While the men made bullets and the women lint, while a large saucepan of melted bra.s.s and lead, destined to the bullet-mould smoked over a glowing brazier, while the sentinels watched, weapon in hand, on the barricade, while Enjolras, whom it was impossible to divert, kept an eye on the sentinels, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, Bossuet, Joly, Bah.o.r.el, 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 cas.e.m.e.nt, 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:--
Vous rappelez-vous notre douce vie, Lorsque nous etions si jeunes tous deux, Et que nous n"avions au coeur d"autre envie Que d"etre bien mis et d"etre amoureux,
Lorsqu"en ajoutant votre age a mon age, Nous ne comptions pas a deux quarante ans, Et que, dans notre humble et pet.i.t menage, Tout, meme l"hiver, nous etait printemps?
Beaux jours! Manuel etait fier et sage, Paris s"a.s.seyait a de saints banquets, Foy lancait la foudre, et votre corsage Avait une epingle ou je me piquais.
Tout vous contemplait. Avocat sans causes, Quand je vous menais au Prado diner, Vous etiez jolie au point que les roses Me faisaient l"effet de se retourner.
Je les entendais dire: Est elle belle!
Comme elle sent bon! Quels cheveux a flots!
Sous son mantelet elle cache une aile, Son bonnet charmant est a peine eclos.
J"errais avec toi, pressant ton bras souple.
Les pa.s.sants crovaient que l"amour charme Avait marie, dans notre heureux couple, Le doux mois d"avril au beau mois de mai.
Nous vivions caches, contents, porte close, Devorant l"amour, bon fruit defendu, Ma bouche n"avait pas dit une chose Que deja ton coeur avait repondu.
La Sorbonne etait l"endroit bucolique Ou je t"adorais du soir au matin.
C"est ainsi qu"une ame amoureuse applique La carte du Tendre au pays Latin.
O place Maubert! o place Dauphine!
Quand, dans le taudis frais et printanier, Tu tirais ton bas sur ton jambe fine, Je voyais un astre au fond du grenier.
J"ai fort lu Platon, mais rien ne m"en reste; Mieux que Malebranche et que Lamennais, Tu me demontrais la bonte celeste Avec une fleur que tu me donnais.
Je t"obeissais, tu m" etais soumise; O grenier dore! te lacer! te voir Aller et venir des l"aube en chemise, Mirant ton jeune front a ton vieux miroir.
Et qui done pourrait perde la memoire De ces temps d"aurore et de firmament, De rubans, de fleurs, de gaze et de moire, Ou l"amour begaye un argot charmant?
Nos jardins etaient un pot de tulipe; Tu masquais la vitre avec un jupon; Je prenais le bol de terre de pipe, Et je te donnais le ta.s.se en j.a.pon.
Et ces grands malheurs qui nous faisaient rire!
Ton manchon brule, ton boa perdu!
Et ce cher portrait du divin Shakespeare Qu"un soir pour souper nons avons vendu!
J"etais mendiant et toi charitable.
Je baisais au vol tes bras frais et ronds.
Dante in folio nous servait de table Pour manger gaiment un cent de marrons.
La premiere fois qu"en mon joyeux bouge Je pris un baiser a ton levre en feu, Quand tu t"en allais decoiffee et rouge, Je restai tout pale et je crus en Dieu!
Te rappelles-tu nos bonheurs sans nombre, Et tous ces fichus changes en chiffons?
Oh que de soupirs, de nos coeurs pleins d"ombre, Se sont envoles dans les cieux profonds![53]
The hour, the spot, these souvenirs of youth recalled, a few stars which began to twinkle in the sky, the funeral repose of those deserted streets, the imminence of the inexorable adventure, which was in preparation, gave a pathetic charm to these verses murmured in a low tone in the dusk by Jean Prouvaire, who, as we have said, was a gentle poet.
In the meantime, a lamp had been lighted in the small barricade, and in the large one, one of those wax torches such as are to be met with on Shrove-Tuesday in front of vehicles loaded with masks, on their way to la Courtille. These torches, as the reader has seen, came from the Faubourg Saint-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 on the flag. The street and the barricade remained sunk in gloom, and nothing was to be seen except the red flag formidably illuminated as by an enormous dark-lantern.
This light enhanced the scarlet of the flag, with an indescribable and terrible purple.
CHAPTER VII--THE MAN RECRUITED IN THE RUE DES BILLETTES
Night was fully come, nothing made its appearance. All that they heard was confused noises, and at intervals, fusillades; but these were rare, badly sustained and distant. This respite, which was thus prolonged, was a sign that the Government was taking its time, and collecting its forces. These fifty men were waiting for sixty thousand.
Enjolras felt attacked by that impatience which seizes on strong souls on the threshold of redoubtable events. He went in search of Gavroche, who had set to making cartridges in the tap-room, by the dubious light of two candles placed on the counter by way of precaution, on account of the powder which was scattered on the tables. These two candles cast no gleam outside. The insurgents had, moreover, taken pains not to have any light in the upper stories.
Gavroche was deeply preoccupied at that moment, but not precisely with his cartridges. The man of the Rue des Billettes had just entered the tap-room and had seated himself at the table which was the least lighted. A musket of large model had fallen to his share, and he held it between his legs. Gavroche, who had been, up to that moment, distracted by a hundred "amusing" things, had not even seen this man.
When he entered, Gavroche followed him mechanically with his eyes, admiring his gun; then, all at once, when the man was seated, the street urchin sprang to his feet. Any one who had spied upon that man up to that moment, would have seen that he was observing everything in the barricade and in the band of insurgents, with singular attention; but, from the moment when he had entered this room, he had fallen into a sort of brown study, and no longer seemed to see anything that was going on.
The gamin approached this pensive personage, and began to step around him on tiptoe, as one walks in the vicinity of a person whom one is afraid of waking. At the same time, over his childish countenance which was, at once so impudent and so serious, so giddy and so profound, so gay and so heart-breaking, pa.s.sed all those grimaces of an old man which signify: Ah bah! impossible! My sight is bad! I am dreaming! can this be? no, it is not! but yes! why, no! etc. Gavroche balanced on his heels, clenched both fists in his pockets, moved his neck around like a bird, expended in a gigantic pout all the sagacity of his lower lip. He was astounded, uncertain, incredulous, convinced, dazzled. He had the mien of the chief of the eunuchs in the slave mart, discovering a Venus among the blowsy females, and the air of an amateur recognizing a Raphael in a heap of daubs. His whole being was at work, the instinct which scents out, and the intelligence which combines. It was evident that a great event had happened in Gavroche"s life.
It was at the most intense point of this preoccupation that Enjolras accosted him.
"You are small," said Enjolras, "you will not be seen. Go out of the barricade, slip along close to the houses, skirmish about a bit in the streets, and come back and tell me what is going on."
Gavroche raised himself on his haunches.
"So the little chaps are good for something! that"s very lucky! I"ll go! In the meanwhile, trust to the little fellows, and distrust the big ones." And Gavroche, raising his head and lowering his voice, added, as he indicated the man of the Rue des Billettes: "Do you see that big fellow there?"
"Well?"
"He"s a police spy."
"Are you sure of it?"
"It isn"t two weeks since he pulled me off the cornice of the Port Royal, where I was taking the air, by my ear."
Enjolras hastily quitted the urchin and murmured a few words in a very low tone to a longsh.o.r.eman from the winedocks who chanced to be at hand.
The man left the room, and returned almost immediately, accompanied by three others. The four men, four porters with broad shoulders, went and placed themselves without doing anything to attract his attention, behind the table on which the man of the Rue des Billettes was leaning with his elbows. They were evidently ready to hurl themselves upon him.
Then Enjolras approached the man and demanded of him:--
"Who are you?"
At this abrupt query, the man started. He plunged his gaze deep into Enjolras" clear eyes and appeared to grasp the latter"s meaning. He smiled with a smile than which nothing more disdainful, more energetic, and more resolute could be seen in the world, and replied with haughty gravity:--
"I see what it is. Well, yes!"
"You are a police spy?"