3.V.1.15. GAVROCHE OUTSIDE
COURFEYRAC suddenly caught sight of some one at the
base of the barricade, outside in the street, amid the
bullets.
Gavroche had taken a bottle basket from the wine-shop,
had made his way out through the cut, and was quietly engaged
in emptying the full cartridge-boxes of the National
Guardsmen who had been killed on the slope of the redoubt,
into his basket.
"What are you doing there?" asked Courfeyrac.
Gavroche raised his face: —
"I'm filling my basket, citizen."
"Don't you see the grape-shot?"
Gavroche replied:
"Well, it is raining. What then?"
Courfeyrac shouted: — "Come in!"
"Instanter," said Gavroche.
And with a single bound he plunged into the street.
It will be remembered that Fannicot's company had left
behind it a trail of bodies. Twenty corpses lay scattered here
and there on the pavement, through the whole length of the
street. Twenty cartouches for Gavroche meant a provision of
cartridges for the barricade.
The smoke in the street was like a fog. Whoever has
beheld
a cloud which has fallen into a mountain gorge between two
peaked escarpments can imagine this smoke rendered denser
and thicker by two gloomy rows of lofty houses. It rose
gradually
and was incessantly renewed; hence a twilight which
made even the broad daylight turn pale. The combatants
could hardly see each other from one end of the street to the
other, short as it was.
This obscurity, which had probably been desired and
calculated
on by the commanders who were to direct the assault on
the barricade, was useful to Gavroche.
Beneath the folds of this veil of smoke, and thanks to his
small size, he could advance tolerably far into the street
without
being seen. He rifled the first seven or eight cartridge-boxes
without much danger.
He crawled flat on his belly, galloped on all fours, took
his
basket in his teeth, twisted, glided, undulated, wound from one
dead body to another, and emptied the cartridge-box or cartouche
as a monkey opens a nut.
They did not dare to shout to him to return from the
barricade,
which was quite near, for fear of attracting attention to
him.
On one body, that of a corporal, he found a powder-flask.
"For thirst," said he, putting it in his pocket.
By dint of advancing, he reached a point where the fog of
the fusillade became transparent. So that the sharpshooters
of the line ranged on the outlook behind their paving-stone
dike and the sharpshooters of the banlieue massed at the corner
of the street suddenly pointed out to each other something
moving through the smoke.
At the moment when Gavroche was relieving a sergeant,
who was lying near a stone door-post, of his cartridges, a
bullet struck the body.
"Fichtre!" ejaculated Gavroche. "They are killing my
dead men for me."
A second bullet struck a spark from the pavement beside
him. — A third overturned his basket.
Gavroche looked and saw that this came from the men of
the banlieue.
He sprang to his feet, stood erect, with his hair flying
in
the wind, his hands on his hips, his eyes fixed on the National
Guardsmen who were firing, and sang:
"On est laid a Nanterre, "Men are ugly at Nanterre,
C'est la faute a Voltaire; 'Tis the fault of
Voltaire;
Et bete a Palaiseau, And dull at Palaiseau,
C'est la faute a Rousseau." 'Tis the fault of
Rousseau."
Then he picked up his basket, replaced the cartridges which
had fallen from it, without missing a single one, and, advancing
towards the fusillade, set about plundering another
cartridge-box. There a fourth bullet missed him, again.
Gavroche sang:
"Je ne suis pas notaire, "I am not a notary,
C'est la faute a Voltaire; 'Tis the fault of Voltaire;
Je suis un petit oiseau, I'm a little bird,
C'est la faute a Rousseau." 'Tis the fault of
Rousseau."
A fifth bullet only succeeded in drawing from him a third
couplet.
"Joie est mon caractere, "Joy is my character,
C'est la faute a Voltaire; 'Tis the fault of Voltaire;
Misere est mon trousseau, Misery is my trousseau,
C'est la faute a Rousseau." 'Tis the fault of
Rousseau."
Thus it went on for some time.
It was a charming and terrible sight. Gavroche, though
shot at, was teasing the fusillade. He had the air of being
greatly diverted. It was the sparrow pecking at the sportsmen.
To each discharge he retorted with a couplet. They
aimed at him constantly, and always missed him. The National
Guardsmen and the soldiers laughed as they took aim
at him. He lay down, sprang to his feet, hid in the corner
of a doorway, then made a bound, disappeared, re-appeared,
scampered away, returned, replied to the grape-shot with his
thumb at his nose, and, all the while, went on pillaging the
cartouches, emptying the cartridge-boxes, and filling his basket.
The insurgents, panting with anxiety, followed him
with their eyes. The barricade trembled; he sang. He was
not a child, he was not a man; he was a strange gamin-fairy.
He might have been called the invulnerable dwarf of the
fray. The bullets flew after him, he was more nimble than
they. He played a fearful game of hide and seek with death;
every time that the flat-nosed face of the spectre approached,
the urchin administered to it a fillip.
One bullet, however, better aimed or more treacherous than
the rest, finally struck the will-o'-the-wisp of a child.
Gavroche
was seen to stagger, then he sank to the earth. The
whole barricade gave vent to a cry; but there was something
of Antaeus in that pygmy; for the gamin to touch the pavement
is the same as for the giant to touch the earth; Gavroche
had fallen only to rise again; he remained in a sitting
posture, a long thread of blood streaked his face, he raised
both arms in the air, glanced in the direction whence the shot
had come, and began to sing:
"Je suis tombe par terre, "I have fallen to the earth,
C'est la faute a Voltaire; 'Tis the fault of Voltaire;
Le nez dans le ruisseau, With my nose in the gutter,
C'est la faute a . . . " 'Tis the fault of . . . "
He did not finish. A second bullet from the same marksman
stopped him short. This time he fell face downward on
the pavement, and moved no more. This grand little soul had
taken its flight.