Page 327 - les-miserables

los; liberals wore hats with wide brims, which were called
bolivars.
Eight or ten months, then, after that which is related in
the preceding pages, towards the first of January, 1823, on
a snowy evening, one of these dandies, one of these unem-
ployed, a ‘right thinker,’ for he wore a morillo, and was,
moreover, warmly enveloped in one of those large cloaks
which completed the fashionable costume in cold weath-
er, was amusing himself by tormenting a creature who was
prowling about in a ball-dress, with neck uncovered and
flowers in her hair, in front of the officers’ cafe. This dandy
was smoking, for he was decidedly fashionable.
Each time that the woman passed in front of him, he
bestowed on her, together with a puff from his cigar, some
apostrophe which he considered witty and mirthful, such
as, ‘How ugly you are!— Will you get out of my sight?—You
have no teeth!’ etc., etc. This gentleman was known as M.
Bamatabois. The woman, a melancholy, decorated spectre
which went and came through the snow, made him no re-
ply, did not even glance at him, and nevertheless continued
her promenade in silence, and with a sombre regularity,
which brought her every five minutes within reach of this
sarcasm, like the condemned soldier who returns under the
rods. The small effect which he produced no doubt piqued
the lounger; and taking advantage of a moment when her
back was turned, he crept up behind her with the gait of a
wolf, and stifling his laugh, bent down, picked up a hand-
ful of snow from the pavement, and thrust it abruptly into
her back, between her bare shoulders. The woman uttered a

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