Page 2101 - les-miserables

CHAPTER XXIII

ORESTES FASTING AND

PYLADES DRUNK

At length, by dint of mounting on each other’s backs, aid-
ing themselves with the skeleton of the staircase, climbing
up the walls, clinging to the ceiling, slashing away at the
very brink of the trap-door, the last one who offered resis-
tance, a score of assailants, soldiers, National Guardsmen,
municipal guardsmen, in utter confusion, the majority
disfigured by wounds in the face during that redoubtable
ascent, blinded by blood, furious, rendered savage, made an
irruption into the apartment on the first floor. There they
found only one man still on his feet, Enjolras. Without car-
tridges, without sword, he had nothing in his hand now but
the barrel of his gun whose stock he had broken over the
head of those who were entering. He had placed the billiard
table between his assailants and himself; he had retreated
into the corner of the room, and there, with haughty eye,
and head borne high, with this stump of a weapon in his
hand, he was still so alarming as to speedily create an empty
space around him. A cry arose:

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