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MORTUUS PATER FILIUM MORITURUM EXPECTAT
Marius dashed out of the barricade, Combeferre followed him.
But he was too late.
Gavroche was dead.
Combeferre brought back the basket of cartridges; Marius bore
the child.
"Alas!" he thought, "that which the father
had done for his father, he was requiting to the son; only, Thenardier
had brought back his father alive; he was bringing back the child
dead."
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.
There was enough of it for both the old man and the child.
Combeferre distributed the cartridges from the basket which
he had brought in.
This gave each man fifteen rounds to fire.
Jean Valjean was still in the same place, motionless on his
stone post.
When Combeferre offered him his fifteen cartridges, he shook
his head.
"Here's a rare eccentric," said Combeferre in a
low voice to Enjolras. "He finds a way of not fighting in
this barricade."
"Which does not prevent him from defending it,"
responded Enjolras.
"Heroism has its originals," resumed Combeferre.
And Courfeyrac, who had overheard, added:
"He is another sort from Father Mabeuf."
One thing which must be noted is, that the fire which was
battering the barricade hardly disturbed the interior.
Those who have never traversed the whirlwind of this sort
of war can form no idea of the singular moments of tranquillity
mingled with these convulsions. Men go and come, they talk, they
jest, they lounge.
Some one whom we know heard a combatant say to him in the
midst of the grape-shot: "We are here as at a bachelor breakfast."
The redoubt of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, we repeat, seemed
very calm within.
All mutations and all phases had been, or were about to be,
exhausted.
The position, from critical, had become menacing, and, from
menacing, was probably about to become desperate.
In proportion as the situation grew gloomy, the glow of heroism
empurpled the barricade more and more. Enjolras, who was grave,
dominated it, in the attitude of a young Spartan sacrificing his
naked sword to the sombre genius, Epidotas.
Combeferre, wearing an apron, was dressing the wounds: Bossuet
and Feuilly were making cartridges with the powder-flask picked
up by Gavroche on the dead corporal, and Bossuet said to Feuilly:
"We are soon to take the diligence for another planet";
Courfeyrac was disposing and arranging on some paving-stones which
he had reserved for himself near Enjolras, a complete arsenal,
his sword-cane, his gun, two holster pistols, and a cudgel, with
the care of a young girl setting a small dunkerque in order. Jean
Valjean stared silently at the wall opposite him.
An artisan was fastening Mother Hucheloup's big straw hat
on his head with a string, "for fear of sun-stroke,"
as he said.
The young men from the Cougourde d'Aix were chatting merrily
among themselves, as though eager to speak patois for the last
time.
Joly, who had taken Widow Hucheloup's mirror from the wall,
was examining his tongue in it.
Some combatants, having discovered a few crusts of rather
mouldy bread, in a drawer, were eagerly devouring them. Marius
was disturbed with regard to what his father was about to say
to him.
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