Part 219 (2/2)
”You've got the sniffles, old lady,” said Gavroche. ”Blow your promontory.”
And he pa.s.sed on. When he was in the Rue Pavee, 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”
”Oh! Come now,” said Gavroche, ”I don't care a bra.s.s farthing for that!”
Shortly afterwards, he pa.s.sed 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 compa.s.sion 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.
CHAPTER III--JUST INDIGNATION OF A HAIR-DRESSER
The worthy hair-dresser who had chased from his shop the two little fellows to whom Gavroche had opened the paternal interior of the elephant was at that moment in his shop engaged in shaving an old soldier of the legion who had served under the Empire. They were talking. The hair-dresser had, naturally, spoken to the veteran of the riot, then of General Lamarque, and from Lamarque they had pa.s.sed to the Emperor. Thence sprang up a conversation between barber and soldier which Prudhomme, had he been present, would have enriched with arabesques, and which he would have ent.i.tled: ”Dialogue between the razor and the sword.”
”How did the Emperor ride, sir?” said the barber.
”Badly. He did not know how to fall--so he never fell.”
”Did he have fine horses? He must have had fine horses!”
”On the day when he gave me my cross, I noticed his beast. It was a racing mare, perfectly white. Her ears were very wide apart, her saddle deep, a fine head marked with a black star, a very long neck, strongly articulated knees, prominent ribs, oblique shoulders and a powerful crupper. A little more than fifteen hands in height.”
”A pretty horse,” remarked the hair-dresser.
”It was His Majesty's beast.”
The hair-dresser felt, that after this observation, a short silence would be fitting, so he conformed himself to it, and then went on:--
”The Emperor was never wounded but once, was he, sir?”
The old soldier replied with the calm and sovereign tone of a man who had been there:--
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