Page 605 - les-miserables

dazzling in front of one; to feel in one’s breast lungs which
breathe, a heart which beats, a will which reasons; to speak,
think, hope, love; to have a mother, to have a wife, to have
children; to have the light—and all at once, in the space of
a shout, in less than a minute, to sink into an abyss; to fall,
to roll, to crush, to be crushed; to see ears of wheat, flowers,
leaves, branches; not to be able to catch hold of anything; to
feel one’s sword useless, men beneath one, horses on top of
one; to struggle in vain, since one’s bones have been broken
by some kick in the darkness; to feel a heel which makes
one’s eyes start from their sockets; to bite horses’ shoes in
one’s rage; to stifle, to yell, to writhe; to be beneath, and to
say to one’s self, ‘But just a little while ago I was a living
man!’
There, where that lamentable disaster had uttered its
death-rattle, all was silence now. The edges of the hollow
road were encumbered with horses and riders, inextricably
heaped up. Terrible entanglement! There was no longer any
slope, for the corpses had levelled the road with the plain,
and reached the brim like a well-filled bushel of barley. A
heap of dead bodies in the upper part, a river of blood in the
lower part—such was that road on the evening of the 18th of
June, 1815. The blood ran even to the Nivelles highway, and
there overflowed in a large pool in front of the abatis of trees
which barred the way, at a spot which is still pointed out.
It will be remembered that it was at the opposite point,
in the direction of the Genappe road, that the destruction
of the cuirassiers had taken place. The thickness of the lay-
er of bodies was proportioned to the depth of the hollow

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