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In the billiard-hall, Mame Hucheloup, Matelote, and Gibelotte, variously modified by terror, which had stupefied one, rendered another breathless, and roused the third, were tearing up old dish-cloths and making lint; three insurgents were assisting them, three bushy-haired, jolly blades with beards and moustaches, who plucked away at the linen with the fingers of seamstresses and who made them tremble.
Matelote and Gibelotte had mingled with the workers. Gibelotte went and came loaded with rubbish. Her lassitude helped on the barricade. She served the barricade as she would have served wine, with a sleepy air. An omnibus with two white horses passed the end of the street.
Courfeyrac, as he demolished the wine-shop to some extent, sought to console the widowed proprietress. "Mother Hucheloup, weren't you complaining the other day because you had had a notice served on you for infringing the law, because Gibelotte shook a counterpane out of your window?" "Yes, my good Monsieur Courfeyrac. Ah! good Heavens, are you going to put that table of mine in your horror, too?
There had been days on which he did not dine at all, and when the fumes of a gibelotte steaming from a workman's restaurant made his mouth water. The supper was all life and gaiety. Everyone was hungry and thirsty, and freshioned by the drive, except Lesbia. She was singularly silent, ate hardly anything, but drank three or four glasses of champagne. Don Gomez was not a great talker.
Two serving-maids, named Matelote and Gibelotte, and who had never been known by any other names, helped Mame Hucheloup to set on the tables the jugs of poor wine, and the various broths which were served to the hungry patrons in earthenware bowls.
Gibelotte, tall, delicate, white with a lymphatic pallor, with circles round her eyes, and drooping lids, always languid and weary, afflicted with what may be called chronic lassitude, the first up in the house and the last in bed, waited on every one, even the other maid, silently and gently, smiling through her fatigue with a vague and sleepy smile.
The traveler, an old man, after looking about him hesitatingly for a moment or two, betook himself to a little inn opposite the post-house, known by the sign of the Piebald Horse, and kept by the Widow Duval a woman who enjoyed and deserved the reputation of being the fastest talker and the best maker of gibelotte in the whole locality.
It was about nine o'clock in the morning, when they opened the door of Corinthe. They ascended to the first floor. Matelote and Gibelotte received them. "Oysters, cheese, and ham," said Laigle. And they seated themselves at a table. The wine-shop was empty; there was no one there but themselves. Gibelotte, knowing Joly and Laigle, set a bottle of wine on the table.
Let every one be a member of the French Academy and have the right to embrace Madame Hucheloup. Let us drink." And turning to Madame Hucheloup, he added: "Woman ancient and consecrated by use, draw near that I may contemplate thee!" And Joly exclaimed: "Matelote and Gibelotte, dod't gib Grantaire anything more to drink.
"Is it mid-day or midnight?" cried Bossuet. "You can't see your hand before your face. Gibelotte, fetch a light." Grantaire was drinking in a melancholy way. "Enjolras disdains me," he muttered. "Enjolras said: 'Joly is ill, Grantaire is drunk. It was to Bossuet that he sent Navet. If he had come for me, I would have followed him. So much the worse for Enjolras! I won't go to his funeral."
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