Part 197 (1/2)
”Ah, yes!” replied the elder, gazing at Gavroche with the expression of a saved angel.
The two poor little children who had been soaked through, began to grow warm once more.
”Ah, by the way,” continued Gavroche, ”what were you bawling about?”
And pointing out the little one to his brother:--
”A mite like that, I've nothing to say about, but the idea of a big fellow like you crying! It's idiotic; you looked like a calf.”
”Gracious,” replied the child, ”we have no lodging.”
”Bother!” retorted Gavroche, ”you don't say 'lodgings,' you say 'crib.'”
”And then, we were afraid of being alone like that at night.”
”You don't say 'night,' you say 'darkmans.'”
”Thank you, sir,” said the child.
”Listen,” went on Gavroche, ”you must never bawl again over anything.
I'll take care of you. You shall see what fun we'll have. In summer, we'll go to the Glaciere with Navet, one of my pals, we'll bathe in the Gare, we'll run stark naked in front of the rafts on the bridge at Austerlitz,--that makes the laundresses raging. They scream, they get mad, and if you only knew how ridiculous they are! We'll go and see the man-skeleton. And then I'll take you to the play. I'll take you to see Frederick Lemaitre. I have tickets, I know some of the actors, I even played in a piece once. There were a lot of us fellers, and we ran under a cloth, and that made the sea. I'll get you an engagement at my theatre. We'll go to see the savages. They ain't real, those savages ain't. They wear pink tights that go all in wrinkles, and you can see where their elbows have been darned with white. Then, we'll go to the Opera. We'll get in with the hired applauders. The Opera claque is well managed. I wouldn't a.s.sociate with the claque on the boulevard. At the Opera, just fancy! some of them pay twenty sous, but they're ninnies.
They're called dishclouts. And then we'll go to see the guillotine work.
I'll show you the executioner. He lives in the Rue des Marais. Monsieur Sanson. He has a letter-box at his door. Ah! we'll have famous fun!”
At that moment a drop of wax fell on Gavroche's finger, and recalled him to the realities of life.
”The deuce!” said he, ”there's the wick giving out. Attention! I can't spend more than a sou a month on my lighting. When a body goes to bed, he must sleep. We haven't the time to read M. Paul de k.o.c.k's romances. And besides, the light might pa.s.s through the cracks of the porte-cochere, and all the bobbies need to do is to see it.”
”And then,” remarked the elder timidly,--he alone dared talk to Gavroche, and reply to him, ”a spark might fall in the straw, and we must look out and not burn the house down.”
”People don't say 'burn the house down,'” remarked Gavroche, ”they say 'blaze the crib.'”
The storm increased in violence, and the heavy downpour beat upon the back of the colossus amid claps of thunder. ”You're taken in, rain!”
said Gavroche. ”It amuses me to hear the decanter run down the legs of the house. Winter is a stupid; it wastes its merchandise, it loses its labor, it can't wet us, and that makes it kick up a row, old water-carrier that it is.”
This allusion to the thunder, all the consequences of which Gavroche, in his character of a philosopher of the nineteenth century, accepted, was followed by a broad flash of lightning, so dazzling that a hint of it entered the belly of the elephant through the crack. Almost at the same instant, the thunder rumbled with great fury. The two little creatures uttered a shriek, and started up so eagerly that the network came near being displaced, but Gavroche turned his bold face to them, and took advantage of the clap of thunder to burst into a laugh.
”Calm down, children. Don't topple over the edifice. That's fine, first-cla.s.s thunder; all right. That's no slouch of a streak of lightning. Bravo for the good G.o.d! Deuce take it! It's almost as good as it is at the Ambigu.”
That said, he restored order in the netting, pushed the two children gently down on the bed, pressed their knees, in order to stretch them out at full length, and exclaimed:--
”Since the good G.o.d is lighting his candle, I can blow out mine. Now, babes, now, my young humans, you must shut your peepers. It's very bad not to sleep. It'll make you swallow the strainer, or, as they say, in fas.h.i.+onable society, stink in the gullet. Wrap yourself up well in the hide! I'm going to put out the light. Are you ready?”
”Yes,” murmured the elder, ”I'm all right. I seem to have feathers under my head.”
”People don't say 'head,'” cried Gavroche, ”they say 'nut'.”
The two children nestled close to each other, Gavroche finished arranging them on the mat, drew the blanket up to their very ears, then repeated, for the third time, his injunction in the hieratical tongue:--