Page 1279 - les-miserables

He was grave and abrupt. His glance swept rapidly over
all the crannies of the garret. One would have said that he
was a general making the final preparation at the moment
when the battle is on the point of beginning.
The mother, who had not said a word so far, now rose and
demanded in a dull, slow, languid voice, whence her words
seemed to emerge in a congealed state:—
‘What do you mean to do, my dear?’
‘Get into bed,’ replied the man.
His intonation admitted of no deliberation. The mother
obeyed, and threw herself heavily on one of the pallets.
In the meantime, a sob became audible in one corner.
‘What’s that?’ cried the father.
The younger daughter exhibited her bleeding fist, with-
out quitting the corner in which she was cowering. She had
wounded herself while breaking the window; she went off,
near her mother’s pallet and wept silently.
It was now the mother’s turn to start up and exclaim:—
‘Just see there! What follies you commit! She has cut her-
self breaking that pane for you!’
‘So much the better!’ said the man. ‘I foresaw that.’
‘What? So much the better?’ retorted his wife.
‘Peace!’ replied the father, ‘I suppress the liberty of the
press.’
Then tearing the woman’s chemise which he was wear-
ing, he made a strip of cloth with which he hastily swathed
the little girl’s bleeding wrist.
That done, his eye fell with a satisfied expression on his
torn chemise.

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