Page 1851 - les-miserables

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 enthusi-
asm, 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 will see.’
He stammered a few more unintelligible words, then his
head fell heavily on the table, and, as is the usual effect of the
second period of inebriety, into which Enjolras had rough-
ly and abruptly thrust him, an instant later he had fallen
asleep.

1851