Page 1136 - les-miserables

pher at the Piraeus. Learn this in addition; the wineshops of
the ragpickers are called bibines; the most celebrated are the
Saucepan and The Slaughter-House. Hence, tea-gardens,
goguettes, caboulots, bouibuis, mastroquets, bastringues,
manezingues, bibines of the rag-pickers, caravanseries of
the caliphs, I certify to you, I am a voluptuary, I eat at Rich-
ard’s at forty sous a head, I must have Persian carpets to roll
naked Cleopatra in! Where is Cleopatra? Ah! So it is you,
Louison. Good day.’
[24] The slang term for a painter’s assistant.
Thus did Grantaire, more than intoxicated, launch into
speech, catching at the dish-washer in her passage, from his
corner in the back room of the Cafe Musain.
Bossuet, extending his hand towards him, tried to im-
pose silence on him, and Grantaire began again worse than
ever:—
‘Aigle de Meaux, down with your paws. You produce on
me no effect with your gesture of Hippocrates refusing Ar-
taxerxes’ bric-a-brac. I excuse you from the task of soothing
me. Moreover, I am sad. What do you wish me to say to
you? Man is evil, man is deformed; the butterfly is a success,
man is a failure. God made a mistake with that animal. A
crowd offers a choice of ugliness. The first comer is a wretch,
Femme—woman—rhymes with infame,— infamous. Yes, I
have the spleen, complicated with melancholy, with home-
sickness, plus hypochondria, and I am vexed and I rage, and
I yawn, and I am bored, and I am tired to death, and I am
stupid! Let God go to the devil!’
‘Silence then, capital R!’ resumed Bossuet, who was

1136 Les Miserables