Gavroche Outside — Les Misérables

Courfeyrac suddenly caught sight of some one at the base of the barricade, outside in the street, amid the bullets. Gavroche had taken a bottle basket from the wine-shop, had made his way out through the cut, and was quietly engaged in emptying the full cartridge-boxes of the National Guardsmen who had been killed on the slope. What are you doing there? I'm filling my basket, citizen. Don't you see the grape-shot? Well, it is raining. What then? Courfeyrac shouted to him to come in. Instanter, said Gavroche. And with a single bound he plunged into the street. Fannicot's company had left behind it a trail of bodies. Twenty corpses lay scattered on the pavement. Twenty boxes meant a provision of cartridges for the barricade. The smoke in the street was like a fog between two rows of lofty houses. This obscurity, which had probably been calculated on by the commanders of the assault, was useful to Gavroche. Beneath the folds of this veil, and thanks to his small size, he could advance tolerably far without being seen. He rifled the first seven or eight cartridge-boxes without much danger. He crawled, galloped on all fours, took his basket in his teeth, and emptied each box as a monkey opens a nut. They did not dare to shout to him to return, for fear of attracting attention to him.

By dint of advancing, he reached a point where the fog became transparent. The sharpshooters suddenly pointed out to each other something moving through the smoke. At the moment when Gavroche was relieving a sergeant of his cartridges, a bullet struck the body. They are killing my dead men for me. A second bullet struck a spark from the pavement. A third overturned his basket. Gavroche looked and saw that this came from the men of the suburbs. He sprang to his feet, stood erect, his hands on his hips, and sang. Then he picked up his basket, replaced the cartridges which had fallen from it, without missing a single one, and, advancing towards the fusillade, set about plundering another box. A fourth bullet missed him. A fifth only succeeded in drawing from him another couplet. Thus it went on. Gavroche, though shot at, was teasing the fusillade. It was the sparrow pecking at the sportsmen. They aimed at him constantly, and always missed him. The National Guardsmen and the soldiers laughed as they took aim. He lay down, sprang to his feet, hid in a doorway, disappeared, reappeared, replied to the grape-shot with his thumb at his nose, and all the while went on 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 gamin-fairy. He played a fearful game of hide and seek with death.

One bullet, however, better aimed or more treacherous than the rest, finally struck the will-o'-the-wisp of a child. Gavroche was seen to stagger, then he sank to the earth. The whole barricade gave vent to a cry. But there was something of Antaeus in that pygmy; for the gamin to touch the pavement is the same as for the giant to touch the earth. Gavroche had fallen only to rise again. He remained in a sitting posture, a long thread of blood streaked his face, he raised both arms in the air, glanced in the direction whence the shot had come, and began to sing that he had fallen to the earth, it was the fault of Voltaire, with his nose in the gutter, it was the fault of. He did not finish. A second bullet from the same marksman stopped him short. This time he fell face downward on the pavement, and moved no more. This grand little soul had taken its flight.