It’s time to skim the pot.
Forward march, men!
Let an impure blood inundate the furrows!
I give my days to my country, I shall never see my concubine more, Nini, finished, yes, Nini?
But never mind! Long live joy!
Let’s fight, crebleu!
I’ve had enough of despotism.”
At that moment, the horse of a lancer of the National Guard having fallen, Gavroche laid his pistol on the pavement, and picked up the man, then he assisted in raising the horse.
After which he picked up his pistol and resumed his way.
In the Rue de Thorigny, all was peace and silence.
This apathy, peculiar to the Marais, presented a contrast with the vast surrounding uproar.
Four gossips were chatting in a doorway.
Scotland has trios of witches, Paris has quartettes of old gossiping hags; and the
“Thou shalt be King” could be quite as mournfully hurled at Bonaparte in the Carrefour Baudoyer as at Macbeth on the heath of Armuyr.
The croak would be almost identical.
The gossips of the Rue de Thorigny busied themselves only with their own concerns. Three of them were portresses, and the fourth was a rag-picker with her basket on her back.
All four of them seemed to be standing at the four corners of old age, which are decrepitude, decay, ruin, and sadness.
The rag-picker was humble.
In this open-air society, it is the rag-picker who salutes and the portress who patronizes.
This is caused by the corner for refuse, which is fat or lean, according to the will of the portresses, and after the fancy of the one who makes the heap.
There may be kindness in the broom.
This rag-picker was a grateful creature, and she smiled, with what a smile! on the three portresses.
Things of this nature were said:—
“Ah, by the way, is your cat still cross?”
“Good gracious, cats are naturally the enemies of dogs, you know.
It’s the dogs who complain.”
“And people also.”
“But the fleas from a cat don’t go after people.”
“That’s not the trouble, dogs are dangerous.
I remember one year when there were so many dogs that it was necessary to put it in the newspapers.
That was at the time when there were at the Tuileries great sheep that drew the little carriage of the King of Rome.
Do you remember the King of Rome?”
“I liked the Duc de Bordeau better.”
“I knew Louis XVIII.
I prefer Louis XVIII.”
“Meat is awfully dear, isn’t it, Mother Patagon?”
“Ah! don’t mention it, the butcher’s shop is a horror.
A horrible horror—one can’t afford anything but the poor cuts nowadays.”
Here the rag-picker interposed:—
“Ladies, business is dull.
The refuse heaps are miserable.
No one throws anything away any more.
They eat everything.”
“There are poorer people than you, la Vargouleme.”
“Ah, that’s true,” replied the rag-picker, with deference, “I have a profession.”
A pause succeeded, and the rag-picker, yielding to that necessity for boasting which lies at the bottom of man, added:—
“In the morning, on my return home, I pick over my basket, I sort my things.
This makes heaps in my room.
I put the rags in a basket, the cores and stalks in a bucket, the linen in my cupboard, the woollen stuff in my commode, the old papers in the corner of the window, the things that are good to eat in my bowl, the bits of glass in my fireplace, the old shoes behind my door, and the bones under my bed.”
Gavroche had stopped behind her and was listening.