Page 2062 - les-miserables

Combeferre distributed the cartridges from the basket
which he had brought in.
This gave each man fifteen rounds to fire.
Jean Valjean was still in the same place, motionless on
his stone post. When Combeferre offered him his fifteen
cartridges, he shook his head.
‘Here’s a rare eccentric,’ said Combeferre in a low voice to
Enjolras. ‘He finds a way of not fighting in this barricade.’
‘Which does not prevent him from defending it,’ re-
sponded Enjolras.
‘Heroism has its originals,’ resumed Combeferre.
And Courfeyrac, who had overheard, added:
‘He is another sort from Father Mabeuf.’
One thing which must be noted is, that the fire which
was battering the barricade hardly disturbed the interior.
Those who have never traversed the whirlwind of this sort
of war can form no idea of the singular moments of tran-
quillity mingled with these convulsions. Men go and come,
they talk, they jest, they lounge. Some one whom we know
heard a combatant say to him in the midst of the grape-shot:
‘We are here as at a bachelor breakfast.’ The redoubt of the
Rue de la Chanvrerie, we repeat, seemed very calm within.
All mutations and all phases had been, or were about to be,
exhausted. The position, from critical, had become menac-
ing, and, from menacing, was probably about to become
desperate. In proportion as the situation grew gloomy, the
glow of heroism empurpled the barricade more and more.
Enjolras, who was grave, dominated it, in the attitude of a
young Spartan sacrificing his naked sword to the sombre

2062 Les Miserables