CHAPTER II.
GAVROCHE REAPS ADVANTAGE FROM NAPOLEON THE GREAT.
Spring in Paris is very frequently traversed by sharp, violent breezeswhich, if they do not freeze, chill. These breezes, which sadden thebrightest days, produce exactly the same effect as the blasts of coldwind which enter a warm room through the crevices of a badly closeddoor or window. It seems as if the gloomy gate of winter has beenleft ajar, and that the wind comes from there. In the spring of 1832,the period when the first great epidemic of this century broke out inEurope, these breezes were sharper and more cutting than ever, andsome door even more icy than that of winter had been left ajar. It wasthe door of the sepulchre, and the breath of cholera could be felt inthese breezes. From a meteorological point of view these cold winds hadthe peculiarity that they did not exclude a powerful electric tension.Frequent storms, accompanied by thunder and lightning, broke out atthis period.
One evening, when these breezes were blowing sharply, so sharplythat January seemed to have returned, and the citizens had put ontheir cloaks again, little Gavroche, still shivering gayly under hisrags, was standing as if in ecstasy in front of a hair-dresser's shopin the vicinity of the Orme-Saint Gervais. He was adorned with awoman's woollen shawl, picked up no one knew where, of which he hadmade a muffler. Little Gavroche appeared to be lost in admirationof a waxen image of a bride, wearing a very low-necked dress, anda wreath of orange-flowers in her hair, which revolved between twolamps, and lavished its smiles on the passers-by; but in reality hewas watching the shop to see whether he could not "prig" a cake ofsoap, which he would afterwards sell for a sou to a barber in thesuburbs. He frequently breakfasted on one of these cakes, and hecalled this style of work, for which he had a talent, "shaving thebarbers." While regarding the bride, and casting sheep's eyes on thecake of soap, he growled between his teeth: "Tuesday: this is notTuesday. Is it Tuesday? Perhaps it is Tuesday; yes, it is Tuesday."What this soliloquy referred to was never known; but if it was to thelast time he had dined, it was three days ago, for the present daywas a Friday. The barber, in his shop warmed with a good stove, wasshaving a customer and taking every now and then a side-glance at thisenemy,--this shivering and impudent gamin who had his two hands in hispockets, but his mind evidently elsewhere.
While Gavroche was examining the bride, the window, and the Windsorsoap, two boys of unequal height, very decently dressed, and youngerthan himself, one apparently seven, the other five years of age,timidly turned the handle and entered the shop, asking for something,charity possibly, in a plaintive murmur which was more like a sobthan a prayer. They both spoke together, and their words wereunintelligible, because sobs choked the voice of the younger boy, andcold made the teeth of the elder rattle. The barber turned with afurious face, and without laying down his razor drove the older boyinto the street with his left hand, and the little one with his knee,and closed the door again, saying,--
"To come and chill people for nothing!"
The two lads set out again, crying. A cloud had come up in the meanwhile, and it began raining, little Gavroche ran up to them, andaccosted them thus,--
"What's the matter with you, brats?"
"We don't know where to sleep," the elder replied.
"Is that all?" said Gavroche; "that's a great thing. Is that anythingto cry about, simpletons?" And assuming an accent of tender affectionand gentle protection, which was visible through his somewhat pompoussuperiority, he said,--
"Come with me, kids."
"Yes, sir," said the elder boy.
And the two children followed him as they would have done anarchbishop, and left off crying. Gavroche led them along the Rue St.Antoine, in the direction of the Bastille, and while going off took anindignant and retrospective glance at the barber's shop.
"That whiting has no heart," he growled; "he's an Englishman."
A girl, seeing the three walking in file, Gavroche at the head, burstinto a loud laugh. This laugh was disrespectful to the party.
"Good day, Mamselle Omnibus," Gavroche said to her.
A moment after the hair-dresser returning to his mind, he added,--
"I made a mistake about the brute; he is not a whiting, but a snake.Barber, I'll go and fetch a locksmith, and order him to put a bell onyour tail."
This barber had made him aggressive; as he stepped across a gutter, headdressed a bearded portress, worthy to meet Faust on the Brocken, andwho was holding her broom in her hand,--
"Madame," he said to her, "I see that you go out with your horse."
And after this he plashed the varnished boots of a passer-by.
"Scoundrel!" the gentleman said furiously. Gavroche raised his nose outof the shawl.
"Have you a complaint to make, sir?"
"Yes, of you," said the gentleman.
"The office is closed," Gavroche remarked. "I don't receive any morecomplaints to-day."
As he went along the street he noticed a girl of thirteen or fourteen,shivering in a gateway, in such short petticoats that she showed herknees. But the little girl was beginning to get too tall a girl forthat. Growth plays you such tricks, and the petticoat begins to becomeshort when nudity grows indecent.
"Poor girl," said Gavroche, "she hasn't even a pair of breeches. Here,collar this."
And taking off all the good wool which he had round his neck he threwit over the thin violet shoulders of the beggar-girl, when the mufflerbecame once again a shawl. The little girl looked at him with anastonished air, and received the shawl in silence. At a certain stageof distress a poor man in his stupor no longer groans at evil, andgives no thanks for kindness. This done,--
"B-r-r!" said Gavroche, colder than Saint Martin, who, at any rate,retained one half his cloak. On hearing this "Brr," the shower,redoubling its passion, poured down; those wicked skies punish goodactions.
"Hilloh!" Gavroche shouted, "what's the meaning of this? It is rainingagain. Bon Dieu! if this goes on, I shall withdraw my subscription."
And he set out again.
"No matter," he said as he took a glance at the beggar-girl crouchingunder her shawl, "she's got a first-rate skin."
And, looking at the clouds, he cried,--"Sold you are!"
The two children limped after him, and as they passed one of thosethick close gratings which indicate a baker's, for bread, like gold, isplaced behind a grating, Gavroche turned round.
"By the bye, brats, have you dined?"
"We have had nothing to eat, sir, since early this morning," the elderanswered.
"Then you haven't either father or mother?" Gavroche continuedmagisterially.
"I beg your pardon, sir; we have a pa and a ma, but we don't know wherethey are."
"Sometimes that is better than knowing," said Gavroche, who was aphilosopher in his small way.
"We have been walking about for two hours," the lad continued, "andlooked for things at the corners of the streets, but found nothing."
"I know," said Gavroche; "the dogs eat everything."
He resumed after a pause,--
"And so we have lost our authors. We don't know what we have donewith them. That isn't right, gamins. It is foolish to mislay grown-uppeople. Well, one must swig, for all that."
He did not ask them any more questions, for what could be more simplethan to have no domicile? The elder of the boys, who had almostentirely recovered the happy carelessness of childhood, made thisremark: "It is funny all the same. Mamma said she would take us tolook for blessed box, on Palm Sunday. Mamma is a lady who lives withMamselle Miss."
"Tanflute!" added Gavroche.
He stopped, and for some minutes searched all sorts of corners which hehad in his rags: at length he raised his head with an air which onlywished to represent satisfaction, but which was in reality triumphant,--
"Calm yourselves, kids; here is supper for three."
And he drew a sou from one of his pockets; without giving the lads timeto feel amazed, he pushed them both before him into the baker's shop,and laid his sou on the counter, exc
laiming,--
"Garçon, five centimes' worth of bread."
The baker, who was the master in person, took up a loaf and a knife.
"In three pieces, garçon," remarked Gavroche, and he added withdignity,--
"We are three."
And seeing that the baker, after examining the three suppers, had takena loaf of black bread, he thrust his finger into his nose, with asimperious a sniff as if he had the great Frederick's pinch of snuff onhis thumb, and cast in the baker's face this indignant remark,--
"Keksekça?"
Those of our readers who might be tempted to see in this remark ofGavroche's to the baker a Russian or Polish word, or one of the savagecries which the Ioways or the Botocudos hurl at each other acrossthe deserted streams, are warned that this is a word which they (ourreaders) employ daily, and which signifies, _qu'est ce que c'est quecela?_ The baker perfectly comprehended, and replied,--
"Why, it is bread, very good seconds bread."
"You mean black bread," Gavroche remarked, with a calm and colddisdain. "White bread, my lad; I stand treat."
The baker could not refrain from smiling, and while cutting some whitebread gazed at them in a compassionate way which offended Gavroche.
"Well, baker's man," he said, "what is there about us that you measureus in that way?"
When the bread was cut, the baker put the sou in the till, and Gavrochesaid to the two boys,--
"Grub away."
The boys looked at him in surprise, and Gavroche burst into a laugh.
"Oh, yes, that's true, they don't understand yet, they are so little."
And he continued, "Eat."
At the same time he gave each of them a lump of bread. Thinking thatthe elder, who appeared to him more worthy of his conversation, meritedsome special encouragement, and ought to have any hesitation aboutsatisfying his hunger removed, he added, as he gave him the largerlump,--
"Shove that into your gun."
There was one piece smaller than the two others, and he took that forhimself. The poor boys, Gavroche included, were starving; while tearingthe bread with their teeth, they blocked up the baker's shop, who, nowthat he was paid, looked at them angrily.
"Let us return to the street," said Gavroche.
They started again in the direction of the Bastille; and from time totime as they passed lighted shops, the younger boy stopped to see whato'clock it was by a leaden watch hung round his neck by a string.
"Well, he is a great fool," said Gavroche.
Then he thoughtfully growled between his teeth, "No matter, if I hadkids of my own I would take more care of them than that."
As they were finishing their bread, they reached the corner of thatgloomy Rue de Ballet at the end of which the low and hostile wicket ofLa Force is visible.
"Hilloh, is that you, Gavroche?" some one said.
"Hilloh, is that you, Montparnasse?" said Gavroche.
It was a man who accosted Gavroche, no other than Montparnassedisguised with blue spectacles, but Gavroche was able to recognize him.
"My eye!" Gavroche went on, "you have a skin of the color of a linseedpoultice and blue spectacles like a doctor. That's your style, on theword of an old man!"
"Silence," said Montparnasse, "not so loud;" and he quickly draggedGavroche out of the light of the shops. The two little boys followedmechanically, holding each other by the hand. When they were under theblack arch of a gateway, protected from eyes and rain, Montparnasseremarked,
"Do you know where I am going?"
"To the abbey of Go-up-with-regret" (the scaffold), said Gavroche.
"Joker!"
And Montparnasse added,--
"I am going to meet Babet."
"Ah!" said Gavroche, "her name is Babet, is it?"
Montparnasse lowered his voice,--
"It is not a she, but a he."
"I thought he was buckled up."
"He has unfastened the buckle," Montparnasse replied.
And he hurriedly told the boy that on that very morning Babet, whilebeing removed to the Conciergerie, escaped by turning to the leftinstead of the right in the "police-office passage."
Gavroche admired his skill.
"What a dentist!" said he.
Montparnasse added a few details about Babet's escape, and ended with,"Oh, that is not all."
Gavroche, while talking, had seized a cane which Montparnasse held inhis hand; he mechanically pulled at the upper part, and a dagger bladebecame visible.
"Ah!" he said as he quickly thrust it back, "you have brought yourgendarme with you disguised as a civilian."
Montparnasse winked.
"The deuce!" Gavroche continued, "are you going to have a turn-up withthe slops?"
"There's no knowing," Montparnasse answered carelessly; "it's always aswell to have a pin about you."
Gavroche pressed him.
"What are you going to do to-night?"
Montparnasse again became serious, and said, mincing his words,--
"Some things."
And he suddenly changed the conversation.
"By the bye--"
"What?"
"Something that happened the other day. Just fancy. I meet a bourgeois,and he makes me a present of a sermon, and a purse. I put it in mypocket, a moment later I feel for it, and there was nothing there."
"Only the sermon," said Gavroche.
"But where are you going now?" Montparnasse continued.
Gavroche pointed to his two protégés, and said,--
"I am going to put these two children to bed."
"Where?"
"At my house."
"Have you a lodging?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Inside the elephant," said Gavroche.
Montparnasse, though naturally not easy to astonish, could not refrainfrom the exclamation,--
"Inside the elephant?"
"Well, yes, kekçaa?"
This is another word belonging to the language which nobody reads andeverybody speaks; kekçaa signifies, _qu'est-ce-que cela a_? The gamin'sprofound remark brought Montparnasse back to calmness and good sense:he seemed to entertain a better opinion of Gavroche's lodgings.
"Ah, yes," he said, "the 'elephant.' Are you comfortable there?"
"Very," Gavroche replied. "Most comfortable. There are no draughts asthere are under the bridges."
"How do you get in? Is there a hole?"
"Of course there is, but you have no need to mention it; it's betweenthe front legs, and the police-spies don't know it."
"And you climb in? yes, I understand."
"A turn of the hand, cric crac, it's done; and there's no one to beseen."
After a pause Gavroche added,--
"I shall have a ladder for these young ones."
Montparnasse burst into a laugh.
"Where the devil did you pick up those kids?"
"A barber made me a present of them."
In the mean while Montparnasse had become pensive.
"You recognized me very easily," he said.
He took from his pocket two small objects, which were quills wrappedin cotton, and thrust one into each nostril; they made him quite adifferent nose.
"That changes you," said Gavroche; "you are not so ugly now, and youought to keep them in for good."
Montparnasse was a handsome fellow, but Gavroche was fond of a joke.
"Without any humbug," Montparnasse asked; "what do you think of me now?"
It was also a different sound of voice; in a second Montparnasse hadbecome unrecognizable.
"Oh! play Porrichinelle for us!" Gavroche exclaimed.
The two lads, who had heard nothing up to this moment, engaged as theywere themselves in thrusting their fingers up their noses, drew neareron hearing this name, and gazed at Montparnasse with a beginning of joyand admiration. Unhappily Montparnasse was in no humor for jesting; helaid his hand on Gavroche's shoulder, and said, with a stress on eachword,--
"Listen to what I te
ll you, boy; if I were on the spot, with my dog, myknife, and my wife, and you were to offer me ten double sous I wouldnot refuse to work, but we are not at Mardi Gras."[1]
This strange sentence produced a singular effect on the gamin; heturned around sharply, looked with his little bright eyes all around,and noticed a few yards off a policeman with his back turned to them.Gavroche let an "all-right" slip from him, which he at once repressed,and shook Montparnasse's hand.
"Well, good-night," he said; "I am off to my elephant with my brats.Should you happen to want me any night you'll find me there. I lodge inthe _entresol_, and there's no porter; ask for Monsieur Gavroche."
"All right," said Montparnasse.
And they parted, Montparnasse going toward the Grève, and Gavrochetoward the Bastille. The youngest boy, dragged on by his brother, whomGavroche dragged along in his turn, looked round several times to watch"Porrichinelle" go away.
The enigmatical sentence by which Montparnasse informed Gavroche of thepresence of the policeman contained no other talisman but the sound_dig_ repeated five or six times under various forms. This syllable,not pronounced separately, but artistically mingled with the words ofa sentence, means, "Take care, we cannot speak freely." There was alsoin Montparnasse's remark a literary beauty which escaped Gavroche'snotice, that is, _mon dogue, ma dague, et ma digue_,--a phrase of theTemple slang greatly in use among the merry-andrews and queues rougesof the great age in which Molière wrote and Callot designed.
Twenty years back there might have been seen in the southeasterncorner of the square of the Bastille near the canal dock, dug in theold moat of the citadel-prison, a quaint monument, which has alreadybeen effaced from the memory of Parisians, and which should haveleft some trace, as it was an idea of the "Member of the Institute,Commander-in-Chief of the army of Egypt." We say monument, though itwas only a plaster cast; but this cast itself, a prodigious sketch, thegrand corpse of a Napoleonic idea which two or three successive puffsof wind carried away each time farther from us, had become historic,and assumed something definitive, which formed a contrast with itstemporary appearance. It was an elephant, forty feet high, constructedof carpentry and masonry, bearing on its back a castle which resembleda house, once painted green by some plasterer, and now painted black bythe heavens, the rain, and time. In this deserted and uncovered cornerof the square the wide forehead of the colossus, its trunk, its tusks,its castle, its enormous back, and its four feet like columns, producedat night upon the starlit sky a surprising and terrible outline. Noone knew what it meant, and it seemed a sort of symbol of the popularstrength. It was gloomy, enigmatical, and immense; it looked like apowerful phantom visible and erect by the side of the invisible spectreof the Bastille. Few strangers visited this edifice, and no passer-bylooked at it. It was falling in ruins, and each season plaster becomingdetached from its flanks, made horrible wounds upon it. The "Édiles,"as they were called in the fashionable slang, had forgotten it since1814. It stood there in its corner, gloomy, sickly, crumbling away,surrounded by rotting palings, which were sullied every moment bydrunken drivers. There were yawning cracks in its stomach, a lathissued from its tail, and tall grass grew between its legs; and as thelevel of the square had risen during the last thirty years through thatslow and continuous movement which insensibly elevates the soil ofgreat cities, it was in a hollow, and it seemed as if the earth weregiving way beneath it. It was unclean, despised, repulsive, and superb;ugly in the eyes of cits, but melancholy in the eyes of the thinker. Ithad something about it of the ordure which is swept away, and somethingof the majesty which is decapitated.
As we said, at night its appearance changed; for night is the realmedium of everything which is shadow. So soon as twilight set in theold elephant was transfigured; and it assumed a placid and redoubtableappearance in the formidable serenity of the darkness. As it belongedto the past it belonged to night, and this obscurity suited itsgrandeur. This monument, rude, broad, heavy, rough, austere, and almostshapeless, but most assuredly majestic, and imprinted with a speciesof magnificent and savage gravity, has disappeared to allow the sortof gigantic stove adorned with its pipe to reign in peace, which wassubstituted for the frowning fortalice with its nine towers much in thesame way as the bourgeoisie are substituted for feudalism. It is verysimple that a stove should be the symbol of an epoch in which a coppercontains the power. This period will pass away; it is already passingaway. People are beginning to understand that if there may be strengthin a boiler there can only be power in a brain; in other words, thatwhat leads and carries away the world is not locomotives, but ideas.Attach locomotives to ideas, and then it is all right; but do not takethe horse for the rider.
However this may be, to return to the Bastille square, the architect ofthe elephant managed to produce something grand with plaster, while thearchitect of the stove-pipe has succeeded in making something littleout of bronze. This stove-pipe, which was christened a sonorous nameand called the Column of July, this spoiled monument of an abortiverevolution, was still wrapped up, in 1832, in an immense sheet ofcarpentry-work,--which we regret for our part,--and a vast enclosure ofplanks, which completed the isolation of the elephant. It was to thiscorner of this square, which was scarce lighted by the reflection of adistant oil-lamp, that the gamin led the two urchins.
(Allow us to interrupt our narrative here, and remind our readers thatwe are recording the simple truth; and that twenty years ago a boy, whowas caught sleeping in the inside of the elephant of the Bastille, wasbrought before the police on the charge of vagabondage and breaking apublic monument.)
On coming near the colossus, Gavroche understood the effect which theinfinitely great may produce on the infinitely little, and said,--
"Don't be frightened, brats."
Then he went through a hole in the palings into the ground round theelephant, and helped the children to pass through the breach. The lads,a little frightened, followed Gavroche without a word, and confided inthis little Providence in rags who had given them bread and promisedthem a bed. A ladder, employed by workmen at the column by day, waslying along the palings; Gavroche raised it with singular vigor, andplaced it against one of the elephant's fore legs. At the point wherethe ladder ended, a sort of black hole could be distinguished in thebelly of the colossus. Gavroche pointed out the ladder and the hole tohis guests, and said, "Go up, and go in." The two little boys looked ateach other in terror.
"You are frightened, kids!" Gavroche exclaimed, and added, "you shallsee."
He clung round the elephant's wrinkled foot, and in a twinkling,without deigning to employ the ladder, he reached the hole. He went inlike a lizard gliding into a crevice, and a moment after the boys sawhis head vaguely appear, like a white livid form, on the edge of thehole, which was full of darkness.
"Well," he cried, "come up, my blessed babes. You will see how snug itis. Come up, you," he said to the elder. "I will hold your hand."
The little boys nudged each other, for the gamin at once frightenedand reassured them; and then it was raining very hard. The elder boyventured, and the younger, on seeing his brother ascending and himselfleft alone between the feet of this great beast, felt greatly inclinedto cry, but did not dare. The elder climbed up the rungs of the ladderin a very tottering way, and as he did so Gavroche encouraged him byexclamations of a fencing-master to his pupils, or of a muleteer to hismules.
"Don't be frightened! That is it--keep on moving; set your foot there;now, your hand here--bravo!"
And when he was within reach he quickly and powerfully seized him bythe arm, and drew him to him.
"Swallowed!" he said.
The boy had passed through the crevice.
"Now," said Gavroche, "wait for me. Pray sit down, sir."
And leaving the hole in the same way as he had entered it, he slid downthe elephant's leg with the agility of a monkey, fell on his feet inthe grass, seized the youngest boy round the waist and planted him onthe middle of the ladder; then he began ascending behind him, shoutingto the elde
r boy,--
"I'll push him and you'll pull him."
In a second the little fellow was pushed up, dragged, pulled, and drawnthrough the hole before he knew where he was; and Gavroche, enteringafter him, kicked away the ladder, which fell in the grass, and clappedhis hands as he shouted, "There we are! Long live General Lafayette!"This explosion over, he added, "Brats, you are in my house."
Gavroche was, in fact, at home. Oh, unexpected utility of the useless!Oh, charity of great things! Oh, goodness of the giants! This hugemonument, which had contained a thought of the Emperor, had becomethe lodging of a gamin. The brat had been accepted and sheltered bythe colossus. The cits in their Sunday clothes who passed by theelephant of the Bastille were prone to say, as they measured it witha contemptuous look from the eyes flush with their head, Of whatservice is that? It served to save from cold, from frost, from dampand rain; to protect from the winter wind; to preserve from sleepingin the mud, which entails fever, and from sleeping in the snow, whichcauses death, a little fatherless and motherless boy without bread,clothes, or shelter. It served to shelter the innocent boy whom societyrepulsed. It served to diminish the public wrong. It was a lair openedto him against whom all doors were closed. It seemed as if the oldwretched mastodon, attacked by vermin and oblivion, covered with warts,mould, and ulcers, tottering, crumbling, abandoned, and condemned,--aspecies of colossal mendicant asking in vain the alms of a benevolentglance in the midst of the highway,--had taken pity on this otherbeggar, the poor pygmy who walked about without shoes on his feet,without a ceiling over his head, blowing his fingers, dressed in rags,and supporting life on what was thrown away. This is of what use theelephant of the Bastille was; and this idea of Napoleon, disdained bymen, had been taken up again by God. What had only been illustrioushad become august. The Emperor would have needed, in order to realizewhat he meditated, porphyry, bronze, iron, gold, and marble; but forGod the old collection of planks, beams, and plaster was sufficient.The Emperor had had a dream of genius. In this Titanic elephant, armed,prodigious, raising its trunk, and spouting all around glad and livingwaters, he wished to incarnate the people; and God had made a greaterthing of it, for He lodged a child in it.
The hole by which Gavroche entered was a breach scarce visible from theoutside, as it was concealed, as we said, under the elephant's belly,and so narrow that only cats and boys could pass through it.
"Let us begin," said Gavroche, "by telling the porter that we are notat home."
And plunging into the darkness with certainty like a man who knowsevery corner of the room, he took a plank and stopped up the hole.Gavroche plunged again into the darkness; the children heard thefizzing of a match dipped into the bottle of phosphorus,--for lucifermatches did not yet exist, and the Fumade fire-producer representedprogress at that day. A sudden light made them wink. Gavroche had litone of those bits of string dipped in pitch which are called "cellarrats;" and this thing, which smoked more than it illumined, renderedthe inside of the elephant indistinctly visible. Gavroche's two guestslooked around them, and had much such a feeling as any one would haveif shut up in the Heidelberg tun, or, better still, what Jonas musthave experienced in the biblical belly of the whale. An entire giganticskeleton was visible to them and enveloped them; above their headsa long brown beam, from which sprang at regular distances massivecross-bars, represented the spine with the ribs; stalactites of plasterhung down like viscera, and vast spider webs formed from one side tothe other dusty diaphragms. Here and there in corners could be seenlarge black spots which seemed alive, and changed places rapidly witha quick and startled movement. The pieces which had fallen from theelephant's back on its belly had filled up the concavity, so that itwas possible to walk on it as on a flooring. The youngest lad nudgedhis brother and said,--
"It is black."
This remark made Gavroche cry out, for the petrified air of the twolads rendered a check necessary.
"What's that you give me?" he shouted; "do you gab? You have dislikes,eh! I suppose you want the Tuileries? Are you brutes? Tell me, but Iwarn you that I do not belong to the regiment of spoonies. Well, tohear you talk one would think that your father was a prince of theblood."
A little roughness is good in terror, for it reassures; the twochildren drew nearer to Gavroche, who, affected paternally by thisconfidence, passed from sternness to gentleness, and addressing theyounger lad,--
"Blockhead," he said, toning down the insult with a caressinginflection of the voice, "it is outside that it's black. Outside itrains, and here it does not rain; outside it is cold, and here thereis not a breath of wind; outside there is a heap of people, and herethere's nobody; outside there's not even the moon, and here there's acandle, the deuce take it all!"
The two lads began looking round the apartment with less terror, butGavroche did not allow them any leisure for contemplation.
"Quick," he said.
And he thrust them toward what we are very happy to call the end ofthe room, where his bed was. Gavroche's bed was perfect, that is tosay, there was a mattress, a coverlet, and an alcove with curtains. Themattress was a straw mat, and the coverlet was a rather wide wrapper ofcoarse gray wool, very warm, and nearly new. This is what the alcovewas,--three long props were driven securely into the plaster soil, thatis to say, the elephant's belly, two in front and one behind, and werefastened by a cord at the top, so as to form a hollow pyramid. Theseprops supported a grating of brass wire, simply laid upon them, butartistically fastened with iron wire, so that it entirely surroundedthe three poles. A row of large stones fastened the lattice-work downto the ground, so that nothing could pass; and this lattice was merelya piece of the brass-work put up in aviaries in menageries. Gavroche'sbed was under the wire-work as in a cage, and the whole resembled anEsquimaux's tent. Gavroche moved a few of the stones that held down thelattice-work in front, and shouted to the lads,--
"Now then, on all fours."
He made his guests enter the cage cautiously, then went in after them,brought the stones together again, and hermetically closed the opening.They lay down all three on the mat, and though they were all so short,not one of them could stand upright in the alcove. Gavroche still heldthe "cellar rat" in his hand.
"Now," he said, "to roost; I am going to suppress the chandelier."
"What is that, sir?" the elder of the lads asked Gavroche, pointing tothe brass grating.
"That," said Gavroche, gravely, "is on account of the rats. Go toroost!"
Still he thought himself obliged to add a few words of instruction forthese young creatures, and continued,--
"It comes from the Jardin des Plantes, and is employed to guardferocious animals. There is a whole store-house full; you have only toclimb over a wall, crawl through a window, and pass under a door, andyou can have as much as you like."
While speaking he wrapped up the little boy in the blanket, whomurmured,--
"Oh, that is nice, it's so warm!"
Gavroche took a glance of satisfaction at the coverlet.
"That also comes from the Jardin des Plantes," he said, "I took it fromthe monkeys."
And pointing out to the elder one the straw mat on which he was lying,which was very thick and admirably made, he added,--
"That belonged to the giraffe."
After a pause he continued,--
"The beasts had all those things, and I took them from them; they werenot at all angry, for I told them that I wanted them for the elephant."
There was another interval of silence, after which he continued, "Youclimb over walls and snap your fingers at the Government."
The two lads gazed with a timid and stupefied respect at this intrepidand inventive being, a vagabond like them, isolated like them, weaklike them, who had something admirable and omnipotent about him, whoappeared to them supernatural, and whose face was composed of all thegrimaces of an old mountebank, mingled with the simplest and mostcharming smile.
"Then, sir," the elder lad said timidly, "you are not afraid of thepolicemen?"
Gavroche limited himself to answering,--
"Brat! we don't say 'policemen,' we say 'slops.'"
The younger had his eyes wide open, but said nothing; as he was at theedge of the mat, the elder being in the centre, Gavroche tucked inthe coverlet around him as a mother would have done, and raised themat under his head with old rags, so as to make him a pillow. Then heturned to the elder boy,--
"Well! it is jolly here, eh?"
"Oh, yes!" the lad answered, as he looked at Gavroche with theexpression of a saved angel.
The two poor little fellows, who were wet through, began to grow warmagain.
"By the bye," Gavroche went on, "why were you blubbering?"
And pointing to the younger boy he said to his brother,--
"A baby like that, I don't say no; but for a tall chap like you to cryis idiotic, you look like a calf."
"Well, sir," the lad said, "we hadn't any lodging to go to."
"Brat," Gavroche remarked, "we don't say 'lodging,' but 'crib.'"
"And then we felt afraid of being all alone like that in the night."
"We don't say 'night,' but 'sorgue.'"
"Thank you, sir," said the boy.
"Listen to me," Gavroche went on. "You must never blubber for anything.I'll take care of you, and you'll see what fun we shall have. In summerwe'll go to the Glacière with Navet, a pal of mine; we'll bathe in thedock, and run about naked on the timber floats in front of the bridgeof Austerlitz, for that makes the washerwomen rage. They yell, theykick, and, Lord! if you only knew how ridiculous they are! We'll go andsee the skeleton man; he's alive at the Champs Élysées, and the cove isas thin as blazes. And then I will take you to the play, and let yousee Frederick Lemaître; I get tickets, for I know some actors, and evenperformed myself once in a piece. We were a lot of boys who ran aboutunder a canvas, and that made the sea. I will get you an engagementat my theatre. We will go and see the savages, but they ain't realsavages, they wear pink fleshing which forms creases, and you can seerepairs made at their elbows with white thread. After that we will goto the Opera, and enter with the claquers. The claque at the Opera isvery well selected, though I wouldn't care to be seen with the claqueon the boulevard. At the Opera, just fancy, they're people who paytheir twenty sous, but they are asses, and we call them dish-clouts.And then we will go and see a man guillotined, and I'll point out theexecutioner to you, Monsieur Sanson; he lives in the Rue de Marais,and he's got a letter-box at his door. Ah! we shall amuse ourselvesfamously."
At this moment a drop of pitch fell on Gavroche's hand, and recalledhim to the realities of life.
"The devil," he said, "the match is wearing out. Pay attention! I can'tafford more than a sou a month for lighting, and when people go to bedthey are expected to sleep. We haven't the time to read M. Paul deKock's romances. Besides, the light might pass through the crevices ofthe gate, and the slops might see it."
"And then," timidly observed the elder lad, who alone dared to speak toGavroche and answer him, "a spark might fall on the straw, and we mustbe careful not to set the house on fire."
"You mustn't say 'set the house on fire,'" Gavroche remarked, "but'blaze the crib.'"
The storm grew more furious, and through the thunder-peals the raincould be heard pattering on the back of the colossus.
"The rain's sold!" said Gavroche. "I like to hear the contents of thewater-bottle running down the legs of the house. Winter's an ass; itloses its time, it loses its trouble; it can't drown us, and so thatis the reason why the old water-carrier is so growling with us."
This allusion to the thunder, whose consequences Gavroche, in hisquality as a nineteenth-century philosopher, accepted, was followed bya lengthened flash, so dazzling that a portion of it passed through thehole in the elephant's belly. Almost at the same moment the thunderroared, and very furiously. The two little boys uttered a cry, and roseso quickly that the brass grating was almost thrown down; but Gavrocheturned toward them his bold face, and profited by the thunder-clap toburst into a laugh.
"Be calm, children, and do not upset the edifice. That's fine thunderof the right sort, and it isn't like that humbugging lightning. It'salmost as fine as at the 'Ambigu.'"
This said, he restored order in the grating, softly pushed the two ladson to the bed, pressed their knees to make them lie full length, andcried,--
"Since le Bon Dieu is lighting his candle, I can put out mine.Children, my young humans, we must sleep, for it's very bad not tosleep. It makes you stink in the throat, as people say in fashionablesociety. Wrap yourselves well up in the blanket, for I am going to putthe light out; are you all right?"
"Yes," said the elder boy, "I'm all right, and feel as if I had afeather pillow under my head."
"You mustn't say 'head,'" Gavroche cried, "but 'nut.'"
The two lads crept close together; Gavroche made them all right on themat, and pulled the blanket up to their ears; then he repeated for thethird time in the hieratic language, "Roost."
And he blew out the rope's end. The light was scarce extinguished erea singular trembling began to shake the trellis-work under which thethree children were lying. It was a multitude of dull rubbings whichproduced a metallic sound, as if claws and teeth were assailing thecopper wire, and this was accompanied by all sorts of little shrillcries. The little boy of five years of age, hearing this noise abovehis head, and chilled with terror, nudged his elder brother, but he was"roosting" already, as Gavroche had ordered him; then the little one,unable to hold out any longer for fright, dared to address Gavroche,but in a very low voice and holding his breath.
"Sir?"
"Hilloh!" said Gavroche, who had just closed his eyes.
"What is that?"
"It's the rats," Gavroche answered.
And he laid his head again on the mat. The rats, which were really bythousands in the elephant's carcass, and were the live black spots towhich we have alluded, had been held in check by the flame of the linkso long as it was alight; but as soon as this cavern, which was, soto speak, their city, had been restored to night, sniffing what thatfamous story-teller, Perrault, calls "fresh meat," they rushed in bandsto Gavroche's tent, climbed to the top, and were biting the meshes,as if trying to enter this novel sort of trap. In the mean while thelittle one did not sleep.
"Sir?" he began again.
"Well?" Gavroche asked.
"What are rats?"
"They're mice."
This explanation slightly reassured the child, for he had seen whitemice in his life, and had not been afraid of them; still, he raised hisvoice again.
"Sir?"
"Well?" Gavroche repeated.
"Why don't you keep a cat?"
"I had one," Gavroche answered; "I brought it here, but they ate it forme."
This second explanation undid the work of the first, and the childbegan trembling once more; the dialogue between him and Gavroche wasresumed for the fourth time.
"Sir?"
"Well?"
"What was eaten?"
"The cat."
"What ate the cat?"
"The rats."
"The mice?"
"Yes, the rats."
The child, terrified by these mice which ate the cats, continued,--
"Would those mice eat us?"
"Oh, Lord, yes!" Gavroche said.
The child's terror was at its height, but Gavroche added,--
"Don't be frightened, they cant get in. And then, I am here. Stay;take my hand, hold your tongue, and sleep."
Gavroche at the same time took the boy's hand across his brother, andthe child pressed the hand against his body and felt reassured; forcourage and strength have mysterious communications. Silence had setin again around them, the sound of voices had startled and driven awaythe rats; and when they returned a few minutes later and furiouslyattacked, the three boys, plunged in sleep, heard nothing more. Thenight hours passed away; darkness covered the immense Bastille Square.A winter wind, which was mingled with the rain, blew in gusts. Thepatrols exa
mined doors, enclosures, and dark corners, and, whilesearching for nocturnal vagabonds, passed silently before the elephant;the monster, erect and motionless, with its eyes open in the darkness,seemed to be dreaming, as if satisfied at its good deed, and shelteredfrom the sky and rain the three poor sleeping children. In order tounderstand what is going to follow, it must be remembered that at thisperiod the main-guard of the Bastille was situated at the other end ofthe square, and that what took place near the elephant could neitherbe prevented nor heard by the sentry. Toward the end of the hour whichimmediately precedes daybreak, a man came running out of the Rue St.Antoine, crossed the square, went round the great enclosure of theColumn of July, and slipped through the palings under the elephant'sbelly. If any light had fallen on this man, it might have been guessedfrom his thoroughly drenched state that he had passed the night in therain. On getting under the elephant he uttered a peculiar cry, whichbelongs to no human language, and which a parrot alone could reproduce.He repeated twice this cry, of which the following orthography scarcesupplies any idea, "Kirikikiou!" At the second cry a clear, gay,and young voice answered from the elephant's belly, "Yes!" Almostimmediately the plank that closed the whole was removed, and left apassage for a lad, who slid down the elephant's leg and fell at theman's feet. It was Gavroche, and the man was Montparnasse. As for thecry of "Kirikikiou," it was doubtless what the lad meant to say by,"You will ask for Monsieur Gavroche." On hearing it, he jumped up witha start, crept out of his alcove by moving the grating a little, andthen carefully closing it again, after which he opened the trap andwent down. The man and the child silently recognized each other in thenight, and Montparnasse confined himself to saying,--
"We want you, come and give us a lift."
The gamin asked for no other explanation.
"Here I am," he said.
And the pair proceeded toward the Rue St. Antoine, whence Montparnassehad come, winding rapidly through the long file of market-carts whichwere coming into town at the time. The gardeners, lying on their wagonsamong their salads and vegetables, half asleep, and rolled up to theeyes in their great-coats, owing to the beating rain, did not even lookat these strange passers-by.
[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 dixgros sous, je ne refuserais pas d'y goupiner, mais nous ne sommes pasle Mardi Gras.