shop to some extent,
sought to console the widowed proprietress.

"Mother Hucheloup, weren't you complaining the other day because
you had had a notice served on you for infringing the law,
because Gibelotte shook a counterpane out of your window?"

"Yes, my good Monsieur Courfeyrac. Ah! good Heavens, are you
going to put that table of mine in your horror, too? And it was
for the counterpane, and also for a pot of flowers which fell from
the attic window into the street, that the government collected
a fine of a hundred francs. If that isn't an abomination, what is!"

"Well, Mother Hucheloup, we are avenging you."

Mother Hucheloup did not appear to understand very clearly
the benefit which she was to derive from these reprisals made
on her account. She was satisfied after the manner of that
Arab woman, who, having received a box on the ear from her husband,
went to complain to her father, and cried for vengeance, saying:
"Father, you owe my husband affront for affront." The father asked:
"On which cheek did you receive the blow?" "On the left cheek."
The father slapped her right cheek and said: "Now you are satisfied.
Go tell your husband that he boxed my daughter's ears, and that I
have accordingly boxed his wife's."

The rain had ceased. Recruits had arrived. Workmen had brought
under their blouses a barrel of powder, a basket containing
bottles of vitriol, two or three carnival torches, and a basket
filled with fire-pots, "left over from the King's festival."
This festival was very recent, having taken place on the 1st of May.
It was said that these munitions came from a grocer in the Faubourg
Saint-Antoine named Pepin. They smashed the only street lantern
in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the lantern corresponding to one in the
Rue Saint-Denis, and all the lanterns in the surrounding streets,
de Mondetour, du Cygne, des Precheurs, and de la Grande and de la
Petite-Truanderie.

Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac directed everything. Two barricades
were now in process of construction at once, both of them resting
on the Corinthe house and forming a right angle; the larger shut
off the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the other closed the Rue Mondetour,
on the side of the Rue de Cygne. This last barricade, which was
very narrow, was constructed only of casks and paving-stones. There
were about fifty workers on it; thirty were armed with guns; for,
on their way, they had effected a wholesale loan from an armorer's shop.

Nothing could be more bizarre and at the same time more motley
than this troop. One had a round-jacket, a cavalry sabre, and two
holster-pistols, another was in his shirt-sleeves, with a round hat,
and a powder-horn slung at his side, a third wore a plastron
of nine sheets of gray paper and was armed with a saddler's awl.
There was one who was shouting: "Let us exterminate them to the last
man and die at the point of our bayonet." This man had no bayonet.
Another spread out over his coat the cross-belt and cartridge-box
of a National Guardsman, the cover of the cartridge-box being
ornamented with this inscription in red worsted: Public Order.
There were a great many guns bearing the numbers of the legions,
few hats, no cravats, many bare arms, some pikes. Add to this,
all ages, all sorts of faces, small, pale young men, and bronzed
longshoremen. All were in haste; and as they helped each other,
they discussed the possible chances. That they would receive
succor about three o'clock in the morning--that they were sure
of one regiment, that Paris would rise. Terrible sayings with
which was mingled a sort of cordial joviality. One would have
pronounced them brothers, but they did not know each other's names.
Great perils have this fine characteristic, that they bring to light
the fraternity of strangers. A fire had been lighted in the kitchen,
and there they were engaged in moulding into bullets, pewter mugs,
spoons, forks, and all the brass table-ware of the establishment.
In the midst of it all, they drank. Caps and buckshot were mixed
pell-mell on the tables with glasses of wine. In the billiard-hall,
Mame Hucheloup, Matelote, and Gibelotte, variously modified by terror,
which had stupefied one, rendered another breathless, and roused
the third, were tearing up old dish-cloths and making lint;
three insurgents were assisting them, three bushy-haired, jolly
blades with beards and moustaches, who plucked away at the linen
with the fingers of seamstresses and who made them tremble.

The man of lofty stature whom Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and Enjolras
had observed at the moment when he joined the mob at the corner
of the Rue des Billettes, was at work on the smaller barricade
and was making himself useful there. Gavroche was working on
the larger one. As for the young man who had been waiting for
Courfeyrac at his lodgings, and who had inquired for M. Marius,
he had disappeared at about the time when the omnibus had been overturned.

Gavroche, completely carried away and radiant, had undertaken
to get everything in readiness. He went, came, mounted, descended,
re-mounted, whistled, and sparkled. He seemed to be there for
the encouragement of all. Had he any incentive? Yes, certainly,
his poverty; had he wings? yes, certainly, his joy. Gavroche was
a whirlwind. He was constantly visible, he was incessantly audible.
He filled the air, as he was everywhere at once. He was a sort
of almost irritating ubiquity; no halt was possible with him.
The enormous barricade felt him on its haunches. He troubled
the loungers, he excited the idle, he reanimated the weary,
he grew impatient over the thoughtful, he inspired gayety in some,
and breath in others, wrath in others, movement in all, now pricking
a student, now biting an artisan; he alighted, paused, flew off again,
hovered over the tumult, and the effort, sprang from one party
to another, murmuring and humming, and harassed the whole company;
a fly on the immense revolutionary coach.

Perpetual motion was in his little arms and perpetual clamor
in his little lungs.

"Courage! more paving-stones! more casks! more machines!
Where are you now? A hod of plaster for me to stop this hole with!
Your barricade is very small. It must be carried up. Put everything
on it, fling everything there, stick it all in. Break down the house.
A barricade is Mother Gibou's tea. Hullo, here's a glass door."

This elicited an exclamation from the workers.

"A glass door? what do you expect us to do with a glass door, tubercle?"

"Hercules yourselves!" retorted Gavroche. "A glass door is an
excellent thing in a barricade. It does not prevent an attack,
but it prevents the enemy taking it. So you've never prigged apples
over a wall where there were broken bottles? A glass door cuts the
corns of the National Guard when they try to mount on the barricade.
Pardi! glass is a treacherous thing. Well, you haven't a very
wildly lively imagination, comrades."

However, he was furious over his triggerless pistol. He went
from one to another, demanding: "A gun, I want a gun! Why don't
you give me a gun?"

"Give you a gun!" said Combeferre.

"Come now!" said Gavroche, "why not? I had one in 1830 when we
had a dispute with Charles X."

Enjolras shrugged his shoulders.

"When there are enough for the men, we will give some to the children."

Gavroche wheeled round haughtily, and answered:--

"If you are killed before me, I shall take yours."

"Gamin!" said Enjolras.

"Greenhorn!" said Gavroche.

A dandy who had lost his way and who lounged past the end of the
street created a diversion! Gavroche shouted to him:--

"Come with us, young fellow! well now, don't we do anything for this
old country of ours?"

The dandy fled.