Page 1869 - les-miserables

large model had fallen to his share, and he held it between
his legs. Gavroche, who had been, up to that moment, dis-
tracted by a hundred ‘amusing’ things, had not even seen
this man.
When he entered, Gavroche followed him mechanically
with his eyes, admiring his gun; then, all at once, when the
man was seated, the street urchin sprang to his feet. Any
one who had spied upon that man up to that moment, would
have seen that he was observing everything in the barricade
and in the band of insurgents, with singular attention; but,
from the moment when he had entered this room, he had
fallen into a sort of brown study, and no longer seemed to
see anything that was going on. The gamin approached this
pensive personage, and began to step around him on tiptoe,
as one walks in the vicinity of a person whom one is afraid
of waking. At the same time, over his childish countenance
which was, at once so impudent and so serious, so giddy and
so profound, so gay and so heart-breaking, passed all those
grimaces of an old man which signify: Ah bah! impossible!
My sight is bad! I am dreaming! can this be? no, it is not! but
yes! why, no! etc. Gavroche balanced on his heels, clenched
both fists in his pockets, moved his neck around like a bird,
expended in a gigantic pout all the sagacity of his lower lip.
He was astounded, uncertain, incredulous, convinced, daz-
zled. He had the mien of the chief of the eunuchs in the
slave mart, discovering a Venus among the blowsy females,
and the air of an amateur recognizing a Raphael in a heap
of daubs. His whole being was at work, the instinct which
scents out, and the intelligence which combines. It was evi-

1869