Page 2021 - les-miserables

had, up to that moment, taken no part in anything that was
going on. He did not appear to hear the combatants saying
around him: ‘Here is a gun that is doing nothing.’
At the order issued by Enjolras, he rose.
It will be remembered that, on the arrival of the rabble
in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, an old woman, foreseeing the
bullets, had placed her mattress in front of her window.
This window, an attic window, was on the roof of a six-story
house situated a little beyond the barricade. The mattress,
placed cross-wise, supported at the bottom on two poles for
drying linen, was upheld at the top by two ropes, which, at
that distance, looked like two threads, and which were at-
tached to two nails planted in the window frames. These
ropes were distinctly visible, like hairs, against the sky.
‘Can some one lend me a double-barrelled rifle?’ said
Jean Valjean.
Enjolras, who had just re-loaded his, handed it to him.
Jean Valjean took aim at the attic window and fired.
One of the mattress ropes was cut.
The mattress now hung by one thread only.
Jean Valjean fired the second charge. The second rope
lashed the panes of the attic window. The mattress slipped
between the two poles and fell into the street.
The barricade applauded.
All voices cried:
‘Here is a mattress!’
‘Yes,’ said Combeferre, ‘but who will go and fetch it?’
The mattress had, in fact, fallen outside the barricade,
between besiegers and besieged. Now, the death of the ser-

2021