by Victor Hugo
There was still a pause, as if on both sides they were awaiting. Suddenly, from the depth of that shadow, a voice, so much the more ominous, because nobody could be seen, and because it seemed as if it were the darkness itself which was speaking, cried:
“Who goes there?”
At the same time they heard the click of the levelled muskets.
Enjolras answered in a lofty and ringing tone:
“French Revolution!”
“Fire!” said the voice.
A flash empurpled all the façades on the street, as if the door of a furnace were opened and suddenly closed.
A fearful explosion burst over the barricade. The red flag fell. The volley had been so heavy and so dense that it had cut the staff, that is to say, the very point of the pole of the omnibus. Some balls, which ricocheted from the cornices of the houses, entered the barricade and wounded several men.
The impression produced by this first charge was freezing. The attack was impetuous, and such as to make the boldest ponder. It was evident that they had to do with a whole regiment at least.
“Comrades,” cried Courfeyrac, “don’t waste the powder. Let us wait to reply till they come into the street.”
During this time little Gavroche, who alone had not left his post and had remained on the watch, thought he saw some men approaching the barricade with a stealthy step. Suddenly he cried:
“Take care!”
Courfeyrac, Enjolras, Jean Prouvaire, Combeferre, Joly, Bahorel, Bossuet, all sprang tumultuously from the tavern. There was hardly a moment to spare. They perceived a sparkling breadth of bayonets undulating above the barricade. Municipal Guards of tall stature were penetrating, some by climbing over the omnibus, others by the opening, pushing before them the gamin, who fell back, but did not fly.
The moment was critical. It was that first fearful instant of the inundation, when the stream rises to the level of the bank and when the water begins to infiltrate through the fissures in the dyke. A second more, and the barricade had been taken.
Bahorel sprang upon the first Municipal Guard who entered, and killed him at the very muzzle of his carbine; the second killed Bahorel with his bayonet. Another had already prostrated Courfeyrac, who was crying “Help!” The largest of all, a kind of colossus, marched upon Gavroche with fixed bayonet. The gamin took Javert’s enormous musket in his little arms, aimed it resolutely at the giant, and pulled the trigger. Nothing went off. Javert had not loaded his musket. The Municipal Guard burst into a laugh and raised his bayonet over the child.
Before the bayonet touched Gavroche the musket dropped from the soldier’s hands, a ball had struck the Municipal Guard in the middle of the forehead, and he fell on his back. A second ball struck the other Guard, who had assailed Courfeyrac, full in the breast, and threw him upon the pavement.
It was Marius who had just entered the barricade.
2 (4)
THE KEG OF POWDER
MARIUS, still hidden in the comer of the Rue Mondétour, had watched the first phase of the combat, irresolute and shuddering. However, he was not able long to resist that mysterious and sovereign infatuation which we may call the appeal of the abyss. Before the imminence of the danger, before Bahorel slain, Courfeyrac crying “Help!” that child threatened, his friends to succour or to avenge, all hesitation had vanished, and he had rushed into the conflict, his two pistols in his hands. By the first shot he had saved Gavroche and by the second delivered Courfeyrac.
At the shots, at the cries of the wounded Guards, the assailants had scaled the intrenchment, upon the summit of which could now be seen thronging Municipal Guards, soldiers of the Line, National Guards of the banlieue, musket in hand. They already covered more than two-thirds of the wall, but they did not leap into the inclosure; they seemed to hesitate, fearing some snare. They looked into the dark barricade as one would look into a den of lions. The light of the torch only lighted up their bayonets, their bearskin caps, and the upper part of their anxious and angry faces.
Marius had now no arms, he had thrown away his discharged pistols, but he had noticed the keg of powder in the basement-room near the door.
As he turned half round, looking in that direction, a soldier aimed at him. At the moment the soldier aimed at Marius, a hand was laid upon the muzzle of the musket, and stopped it. It was somebody who had sprung forward, the young working-man with velvet trousers. The shot went off, passed through the hand, and perhaps also through the working-man, for he fell, but the ball did not reach Marius. All this in the smoke, rather guessed than seen. Marius, who was entering the basement-room, hardly noticed it. Still he had caught a dim glimpse of that musket directed at him, and that hand which had stopped it, and he had heard the shot: But in moments like that the things which we see, waver and rush headlong, and we stop for nothing. We feel ourselves vaguely pushed towards still deeper shadow, and all is cloud.
The insurgents, surprised, but not dismayed, had rallied. Enjolras had cried: “Wait! don’t fire at random!” In the first confusion, in fact, they might hit one another. Most of them had gone up to the window of the second story and to the dormer-windows, whence they commanded the assailants. The most determined, with Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, and Combeferre, had haughtily placed their backs to the houses in the rear, openly facing the ranks of soldiers and guards which crowded the barricade.
All this was accomplished without precipitation, with that strange and threatening gravity which precedes mêlées. On both sides they were taking aim, the muzzles of the guns almost touching; they were so near that they could talk with each other in an ordinary tone. Just as the spark was about to fly, an officer in a gorget and with huge epaulets, extended his sword and said:
“Take aim!”
“Fire!” said Enjolras.
The two explosions were simultaneous, and everything disappeared in the smoke.
A stinging and stifling smoke amid which writhed, with dull and feeble groans, the wounded and the dying.
When the smoke cleared away, on both sides the combatants were seen, thinned out, but still in the same places, and reloading their pieces in silence.
Suddenly, a thundering voice was heard, crying:
“Clear out, or I’ll blow up the barricade!”
All turned in the direction whence the voice came.
Marius had entered the basement room, and had taken the keg of powder, then he had profited by the smoke and the kind of dark fog which filled the intrenched inclosure, to glide along the barricade as far as that cage of paving-stones in which the torch was fixed. To pull out the torch, to put the keg of powder in its place, to push the pile of paving-stones upon the keg, which stove it in, with a sort of terrible self-control—all this had been for Marius the work of stooping down and rising up; and now all, National Guards, Municipal Guards, officers, soldiers, grouped at the other extremity of the barricade, beheld him with horror, his foot upon the stones, the torch in his hand, his stern face lighted by a deadly resolution, bending the flame of the torch towards that formidable pile in which they discerned the broken barrel of powder, and uttering that terrific cry:
“Clear out, or I’ll blow up the barricade!”
Marius upon this barricade, after the octogenarian, was the vision of the young revolution after the apparition of the old.
“Blow up the barricade!” said a sergeant, “and yourself also!”
Marius answered:
“And myself also.”
And he brought the torch closer to the keg of powder.
But there was no longer anybody on the wall. The assailants, leaving their dead and wounded, fled pell-mell and in disorder towards the extremity of the street, and were again lost in the night. It was a rout.
The barricade was redeemed.
3 (5)
END OF JEAN PROUVAIRE’S RHYME
ALL FLOCKED round Marius. Courfeyrac sprang to his neck.
“You here!”
“How fortunate!” said Combeferre.
“You ca
me in good time!” said Bossuet.
“Without you I should have been dead!” continued Courfeyrac.
“Without you I’d been gobbled!” added Gavroche.
Marius inquired:
“Where is the chief?”
“You are the chief,” said Enjolras.
Marius had all day had a furnace in his brain, now it was a whirlwind. This whirlwind which was within him, affected him as if it were without, and were sweeping him along. It seemed to him that he was already at an immense distance from life. His two luminous months of joy and of love, terminating abruptly upon this frightful precipice, Cosette lost to him, this barricade, himself a chief of insurgents, ail these things appeared a monstrous nightmare. He was obliged to make a mental effort to assure himself that all this which surrounded him was real. Marius had lived too little as yet to know that nothing is more imminent than the impossible, and that what we must always foresee is the unforeseen. He was a spectator of his own drama, as of a play which one does not comprehend.
In this mist in which his mind was struggling, he did not recognise Javert who, bound to his post, had not moved his head during the attack upon the barricade, and who beheld the revolt going on about him with the resignation of a martyr and the majesty of a judge. Marius did not even perceive him.
Meanwhile the assailants made no movement, they were heard marching and swarming at the end of the street, but they did not venture forward, either that they were awaiting orders, or that before rushing anew upon that impregnable redoubt, they were awaiting reinforcements. The insurgents had posted sentinels, and some who were students in medicine had set about dressing the wounded.
A bitter emotion came to darken their joy over the redeemed barricade.
They called the roll. One of the insurgents was missing. And who? One of the dearest. One of the most valiant, Jean Prouvaire. They sought him among the wounded, he was not there. They sought him among the dead, he was not there. He was evidently a prisoner.
Combeferre said to Enjolras:
“They have our friend; we have their officer. Have you set your heart on the death of this spy?”
“Yes,” said Enjolras; “but less than on the life of Jean Prouvaire.”
This passed in the basement-room near Javert’s post.
“Well,” replied Combeferre, “I am going to tie my handkerchief to my cane, and go with a flag of truce to offer to give them their man for ours.”
“Listen,” said Enjolras, laying his hand on Combeferre’s arm.
There was a significant clicking of arms at the end of the street.
They heard a manly voice cry:
“Vive la France! Vive l‘avenir!”
They recognised Prouvaire’s voice.
There was a flash and an explosion.
Silence reigned again.
“They have killed him,” exclaimed Combeferre.
Enjolras looked at Javert and said to him:
“Your friends have just shot you.”
4 (6)
THE AGONY OF DEATH AFTER THE AGONY OF LIFE
A PECULIARITY OF THIS KIND Of war is that the attack on the barricades is almost always made in front, and that in general the assailants abstain from turning the positions, whether it be that they dread ambush, or that they fear to become entangled in the crooked streets. The whole attention of the insurgents therefore was directed to the great barricade, which was evidently the point still threatened, and where the struggle must infallibly recommence. Marius, however, thought of the little barricade and went to it. It was deserted, and was guarded only by the lamp which flickered between the stones. The little Rue Mondétour, moreover, and the branch streets de la Petite Truanderie and du Cygne, were perfectly quiet.
As Marius, the inspection made, was retiring, he heard his name faintly pronounced in the darkness:
“Monsieur Marius!”
He shuddered, for he recognised the voice which had called him two hours before, through the grating in the Rue Plumet.
Only this voice now seemed to be but a breath.
He looked about him and saw nobody.
Marius thought he was deceived, and that it was an illusion added by his mind to the extraordinary realities which were thronging about him. He started to leave the retired recess in which the barricade was situated.
“Monsieur Marius!” repeated the voice.
This time he could not doubt, he had heard distinctly; he looked, and saw nothing.
“At your feet,” said the voice.
He stooped and saw a form in the shadow, which was dragging itself towards him. It was crawling along the pavement. It was this that had spoken to him.
The lamp enabled him to distinguish a smock, a pair of torn trousers of coarse velvet, bare feet, and something which resembled a pool of blood. Marius caught a glimpse of a pale face which rose towards him and said to him:
“You do not know me?”
“No.”
“Eponine.”
Marius bent down quickly. It was indeed that unhappy child. She was dressed as a man.
“How came you here? what are you doing there?”
“I am dying,” said she.
There are words and incidents which rouse beings who are crushed. Marius exclaimed, with a start:
“You are wounded! Wait, I will carry you into the room! They will dress your wounds! Is it serious? how shall I take you up so as not to hurt you? Where are you hurt? Help! my God! But what did you come here for?”
And he tried to pass his arm under her to lift her.
In lifting her he touched her hand.
She uttered a feeble cry.
“Have I hurt you?” asked Marius.
“A little.”
“But I have only touched your hand.”
She raised her hand into Marius’ sight, and Marius saw in the centre of that hand a black hole.
“What is the matter with your hand?” said he.
“It is pierced.”
“Pierced?”
“Yes.”
“By what?”
“By a ball.”
“How?”
“Did you see a musket aimed at you?”
“Yes, and a hand which stopped it.”
“That was mine.”
Marius shuddered.
“What madness! Poor child! But that is not so bad, if that is all, it is nothing, let me carry you to a bed. They will care for you, people don’t die from a shot in the hand.”
She murmured:
“The ball passed through my hand, but it went out through my back. It is useless to take me from here. I will tell you how you can care for me, better than a surgeon. Sit down by me on that stone.”
He obeyed; she laid her head on Marius’ knees, and without looking at him, she said:
“Oh! how good it is! How kind he is! That is it! I don’t suffer any more!”
She remained a moment in silence, then she turned her head with effort and looked at Marius.
“Do you know, Monsieur Marius? It worried me that you should go into that garden, it was silly, since it was I who had shown you the house, and then indeed I ought surely to have known that a young man like you—”
She stopped, and, leaping over the gloomy transitions which were doubtless in her mind, she added with a heartrending smile:
“You thought me ugly, didn’t you?”
She continued:
“See, you are lost! Nobody will get out of the barricade, now. It was I who led you into this, it was! You are going to die, I am sure. And still when I saw him aiming at you, I put up my hand upon the muzzle of the musket. How droll it is! But it was because I wanted to die before you. When I got this ball, I dragged myself here, nobody saw me, nobody picked me up. I waited for you, I said: He will not come then? Oh! if you knew, I bit my smock, I suffered so much! Now I am well. Do you remember the day when I came into your room, and when I looked at myself in your mirror, and the day when I met you on the boulevard near some work-women?
How the birds sang! It was not very long ago. You gave me a hundred sous, and I said to you: I don’t want your money. Did you pick up your coin? You are not rich. I didn’t think to tell you to pick it up. The sun shone bright, I was not cold. Do you remember, Monsieur Marius? Oh! I am happy! We are all going to die.”
She had a wandering, grave, and touching air. Her torn smock showed her bare throat. While she was talking she rested her wounded hand upon her breast where there was another hole, from which there came with each pulsation a flow of blood like a jet of wine from an open bung.
Marius gazed upon this unfortunate creature with profound compassion.
“Oh!” she exclaimed suddenly, “it is coming back. I am stifling!”
She seized her smock and bit it, and her legs writhed upon the pavement.
She was sitting almost upright, but her voice was very low and broken by hiccoughs. At intervals the death-rattle interrupted her. She approached her face as near as she could to Marius’ face. She added with a strange expression:
“Listen, I don’t want to deceive you. I have a letter in my pocket for you. Since yesterday. I was told to put it in the post. I kept it. I didn’t want it to reach you. But you would not like it of me perhaps when we meet again so soon. We do meet again, don’t we? Take your letter.”
She grasped Marius’ hand convulsively with her wounded hand, but she seemed no longer to feel the pain. She put Marius’ hand into the pocket of her smock. Marius really felt a paper there.
“Take it,” said she.
Marius took the letter.
She made a sign of satisfaction and of consent.
“Now for my pains, promise me—”
And she hesitated.
“What?” asked Marius.
“Promise me!”
“I promise you.”
“Promise to kiss me on the forehead when I am dead. I shall feel it.”
She let her head fall back upon Marius’ knees and her eyelids closed. He thought that poor soul had gone. Eponine lay motionless; but just when Marius supposed her for ever asleep, she slowly opened her eyes in which the gloomy deepness of death appeared, and said to him with an accent the sweetness of which already seemed to come from another world: