Page 2046 - les-miserables

C’est la faute a Voltaire; ’Tis the fault of Voltaire;
Je suis un petit oiseau, I’m a little bird,
C’est la faute a Rousseau.’ ’Tis the fault of Rousseau.’

A fifth bullet only succeeded in drawing from him a
third couplet.

‘Joie est mon caractere, “Joy is my character,
C’est la faute a Voltaire; ’Tis the fault of Voltaire;
Misere est mon trousseau, Misery is my trousseau,
C’est la faute a Rousseau.’ ’Tis the fault of Rousseau.’

Thus it went on for some time.
It was a charming and terrible sight. Gavroche, though
shot at, was teasing the fusillade. He had the air of being
greatly diverted. It was the sparrow pecking at the sports-
men. To each discharge he retorted with a couplet. They
aimed at him constantly, and always missed him. The Na-
tional Guardsmen and the soldiers laughed as they took aim
at him. He lay down, sprang to his feet, hid in the corner of
a doorway, then made a bound, disappeared, re-appeared,
scampered away, returned, replied to the grape-shot with
his thumb at his nose, and, all the while, went on pillaging
the cartouches, emptying the cartridge-boxes, and filling
his basket. The insurgents, panting with anxiety, followed
him with their eyes. The barricade trembled; he sang. He
was not a child, he was not a man; he was a strange gam-
in-fairy. He might have been called the invulnerable dwarf
of the fray. The bullets flew after him, he was more nimble

2046 Les Miserables