The brandishing of a triggerless pistol, grasped in one’s hand in the
open street, is so much of a public function that Gavroche felt his
fervor increasing with every moment. Amid the scraps of the
Marseillaise which he was singing, he shouted:—
“All goes well. I suffer a great deal in my left paw, I’m all broken up
with rheumatism, but I’m satisfied, citizens. All that 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, Nini, finished, yes, Nini? But never mind! Long
live joy! Let’s fight, crebleu! I’ve had enough of despotism.”
At that moment, the horse of a lancer of the National Guard having
fallen, Gavroche 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 Thorigny, all was peace
and silence. This apathy, peculiar to the Marais, presented a contrast
with the vast surrounding uproar. Four gossips were chatting in a
doorway.
Scotland has trios of witches, Paris has quartettes of old gossiping
hags; and the “Thou shalt be King” could be quite as mournfully hurled
at Bonaparte in the Carrefour Baudoyer as at Macbeth on the heath of
Armuyr. The croak would be almost identical.
The gossips of the Rue de Thorigny busied themselves only with their
own concerns. Three of them were portresses, 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 portress who patronizes. This is caused
by the corner for refuse, which is fat or lean, according to the will
of the portresses, 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 portresses. 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 there were at the Tuileries great
sheep that drew the little carriage of the King of Rome. Do you
remember the King of Rome?”
“I liked the Duc de Bordeau better.”
“I knew Louis XVIII. I prefer Louis XVIII.”
“Meat is 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.”
Here the rag-picker interposed:—
“Ladies, business is dull. The refuse heaps are miserable. No one
throws anything away any more. They eat everything.”
“There are poorer people than you, la Vargoulême.”
“Ah, that’s true,” replied the rag-picker, with deference, “I have a
profession.”
A pause 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 stalks in a bucket, the linen in my cupboard, the woollen
stuff in my commode, the old papers in the corner of the window, the
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.”
Gavroche had stopped 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 that he’s got in his paddle? A pistol?”
“Well, I’d like to know what sort of a beggar’s brat this is?”
“That sort of animal is never easy unless he’s overturning the
authorities.”
Gavroche disdainfully contented himself, by way of reprisal, with
elevating the tip of his nose with his thumb and opening his hand wide.
The rag-picker cried:—
“You malicious, bare-pawed 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’s 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; to-day I saw him pass, and he
had a gun on his arm. Mame Bacheux 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 scamp, with his pistol! It seems that the
Célestins 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 tumbril! And all this is
going to make tobacco dearer. It’s infamous! And I shall certainly go
to see him beheaded on the guillotine, the wretch!”
“You’ve got the sniffles, old lady,” said Gavroche. “Blow your
promontory.”
And he passed on. When he was in the Rue Pavée, the rag-picker occurred
to his mind, and he indulged in this soliloquy:—
“You’re in the wrong to insult the revolutionists, 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 portress Patagon
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 Gavroche, “I don’t care a brass farthing for
that!”
Shortly afterwards, he passed the Hotel Lamoignon. 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 an 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.45 A very gaunt
poodle came along at the moment. Gavroche felt compassion for him.
“My poor doggy,” said he, “you must have gone and swallowed a cask, for
all the hoops are visible.”
Then he directed his course towards l’Orme-Saint-Gervais.