Little Gavroche — Les Misérables

Eight or nine years after the convent years, people noticed on the Boulevard du Temple a little boy of eleven or twelve. He would have been the gamin already sketched, if, with the laugh of his age on his lips, he had not had a heart absolutely sombre and empty. He was muffled in a man's trousers that did not come from his father, and a woman's chemise that did not come from his mother. Charity had clothed him in rags. He still had a father and a mother. His father did not think of him. His mother did not love him. He was one of those children who have both and are orphans nevertheless.

The pavements were less hard to him than his mother's heart. His parents had despatched him into life with a kick. He simply took flight. He sang, played hopscotch, scraped the gutters, stole a little, laughed when called a rogue, and got angry when called a thief. He had no shelter, no bread, no fire, no love, but he was merry because he was free. When such children grow to be men, the millstones crush them. So long as they are small, a hole saves them.

Every two or three months he said he would go and see mamma. He crossed the bridges, reached the Salpetriere, and halted at the Gorbeau hovel, 50-52. The house that once held Valjean was inhabited again, room by room, by people who had no connection with each other. The most miserable were four in one attic: a father who had hired under the name Jondrette, a mother, and two grown daughters. The boy arrived and found a cold hearth and cold hearts. Whence come you? From the street. Whither are you going? Into the streets. His mother asked what he had come for. He lived in that absence like a pale plant in a cellar. He did not blame anyone. He did not know how a father and mother should be. His mother loved his sisters. On the boulevard he was called Little Gavroche, probably because his father's name was Jondrette. Certain wretched families break the thread.