Page 1012 - les-miserables

CHAPTER XIII

LITTLE GAVROCHE

Eight or nine years after the events narrated in the sec-
ond part of this story, people noticed on the Boulevard du
Temple, and in the regions of the Chateau-d’Eau, a little
boy eleven or twelve years of age, who would have realized
with tolerable accuracy that ideal of the gamin sketched out
above, if, with the laugh of his age on his lips, he had not
had a heart absolutely sombre and empty. This child was
well muffled up in a pair of man’s trousers, but he did not
get them from his father, and a woman’s chemise, but he
did not get it from his mother. Some people or other had
clothed him in rags out of charity. Still, he had a father and a
mother. But his father did not think of him, and his mother
did not love him.
He was one of those children most deserving of pity,
among all, one of those who have father and mother, and
who are orphans nevertheless.
This child never felt so well as when he was in the street.
The pavements were less hard to him than his mother’s
heart.
His parents had despatched him into life with a kick.

1012 Les Miserables