GAVROCHE ON THE MARCH.
Holding a pistol without a cock in the streets is such a public function, that Gavroche felt his humor increase at every step. He cried between the scraps of the Marseillaise which he sang,—
"All goes well. I suffer considerably in my left paw. I have broken my rheumatism, but I am happy, citizens. The bourgeois have only to hold firm, and I am going to sing them some subversive couplets. What are the police? Dogs. Holy Moses! we must not lack respect for the dogs. Besides, I should be quite willing to have one[1] for my pistol. I have just come from the boulevard, my friends, where it's getting warm, and the soup is simmering; it is time to skim the pot. Forward, my men, and let an impure blood inundate the furrows! I give my days for my country. I shall not see my concubine again; it's all over. Well, no matter! Long live joy! Let us fight, crebleu! I have had enough of despotism!"
At this moment the horse of a lancer in the National Guard, who was passing, fell. Gavroche laid his pistol on the pavement, helped the man up, and then helped to raise the horse, after which he picked up his pistol and went his way again. In the Rue de Thorigny all was peace and silence; and this apathy, peculiar to the Marais, contrasted with the vast surrounding turmoil. Four gossips were conversing on the step of a door; Scotland has trios of witches, but Paris has quartettes of gossips, and the "Thou shalt be king" would be as lugubriously cast at Bonaparte at the Baudoyer crossway, as to Macbeth on the Highland heath,—it would be much the same croak. The gossips in the Rue Thorigny only troubled themselves about their own affairs; they were three portresses, and a rag-picker with her dorser and her hook. They seemed to be standing all four at the four corners of old age, which are decay, decrepitude, ruin, and sorrow. The rag-picker was humble, for in this open-air world the rag-picker bows, and the portress protects. The things thrown into the street are fat and lean, according to the fancy of the person who makes the pile, and there may be kindness in the broom. This rag-picker was grateful, and she smiled,—what a smile!—at the three portresses. They were making remarks like the following,—
"So your cat is as ill-tempered as ever?"
"Well, good gracious! you know that cats are naturally the enemy of dogs. It's the dogs that complain."
"And people too."
"And yet cats' fleas do not run after people."
"Dogs are really dangerous. I remember one year when there were so many dogs that they were obliged to put it in the papers. It was at that time when there were large sheep at the Tuileries to drag the little carriage of the King of Rome. Do you remember the King of Rome?"
"I preferred the Duc de Bordeaux."
"Well, I know Louis XVII., and I prefer him."
"How dear meat is, Mame Patagon!"
"Oh, dont talk about it! Butcher's meat is a horror,—a horrible horror. It is only possible to buy bones now."
Here the rag-picker interposed,—
"Ladies, trade does not go on well at all, and the rubbish is abominable. People do not throw away anything now, but eat it all."
"There are poorer folk than you, Vargoulême."
"Ah, that's true," the rag-picker replied deferentially, "for I have a profession."
There was a pause, and the rag-picker, yielding to that need of display which is at the bottom of the human heart, added,—
"When I go home in the morning I empty out my basket and sort the articles; that makes piles in my room. I put the rags in a box, the cabbage-stalks in a tub, the pieces of linen in my cupboard, the woollen rags in my chest of drawers, old papers on the corner of the window, things good to eat in my porringer, pieces of glass in the fire-place, old shoes behind the door, and bones under my bed."
Gavroche had stopped, and was listening.
"Aged dames," he said, "what right have you to talk politics?"
A broadside, composed of a quadruple yell, assailed him.
"There's another of the villains."
"What's that he has in his hand,—a pistol?"
"Just think, that rogue of a boy!"
"They are never quiet unless when they are overthrowing the authorities."
Gavroche disdainfully limited his reprisals to lifting the tip of his nose with his thumb, and opening his hand to the full extent. The rag-picker exclaimed,—
"The barefooted scamp!"
The one who answered to the name of Mame Patagon struck her hands together with scandal.
"There are going to be misfortunes, that's sure. The young fellow with the beard round the corner, I used to see him pass every morning with a girl in a pink bonnet on his arm; but this morning I saw him pass, and he was giving his arm to a gun. Mame Bacheux says there was a revolution last week at, at, at, at,—where do the calves come from?—at Pontoise. And then, just look at this atrocious young villain's pistol. It seems that the Célestins are full of cannon. What would you have the Government do with these vagabonds who can only invent ways to upset the world, after we were beginning to get over all the misfortunes which fell—good gracious!—on that poor Queen whom I saw pass in a cart! And all this will raise the price of snuff. It is infamous, and I will certainly go and see you guillotined, malefactor."
"You snuffle, my aged friend," said Gavroche; "blow your promontory."
And he passed on. When he was in the Rue Pavée his thoughts reverted to the rag-picker, and he had this soliloquy,—
"You are wrong to insult the revolutionists, Mother Cornerpost. This pistol is on your behalf, and it is for you to have in your baskets more things good to eat."
All at once he heard a noise behind; it was the portress Patagon, who had followed him, and now shook her fist at him, crying,—
"You are nothing but a bastard."
"At that I scoff with all my heart," said Gavroche.
A little later he passed the Hôtel Lamoignon, where he burst into this appeal,—
"Go on to the battle."
And he was attacked by a fit of melancholy; he regarded his pistol reproachfully, and said to it,—
"I am going off, but you will not go off."
One dog may distract another;[2] a very thin whelp passed, and Gavroche felt pity for it.
"My poor little creature," he said to it, "you must have swallowed a barrel, as you show all the hoops."
Then he proceeded toward the Orme St. Gervais.