 Chapter 1 and 2 of Book 11 of Les Misérables, Volume 4 by Victor Hugo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by May Lowe. Les Misérables, Volume 4 by Victor Hugo. Translated by Isabelle Florence Hapgood. Book 11. The Atom Fraternizes with the Hurricane. Chapter 1. Some explanations with regard to the origin of Gavros's poetry. The influence of an academician on this poetry. At the instant when the insurrection, arising from the shock of the populace and the military in front of the arsenal, started a movement in advance and towards the rear in the multitude which was following the hearse, and which, through the whole length of the boulevards wade, so to speak, on the head of the procession, there arose a frightful ebb. The rout was shaken, their ranks were broken. All ran, fled, made their escape, some with shouts of attack, others with the pallor of flight. The great river which covered the boulevards divided in a twinkling overflowed to right and left and spread in torrents over two hundred streets at once with the roar of a sewer that has broken loose. At that moment, a ragged child who was coming down through the Rue Menilementon, holding in his hand a branch of blossoming labyrinum, which he had just plucked out of the heights of the Belleville, caught sight of an old holster pistol in the show window of a brick-a-brack merchant's shop. Mother, what's your name? I'm going to borrow your machine. And off he ran with the pistol. Two minutes later, a flood of frightened bourgeois who were fleeing through the Rue Amélo and the Rue Basse, encountered the lad brandishing his pistol and singing, La nuit on n'est voir rien, les Jueux ont boit très bien. D'un écrit apocrypha, les bourgeois s'éboriffent, pratiquaient avec tout, tout, chapeau pointu. It was little gaverosh on his way to the wars. On the boulevard, he noticed that the pistol had no trigger. Who was the author of that couplet which served to punctuate his march, and of all the other songs which he was fond of singing on occasion? We know not. Who does know, himself perhaps? However, gaverosh was well up in all the popular tunes and circulation, and he mingled them with his own chirpings. In observing urchin and a rogue, he made a potpourri of the voices of nature and the voices of Paris. He combined the repertory of the birds with the repertory of the workshops. He was acquainted with thieves, a tribe contiguous to his own. He had, it appears, been for three months a apprentice to a printer. He had one day executed a commission for monsieur Bourlomien, one of the forty. Gaverosh was a gammon of letters. Moreover, gaverosh had no suspicion of the fact that when he had offered the hospitality of his elephant to two brats on that villainously rainy night, it was to his own brothers that he had played the part of Providence. His brothers in the evening, his father in the morning. That is what his night had been like. On quitting the roue de ballet at daybreak, he had returned in haste to the elephant, had artistically extracted from it the two brats, had shared with them some sort of breakfast which he had invented, and had then gone away, confiding them to that good mother, the street, who had brought him up almost entirely. On leaving them, he had appointed to meet them at the same spot in the evening, and had left them this discourse by way of a farewell. I break a cane, otherwise expressed, I cut my stick, or as they say at the court, I file off. If you don't find papa and mama, youngens, come back here this evening. I'll scramble you up some supper, and I'll give you a shakedown. The two children, picked up by some policeman, and placed in the refuge, or stolen by some mountain bank, or having simply strayed off in that immense Chinese puzzle of a Paris, did not return. The lowest depths of the actual social world are full of these lost traces. Gavrush did not see them again. Ten or twelve weeks had elapsed since that night. More than once he had scratched the back of his head and said, Where the devil are my two children? In the meantime he had arrived, pistol in hand, in the rue du Pont de Chaux. He noticed that there was but one shop open in that street, and, a matter of worthy reflection, that it was a pastry cook's shop. This presented a providential occasion to eat another apple turnover before entering the unknown. Gavrush halted, fumbled in his fob, turned his pocket inside out, found nothing, not even a zoo, and began to shout, Help! It is hard to miss the last cake. Nevertheless, Gavrush pursued his way. Two minutes later he was in the rue Saint-Louis. While traversing the rue du Pont Royal, he felt called upon to make good the loss of the apple turnover which had been impossible, and he indulged himself in the immense delight of tearing down the theatre posters in broad daylight. A little further on, on catching sight of a group of comfortable-looking persons, who seemed to be landed proprietors, he shrugged his shoulders and spit out at random before him this mouthful of philosophical bile as they passed. How fat those moneyed men are! They're drunk, they just wallow in good dinners. Ask them what they do with their money, they don't know. They eat it, that's what they do, as much as their bellies will hold. CHAPTER II. Gavrush on the March The brandishing of a triglyce pistol, grasped in one's hand in the open street, is so much of a public function that Gavrush felt his fervour increasing with every moment. Amid the scraps of the Marseille, which he was singing, he shouted, All goes well, I suffer a great deal in my left paw. I am all broken up with rheumatism, but I am satisfied, citizens. What the bourgeois have to do is to bear themselves well, I'll sneeze them out subversive couplets. What are the police spies? Dogs. And I'd just like to have one of them at the end of my pistol. I'm just from the boulevard, my friends. It's getting hot there. It's getting into a little boil. It's simmering. It's time to skim the pot. Forward march, men. Let an impure blood inundate the furrows. I give my days to my country. I shall never see my concubine more niny. Finished? Yes, niny. But never mind. Long live joy. Let's fight, kreble. I've had enough of despotism. At that moment, the horse of a lancer of the National Guard having fallen, Gavrush laid his pistol on the pavement and picked up the man. Then he assisted in raising the horse. After which he picked up his pistol and resumed his way. In the rue de Torigny, all was peace and silence. This apathy, peculiar to the marée, presented a contrast with the vast surrounding uproar. Four gossips were chatting in a doorway. Scotland has trios of witches. Paris has quartets of old gossiping hags. And the, thou shalt be king, could be quite as mournfully hurled at Bonaparte in the Carrefour Bordoyet as at Macbeth on the heath of Armoire. The croak would be almost identical. The gossips of the rue de Torigny busied themselves only with their own concerns. Three of them were fortresses, and the fourth was a rag-picker with her basket on her back. All four of them seemed to be standing at the four corners of old age, which are decrepitude, decay, ruin, and sadness. The rag-picker was humble. In this open-air society it is the rag-picker who salutes, and the fortress who patronizes. This is caused by the corner for refuse, which is fat or lean, according to the will of the fortresses, and after the fancy of the one who makes the heap. There may be kindness in the broom. This rag-picker was a grateful creature, and she smiled with what a smile on the three fortresses. Things of this nature were said. Ah, by the way, is your cat still cross? Good gracious! Cats are naturally the enemies of dogs, you know. It's the dogs who complain. And people also. But the fleas from a cat don't go after people. That's not the trouble. Dogs are dangerous. I remember one year when there were so many dogs that it was necessary to put it in the newspapers. That was at the time when they were at the Tuileries, great sheep that drew the little carriage of the King of Rome. Do you remember the King of Rome? I like the dupe de Bordeaux better. I knew Louis XVIII. I prefer Louis XVIII. Meeters awfully dear, isn't it, Mother Patagon? Ah, don't mention it. The butcher's shop is a horror. A horrible horror. One can't afford anything but the poor cuts nowadays. Hear the rag-picker interposed. Ladies, business is dull. The refuse heaps are miserable. No one throws anything away anymore. They eat everything. There are poorer people than you, love for golem. Ah, that's true, replied the rag-picker with deference. I have a profession. A poor succeeded, and the rag-picker, yielding to that necessity for boasting which lies at the bottom of man, added, In the morning on my return home I pick over my basket. I sort my things. This makes heaps in my room. I put the rags in a basket, the cores and the stalks in a bucket, the linen in my cupboard, the woolen stuff in my commode, The old papers in the corner of the window, and things that are good to eat in my bowl, The bits of glass in my fireplace, the old shoes behind my door, and the bones under my bed. Gauforto should stop behind her, and was listening. Old ladies, said he, what do you mean by talking politics? He was assailed by a broadside, composed of a quadruple howl. Here's another rascal. What's he got in his paddle, a pistol? Well, I'd like to know what sort of a beggar brat this is. That sort of animal is never easy unless he's overturning the authorities. Gauforto disdainsfully contented himself by way of reprisal, with elevating the tip of his nose with his thumb and opening his hands wide. The rag picker cried, you malicious, bare-poured little wretch. The one who answered to the name of Patagon clapped her hands together in horror. There's going to be evil doings that certain. The errand boy next door has a little pointed beard. I have seen him pass every day with a young person in a pink bonnet on his arm. Today I saw him pass, and he had a gun on his arm. Ma'am Bachel says that last week there was a revolution at... at... at... Where's the calf? At Pontoise. And then there you see him, that horrid scab, with his pistol. It seems that the celestines are full of pistols. What do you suppose the government can do with good for nothings who don't know how to do anything but contrive ways of upsetting the world when we had just begun to get a little quiet after all the misfortunes that have happened, good lord? To that poor queen whom I saw pass in the tumbrel. And all this is going to make tobacco, dearer. It's infamous, and I shall certainly go to see him be headed on the guillotine, the wretch. You've got the sniffles old lady, said Gavrosh, blow your promontory. And he passed on. When he was in the Rupave, the rag picker occurred to his mind, and he indulged in this soliloquy. You're in the wrong to insult the revolutionist's mother dust heap corner. This pistol is in your interests, it's so that you may have more good things to eat in your basket. All at once he heard a shout behind him. It was the poor Trestpattergon who had followed him, and who was shaking her fist at him in the distance and crying, You're nothing but a bastard. Oh, come now, said Gavrosh. I don't care a brass farthing for that. Shortly afterwards he passed the Hotel La Moignant. There he uttered this appeal. Forward march to the battle, and he was seized with a fit of melancholy. He gazed at his pistol with an air of reproach, which seemed to attempt to appease it. I'm going off, said he, but you won't go off. One dog may distract the attention from another dog. A very gaunt poodle came along at the moment. Gavrosh felt compassion for him. My poor doggy, said he, you must have gone and swallowed a cask for all the hoops invisible. Then he directed his course towards Laurent Saint-Gervais. End of Book 11, Chapters 1 and 2 Les Miserables, Volume 4 by Victor Hugo, translated by Isabelle Florence Hapgood Book 11, The Atom Fratinizes with the Hurricane Chapter 3, Just Indignation of a Hairdresser The worthy hairdresser, who had chased from his shop the two little fellows to whom Gavrosh had opened the paternal interior of the elephant, was at that moment in his shop engaged in shaving an old soldier of the legion who had served under the empire. They were talking. The hairdresser had, naturally, spoken to the veteran of the riot. Then, of General Lamarck, and from Lamarck they had passed to the emperor. Then sprang up a conversation between Baba and soldier, which Pururam, had he been present, had been enriched with arabesques, in which he would have entitled, Dialogue Between the Razor and the Sword. How did the emperor ride, sir? said the Baba. Badly, he did not know how to fall, so he never fell. Did he have fine horses? He must have had fine horses. On the day when he gave me my cross, I noticed his beast. A racing mare, perfectly white, her ears were very wide apart, her saddle deep, a fine head marked with a black star, a very long neck, strongly articulated knees, prominent ribs, oblique shoulders, and a powerful cuppa, a little more than fifteen hands in height. A pretty horse remarked the hairdresser. It was his majesty's beast. The hairdresser felt, that after this observation, a short silence would be fitting, so he conformed himself to it, and then went on. The emperor was never wounded, but once was he, sir. The old soldier replied with the calm and sovereign tone of a man who had been there. In the hill, at Ratisborne, I never saw him so well dressed as on that day. And you, Mr. Veteran, you must have been often wounded. I, said the soldier. Ah, not to amount to anything. At Marengo, I received two sabre blows to the back of my neck, a bullet in the right arm and out to lids, another in the left hip at Jenner. At Freedland, a thrust from a bayonet there. At the Moscowa, seven or eight lance thrusts, no matter where. At Lutsen, a splinter of a shell crushed one of my fingers. Ah, and then at Waterloo, a ball from a bassion in the thigh, that's all. How fine that is, exclaimed the hairdresser, in pindaric accents. To die on the field battle, on my word of honour, rather than die in bed of an illness, slowly, a bit by bit each day, with drugs, cataplasms, syringes, medicines, I should prefer to receive a cannonball in my belly. You're not over for studious, said the soldier. He had hardly spoken when a fearful crash shook the shop. The show window had suddenly been fractured. The wigmaker turned pale. Ah, good God, he exclaimed, it's one of them. What? A cannonball. Here it is, said the soldier, and he picked up something that was rolling about the floor. It was a pebble. The hairdresser ran to the broken window and beheld Gavrash fleeing at the full speed towards the March Saint-Jean. As he passed the hairdresser's shop, Gavrash, who had the two brats still in his mind, had not been able to resist the impulse to say good day to him, and had flung a stone through his pains. You see, shrieked the hairdresser, who from white had turned blue, that fellow returns and does mischief for the pure pleasure of it. What has anyone done to that gammon? Chapter Four The child is amazed at the old man. In the meantime, in the Marché Saint-Jean, where the post had already been disarmed, Gavrash had just affected a junction with a band, led by Enjorat, Corphérac, Comphère, and Freyé. They were armed after a fashion. Barrelle and Jean-Provert had found them and swelled the group. Enjorat had double-barrelled hunting-gun, Comphère, the gun of a national guard bearing the number of his legion, and in his belt two pistols, which his unbuttoned coat allowed to be seen. Jean-Provert, an old cavalry musket, Barrelle a rifle. Corphérac was brandishing an unsheathed sword-cane. Freyé, with a naked sword in his hand, marched at their head, shouting, Long live Poland! They reached the Caymore long, crevatless, hatless, breathless, soaked by the rain with lightning in their eyes. Gavrash accosted them calmly. Where are we going? Come along, said Corphérac. Behind Freyé marched, or rather bounded, Barrelle, who was like a fish in water in a riot. He wore a scarlet waistcoat, and indulged in the sort of words which break everything. His waistcoat astounded a passerby, who cried in bewilderment, Here are the Reds! The Reds, the Reds! retorted Barrelle, a queer kind of fear, bourgeois. For my part I don't tremble before a poppy, the little red hat inspires me with no alarm. Take my advice, bourgeois, let's leave fear of the Red to haunt cattle. He caught sight of a corner of the wall in which was placarded the most peaceable sheet of paper in the world, a permission to eat eggs, a Lenten admonition addressed by the Archbishop of Paris to his flock. Barrelle exclaimed, Fluck! a polite way of saying geese! And he tore the charge from the nail. This conquered Gavrosch. From that instant Gavrosch set himself to study Barrelle. Barrelle, observed Engelvar, you are wrong. You should have let that charge alone. He is not the person with whom we have to deal. You are wasting your wrath to no purpose. Take care of your supply. One does not fire out of the ranks with the soul any more than with a gun. Each one in his own fashion Engelvar retorted Barrelle. This bishop's prose shocks me. I want to eat eggs without being permitted. Your style is the hot and cold. I am amusing myself. Besides, I am not wasting myself. I am getting a start. And if I tore down that charge, Herkler, it was only to wet my appetite. This word, Herkler, struck Gavrosch. He sought out all occasions for learning, and that tear-a-down of posters possessed his esteem. He inquired of him. What does Herkler mean? Barrelle answered. It means cursed name of a dog in Latin. Here Barrelle recognized at a window a pale young man with a black beard who was watching them as they passed, probably a friend of the ABC. He shouted to him, Quick, cartridges, parabellum. A fine man, that's true, said Gavrosch, who now understood Latin. A tumultuous retinue accompanied them. Students, artists, young men affiliated to the Cougar of Vey, artisans, longshoremen armed with clubs and bayonets. Some, like Comfer, with pistols thrust into their trousers. An old man, who appeared to be extremely aged, was walking in the band. He had no arms, and he made great haste, so that he might not be left behind, although he had a thoughtful air. Gavrosch caught sight of him. Hekseksa, said he to Corferac. He's an old duffer. It was Monsieur Mboul. Let us recount what has taken place. Engelra and his friends had been on the Boulevard Boudin, near the public storehouses, at the moment when the dragoons had made their charge. Engelra, Corferac and Comfer, were among those who had taken to the Rue Basse-en-Pierre, shouting to the barricades. In the Rue, Lady Gael, they had met an old man walking along. What had attracted their attention was that the good man was walking in a zigzag, as though he were intoxicated. Moreover, he had his hat in his hand, although it had been raining all the morning, and was raining pretty briskly at the very time. Corferac had recognised Father Mboul. He knew him through having many times accompanied Marius as far as his door. As he was acquainted with the peaceful and more than timid habits of the old beetle-book collector, and was amazed at the sight of him in the midst of that uproar, a couple of paces from the cavalry-charges, almost in the midst of a fuselard, hatless in the rain, and strolling about among the bullets, he had accosted him, and the following dialogue had been exchanged between the rioter of fire and the octogenarian. Monsieur Mboul, go to your home. Why? There's going to be a row. That's well. Thrust with the sword and firing, Monsieur Mboul. That is well. Firing from cannon. That is good. Where are the rest of you going? We are going to fling government to the earth. That is good. And he had set out to follow them. From that moment forth he had not uttered a word. His step had suddenly become firm. Artisans had offered him their arms. He had refused with a sign of the head. He advanced nearly to the front of the rank of the column, with the movement of a man who was marching, and the countenance of a man who was sleeping. What a fierce old fellow, muttered the students. The rumours spread through the troupe that he was a former number of the convention, an old regicide. The mob had turned in through the rue de la verrière. Little Gavroche marched in front, with that deafening song which made of him a sort of trumpet. He sang, voici la lune qui paraît quand diront-nous dans la forêt. Demandez chaleur à chalote. Tout tout tout pour château. Je n'ai qu'un deux, qu'une heure, qu'une liare et qu'une botte. Pour le voie bout des grands matins. La rosée à la même des thèmes. De mon lieu, étant un ribote, vis-à-vis pour partie, je n'ai qu'une Dieu, qu'une roie, qu'une liare et qu'une botte. Et c'est deux pauves petits loups, comme deux grives et une soule. Une tigre enrêl dans sa grotte. Don don don pour ma don. Je n'ai qu'un Dieu, qu'une roie, qu'une liare et qu'une botte. L'un jouet est l'autre sacré. Quand diront-nous dans la forêt. Demandez chaleur à chalote. Tout tout tout pour patine. Je n'ai qu'un Dieu, qu'une roie, qu'une liare et qu'une botte. They directed their course towards Saint Mary. Chapter 6. Recruits. The band augmented every moment. Near the roue de billets, a man of lofty stature, whose hair was turning grey, and whose bold and daring mean was remarked by Corfeirac, Engela, and Comphère, but whom none of them knew, joined them. Gavrosh, who was occupied in singing, whistling, humming, running on ahead and pounding on the shutters of the shops with the butt of his triggerless pistol, paid no attention to this man. It chanced that in the roue de la verrière they passed in front of Corfeirac's door. This happens just right, said Corfeirac. I have forgotten my purse and I have lost my hat. He quitted the mob and ran up to his quarters at full speed. He seized an old hat and his purse. He also seized a large square coffer of the dimensions of a large valise, which was concealed under his soiled linen. As he descended again at a run, the fortress hailed him. Monsieur de Corfeirac! What's your name, fortress? The fortress stood bewildered. Why, you know perfectly well. I'm the conseillère. My name is Mother Vivant. Well, if you call me Monsieur de Corfeirac again, I shall call you Mother de Vivant. Now speak! What's the matter? What do you want? There is someone who wants to speak with you. Who is it? I don't know. Where is he? In my lodge. The devil, ejaculated Corfeirac. But the person has been waiting your return for over an hour, said the fortress. At the same time, a sort of pale, thin, small, freckled and youthful artisan, clad in a tattered blouse and patched trousers of ribbed velvet, and who had rather the air of a girl cootled as a man than of a man, emerged from the lodge and said to Corfeirac in a voice which was not the least in the world like a woman's voice. Monsieur Marius, if you please. He is not here. Will he return this evening? I know nothing about it, and Corfeirac added. For my part, I shall not return. The young man gazed steadily at him and said, Why not? Because. Where are you going, then? What business is that of yours? Would you like to have me carry your coffer for you? I am going to the barricades. Would you like to have me go with you? If you like, replied Corfeirac, the street is free, the pavements belong to everyone. And he made his escape at a run to join his friends. When he had rejoined them, he gave the coffer to one of them to carry. It was only a quarter of an hour after this that he saw the young man who had actually followed them. A mob does not go precisely where it intends. We have explained that a gust of wind carries it away. They overshot Saint Mehdi and found themselves without precisely knowing how in the Rue Saint Denis. End of Book 11, Chapters 3-6 Chapter 1 of Book 12 of Les Miserables, Volume 4 by Victor Hugo This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Les Miserables, Volume 4 by Victor Hugo Translated by Isabelle Florence Hapgood Book 12, Corinth Chapter 1 The History of Corinth from its Foundation The Parisians who nowadays on entering on the Rue Rambouteau at the end near the Hallé Notice on their right opposite the Rue Monditour a basket maker shop having for its sign a basket in the form of Napoleon the Great with this inscription Napoleon is made holy of Willow Have no suspicion of the terrible scenes which this very spot witnessed hardly 30 years ago. It was there that lay the Rue de la Chambrerie which ancient deeds spell Chambrerie and the celebrated public house called Corinth. The reader will remember all that has been said about the barricade affected at this point and eclipsed, by the way, by the barricade Saint-Marie it was on this famous barricade of the Rue de la Chambrerie now fallen into profound obscurity that we are about to shed a little light. May we be permitted to recur for the sake of clearness in the recital to the simple means which we have already employed in the case of Waterloo. Persons who wish to picture to themselves in a tolerably exact manner the constitution of the houses which stood at that epoch near the Poinsons Newstache at the northeast angle of the Hallé of Paris where today lies the embouchure of the Rue Rambouteau and of only to imagine an inn touching the Rue Saint-Denis with its summit and the Hallé with its base and whose two vertical bars should form the Rue de la Grande Truanderie and the Rue de la Chambrerie and whose transverse bars should be formed by the Rue de la Petite Truanderie. The old Rue Montetour cut the three strokes of the inn at the most crooked angles so that the labyrinth confusion of these four streets suffice to form on a space three fathoms square between the Hallé and the Rue Saint-Denis on the one hand and between the Rue de Signy and the Rue de Préchure on the other seven islands of houses oddly cut up of varying sizes placed crosswise and haphazard and barely separated like the blocks of stone in a dock by narrow crannies. We say narrow crannies and we can give no more just idea of those dark contracted mini-angled alleys lined with eight-story buildings. These buildings were so decrepit that in the Rue de la Chambrerie and the Rue de la Petite Truanderie the fronts were short up with beams running from one house to another. The street was narrow and the gutter broad the pedestrian there walked on a pavement that was always wet skirting little stalls resembling cellars big posts encircled with iron hoops excessive heaps of refuse and gates armed with enormous century-old gratings. The Rue Rambouteau has devastated all that. The name of Monde Tour paints marvelously well the sinuosities of that whole set of streets. A little further on they are found better expressed by the Rue Pirouette which ran into the Rue Monde Tour. The passerby who got entangled from the Rue Saint-Denis in the Rue de la Chambrerie beheld it gradually close in before him as though he had entered an elongated funnel. At the end of this street which was very short he found further passage barred in the direction of the Hallé by a tall row of houses that sought himself in a blind alley had he not perceived on the right and left two dark cuts through which he could make his escape. This was the Rue Monde Tour which on one side ran into the Rue de Pressure and on the other into the Rue du Signy and the Petit Truanderie. At the bottom of this sort of cul-de-sac at the angle of the cutting on the right there was to be seen a house which was not so tall as the rest and which formed a sort of cape in the street. It is in this house of two stories only that an illustrious wine shop had been merrily installed 300 years before. This tavern created the joyous noise in the very spot which Old Theophilus described in the following couplet. La branlée les squalettes horribles d'un pauvre amant qui s'épendit There swings the horrible skeleton of a poor lover who hung himself. The situation was good and tavern keepers succeeded each other there from father to son. In the time of Mathurin Reignier this cabaret was called the Poteau-Rosé and as the rebus was then in fashion it had for its signboard a post coteau painted rose collar. In the last century the worthy Natois one of the fantastic masters nowadays despised by the stiff school having got drunk many times in this wine shop at the very table where Reignier had drunk his fill had painted by way of gratitude a bunch of Corinth grapes on the pink post. The keeper of the cabaret in his joy had changed his device and had caused to be placed in guilt letters beneath the bunch these words. At the bunch of Corinth grapes a raison du Corinth. Hence the name of Corinth nothing is more natural to drunken men than ellipses. The ellipsis is the zigzag of the phrase. Corinth gradually dethroned the Poteau-Rosé. The last proprietor of the dynasty Father Hushaloupe no longer acquainted even with the tradition had the post painted blue. The room on the ground floor where the bar was situated went on the first floor containing a billiard table a wooden spiral staircase piercing the ceiling wine on the tables smoke on the walls candles in broad daylight this was the style of this cabaret. A staircase with a trapdoor in the lower room led to the cellar. On the second floor were the lodgings of the Hushaloupe family. They were reached by a staircase which was a ladder rather than a staircase and had for their entrance only a private door in the large room on the first floor. Under the roof in two mansard attics were the nests for the servants. The kitchen shared the ground floor with the taproom. Father Hushaloupe had possibly been born a chemist but the fact is that he was a cook. People did not confine themselves to drinking alone in his wine shop. They also ate there. Hushaloupe had invented a capital thing which could be eaten nowhere but in his house stuffed carps which he called carpe au gras. These were eaten by the light of the tallow candle or of a lamp of the time of Louis XVI on tables to which were nailed waxed claws in lieu of tablecloths. People came thither from a distance. Hushaloupe one fine morning had seen fit to notify passers-by of this speciality. He had dipped a brush in a pot of black paint and as he was an orthographer on his own account as well as a cook after his own fashion. He had improvised on his wall this remarkable inscription. Carpe au gras. One winter the rainstorms and the showers had taken a fancy to obliterate the s which terminated the first word and the G which began the third. This is what remained. Carpe au gras. Time and rain assisting. A humble gastronomical announcement had become a profound piece of advice. In this way it came about that though he knew no French Father Hushaloupe understood Latin that he had evoked philosophy from his kitchen and that desirous simply of a facing lint he had equaled Horace and the striking thing about it was that that also meant enter my wine shop. Nothing of all this is in existence now. The Mont de Tour labyrinth was disemboweled and widely opened in 1847 and probably no longer exists at the present moment. The Rue de la Chambre and Corinth have disappeared beneath the pavement of the Rue Rambouteau. As we have already said, Corinth was the meeting place if not the rallying point of Corfu Rack and his friends. It was Grand Terror who had discovered Corinth. He had entered it on account of the Carpe au Horace and had returned thither on account of the Carpe au gras. There they drank, there they ate, there they shouted. They did not pay much, they paid badly, they did not pay at all and were always welcome. Father Hushaloup was a jovial host. Hushaloup, that amiable man, as was just said, was a wine shopkeeper with a moustache, an amusing variety. He always had an ill-tempered heir, seemed to wish to intimidate his customers, rumbled at the people who entered his establishment and had rather the mean of seeking a quarrel with them than of serving them with soup. And yet, we insist upon the word, people were always welcome there. This oddity had attracted customers to his shop and brought him young men who said to each other, come here, Father Hushaloup Growl. And he had been a fencing master. All of a sudden he would burst out laughing, a big voice, a good fellow. He had a comic foundation under a tragic exterior. He asked nothing better than to frighten you very much like those snuff boxes which are in the shape of a pistol. The detonation makes one sneeze. Mother Hushaloup, his wife, was a bearded and very homely creature. About 1830, Father Hushaloup died. With him disappeared the secret of stuffed carps. His inconsolable widow continued to keep the wine shop, but the cooking deteriorated and became excruble. The wine which had always been bad became fearfully bad. Nevertheless, Corpherac and his friends continued to go to Corinth, out of pity, as Boswaye said. The widow Hushaloup was breathless and misshapen and given to rustic recollections. She deprived them of their flatness by her pronunciation. She had a way of her own of saying things, which spiced her reminiscences of the village and of her springtime. It had formerly been her delight, so she affirmed, to hear the lude gorge chantère dans les eaux grepinis, to hear the red breasts sing in the hot-on trees. The hall on the first floor, where the restaurant was situated, was a large and long apartment encumbered with stools, chairs, benches and tables, and with a crippled lame old billiard table. It was reached by a spiral staircase, which terminated in the corner of the room at a square hole, like the hatchway of a ship. This room, lighted by a single narrow window and by a lamp that was always burning, had the air of a garret. All the four-footed furniture comported itself as though it had but three legs. The white-washed walls had for their only ornament the following quatrain in honor of Mame Houchelou. She astounds at ten paces. She frightens at two, a wart inhabits her hazardous nose. You tremble every instant, lest she should blow it at you, and lest some fine day, her nose should tumble into her mouth. This was scrawled in charcoal on the wall. Mame Houchelou, a good likeness, went and came from morning till night before this quatrain with the most perfect tranquility. Two serving-nades, named Matelot and Gibelot, who had never been known by any other names, helped Mame Houchelou to set on the tables the jugs of poor wine and the various broths which were served to the hungry patrons in earthenware bowls. Matelot, large in plump, red-haired and noisy, the favorite ex sultana of the defunct Houchelou was homelier than any mythological monster, be it what it may. Still, as it becomes the servant to always keep in the rear of the mistress, she was less homely than Mame Houchelou. Gibelot, tall, delicate, white, with a lymphatic pallor, with circles around her eyes and drooping lids, always languid and weary, afflicted with what may be called chronic lassitude, the first up in the house and the last in bed, waited on everyone, even the other maid, silently and gently, smiling through her fatigue with a vague and sleepy smile. Before entering the restaurant room, the visitor read on the door the following line written there in chalk by Corphorac. Régaler si tout plus, dites manger si tout le sait. Treat if you can and eat if you dare. End of Book 12, Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of Book 12 of Les Miserables Volume 4 by Victor Hugo This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Les Miserables, Volume 4 by Victor Hugo Translated by Isabelle Florence Hepgood Book 12, Corinth Chapter 2, Preliminary Gayities Légal de Mules, as the reader knows, lived more with Jolie than elsewhere. He had a lodging as a bird has one in a branch. The two friends lived together, ate together, slept together. They had everything in common, even Musuchera to some extent. They were what the subordinate monks who accompany monks are called, Beanie. On the morning of the 5th of June, they went to Corinth to breakfast. Jolie, who was all stuffed up, had a Qatar, which Légal was beginning to share. Légal's coat was threadbare, but Jolie was well-dressed. It was about 9 o'clock in the morning when they opened the door of Corinth. They ascended to the first floor. Métalote and Gibbalote received them. Oysters, cheese and ham, said Légal, and they seated themselves at a table. The wine shop was empty. There was no one there but themselves. Gibbalote, knowing Jolie and Légal, set a bottle of wine on the table. While they were busy with their first oysters, a head appeared at the hatchway of the staircase, and a voice said, I am passing by. I smell from the street a delicious odor of brie cheese. I enter. It was Grantere. Grantere took a stool and drew up to the table. At the site of Grantere, Gibbalote placed two bottles of wine on the table. That made three. Are you going to drink those two bottles? Légal inquired of Grantere. Grantere replied, All are ingenious. Thou alone art ingenious. Two bottles never yet astonished a man. The others had begun by eating. Grantere began by drinking. Half a bottle was rapidly gulped down. So you have a hole in your stomach began, Légal, again. You have one in your elbow, said Grantere. And after having emptied his glass, he added, Ah, by the way, Légal of the funeral oration. Your coat is old. I should hope so, retorted Légal. That's why we get on well together, my coat and I. It has acquired all my folds. It does not bind me anywhere. It is molded on my deformities. It falls in with all my movements. I am only conscious of it because it keeps me warm. Old coats are just like old friends. That's truly ejaculated Jolie, striking into the dialogue. An old goat is an old abbey. Especially in the mouth of a man whose head is stuffed up, said Grantere. Grantere demanded, Légal, Have you just come from the boulevard? No, we have just seen the head of the procession pass. Jolie and I. It's a marvelous sight, said Jolie. How quiet this street is, exclaimed Légal. Who would suspect that Paris was turned upside down? How plainly it is to be seen that in former days there were nothing but convents here. In this neighborhood, Dubruil and Saval gave a list of them and so does the abbey-le-booth. They were all around here. They fairly swarmed, booted and barefooted, shaven, bearded, gray, black, white, Franciscans, Minims, Capuchans, Carmelites, Little Augustines, Great Augustines, Old Augustines. There was no end of them. Don't let stock of monks interrupted Grantere. It makes one want to scratch oneself. Then he exclaimed, Boo, I've just swallowed a bad oyster. Now hypochondria is taking possession of me again. The oysters are spoiled. The servants are ugly. I hate the human race. I just passed through the rue Richelieu in front of the big public library. That pile of oyster shells, which is called a library, is disgusting even to think of. What paper? What ink? What scrolling? And all that has been written. What rascal was it who said that man was a featherless biped? And then I met a pretty girl of my acquaintance who is as beautiful as the spring, worthy to be called Florial, and who is delighted and raptured, as happy as the angels, because a wretch yesterday, a frightful banker all spotted with smallpox, deigned to take a fancy to her. Alas, woman keeps on the watch for a protector as much as for a lover. Cats chase mice as well as birds. Two months ago, that young woman was virtuous in an attic. She adjusted little brass rings in the islet holes of corsets. What do you call it? She sewed. She had a camp bed. She dwelt beside a pot of flowers. She was contented. Now here she is, a bankeress. This transformation took place last night. I met the victim this morning in high spirits. The hideous point about it is that the jade is as pretty today as she was yesterday. Her financier did not show in her face. Roses have this advantage or disadvantage over women, that the traces left upon them by caterpillars are visible. Ah, there is no morality on earth. I call to witness the myrtle, the symbol of love, the laurel, the symbol of air, the olive, that niny, the symbol of peace, the apple tree which came nearest wrangling Adam with its pips, and the fig tree, the grandfather of petticoats. As for right, do you know what right is? The galls covet Clusium, Rome protects Clusium, and demands what wrong Clusium has done to them. Brennus answers, the wrong that Alba did to you, the wrong that Fidenei did to you, the wrong that the eques, the Volski, and the Sabines have done to you. They were your neighbors. The Clusians are ours. We understand neighborliness, just as you do. You have stolen Alba. We shall take Clusium, Rome said. You shall not take Clusium. Brennus took Rome. Then he cried, they victus. That is what right is. Ah, what beasts of prey there are in this world. What eagles! It makes my flesh creep. He held out his glass to Jolie, who filled it. Then he drank and went on, having hardly been interrupted by this glass of wine, of which no one, not even himself, had taken any notice. Brennus, who takes Rome, is an eagle. The banker who takes the grisette is an eagle. There is no more modesty in the one case than in the other. So we believe in nothing. There is but one reality. Drink. Whatever your opinion may be in favor of the lean cock, like the canton of Jolie, or in favor of the fat cock, like the canton of Glarus, it matters little. Drink. You talk to me of the boulevard of that procession, etc., etc. Come now. Is there going to be another revolution? This poverty of means on the part of the good God astounds me. He has to keep greasing the groove of events every moment. There is a hitch. It won't work. Quick, a revolution. The good God has his hands perpetually black with that cart grease. If I were in his place, I'd be perfectly simple about it. I would not wind up my mechanism every minute. I'd lead the human race in a straightforward way. I'd weave matters mesh by mesh without breaking the thread. I would have no provisional arrangements. I would have no extraordinary repertory. What the rest of you call progress advances by means of two motors, men and events. But, sad to say, from time to time the exceptional becomes necessary. The ordinary troops suffice neither for event nor for men. Among men, geniuses are required. Among events, revolutions. Great accidents are the law. No order of things cannot do without them. And, judging from the apparition of comets, one would be tempted to think that heaven itself finds actors needed for its performance. At the moment when one expects at the least, God placards a meteor on the wall of the firmament. Some queer star turns up, underlined by an enormous tail, and that causes the death of Caesar. Brutus deals him a blow with a knife and God a blow with a comet. Crock, behold, an aurora borealis, behold a revolution, behold a great man. Ninety-three in big letters, Napoleon on guard, the comet of 1811 at the head of the poster. Ah, what a beautiful blue theater, all studded with unexpected flashes. Boom, boom, extraordinary show. Raise your eyes, boobies. Everything is in disorder, the star as well as the drama. Good God, it is too much and not enough. These resources gathered from exception see magnificence and poverty. My friends, providence has come down to expedience. What does a revolution prove? That God is in a quandary. He affects a coup d'etat because he, God, has not been able to make both ends meet. In fact, this confirms me in my conjectures as to Jehovah's fortune. And when I see so much distress in heaven and on earth, from the bird who has not a grain of millet to myself without a hundred thousand livres of income, when I see human destiny, which is very badly worn, and even royal destiny, which is threadbare, witness the Prince de Conde Hong when I see winter, which is nothing but a rent in the zenith through which the wind blows. When I see so many rags, even in the perfectly new purple of the morning, on the crests of the hills, when I see the drops of dew, those mock pearls, when I see the frost, that paste, when I see humanity ripped apart and events patched up, and so many spots on the sun, and so many holes in the moon. When I see so much misery everywhere, I suspect that God is not rich. Appearance exists, it is true, but I feel that he is hard up. He gives a revolution as a tradesman whose money box is empty, gives a ball. God must not be judged from appearances. Beneath the gilding of heaven, I perceive a poverty-stricken universe. Creation is bankrupt. That is why I am discontented. Here it is the fourth of June. It is almost night. Ever since this morning, I have been waiting for daylight to come. It has not come, and I bet that it won't come all day. This is the inexactness of an ill-paid clerk. Yes, everything is badly arranged. Nothing fits anything else. This old world is all warped. I take my stand on the opposition. Everything goes awry. The universe is a tease. It's like children, those who want them have none, and those who don't want them have them. Total, I'm vexed. Besides Legal Demu, that bald head offends my sight. It humiliates me to think that I am of the same age as that bald E. However, I criticize, but I do not insult. The universe is what it is. I speak here without evil intent and to ease my conscience. Receive, Eternal Father, the assurance of my distinguished consideration. Ah, by all the saints of Olympus, and by all the gods of Paradise, I was not intended to be a Parisian. That is to say, to rebound forever, like a shuttlecock between two battle dores, from the group of the loungers to the group of the Roysterers, I was made to be a Turk, watching Oriental Aries all day, executing those exquisite Egyptian dances, as sensuous as the dream of a chaste man, or a Bossa Ron peasant, or a Venetian gentleman surrounded by gentle women, or a petty German prince, furnishing the half of a foot soldier to the Germanic Confederation and occupying his leisure with drying his breeches on his hedge. That is to say, his frontier. Those are the positions for which I was born. Yes, I have said a Turk and I will not retract. I do not understand how people can habitually take Turks in bad part. Mohammed had his good points, respect for the inventor of Suraglios, with Oris and Paradisus, with Odalisques. Let us not insult Mohammedism, the only religion which is ornamented with a hen roost. Now, I insist on a drink. The earth is a great piece of stupidity, and it appears that they are going to fight all those imbeciles and to break each other's profiles and to massacre each other in the heart of summer, in the month of June, when they might go off with a creature on their arm to breathe the immense heaps of pneumone hay in the meadows. Really, people do commit altogether too many follies. An old broken lantern, which I have just seen at a brick-a-brack merchants, suggests a reflection to my mind. It is time to enlighten the human race. Yes, behold me sad again. That's what comes of swallowing an oyster and a revolution the wrong way. I am growing melancholy once more. O frightful old world, people strive, turn each other out, prostitute themselves, kill each other, and get used to it. In ground tear, after this fit of eloquence, had a fit of coughing, which was well earned. Upper pole of revolution, said Jolie. It is decidedly aberrant that Barrius is at love. Does anyone know with whom? Demanded legal. Do. No? Do, I tell you. Marius' love affairs, exclaimed grand tear. I can imagine it. Marius is a fog, and he must have found a vapor. Marius is of the race of poets. He who says poet Marius, mad man, Timbreus Apollo, Marius and his Marie, or his Marian, or his Maria, or his Mariette, they must make a queer pair of lovers. I know just what it is like, ecstasies in which they forget to kiss. Pure on earth, but joined in heaven, they are souls possessed of senses. They lie among the stars. Grand tear was attacking his second bottle, and possibly his second harangue, when a new personage emerged from the square aperture of the stairs. It was a boy less than 10 years of age, ragged, very small, yellow with an odd fizz, a vivacious eye, an enormous amount of hair, drenched with rain and wearing a contented air. The child, unhesitatingly making his choice among the three, addressed himself to Legaldemus. Are you Monsur Basway? That is my nickname, replied Legald. What do you want with me? This. A tall blonde fellow on the boulevard said to me, Do you know Mother Hushaloupe? I said yes, Rue Chandraire. The old man's widow, he said to me, Go there, there you will find Monsieur Basway. Tell him from me, ABC. It's a joke that they're playing on you, 10 sews. Jolie, lend me 10 sews, said Legald, and turning to Grantair. Grantair, lend me 10 sews. This made 20 sews, which Legald handed to the lad. Thank you, sir, said the urchin. What is your name, inquired Legald? Navey, govrocious friend. Stay with us, said Legald. Breakfast with us, said Grantair. The child replied, I can't. I belong in the procession. I'm the one to shout, down with Polinat, and executing a prolonged scrape of his foot behind him, which is the most respectful of all possible solutes, he took his departure. The child gone, Grantair, took the word. That is the purebred gammon. There are a great many varieties of the gammon species. The notary's gammon is called Skip the gutter. The baker's gammon is called the mitron. The lackey's gammon is called the groom. The marine gammon is called the cabin boy. The soldier's gammon is called the drummer boy. The painter's gammon is called paint grinder. The tradesman's gammon is called an errand boy. The courtesan gammon is called the minion. In the meantime, Lego was engaged in reflection, he said half-aloud. A, B, C, that is to say, the burial of Lamarck. The tall blonde remarked Grantair is Enholras, who is sending you a warning. Shall we go? ejaculated Basway. It's raiding, said Jolie. I have swore to go through fire, but not through water. I don't want to get a cold. I shall stay here, said Grantair. I prefer a breakfast to a hearse. Conclusion? We remain, said Lego. Well then, let us drink. Besides, we might miss the funeral without missing the riot. Ah, the riot. I am with you, cried Jolie. Lego rubbed his hands. Now we're going to touch up the revolution of 1830. As a matter of fact, it doesn't matter. I don't think much of your revolution, said Grantair. I don't execrate this government. It is the crown tempered by the cotton nightcap. It is a scepter ending in an umbrella. In fact, I think that today, with the present weather, Louis Philippe might utilize his royalty in two directions. He might extend the tip of the scepter end against the people in the dark. Large clouds had just finished the extinction of daylight. There was no one in the wine shop or in the street. Everyone having gone off to watch events. Is it midday or midnight, cried Busway. You can't see your hand before your face. Give a look, fetch a light. Grantair was drinking in a melancholy way. Jolie is ill. Grantair is drunk. It was to Busway that he sent Navet. If he had come for me, I would have followed him. So much the worse for Enholras. I won't go to his funeral. This resolution once arrived at Busway, Jolie and Grantair did not stir from the wine shop. By two o'clock in the afternoon, the table at which one in a flat copper candlestick which was perfectly green, the other in the neck of a cracked carafe. Grantair had seduced Jolie and Busway to wine. Busway and Jolie had conducted Grantair back towards cheerfulness. As for Grantair, he had got beyond wine, that merely moderate inspirer of dreams, ever since midday. Wine enjoys only a conventional serious drinkers. There is, in fact, in the matter of any variety, white magic and black magic. Wine is only white magic. Grantair was a daring drinker of dreams. The blackness of a terrible fit of drunkenness, yawning before him, far from arresting him, attracted him. He had abandoned the bottle and taken to the beer glass. The beer glass is the abyss. The beer glass is the ashish on hand. And being desirous of filling his brain with twilight, he had had recourse to that fearful mixture of brandy, stout, absinthe, which produces the most terrible of lethargies. It is of these three vapors, beer brandy and absinthe, that the lead of the soul is composed. They are three groans. The celestial butterfly is drowned and vaguely condensed into the wing of the bat. Three mute furies, nightmare, night and death, which hover about the slumbering psyche. Grantair had not yet reached that lamentable phase, far from it. He was tremendously gay, and Basway and Jolie retorted. They clinked glasses. Grantair added to the accentuation of words and ideas, a peculiarity of gesture. He rested his left fist on his knee with dignity, his arm forming a right angle, and with cravat untied, seated astride a stool, his full glass in his right hand. He hurled solemn words at the big maidservant matealote. Let the doors of the palace be thrown open. Let everyone be a member of the French Academy and have the right to embrace Madame Hushaloupe. Let us drink. And turning to Madame Hushaloupe he added, Woman, ancient and consecrated by use, draw near that I may contemplate thee. And Jolie exclaimed, matealote and gibbalote, don't get grad-tare or anything bored to drink. He has already devoured since this boarding in wild prodigality two frags at ninety-five said thieves. And Grantair began again, who has been unhooking the stars without my permission and putting them on the table in the guise of candles. Basway, though very drunk, preserved his equanimity. He was seated on the sill of the open window, waiting his back in the falling rain and gazing at his two friends. All at once he heard a tumult behind him, hurried footsteps, cries of two arms. He turned round and saw in the rue Saint-Denis at the end of the rue de la Chambre in whole rust, passing, gun in hand, and gavroche with his pistol, Phrylie with his sword, Corphorac with his sword, and Jean Provert with his blunderbuss, Combevaire with his gun, Bahaurel with his gun, and the whole armed and stormy rabble which was following them. The rue de la Chambre was not long. Basway improvised a speaking trumpet from his two hands placed around his mouth and shouted, Corphorac, Corphorac, ho-hee! Corphorac heard the shout, caught sight of Basway and advanced a few paces into the rue de la Chambre, shouting, What do you want? Which crossed a where are you going? To make a barricade, replied Corphorac, Well, here, this is a good place. Make it here. That's true, Aigle, said Corphorac. And at a signal from Corphorac, the mob flung themselves into the rue de la Chambre in the Book 12, Chapter 2. Chapters 3 and 4 of Book 12 of Les Miserables, Volume 4 by Victor Hugo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Martina Hutchins in Berkeley, California. Les Miserables, Volume 4 by Victor Hugo. Translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood Book 12, Corrinth, Chapter 3 Night begins to descend upon grounds here. The spot was, in fact, admirably adapted. The entrance to the street widened out. The other extremity narrowed together into a pocket without exit. Corrinth created an obstacle. The rue Monde Tour was easily barricaded on the right and the left. No attack was possible except from the rue Saint-Denis. That is to say, in front and in full sight. Basouet had the comprehensive glance of a fasting Hannibal. Terror had seized on the whole street at the eruption of the mob. There was not a passerby who did not get out of sight. In the space of a flash of lightning in the rear, to the right and left, shops, stables, area doors, windows, light sticks, skylights, shutters of every description were closed from the ground floor to the roof. A terrified old woman fixed a mattress in front of her window on two closed poles for drying linen in order to deaden the effect of musketry. The wine shop alone remained open, and that for a very good reason that the mob had rushed into it. Ah, my God! Side maimed Hachaloo. Basouet had gone down to meet Corferac. Jolie, who had placed himself at the window, exclaimed, Corferac, you ought to have brought an umbrella. You will catch gold! In the meantime, in the space of a few minutes, twenty iron bars had been wrenched from the graded front of the wine shop. Ten fathoms of street Gavrash and Bahorel had seized in its passage and overturned the drae of a lime dealer named Ancoe. This drae contained three barrels of lime, which they placed beneath the piles of paving stones. And Horas raised the cellar trap, and all the widow Hachaloo empty casts were used to flank the barrels of lime. Jolie, with his fingers skilled delicate sticks of fan, had backed up the barrels and the drae with two massive heaps of blocks of rough stone. Blocks which were improvised like the rest and procured no one knows where. The beams which served as props were torn from the neighboring house front and laid on the casks. When Basouet and Corferac turned round, half the street was already barred with a ramp higher than a man. There is nothing like the hand of the populace for building everything that is built by demolishing. Matalot and Gibalot had mingled with the workers. Gibalot went and came loaded with rubbish. Her lassitude helped on the barricade. She served the barricade as she had served one with a sleepy air. An omnibus with two white horses passed the end of the street. She strode over the paving stones, ran to it, stopped the driver, made the passengers alight, offered his hand to the ladies, dismissed the conductor, and returned leading the vehicle and the horses by the bridle. Omnibuses, he said, do not pass, Corrin. An instant later the horses were unharnessed and went off the road, through the room on the tour, and the omnibus lying on its side completed the bar across the street. Mem Hachalope, quite upset, had taken refuge in the first story. Her eyes were vague and stared without seeing anything when she cried in a low tone. Her terrified shrieks did not dare emerge from her throat. The end of the world has come, she muttered. Chali deposited a kiss in Mem Hachalope's fat red wrinkled neck and said to Granterre, my dear fellow, I have always regarded a woman's neck as an infinitely delicate thing. But Granterre attained the highest regions of Dithraam. Metaload had mounted to the first floor once more. Granterre seized her around the waist and gave vent to long bursts of laughter at the window. Metaload is homely, he cried. Metaload is a dream of ugliness. Metaload is a chimera. This is the secret of her birth. A gothic pygmalion who was making gargoyles for cathedrals, fell in love with one of them the most horrible one fine morning. He sought love to give it life and this produced Metaload. Look at her citizens. She has chromate of lead-colored hair like Titian's mistress and she is a good girl. I guarantee she will fight well. Every good girl contains a hero. As her mother Hachalope, she is an old warrior. Look at her mustaches. She inherited them from her husband. A hasar indeed she will fight too. These two alone will strike terror to the heart of the banlieu. Comrades, we shall overthrow the government as true as there are 15 intermediary acids margaric acid and formic acid. However, that is a matter of perfect indifference to me. Gentlemen, my father always detested me because I could not understand mathematics. I understand only love and liberty. I am grand-tare, the good fellow. Having never had any money, I never required the habit of it and the result is that I have never lacked it. But if I have been rich, there would have been no more poor people you would have seen. Oh, if the kind heart only had fat purses, how much better things would go. I picture myself Jesus Christ with Rothschild's fortune. How much good he would do. Metaloge, embrace me. You are voluptuous and timid. You have cheeks with invite the kiss of a sister and lips which claim the kiss of a lover. Hold your tongue, you casque, said Korforak. Grand-tare, retorted. I am the capitule and the master of the floral game. And Holroth, who is standing on the crest of the barricade, gun in hand, raised his beautiful off-steer face. And Holroth, as the reader knows, has something of the spartan and of the puritan in his composition. He would have perished at Thermopylae and Leonidas and burned at Droghida and Cromwell. Grand-tare, he shouted, go get rid of the fumes of your wine somewhere else in here. This is the place for enthusiasm, not for drunkenness. Don't disgrace the barricade. This angry speech produced a singular effect on Grand-tare. One would have said that he had had a glass of cold water flung in his face. He seemed to be rendered suddenly sober. He sat down, put his elbows on a table near the window, looked at in Holroth's with indescribable kindness, and said to him, let me sleep here. Go and sleep somewhere else, cried in Holroth. But Grand-tare, still keeping his tender and troubled eyes fixed on him, replied, let me sleep here until I die. And Holroth regarded him with disdainful eyes. Grand-tare, you are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living and of dying. Grand-tare replied in a grave tone. You will see. He stammered a few more unintelligible words, then his head fell heavily on the table, and as is the usual effect of the second period of enabriety into which in Holroth had roughly and abruptly trust him, an instant later he had fallen asleep. Chapter 4 An attempt to console the widow Hucheloupe. Baharel, in ecstasies over the barricade, shouted, Here's the street in its low-naked dress, how well it looks. Corphorac, as he demolished the wine shop to some extent, sought to console the widowed proprietress. Mother Hucheloupe, weren't you complaining the other day because you had had a notice served on you for infringing the law? Because Gibbalote shook a counterpane out of your window? Yes, my good Monsieur Corphorac. Ah, good heavens! Are you going to put the table of mine in your horror, too? And it was for the counterpane, and also for the 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 Hucheloupe, we are avenging you. Mother Hucheloupe did not appear to understand very clearly the benefit which she was to derive from the reprisals made in 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 a front for a front. 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 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 firepots, 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 Sainte-Antoine, named Pépin. They smashed the only street lantern in the rue de la Champs-Viales, the lantern corresponding to one in the rue Saint-Denis, and all the lanterns in the surrounding streets, de Mont-de-Tour, de Precious, de La Grande, de La Petite, de Thélie. And Holace, Combe-Faire, and Corpharaque directed everything. Two barricades were now in the process of construction at once, both of them resting on the Corinth House informing the right angle. The larger shut off the rue de la Champs-Viales, the other closed the rue Mont-de-Tour on the side of the rue de Saint-Denis. This last barricade, which was very narrow, was constructed only of castes and paving stones. There were about fifty workers on it. Thirty were armed with guns. Four on their way, they had affected a wholesale loan from an armor or a shop. Nothing could be more bizarre, and at the same time more motley than this troop. One had a round jacket, a cavalry saver, and two holster pistols. Another was in his shirt sleeves with a round hat and a powder horn on his side. A third wore a plastron of nine sheets of grey paper and was armed with a Saddler's All. 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 his coat, the cross-belt and cartridge box of a national man, the cover of a 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 cravads, many bare arms, some pikes. Add to this all ages, all sorts of faces, small, pale young men and bronzed, long shoremen, 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. They were sure of one regiment that Paris would rise, parable sains 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 molding into bullets, pewter mugs, spoons, forks, and all the brass tableware of the establishment. In the midst of it all they drank. Caps and buckshot were mixed palmel on the tables with glasses of wine. In the billiard hall main pachelope, matelote and gibbalot, variously modified by terror, which had multiplied one, rendered another breathless and roused the third, were tearing up old dishcloths and making lint. Three insurgents were assisting them. Three bushy-haired, jolly blades with beards and mustaches, who plucked away at the linen with fingers of seamstresses and who made them tremble. The man of lofty stature, whom Corpherac Cometh Biaire and Enholroth had observed at the moment when he joined the mob at the corner of the rue des billiards was at work on the small barricade and was making himself useful there. Gavrush was working on the larger one. As for the young man who had been waiting for Corpherac in his lodgings and who had inquired for Monsieur Marius, he had disappeared at about the time when the omnibus had been overturned. Gavrush, completely carried away and radiant, had undertaken to get everything in readiness. He went, came, mounted, descended, remounted, 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. Gavrush 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 equity. 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 gaiety 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 harassing 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 casts, 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, playing everything there, stick it all in. Break down the house. A barricade is mother Gibbo's tea. Hello, 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 gab brush. 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're never pricked apples over a wall when there are broken bottles. A glass door cuts the horns of the National Guard when they try to mount the barricade. Pardee, glass is a treacherous thing. Well, you haven't a very wildly, lively imagination, comrade. However, he was furious over his triggerless pistols. 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 Comber Fair. Come now, said Gevrush. Why not? I had one in 1830 when we had a dispute with Charles the Tenth, and Holrush shrugged his shoulders. When there are enough for men, we'll give some to the children. Gavrush wheeled round hotterly and answered, If you're killed before me, I shall take yours. Gaman, said on Holrush, Greenhorn, said Gevrush, a dandy who had lost his way and who, lounge past the end of the street, created a diversion. Gevrush shouted to him, Come with us, young fellow. Well now, don't we do anything for this old country of ours? Dandy fled. And of Book 12, Chapter 4 Recording by Martina Hutchins in Berkeley, California. Chapters 5 and 6 of Lame is a Rob, Volume 4 by Victor Hugo This is a LubriVox recording. All LubriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LubriVox.org Recording by Martina Hutchins in Berkeley, California. Lame is a Rob, Volume 4 by Victor Hugo, translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood Book 12, Corinth, Chapter 5 Preparations The journals of the day which said that that nearly impregnable structure of the barricade of the rue de la chambre verrie as they call it reached the level of the first floor were mistaken. The barricade was built in such a manner that the combatants could, at their will, either disappear behind it or dominate the barrier and even scale its crest by means of a quadruple row of paving stones placed on top of each other and arranged as steps in the interior. On the outside, the front of the barricade was composed of piles of paving stones and casks bound together by beams and planks which were entangled in the wheels of Ancoe's Dray and of the overturned omnibus had a bristling and inextricable aspect. An aperture large enough to allow a man to pass through had been made between the wall of the house and the extremity of the barricade which was furthest from the wine shop so that an exit was possible at this point. The pole of the omnibus was placed upright and held up with ropes and a red flag, fastened to this pole, floated over the barricade. The little Monditour barricade hidden behind the wine shop building was not visible. The two barricades united formed a veritable readout and Holrassen Korfereck had not thought fit to barricade the other fragment of the Rue Monditour which opens to the Rue de Pristur an issue into the hall wishing, no doubt, to preserve a possible communication with the outside and not entertaining much fear of an attack through the dangerous and difficult street of the Rue de Pristur. With the exception of this issue which was left free and which constituted what folarde in his strategical style would have termed a branch and taking into account also the narrow cutting arranged on the Rue de la Changerie the barrier of the barricade where the wine shop formed a salient angle presented an irregular shape closed on all sides. There existed an interval of 20 paces between the grand barrier and the lofty houses which formed the background of the street so that one might say that the barricade rested on these houses all inhabited but closed from top to bottom. All this work was performed without any hindrance in less than an hour and without this handful of bold men seeing a single bearskin cap or single bayonet make their appearance. The very bourgeois who still ventured at this hour of riot to enter the Rue Saint-Denis cast a glance at the Rue de la Changerie caught sight of the barricade and redoubled their pace. The two barricades being finished and the flag run up a table was dragged out of the wine shop and cofferac mounted on the table and Holdras brought the square coffer and cofferac opened it. This coffer was filled with cartridges. When the mob saw the cartridges a tremor ran through the bravest and a momentary silence ensued. Cofferac distributed them with a smile. Each one received 30 cartridges. Many had powder and set about making others with the bullets which they had run. As for the barrel of powder it stood on the table on one side near the door and was held in reserve. The alarm beat which ran through all Paris did not cease but it had finally come to be nothing more than a monotonous noise to which they no longer paid any attention. This noise retreated at times and again drew near with melancholy undulations. They loaded the guns and carbines all together without haste with solemn gravity. And Holdras went and stationed three sentinels outside the barricades on the Rue de la Chantverie the second in the Rue de Pressure the third at the corner of the Rue de la Petite Chanderie. Then the barricades having been built the posts assigned the guns loaded the sentinels stationed they waited alone in those redoubtable streets through which no one passed any longer surrounded by those dumb houses which seemed dead and in which no human movement palpitated enveloped in the deepening shades of twilight which was drawing on in the midst of that silence through which something could be felt advancing and which had about it something tragic and terrifying isolated armed determined and tranquil. Chapter 6 Waiting During those hours of waiting what did they do? We must needs tell since this is a matter of history while the men made bullets and the women lint while a large saucepan of melted brass and lead destined to the bullet mold smoked over a glowing brassiere while the sentinels watched weapon in hand on the barricade while in Holdras whom it was impossible to divert kept an eye on the sentinels Combeferre Coferrec Jean Puvierre Fioli Bussouet Jolie Bahorelle and some others sought each other out and united as in the most peaceful days of their conversations in their student life and in one corner of this wine shop which had been converted into a casement a couple of paces distant from the redoubt which they had built with their carbines loaded and primed resting against the backs of their chairs these fine young fellows so close to a supreme hour began to recite love verses what verses these we used to hide when we were in Porte Clus devouring the dead defended my mouth had not said a thing that already your heart had answered the good and the right vocal I loved you in the morning as well as one soul in my street applied the crack of the European trench reached to my place to the end when in the cold and cold you would pull your arm on your fine leg I saw an ostrich at the bottom of the trench I had to plant it but nothing left better than the trench and than the money you showed me the divine good with a flower that you gave me I lowered you put your nose on the gold you laid your voice went to come to put your young front at your mirror and who danced for me the memory of this tone of hair and hair of flowers of gas and of flowers of gas and of light you masqué the witch with a Japan I took the ball from the pipe and I gave the bag and Japan and the best that makes us smile Je t'ai mendiant et tout charitable. Je passais avant tes bras frais et rondes. Dantais une folio, nous serviaient de table. Pour manger, gamire et sang de mérone. La première fois que moi joyeuse bouge, j'ai pris une passée à ta livre infue. Quand tu tiennes à l'aide des coffiers et rouges, j'ai resté tu pâles et j'ai cru enduits. T'es rappelé tout nos bonnes son nombre et tous ces fichus changés et chiffons. Aucun des supires et nous craint plein d'ombre. C'est sans envoler dans les sur-profondes. Translation Do you remember our sweet life when we were both so young and when we had no other desire in our hearts than to be well-dressed and in love? When, by adding your age to my age, we could not count forty years between us and when, in our humble and tiny household, everything was spring to us even in winter. Fair days. Manuel was proud and wise. Harris sat at sacred banquets. Foy launched thunderbolts. And your corsage had a pin on which I pricked myself. Everything gazed upon you. A briefless lawyer, when I took you to the Prado to dine, you were so beautiful that the roses seemed to me to turn round. And I heard them say, Is she not beautiful? How good she smells? What billowing hair? Beneath her mantle she hides a wing. Her charming bonnet is hardly unfolded. I wandered with thee, pressing thy supple arm. The passersby thought that love bewitched had wedded in our happy couple the gentle month of April to the fair month of May. We lived concealed content with closed doors devouring love that sweet forbidden fruit. My mouth had not uttered a thing when thy heart had already responded. The Sorbonne was the eucolic spot where I adored thee from Yves till Mourne. Tis thus that an amorous soul applies the chart of the tender to the Latin country. Au place mon beurre, au place d'affond. When, in the fresh spring-like hut, thou didst draw thy stocking on thy delicate leg, I saw a star in the depths of the garret. I have read a great deal of Plato, but nothing of it remains by me. Thou didst demonstrate to me celestial goodness with a flower which thou gavest me. I obey thee. Thou didst submit to me, O gilded garret, to lace thee, to behold thee going and coming from dawn in thy chemise, Gazing at thy young brow in thine ancient mirror. And who, when, would forego the memory of those days of aurora And that firmament of flowers, of gauze, and of moor, when love stammeres a charming sling? Our gardens consisted of a pot of tulips. Thou didst mask the window with thy petticoat. I took the earthenware bowl and gave thee the Japanese cup. And those great misfortunes which made us laugh, Thy cuffs scorched, thy boa lost. And that dear portrait of the divine Shakespeare which we sold one evening that we might sup. I was a beggar, and thou worked charitable. I kissed thy fresh round arms in haste. A folio dante served us as a table on which to eat merrily, send teams worth of chestnuts. The first time that, in my joyous den, I snatched a kiss from my fiery lip, When thou wentest forth, disheveled and blushing, I turned deathly pale, and I believed in God. Thus thou recall our innumerable joys, and all those feces changed to rags. Oh, what sighs from our hearts full of gloom fluttered forth to the heavenly depths. The hour, the spot, the souvenirs of youth recalled, a few stars which began to twinkle in the sky, The funeral repose of those deserted streets, the eminence of the inexorable adventure which was in preparation, Gave a pathetic charm to these verses murmured in a low tone in the dust by Jean Poivier, Who, as we have seen, was a gentle poet. In the meantime a lamp had been lighted in a small barricade, and in the large one, One of those wax torches such as are to be met with en chrove Tuesday, In front of vehicles loaded with masks, on their way to la courteille. These torches, as the reader has seen, came from Fabriux San Antoine. The torch had been placed in a sort of cage of paving stones, closed on three sides to shelter it from the wind, And disposed in such a fashion that all the light fell in the flag. The street and the barricade remained sunk in gloom, and nothing was to be seen except the red flag, Formitably illuminated, as by an enormous dark lantern. This light enhanced the scarlet of the flag with an indescribable and terrible purple.