Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [381]
Besides, Cosette could not succeed in recalling what Marius had said to her on the subject of this absence which was to last but one day, or what explanation he had given her about it.
Cosette dressed herself very quickly, combed and arranged her hair, which was a very simple thing at that time, when women did not puff out their ringlets and plaits with cushions and rolls, and did not put crinoline in their hair. Then she opened the window and looked all about, hoping to discover something of the street, a corner of a house, a patch of pavement, and to be able to watch for Marius there. But she could see nothing of the street. The back-yard was surrounded with high walls, and a few gardens only were in view. Cosette pronounced these gardens hideous; for the first time in her life she found flowers ugly. The least bit of a street gutter would have been more to her mind. She finally began to look at the sky, as if she thought that Marius might come that way also.
Suddenly, she melted into tears. Not that it was fickleness of soul; but, hopes cut off by faintness of heart, such was her situation. She vaguely felt some indefinable horror. Things float in the air in fact. She said to herself that she was not sure of anything; that to lose from sight, was to lose; and the idea that Marius might indeed return to her from the sky, appeared no longer charming, but dismal.
Then, such are these clouds, calmness returned to her, and hope, and a sort of smile, unconscious, but trusting in God.
Everybody was still in bed in the house. A rural silence reigned. No shutter had been opened. The porter’s box was closed. Toussaint was not up, and Cosette very naturally thought that her father was asleep. She must have suffered indeed, and she must have been still suffering, for she said to herself that her father had been unkind; but she counted on Marius. The eclipse of such a light was entirely impossible. At intervals she heard at some distance a kind of sullen jar, and she said: “It is singular that people are opening and shutting porte-cochères so early.” It was the cannon battering the barricade.
10 (11 )
THE SHOT WHICH MISSES NOTHING AND KILLS NOBODY
THE FIRE of the assailants continued. The musketry and the grapeshot alternated, without much damage indeed. The top of the façade of Corinth alone suffered; the window of the second story and the dormer windows on the roof, riddled with shot and ball, were slowly demolished. The combatants who were posted there, had to withdraw. Besides, this is the art of attacking barricades; to tease for a long time, in order to exhaust the ammunition of the insurgents if they commit the blunder of replying. When it is perceived, from the slackening of their fire, that they have no longer either balls or powder, the assault is made. Enjolras did not fall into this snare; the barricade did not reply.
At each platoon fire, Gavroche thrust out his cheek with his tongue, a mark of lofty disdain:
“That’s right,” said he, “tear up the cloth. We want lint.”
Courfeyrac jested with the grapeshot about its lack of effect, and said to the cannon:
“You are getting diffuse, my goodman.”
In a battle people force themselves upon acquaintance, as at a ball. It is probable that this silence of the redoubt began to perplex the besiegers, and make them fear some unlooked-for accident, and that they felt the need of seeing through that heap of paving-stones and knowing what was going on behind that impassable wall, which was receiving their fire without answering it. The insurgents suddenly perceived a helmet shining in the sun upon a neighbouring roof. An army engineer was backed up against a tall chimney, and seemed to be there as a