Page 217 - les-miserables

Castaing had not yet been; they treated themselves to a
game of ring-throwing under the quincunx of trees of the
grand fountain; they ascended Diogenes’ lantern, they gam-
bled for macaroons at the roulette establishment of the Pont
de Sevres, picked bouquets at Pateaux, bought reed-pipes
at Neuilly, ate apple tarts everywhere, and were perfectly
happy.
The young girls rustled and chatted like warblers escaped
from their cage. It was a perfect delirium. From time to time
they bestowed little taps on the young men. Matutinal in-
toxication of life! adorable years! the wings of the dragonfly
quiver. Oh, whoever you may be, do you not remember?
Have you rambled through the brushwood, holding aside
the branches, on account of the charming head which is
coming on behind you? Have you slid, laughing, down a
slope all wet with rain, with a beloved woman holding your
hand, and crying, ‘Ah, my new boots! what a state they are
in!’
Let us say at once that that merry obstacle, a shower, was
lacking in the case of this good-humored party, although
Favourite had said as they set out, with a magisterial and
maternal tone, ‘The slugs are crawling in the paths,—a sign
of rain, children.’
All four were madly pretty. A good old classic poet, then
famous, a good fellow who had an Eleonore, M. le Chevalier
de Labouisse, as he strolled that day beneath the chest-
nut-trees of Saint-Cloud, saw them pass about ten o’clock
in the morning, and exclaimed, ‘There is one too many of
them,’ as he thought of the Graces. Favourite, Blachevelle’s

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