Page 1852 - les-miserables

CHAPTER IV

AN ATTEMPT TO CONSOLE

THE WIDOW HUCHELOUP

Bahorel, in ecstasies over the barricade, shouted:—
‘Here’s the street in its low-necked dress! How well it
looks!’
Courfeyrac, as he demolished the wine-shop to some ex-
tent, sought to console the widowed proprietress.
‘Mother Hucheloup, weren’t you complaining the other
day because you had had a notice served on you for infring-
ing the law, because Gibelotte shook a counterpane out of
your window?’
‘Yes, my good Monsieur Courfeyrac. Ah! good Heavens,
are you going to put that table of mine in your horror, too?
And it was for the counterpane, and also for a pot of flow-
ers which fell from the attic window into the street, that the
government collected a fine of a hundred francs. If that isn’t
an abomination, what is!’
‘Well, Mother Hucheloup, we are avenging you.’
Mother Hucheloup did not appear to understand very
clearly the benefit which she was to derive from these repri-

1852 Les Miserables