United States or Vanuatu ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When Marius re-entered the redoubt with Gavroche in his arms, his face, like the child, was inundated with blood. At the moment when he had stooped to lift Gavroche, a bullet had grazed his head; he had not noticed it. Courfeyrac untied his cravat and with it bandaged Marius' brow. They laid Gavroche on the same table with Mabeuf, and spread over the two corpses the black shawl.
"It must be real wine," observed Bossuet. "It's lucky that Grantaire is asleep. If he were on foot, there would be a good deal of difficulty in saving those bottles." Enjolras, in spite of all murmurs, placed his veto on the fifteen bottles, and, in order that no one might touch them, he had them placed under the table on which Father Mabeuf was lying.
And his head, which had been upraised for a moment, fell back upon his breast. He raised it again, and once more looked at the sky, murmuring: "A tear of dew! A little pity!" He tried again to unhook the chain of the well, and could not. At that moment, he heard a voice saying: "Father Mabeuf, would you like to have me water your garden for you?"
His name was Father Mabeuf. I do not know what was the matter with him to-day. But he was a brave blockhead. Just look at his head." "The head of a blockhead and the heart of a Brutus," replied Enjolras. Then he raised his voice: "Citizens! This is the example which the old give to the young. We hesitated, he came! We were drawing back, he advanced!
In the first place, he owed to him the revolution which had taken place within him; to him he was indebted for having known and loved his father. "He operated on me for a cataract," he said. The churchwarden had certainly played a decisive part. It was not, however, that M. Mabeuf had been anything but the calm and impassive agent of Providence in this connection.
The scarred veteran was afraid of that old spinster. From this had arisen his connection with the cure of Vernon, M. l'Abbe Mabeuf. That worthy priest was the brother of a warden of Saint-Sulpice, who had often observed this man gazing at his child, and the scar on his cheek, and the large tears in his eyes.
He had enlightened Marius by chance and without being aware of the fact, as does a candle which some one brings; he had been the candle and not the some one. As for Marius' inward political revolution, M. Mabeuf was totally incapable of comprehending it, of willing or of directing it. As we shall see M. Mabeuf again, later on, a few words will not be superfluous.
When each had gone to take up his position for the combat, there remained in the tap-room where Javert was bound to the post, only a single insurgent with a naked sword, watching over Javert, and himself, Mabeuf.
His two luminous months of joy and love, ending abruptly at that frightful precipice, Cosette lost to him, that barricade, M. Mabeuf getting himself killed for the Republic, himself the leader of the insurgents, all these things appeared to him like a tremendous nightmare. He was obliged to make a mental effort to recall the fact that all that surrounded him was real.
In short, one day, M. Mabeuf quitted the Rue Mesieres, abdicated the functions of warden, gave up Saint-Sulpice, sold not a part of his books, but of his prints, that to which he was the least attached, and installed himself in a little house on the Rue Montparnasse, where, however, he remained but one quarter for two reasons: in the first place, the ground floor and the garden cost three hundred francs, and he dared not spend more than two hundred francs on his rent; in the second, being near Faton's shooting-gallery, he could hear the pistol-shots; which was intolerable to him.
Word Of The Day