Les Miserables (Movie Tie-in) (9781101612774)

by Hugo, Victor; Donougher, Christine (TRN)

  A few minutes later the terrified citizenry making their escape along the Rue Amelot and the Rue Basse found him flourishing his weapon and singing:

  Nothing to be seen at night,

  But in daytime all is bright

  And the gentlefolk turn pale

  At the writing on the wall.

  Do your duty, my fine lads,

  Blow away their silly hats!

  Gavroche was going to war. Not until he reached the boulevard did he notice that the pistol had no hammer.

  Where did they come from, that marching-song and the many other songs he sang? Who can say? Perhaps he made them up himself. Certainly he knew all the popular ditties of the day, to which he brought his own improvements. Ragamuffin that he was, he sang with the voice of Nature and the voice of Paris, mingling the song of the birds with the songs of the studio. He was well acquainted with art students, a tribe related to his own. He had, it seems, been for three months apprenticed to a printer. He had once run an errand for Monsieur Baour-Lormian, a Member of the Academy. In short, Gavroche was a lettered urchin.

  But Gavroche still did not know that when on that stormy night he had offered the hospitality of his elephant to two homeless little boys he had been playing providence to his own brothers. Brothers rescued in the evening, father in the morning, that was how his night had been spent. After leaving the Rue des Ballets in the early hours he had hurried back to the elephant, from which he had skilfully extracted the two children; and after sharing with them the breakfast that he had somehow conjured up he had gone off on his own affairs, entrusting them to the mercy of the streets, his own foster-mother. His parting words had been: ‘I’m leaving you now, in other words, buzzing off, or, as they say in polite circles, hooking it. You kids, if you can’t find your mum and dad, come back here this evening and I’ll fix you up with supper and a bed.’ But the two children, whether because they had been picked up by a sergeant de ville and taken to the nearest police post, or kidnapped by some street performer, or had simply lost their way in the vast labyrinth of Paris, had not come back. Such disappearances are common enough at the lowest level of our society. Gavroche had not seen them again. In the ten or twelve weeks that had passed he had more than once scratched his head and wondered, ‘Where the devil have my two kids got to?’

  And now, still flourishing his pistol, he had arrived at the Pont-aux-Choux. He saw that only one shop in the street was open, and, which made the circumstance worthy of note, that this was a pastrycook’s. It was a heaven-sent opportunity to eat one last apple-puff before embarking upon new adventures. Gavroche tapped his clothing and turned out his trouser-pockets, and found nothing, not so much as a sou. He was tempted to cry out in vexation. It is a bitter thing to miss the most delicious of all confections.

  He continued on his way, and two minutes later he was in the Rue Saint-Louis. Passing through the Rue du Parc-Royal, and feeling the need to console himself for the loss of the apple-puff, he allowed himself the huge satisfaction of pulling down theatre-posters in broad daylight. A little further on, coming upon a group of well-dressed citizens who looked to him like house-owners, he gesticulated and delivered himself of the following objurgation:

  ‘A fine, plump lot they are, the well-to-do! They do themselves proud. They wallow in rich dinners. Ask them where their money goes and they can’t tell you. They’ve eaten it, that’s all – gone with the wind!’

  II

  Gavroche goes to war

  To flourish a hammerless pistol in the public street is so splendid a gesture of defiance that Gavroche felt his spirits rising with every step he took. In the intervals of singing bursts of the ‘Marseillaise’ he discoursed as follows:

  ‘All’s well. My left foot’s sore and I’ve got the rheumatics, but I’m feeling fine. The gentry have only to listen and I’ll sing them revolutionary songs. Who cares for the coppers’ narks, they’re a lot of dirty dogs. Not that I’ve anything against dogs. But I wish my pistol had a hammer. I’ve come from the boulevard, mates, it’s getting hot there, things are boiling up nicely. It’s time to skim the pot. Forward, lads, and may the furrows run red with traitors’ blood! I give my life to la patrie, and I shan’t be seeing my best girl any more. No more Nini, but who cares? Let’s make a fight of it – I’ve had enough of despotism.’

  At this moment the horse of a trooper of the Garde Nationale fell in the street. Gavroche put down his pistol, helped the man up and helped him to get the horse on its feet. He then picked up the pistol and strode on.

  All was peace and quiet in the Rue de Thorigny, and its indifferent calm, so proper to the Marais, was in marked contrast to the surrounding tumult. Four housewives were gossiping in a doorway. Scotland has its trios of weird sisters, but Paris has its foursomes of old biddies; and the ‘thou shalt be King hereafter’ flung at Macbeth on the blasted heath can have been no more ominous than the same words flung at Napoleon in the Rue Baudoyer. The hoarse croaking would have sounded much the same.

  The ladies in the Rue de Thorigny were wholly intent upon their own affairs. Three were concierges and one was a chiffonnière (garbage-collector, rag-picker, and street-cleaner) with her hook and basket. Between them they seemed to represent the four extremities of age, which are decay, decrepitude, ruin and misery. The chiffonnière was humble. In that doorstep world it was she who made obeisance and the concierge who patronized, and this has to do with the accommodation arrived at between the exactions of the concierge and the compliance of the street-cleaner. There can be good will even in a broom. This chiffonnière was a grateful body, and fulsome in her smiles for the three concierges. Their talk was on the following lines:

  ‘So you cat’s still being a nuisance?’

  ‘Well, you know what cats are, the natural enemies of dogs. It’s the dogs that make the fuss.’

  ‘Besides people.’

  ‘And yet cat fleas don’t get on to people.’

  ‘Besides which, dogs are dangerous. I remember one year there were so many dogs that they had to write about it in the newspapers. It was the time when there were big sheep in the Tuileries, pulling the Roi de Rome in his little carriage. Do you remember the Roi de Rome?’

  ‘The one I liked was the Duc de Bordeaux.’

  ‘Well, I once saw Louis XVIII. I like Louis XVIII best.’

  ‘The way the price of meat has gone up, Mme Patagon!’

  ‘Don’t talk of it! Butcher’s shops are the limit, a perfect horror. All one can afford are the worst cuts.’

  The chiffonnière remarked:

  ‘My business is going from bad to worse. The rubbish heaps are worthless. Nobody gets rid of anything these days, they eat everything.’

  ‘There are some who are worse off than you, Mme Vargoulème.’

  ‘Well that’s true,’ said the chiffonnière deferentially. ‘At least I have a regular position.’ And yielding to the love of showing off that exists in all of us, she went on: ‘When I got home this morning I cleared out my basket and did the sorting. I’ve got separate places for everything. Rags in a box, applecores in a bucket, linens in my cupboard, woollens in the chest of drawers, old papers on the window-sill, eatables in the cookpot, bits of glass in the fireplace, slippers behind the door, and bones under the bed.’

  Gavroche, who had paused to listen, now inquired:

  ‘Why are you old girls bothering with politics?’

  He was met with a four-barrelled volley of abuse.

  ‘Another of those ruffians!’

  ‘What’s that he’s got in his paw? A pistol!’

  ‘I ask you, a boy that age!’

  ‘They’re never happy except when they’re going against the law.’

  By way of reply Gavroche thumbed his nose with his fingers spread, and the chiffonnière exclaimed:

  ‘Nasty little ragamuffin!’

  The lady who answered to the name of Patagon clapped her hands together in outrage.

  ‘There’s going to be trouble, that’s for sure. Th
e errand boy next door, the one that’s growing a beard, I’ve watched him go past every morning with his arm round a hussy in a pink cap, but this morning it was a musket he had under his arm. Mme Bacheux says there was a revolution last week in – in – well, where was it? – in Pontoise. And look at that little demon, carrying a pistoll It seems that the Rue des Célestins is full of cannons. Well, what do you expect, when the Government has to deal with rascals like him, always inventing new ways of upsetting everything, and just when things were quietening down after all the trouble we’ve had. Lord have mercy on us, when I think of that poor Queen that I saw go by in the tumbril! And what’s more, it’ll send up the price of tobacco. It’s monstrous, that’s what it is. Well anyway, I’ll live to see you guillotined, my fine cocksparrow!’

  ‘Your nose is running, old lady,’ said Gavroche. ‘Better wipe it.’

  And he passed on. At the Rue Pavée the thought of the chiffonnière crossed his mind and he addressed her thus in fancy:

  ‘You shouldn’t abuse the revolutionaries, Mother Streetcorner. My pistol is on your side. It’s to help you find more things worth eating in your basket.’

  There was a sound of footsteps behind him, and he turned to see that Mme Patagon had followed and was shaking her fist at him.

  ‘You’re nothing but somebody’s bastard!’

  ‘As to that,’ said Gavroche, ‘I am profoundly indifferent.’

  Shortly after this he passed the Hotel Lamoignon, to which he addressed a ringing appeal: ‘On the way, lads – on to battle!’

  Then he was seized with melancholy, and looking reproachfully at his pistol he said: ‘I’m ready for action, but you won’t act.’

  He came upon a very thin dog and was moved to sympathy.

  ‘Poor old fellow, you look like a barrel with all the hoops showing.’

  He headed for the Orme-Saint-Gervais.

  III

  Righteous wrath of a barber

  The worthy barber who had driven away the two little boys whom Gavroche had entertained in his elephant was at that moment engaged in shaving a veteran legionary who had served under Napoleon. After discussing the present disorders and the late General Lamarque, they had eventually arrived at the subject of the Emperor. From this had ensued a conversation which a sober citizen with a literary turn might have entitled, ‘Dialogue between a Razor and a Sabre’.

  ‘Monsieur,’ said the barber, ‘how was the Emperor as a horseman?’

  ‘He didn’t know how to fall. That’s why he never did fall.’

  ‘I’m sure he had very fine horses.’

  ‘I studied the one he was riding the day he pinned the cross on me. It was a racy mare, all white, with ears set wide apart, deep withers, a narrow head with a black star, very long neck, good strong ribs and fetlocks, sloping shoulders and powerful hindquarters. A little over fifteen hands.’

  ‘A pretty horse,’ said the barber.

  ‘Well, it belonged to His Majesty.’

  The barber paused, feeling that after this dictum a momentary silence was called for. He then said:

  ‘It’s true, is it not, that the Emperor was only once wounded.’

  ‘In the heel. At Ratisbon. I’ve never seen him so well turned out as he was that day – neat as a new pin.’

  ‘But you, Monsieur, you must have been wounded many times.’

  ‘Oh, nothing to speak of, a couple of sabre-cuts at Marengo, a ball in the right arm at Austerlitz and one in the left thing at Iéna, a bayonet wound at Friedland, just there, and seven or eight lance wounds at Moskowa, all over the place they were. And at Lutzen I had a finger smashed by a shell-burst. Oh, and at Waterloo I got a bit of grape in the thigh. But that’s all.’

  ‘How splendid,’ rhapsodized the barber, ‘to die on the field of battle! I give you my word I’d sooner be killed by a cannon-ball in the belly than die slowly of illness in my bed, with doctors and medicines and all the rest of it.’

  ‘You’ve got the right idea,’ said the soldier.

  He had scarcely spoken the words when there was a crash and one of the window-panes lay shattered on the floor of the shop. The barber turned pale.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ he cried. ‘There’s one now.’

  ‘One what?’

  ‘A cannon-ball.’

  ‘Think so?’ said the soldier. ‘Here it is.’ And he stooped and picked up a large stone.

  The barber got to the window just in time to see Gavroche making off at top speed towards the Marché Saint-Jean. With the thought of the two forlorn little boys in his mind, he had not been able to resist paying his respects to the barber.

  ‘There, you see!’ bellowed the barber, turning from white to crimson. ‘They do damage just for the fun of it. What harm have I ever done that young devil?’

  IV

  The boy marvels at an old man

  Gavroche, having arrived at the Marché Saint-Jean, where the police post had already been put out of action, proceeded to join forces with a party led by Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Combeferre and Feuilly. Nearly all were armed, Enjolras with a double-barrelled fowling-piece, Combeferre with two pistols in his belt and a National Guard musket bearing an old regimental number, Jean Prouvaire with an old cavalry musketoon, and Bahorel with a carbine, while Courfeyrac was brandishing an unsheathed sword-stick. Feuilly, with a naked sabre in his fist, was striding ahead shouting, ‘Long live Poland!’

  They had reached the Quai Morland hatless, collarless, breathless and soaked by the downpour, but starry-eyed, when Gavroche went calmly up to them.

  ‘Where are you off to?’

  ‘Join us,’ said Courfeyrac.

  Behind Feuilly was Bahorel, skipping rather than walking, a fish in the waters of insurrection. He had a crimson waistcoat and, as always, a ready tongue. The waistcoat startled an onlooker, who cried in alarm:

  ‘Here come the Reds!’

  ‘Red – reds!’ repeated Bahorel. ‘That’s a fine thing to be frightened of, Mister. Speaking for myself, I’m not afraid of poppies, and little Red Ridinghood doesn’t scare me out of my wits. Take my word for it, leave the fear of red to horned cattle.’ He pointed to the most pacific of notices on a near-by wall, a dispensation on the part of the Archbishop of Paris to his flock, informing them that they might eat eggs in Lent. ‘Flock!’ he exclaimed. ‘Apolite way of saying geese.’

  He tore down the placard and in doing so won the heart of Gavroche, who from that moment never took his eyes off him.

  ‘You were wrong to do that,’ Enjolras said to Bahorel. ‘You should have left it alone. We’ve no quarrel with the Church. Don’t waste your anger, save it for where it’s needed.’

  ‘It’s all according to how you look at things,’ said Bahorel. ‘The clerical tone of voice annoys me. I want to be able to eat eggs without any by-your-leave. You’re the cold zealot type, Enjolras, but I’m enjoying myself. And I’m not wasting anything, simply getting up steam. I tore down the placard because, by Hercules, I felt like it.’

  The word ‘Hercules’ struck Gavroche, who was always anxious to learn.

  ‘What does it mean?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s the Latin for “thunder and lightning”,’ said Bahorel.

  A tumultuous crowd was following them, composed of students, artists, youthful members of the Cougourde d’Aix, navvies and Hock-labourers, armed with cudgels and bayonets, and a few, like Combeferre, with pistols in their belts. Among them was an old man who looked very old. He had no weapon and was trotting to keep up, although his expression was vague.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked Gavroche.

  ‘Just an old man,’ said Courfeyrac.

  It was Monsieur Mabeuf.

  V

  The old man

  We must relate what had happened.

  Enjolras and his friends had been on the Boulevard Bourdon near the reserve warehouses, when the dragoons had charged, and Enjolras, Courfeyrac, and Combeferre had been among those who had gone off down the Rue Bassompierre, shouting, ‘To the
barricades!’ On the Rue Lesdiguières they had encountered an old man wandering along the street.

  What had attracted their notice was the fact that he was staggering as he walked, as though he were drunk. Moreover, although it had been raining all the morning and was now coming down harder than ever, he was carrying his hat in his hand. Courfeyrac recognized Monsieur Mabeuf, whom he had seen on several occasions when he had accompanied Marius to his door. Knowing the peaceable and more than timid nature of the old bibliophile he was horrified to find him there, hatless in the downpour and amid the tumult of charging cavalry and musket-shots. He had gone up to him and the following dialogue had ensued between them, the twenty-five-year-old rebel and the octogenarian:

  ‘Monsieur Mabeuf, you must go home.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s going to be fighting.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘Sabre-thrusts and bullets, Monsieur Mabeuf.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘Possibly cannon-fire.’

  ‘Very well. And where are you going?’

  ‘We’re going to overthrow the Government.’

  ‘Good.’

  And the old man had joined their column. From then on he had not spoken a word, but his tread had grown firmer and when a workman had offered an arm for his support he had refused it with a shake of his head. He had advanced nearly to the front of the column, his movements those of a man on the march, his eyes those of a man in a dream.

  ‘The old fire-eater!’ one of the students exclaimed, and the word went round that he was a former member of the Convention, a regicide.

  The column turned into the Rue de la Verrerie. Gavroche, now in the forefront, was singing some doggerel with the full strength of his lungs, so that his voice rang out like a trumpet-call.