Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [386]
At that period, certain adjoining houses, in the Rue Madame and the Rue d‘Enfer, had keys to the Luxembourg Gardens which the occupants used when the gates were closed, a favour since suppressed. This father and this son probably came from one of those houses.
The two poor little fellows saw “this Monsieur” coming, and hid themselves a little more closely.
He was a bourgeois. The same, perhaps, whom one day Marius, in spite of his love fever, had heard, near this same great basin, counselling his son “to beware of extremes.” He had an affable and lofty manner, and a mouth which, never closing, was always smiling. This mechanical smile, produced by too much jaw and too little skin, shows the teeth rather than the soul. The child, with his bitten bun, which he did not finish, seemed stuffed. The boy was dressed as a National Guard, on account of the émeute, and the father remained in citizen’s clothes for the sake of prudence.
The father and son stopped near the basin in which the two swans were sporting. This bourgeois appeared to have a special admiration for the swans. He resembled them in this respect, that he walked like them.
For the moment, the swans were swimming, which is their principal talent, and they were superb.
If the two poor little fellows had listened, and had been of an age to understand, they might have gathered up the words of a grave man. The father said to the son:
“The sage lives content with little. Behold me, my son. I do not love pomp. Never am I seen with coats bedizened with gold and gems; I leave this false splendour to badly organised minds.”
Here the deep sounds, which came from the direction of the markets, broke out with a redoubling of bell and of uproar.
“What is that?” inquired the child.
The father answered:
“They are saturnalia.”
Just then he noticed the two little ragged fellows standing motionless behind the green cottage of the swans.
“There is the beginning,” said he.
And after a moment, he added:
“Anarchy is entering this garden.”
Meanwhile the son bit the bun, spit it out, and suddenly began to cry.
“What are you crying for?” asked the father.
“I am not hungry any more,” said the child.
The father’s smile grew broad.
“You don’t need to be hungry, to eat a cake.”
“I am sick of my cake. It is stale.”
“You don’t want any more of it?”
“No.”
The father showed him the swans.
“Throw it to those palmipeds.”
The child hesitated. Not to want any more of one’s cake, is no reason for giving it away.
The father continued.
“Be humane. We must take pity on the animals.”
And, taking the cake from his son, he threw it into the basin.
The cake fell near the edge.
The swans were at a distance, in the centre of the basin, and busy with some prey. They saw neither the bourgeois nor the bun.
The bourgeois, feeling that the cake was in danger of being lost, and aroused by this useless shipwreck, devoted himself to a telegraphic agitation which finally attracted the attention of the swans.
They perceived something floating, veered about like the ships they are, and directed themselves slowly towards the bun with that serene majesty which is fitting to white animals.
“Cygnes [swans] understand signes [signs],” said the bourgeois, delighted at his wit.
Just then the distant tumult in the city suddenly increased again. This time it was ominous. There are some gusts of wind that speak more distinctly than others. That which blew at that moment brought clearly the rolls of drums, shouts, platoon firing, and the dismal replies of the tocsin and the cannon. This was coincident with a black cloud which abruptly shut out the sun.
The swans had not yet reached the bun.
“Come home,” said the father, “they are attacking the Tuileries.”
He seized his son’s hand again. Then he continued:
“From the Tuileries to the Luxembourg, there is only the distance which separates royalty from the