s, and she is a good
girl. I guarantee that she will fight well. Every good girl contains
a hero. As for Mother Hucheloup, she's an old warrior. Look at her
moustaches! She inherited them from her husband. A hussar indeed! She
will fight too. These two alone will strike terror to the heart of the
banlieue. Comrades, we shall overthrow the government as true as there
are fifteen intermediary acids between margaric acid and formic acid;
however, that is a matter of perfect indifference to me. Gentlemen, my
father always detested me because I could not understand mathematics.
I understand only love and liberty. I am Grantaire, the good fellow.
Having never had any money, I never acquired the habit of it, and the
result is that I have never lacked it; but, if I had been rich, there
would have been no more poor people! You would have seen! Oh, if the
kind hearts only had fat purses, how much better things would go! I
picture myself Jesus Christ with Rothschild's fortune! How much good he
would do! Matelote, embrace me! You are voluptuous and timid! You have
cheeks which invite the kiss of a sister, and lips which claim the kiss
of a lover."

"Hold your tongue, you cask!" said Courfeyrac.

Grantaire retorted:--

"I am the capitoul[52] and the master of the floral games!"

Enjolras, who was standing on the crest of the barricade, gun in hand,
raised his beautiful, austere face. Enjolras, as the reader knows, had
something of the Spartan and of the Puritan in his composition. He would
have perished at Thermopylae with Leonidas, and burned at Drogheda with
Cromwell.

"Grantaire," he shouted, "go get rid of the fumes of your wine somewhere
else than here. This is the place for enthusiasm, not for drunkenness.
Don't disgrace the barricade!"

This angry speech produced a singular effect on Grantaire. One would
have said that he had had a glass of cold water flung in his face. He
seemed to be rendered suddenly sober.

He sat down, put his elbows on a table near the window, looked at
Enjolras with indescribable gentleness, and said to him:--

"Let me sleep here."

"Go and sleep somewhere else," cried Enjolras.

But Grantaire, still keeping his tender and troubled eyes fixed on him,
replied:--

"Let me sleep here,--until I die."

Enjolras regarded him with disdainful eyes:--

"Grantaire, you are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of
living, and of dying."

Grantaire replied in a grave tone:--

"You w