Page 2065 - les-miserables

standing erect. The hours were colossal and seemed hours
of eternity. One has lived in death. Shadows have passed by.
What were they?
One has beheld hands on which there was blood; there
was a deafening horror; there was also a frightful silence;
there were open mouths which shouted, and other open
mouths which held their peace; one was in the midst of
smoke, of night, perhaps. One fancied that one had touched
the sinister ooze of unknown depths; one stares at some-
thing red on one’s finger nails. One no longer remembers
anything.
Let us return to the Rue de la Chanvrerie.
All at once, between two discharges, the distant sound of
a clock striking the hour became audible.
‘It is midday,’ said Combeferre.
The twelve strokes had not finished striking when Enjol-
ras sprang to his feet, and from the summit of the barricade
hurled this thundering shout:
‘Carry stones up into the houses; line the windowsills
and the roofs with them. Half the men to their guns, the
other half to the paving-stones. There is not a minute to be
lost.’
A squad of sappers and miners, axe on shoulder, had
just made their appearance in battle array at the end of the
street.
This could only be the head of a column; and of what col-
umn? The attacking column, evidently; the sappers charged
with the demolition of the barricade must always precede
the soldiers who are to scale it.

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