Her body was lost in the darkness, and only her head was visible.
One would have pronounced her a mask of Decrepitude carved out by a light from the night.
The boy surveyed her.
“Madame,” said he, “does not possess that style of beauty which pleases me.”
He then pursued his road, and resumed his song:—
“Le roi Coupdesabot
S’en allait a la chasse,
A la chasse aux corbeaux—”
At the end of these three lines he paused.
He had arrived in front of No. 50-52, and finding the door fastened, he began to assault it with resounding and heroic kicks, which betrayed rather the man’s shoes that he was wearing than the child’s feet which he owned.
In the meanwhile, the very old woman whom he had encountered at the corner of the Rue du Petit-Banquier hastened up behind him, uttering clamorous cries and indulging in lavish and exaggerated gestures.
“What’s this?
What’s this?
Lord God!
He’s battering the door down!
He’s knocking the house down.”
The kicks continued.
The old woman strained her lungs. “Is that the way buildings are treated nowadays?” All at once she paused.
She had recognized the gamin.
“What! so it’s that imp!”
“Why, it’s the old lady,” said the lad.
“Good day, Bougonmuche.
I have come to see my ancestors.”
The old woman retorted with a composite grimace, and a wonderful improvisation of hatred taking advantage of feebleness and ugliness, which was, unfortunately, wasted in the dark:—
“There’s no one here.”
“Bah!” retorted the boy, “where’s my father?”
“At La Force.”
“Come, now!
And my mother?”
“At Saint-Lazare.”
“Well!
And my sisters?”
“At the Madelonettes.”
The lad scratched his head behind his ear, stared at Ma’am Bougon, and said:—
“Ah!”
Then he executed a pirouette on his heel; a moment later, the old woman, who had remained on the door-step, heard him singing in his clear, young voice, as he plunged under the black elm-trees, in the wintry wind:—
“Le roi Coupdesabot
S’en allait a la chasse,
A la chasse aux corbeaux,
Monte sur deux echasses.
Quand on passait dessous,
On lui payait deux sous."
VOLUME IV.—SAINT-DENIS. THE IDYL IN THE RUE PLUMET AND THE EPIC IN THE RUE SAINT-DENIS
BOOK FIRST.—A FEW PAGES OF HISTORY
CHAPTER I—WELL CUT
1831 and 1832, the two years which are immediately connected with the Revolution of July, form one of the most peculiar and striking moments of history.
These two years rise like two mountains midway between those which precede and those which follow them.
They have a revolutionary grandeur.
Precipices are to be distinguished there.
The social masses, the very assizes of civilization, the solid group of superposed and adhering interests, the century-old profiles of the ancient French formation, appear and disappear in them every instant, athwart the storm clouds of systems, of passions, and of theories.