Page 1831 - les-miserables

This room, lighted by a single narrow window, and by
a lamp that was always burning, had the air of a garret.
All the four-footed furniture comported itself as though
it had but three legs— the whitewashed walls had for their
only ornament the following quatrain in honor of Mame
Hucheloup:—

Elle etonne a dix pas, elle epouvente a deux,
Une verrue habite en son nez hasardeux;
On tremble a chaque instant qu’elle ne vous la mouche
Et qu’un beau jour son nez ne tombe dans sa bouche.

She astounds at ten paces, she frightens at two, a wart
inhabits her hazardous nose; you tremble every instant lest
she should blow it at you, and lest, some fine day, her nose
should tumble into her mouth.

This was scrawled in charcoal on the wall.
Mame Hucheloup, a good likeness, went and came from
morning till night before this quatrain with the most per-
fect tranquillity. Two serving-maids, named Matelote and
Gibelotte,[49] and who had never been known by any other
names, helped Mame Hucheloup to set on the tables the jugs
of poor wine, and the various broths which were served to
the hungry patrons in earthenware bowls. Matelote, large,
plump, redhaired, and noisy, the favorite ex-sultana of the
defunct Hucheloup, was homelier than any mythological
monster, be it what it may; still, as it becomes the servant to
always keep in the rear of the mistress, she was less homely

1831