had become
menacing, and, from menacing, was probably about to become desperate. In
proportion as the situation grew gloomy, the glow of heroism empurpled
the barricade more and more. Enjolras, who was grave, dominated it,
in the attitude of a young Spartan sacrificing his naked sword to the
sombre genius, Epidotas.

Combeferre, wearing an apron, was dressing the wounds: Bossuet and
Feuilly were making cartridges with the powder-flask picked up by
Gavroche on the dead corporal, and Bossuet said to Feuilly: "We are soon
to take the diligence for another planet"; Courfeyrac was disposing and
arranging on some paving-stones which he had reserved for himself near
Enjolras, a complete arsenal, his sword-cane, his gun, two holster
pistols, and a cudgel, with the care of a young girl setting a small
dunkerque in order. Jean Valjean stared silently at the wall opposite
him. An artisan was fastening Mother Hucheloup's big straw hat on his
head with a string, "for fear of sun-stroke," as he said. The young
men from the Cougourde d'Aix were chatting merrily among themselves,
as though eager to speak patois for the last time. Joly, who had taken
Widow Hucheloup's mirror from the wall, was examining his tongue in it.
Some combatants, having discovered a few crusts of rather mouldy bread,
in a drawer, were eagerly devouring them. Marius was disturbed with
regard to what his father was about to say to him.

CHAPTER XVIII--THE VULTURE BECOME PREY

We must insist upon one psychological fact peculiar to barricades.
Nothing which is characteristic of that surprising war of the streets
should be omitted.

Whatever may have been the singular inward tranquillity which we have
just mentioned, the barricade, for those who are inside it, remains,
none the less, a vision.

There is something of the apocalypse in civil war, all the mists of the
unknown are commingled with fierce flashes, revolutions are sphinxes,
and any one who has passed through a barricade thinks he has traversed a
dream.

The feelings to which one is subject in these places we have pointed out
in the case of Marius, and we shall see the consequences; they are both
more and less than life. On emerging from a barricade, one no longer
knows what one has seen there. One has been terrible, but one knows
it not. One has been surrounded with conflicting ideas which had human
faces; one's head has been in the light of the future. There were
corpses lying prone there, an