CHAPTER III.
THE NIGHT BEGINS TO FALL ON GRANTAIRE.
The ground was, in fact, admirably suited; the entrance of the streetwas wide, the end narrowed, and, like a blind alley, Corinth formed acontraction in it, the Rue de Mondétour could be easily barred rightand left, and no attack was possible save by the Rue St. Denis; thatis to say, from the front and in the open. Bossuet drunk had had theinspiration of Hannibal sober. At the sound of the band rushing on,terror seized on the whole street, and not a passer-by but disappeared.More quickly than a flash of lightning, shops, stalls, gates, doors,Venetian blinds, and shutters of every size were shut from theground-floor to the roofs, at the end, on the right, and on the left.An old terrified woman fixed up a mattress before her window withclothes-props, in order to deaden the musketry, and the public-housealone remained open,--and for an excellent reason, because theinsurgents had rushed into it.
"Oh Lord! oh Lord!" Mame Hucheloup sighed.
Bossuet ran down to meet Courfeyrac, and Joly, who had gone to thewindow, shouted,--
"Courfeyrac, you ought to have brought an umbrella. You will catchcold."
In a few minutes twenty iron bars were pulled down from the railingsin front of the inn, and ten yards of pavement dug up. Gavroche andBahorel seized, as it passed, the truck of a lime-dealer of the nameof Anceau, and found in it three barrels of lime, which they placedunder the piles of paving-stones; Enjolras had raised the cellar-flap,and all Mame Hucheloup's empty casks went to join the barrels of lime;Feuilly, with his fingers accustomed to illumine the delicate sticksof fans, reinforced the barrels and the trucks with two massive pilesof stones,--rough stones, improvised like the rest, and taken fromno one knew where. The supporting shores were pulled away from thefrontage of an adjoining house, and laid on the casks. When Courfeyracand Bossuet turned round, one half the street was already barred by arampart taller than a man, for there is nothing like the hand of thepeople to build up anything that is built by demolishing. Matelote andGibelotte were mixed up with the workmen, and the latter went backwardsand forwards, loaded with rubbish, and her lassitude helped at thebarricade. She served paving-stones, as she would have served wine,with a sleepy look. An omnibus drawn by two white horses passed theend of the street; Bossuet jumped over the stones, ran up, stopped thedriver, ordered the passengers to get out, offered his hand to "theladies," dismissed the conductor, and returned, pulling the horses onby the bridles.
"Omnibuses," he said, "must not pass before Corinth. _Non licet omnibusadire Corinthum_."
A moment after, the unharnessed horses were straggling down the RueMondétour, and the omnibus lying on its side completed the barricade.Mame Hucheloup, quite upset, had sought refuge on the first-floor; hereyes were wandering and looked without seeing, and her cries of alarmdared not issue from her throat.
"It is the end of the world," she muttered.
Joly deposited a kiss on Mame Hucheloup's fat, red, wrinkled neck, andsaid to Grantaire, "My dear fellow, I have always considered a woman'sneck an infinitely delicate thing." But Grantaire had reached thehighest regions of dithyramb. When Matelote came up to the first-floor,he seized her round the waist and burst into loud peals of laughter atthe window.
"Matelote is ugly," he cried; "Matelote is the ideal of ugliness;she is a chimera. Here is the secret of her birth,--a GothicPygmalion, who was carving cathedral gargoyles, fell in love on afine morning with the most horrible of them. He implored love toanimate it, and this produced Matelote. Look at her, citizens! She haschromate-of-lead-colored hair, like Titian's mistress, and is a goodgirl; I will answer that she fights well, for every good girl containsa hero. As for Mother Hucheloup, she is an old brave. Look at hermustachios; she inherited them from her husband. She will fight too,and the couple will terrify the whole of the suburbs. Comrades, we willoverthrow the Government so truly as there are fifteen intermediateacids between margaric acid and formic acid; however, it is a matterof perfect indifference to me. My father always detested me because Icould not understand mathematics; I only understand love and liberty. Iam Grantaire, the good fellow; never having had any money, I have notgrown accustomed to it, and for that reason have never wanted it; but,had I been rich, there would be no poor left! You would have seen! Oh,if good hearts had large purses, how much better things would be! I canimagine the Saviour with Rothschild's fortune! What good he would do!Matelote, embrace me! You are voluptuous and timid; you have cheeksthat claim the kiss of a sister, and lips that claim the kiss of alover!"
"Hold your tongue, barrel!" Courfeyrac said. Grantaire replied,--
"I am the Capitoul and master of the Floral games!"
Enjolras, who was standing on the top of the barricade, gun in hand,raised his handsome, stern face. Enjolras, as we know, blended theSpartan with the Puritan; he would have died at Thermopylæ withLeonidas, and burned Drogheda with Cromwell.
"Grantaire," he cried, "go and sleep off your wine elsewhere; this isthe place for intoxication, and not for drunkenness. Do not dishonorthe barricade."
These stinging words produced on Grantaire a singular effect, and itseemed as if he had received a glass of cold water in his face. Heappeared suddenly sobered, sat down near the window, gazed at Enjolraswith inexpressible tenderness, and said to him,--
"Let me sleep here."
"Go and sleep elsewhere," Enjolras cried.
But Grantaire, still fixing on him his tender and misty eyes,answered,--
"Let me sleep here till I die here."
Enjolras looked at him disdainfully.
"Grantaire, you are incapable of believing, thinking, wishing, living,and dying."
Grantaire replied in a grave voice,--
"You will see."
He stammered a few more unintelligible words, then his head fellnoisily on the table, and--as is the usual effect of the second periodof ebriety into which Enjolras had roughly and suddenly thrust him--amoment later he was asleep.