Part 5 Book 1 Chapter 2 What Is to Be Done in the Abyss if O

Sixteen years count in the subterranean education of insurrection, and June, 1848, knew a great deal more about it than June, 1832. So the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie was only an outline, and an embryo compared to the two colossal barricades which we have just sketched; but it was formidable for that epoch.

The insurgents under the eye of Enjolras, for Marius no longer looked after anything, had made good use of the night. The barricade had been not only repaired, but augmented. They had raised it two feet. Bars of iron planted in the pavement resembled lances in rest. All sorts of rubbish brought and added from all directions complicated the external confusion. The redoubt had been cleverly made over, into a wall on the inside and a thicket on the outside.

The staircase of paving-stones which permitted one to mount it like the wall of a citadel had been reconstructed.

The barricade had been put in order, the tap-room disencumbered, the kitchen appropriated for the ambulance, the dressing of the wounded completed, the powder scattered on the ground and on the tables had been gathered up, bullets run, cartridges manufactured, lint scraped, the fallen weapons re-distributed, the interior of the redoubt cleaned, the rubbish swept up, corpses removed.

They laid the dead in a heap in the Mondetour lane, of which they were still the masters. The pavement was red for a long time at that spot. Among the dead there were four National Guardsmen of the suburbs. Enjolras had their uniforms laid aside.

Enjolras had advised two hours of sleep. Advice from Enjolras was a command. Still, only three or four took advantage of it.

Feuilly employed these two hours in engraving this inscription on the wall which faced the tavern:--

LONG LIVE THE PEOPLES!

These four words, hollowed out in the rough stone with a nail, could be still read on the wall in 1848.

The three women had profited by the respite of the night to vanish definitely; which allowed the insurgents to breathe more freely.

They had found means of taking refuge in some neighboring house.

The greater part of the wounded were able, and wished, to fight still. On a litter of mattresses and trusses of straw in the kitchen, which had been converted into an ambulance, there were five men gravely wounded, two of whom were municipal guardsmen. The municipal guardsmen were attended to first.

In the tap-room there remained only Mabeuf under his black cloth and Javert bound to his post.

"This is the hall of the dead," said Enjolras.

In the interior of this hall, barely lighted by a candle at one end, the mortuary table being behind the post like a horizontal bar, a sort of vast, vague cross resulted from Javert erect and Mabeuf lying prone.

The pole of the omnibus, although snapped off by the fusillade, was still sufficiently upright to admit of their fastening the flag to it.

Enjolras, who possessed that quality of a leader, of always doing what he said, attached to this staff the bullet-ridden and bloody coat of the old man's.

No repast had been possible. There was neither bread nor meat. The fifty men in the barricade had speedily exhausted the scanty provisions of the wine-shop during the sixteen hours which they had passed there. At a given moment, every barricade inevitably becomes the raft of la Meduse. They were obliged to resign themselves to hunger. They had then reached the first hours of that Spartan day of the 6th of June when, in the barricade Saint-Merry, Jeanne, surrounded by the insurgents who demanded bread, replied to all combatants crying: "Something to eat!" with: "Why? It is three o'clock; at four we shall be dead."

As they could no longer eat, Enjolras forbade them to drink. He interdicted wine, and portioned out the brandy.

They had found in the cellar fifteen full bottles hermetically sealed. Enjolras and Combeferre examined them. Combeferre when he came up again said:--"It's the old stock of Father Hucheloup, who began business as a grocer."--"It must be real wine," observed Bossuet. "It's lucky that Grantaire is asleep. If he were on foot, there would be a good deal of difficulty in saving those bottles."--Enjolras, in spite of all murmurs, placed his veto on the fifteen bottles, and, in order that no one might touch them, he had them placed under the table on which Father Mabeuf was lying.

About two o'clock in the morning, they reckoned up their strength. There were still thirty-seven of them.

The day began to dawn. The torch, which had been replaced in its cavity in the pavement, had just been extinguished. The interior of the barricade, that species of tiny courtyard appropriated from the street, was bathed in shadows, and resembled, athwart the vague, twilight horror, the deck of a disabled ship. The combatants, as they went and came, moved about there like black forms. Above that terrible nesting-place of gloom the stories of the mute houses were lividly outlined; at the very top, the chimneys stood palely out. The sky was of that charming, undecided hue, which may be white and may be blue. Birds flew about in it with cries of joy. The lofty house which formed the back of the barricade, being turned to the East, had upon its roof a rosy reflection. The morning breeze ruffled the gray hair on the head of the dead man at the third-story window.

"I am delighted that the torch has been extinguished," said Courfeyrac to Feuilly. "That torch flickering in the wind annoyed me. It had the appearance of being afraid. The light of torches resembles the wisdom of cowards; it gives a bad light because it trembles."

Dawn awakens minds as it does the birds; all began to talk.

Joly, perceiving a cat prowling on a gutter, extracted philosophy from it.

"What is the cat?" he exclaimed. "It is a corrective. The good God, having made the mouse, said:`Hullo! I have committed a blunder.' And so he made the cat. The cat is the erratum of the mouse. The mouse, plus the cat, is the proof of creation revised and corrected."

Combeferre, surrounded by students and artisans, was speaking of the dead, of Jean Prouvaire, of Bahorel, of Mabeuf, and even of Cabuc, and of Enjolras' sad severity. He said:--

"Harmodius and Aristogiton, Brutus, Chereas, Stephanus, Cromwell, Charlotte Corday, Sand, have all had their moment of agony when it was too late. Our hearts quiver so, and human life is such a mystery that, even in the case of a civic murder, even in a murder for liberation, if there be such a thing, the remorse for having struck a man surpasses the joy of having served the human race."

And, such are the windings of the exchange of speech, that, a moment later, by a transition brought about through Jean Prouvaire's verses, Combeferre was comparing the translators of the Georgics, Raux with Cournand, Cournand with Delille, pointing out the passages translated by Malfilatre, particularly the prodigies of Caesar's death; and at that word, Caesar, the conversation reverted to Brutus.

"Caesar," said Combeferre, "fell justly. Cicero was severe towards Caesar, and he was right. That severity is not diatribe. When Zoilus insults Homer, when Maevius insults Virgil, when Vise insults Moliere, when Pope insults Shakspeare, when Frederic insults Voltaire, it is an old law of envy and hatred which is being carried out; genius attracts insult, great men are always more or less barked at. But Zoilus and Cicero are two different persons. Cicero is an arbiter in thought, just as Brutus is an arbiter by the sword. For my own part, I blame that last justice, the blade; but, antiquity admitted it. Caesar, the violator of the Rubicon, conferring, as though they came from him, the dignities which emanated from the people, not rising at the entrance of the senate, committed the acts of a king and almost of a tyrant, regia ac pene tyrannica. He was a great man; so much the worse, or so much the better; the lesson is but the more exalted. His twenty-three wounds touch me less than the spitting in the face of Jesus Christ. Caesar is stabbed by the senators; Christ is cuffed by lackeys. One feels the God through the greater outrage."

Bossuet, who towered above the interlocutors from the summit of a heap of paving-stones, exclaimed, rifle in hand:--

"Oh Cydathenaeum, Oh Myrrhinus, Oh Probalinthus, Oh graces of the AEantides! Oh! Who will grant me to pronounce the verses of Homer like a Greek of Laurium or of Edapteon?"

暴动，在地下进行了十六年的教育！到了一八四八年，比起一八三二年六月便精炼得多了。因此麻厂街的街垒和我们前面所描述的两座巨大的街垒相比，仅是一张草图，一个雏形，但在当时，它算是很可怕的了。

安灼拉亲眼看着那些起义者，他们充分利用夜晚的时间，因为当时马吕斯对一切都不闻不问。那街垒非但进行了修理，而且还扩大加高了两尺。那些插在铺路石块缝里的铁钎，好象一排防护的长枪，从各处搬来的残物堆积在上面，使这些混乱的外形更加复杂化。这棱堡的外表是乱七八糟的，可是朝里的这一面却很巧妙地变成了一堵墙。

他们修复了用铺路石堆砌的台阶，借以登上象城堡一样的墙顶。

街垒的内部也整理了一番，出清了地下室，把厨房改成战地病房，包扎了伤员，收集了散在地上和桌上的炸药，熔化了弹头，制造了子弹，理齐了包扎伤员的碎布，分配了倒在地上的武器，打扫了棱堡的内部，收拾了残余物品，搬走了尸体。

死尸被堆到还在控制范围内的蒙德都巷子里。那儿路面早已是血迹斑斑了。尸体中有四具是郊区国民自卫军的士兵。

安灼拉吩咐把他们的制服收放在一边。

安灼拉劝告大家睡两小时。安灼拉的劝告就是命令，可是只有三四个人接受。弗以伊利用这两个小时在面对酒店的墙上刻了下面的题铭：

人民万岁！

这四个字是用钉子在石块上凿出来的，到一八四八年，在这堵墙上还能看得很清楚。

那三个女人趁着夜间的暂时停火干脆溜走了，这使那些起义者松了一口气。

她们设法躲到邻近的一所屋子里去。

大部分的伤员还能继续作战，这也是他们的意愿。在那临时成为战地病房的厨房里，用草荐和草捆铺的垫子上面躺着五个重伤员，其中两个是保安警察。保安警察首先被敷药包伤。

在地下室里只剩下黑布盖着的马白夫和绑在柱子上的沙威。

安灼拉说：“这里是停尸间。”

在这间屋子的内部，一支蜡烛的暗淡光线在摇曳着，那停尸台放在柱子后面进深处，好象一根横梁，因此站着的沙威和躺着的马白夫，好象形成一个大十字架。

那辆长途马车的辕木，虽已被炮火轰断，但依然竖立在那儿，可以在上面悬挂一面旗帜。

安灼拉具有那种说到做到的首领的作风，他把已牺牲老人的一件被子弹打穿了的血衣挂了上去。

开饭已是不可能了。没有面包，也没有肉。街垒中五十来个人，在十六个小时内，很快就把酒店里有限的储存物吃得一干二净。到一定时候，坚持着的街垒不免要成为墨杜萨木排了。大家免不了要忍饥挨饿。六月六日，在这个斯巴达式的日子的凌晨，在圣美里街垒中，让娜被那些叫嚷要面包的起义者围绕着，她对他们说：“还要吃？现在是三点钟，到四点钟我们都已经死了。”

正因为没有吃的，安灼拉禁止大家喝酒，他不准大家喝葡萄酒，只定量配给些烧酒。

他们在酒窖中发现了封存完好的满满的十五瓶酒，安灼拉和公白飞检查了这些瓶子。公白飞走上来的时候说：“这是于什鲁大爷的存底，他以前是饮食杂货店的老板。”博须埃提出看法：“这肯定是真正的好葡萄酒。幸好格朗泰尔睡着了，否则这些瓶子就很难保住。”安灼拉不理睬这些闲话，对这十五个瓶子他下了禁令，为了不让任何人碰，为了使这些瓶子象圣品似的保留着，他吩咐放在躺着马白夫公公的桌子底下。

清晨两点钟左右，他们点了一下人数，还有三十七个人。

东方开始发白。不久前他们刚熄灭了放置在石块凹穴处的火把。在街垒内部，这个由街道围进来的小院子被黑暗笼罩着，通过令人有些寒悚的暗淡曙光，看起来好象一艘残损船只的甲板。战士们来来去去，犹如黑影在移动。在这可怕的黑窝上面，各层寂静的楼房开始在青灰色的背景上显出轮廓，不过高处的一些烟囱却变成灰白色了。天空呈现出一种悦目的似白近蓝的色调。鸟群一面飞一面愉快地啼鸣。街垒后面的那所高楼是向阳的，它的屋顶反映着粉红色的霞光。在四楼的一个小窗口，晨风吹拂着一个死人的灰白头发。

古费拉克对弗以伊说：“灭了火把我很高兴。在风中飘忽的火焰叫人烦闷，它好象怀着恐惧。那火把的光芒就象懦夫的智慧，它摇曳着，所以才照而不亮。”

曙光唤醒了鸟群和人的心灵，大家都在谈天。

若李看见一只猫在屋檐上徘徊，就作出了哲学的分析。

他高声说：“猫是什么？这是一剂校正的药。上帝创造了老鼠，就说：‘哟！我做错了一件事。’于是他又创造了猫，猫是老鼠的勘误表。老鼠和猫就是造物者重新阅读他的原稿后的修正。”

公白飞被学生和工人围着，在谈论一些已死的人。谈到让·勃鲁维尔、巴阿雷、马白夫，谈到勒·卡布克以及安灼拉深沉的悲痛。他说：

“阿尔莫迪乌斯和阿利斯托吉通、布鲁图斯①、谢列阿②、史特方纽斯、克伦威尔③、夏绿蒂·科尔黛④、桑得⑤，他们事后都曾有过苦闷的时刻。我们的心是如此不稳定而人的生命又是如此神秘，所以，即使为了公民利益或人的自由所进行的一次谋杀事件（如果存在这类谋杀的话），杀人后的悔恨心情仍超过造福人类而感到的欣慰。”

闲聊时话题经常改变，一分钟后，公白飞从让·勃鲁维尔的诗转到把翻译《农事诗》⑥的罗和古南特相比，又把古南特和特利尔相比，还指出几节马尔非拉特的译文，特别是关于因恺撒之死而出现的奇迹。谈到恺撒，话题又回到了布鲁图斯。

①布鲁图斯（Brutus），罗马共和派领袖，此处指刺杀他的义父恺撒。

②谢列阿（Chéréas），罗马法官，杀死暴君卡利古拉（Caligula）而被诛。

③克伦威尔（1599-1658），英国革命领袖，处死暴君查理七世。

④夏绿蒂·科尔黛（CharlotteCorday，1768-1793），刺死马拉者。

⑤桑得（Sand，1795-1820），德国大学生，因谋杀反动作家科采布（KotzeBbue）而被诛。

⑥《农事诗》（Géorgiques），古罗马诗人维吉尔的作品。

公白飞说：“恺撒的灭亡是公正的。西塞罗对恺撒是严厉的，他做得对。这种严厉不是谩骂。佐伊尔辱骂荷马，梅维吕斯辱骂维吉尔，维塞辱骂莫里哀，蒲伯辱骂莎士比亚，弗莱隆辱骂伏尔泰，这是一条古老的规律棗妒忌和憎恨在起作用；有才华的人难免招致诽谤，伟人多少要听到狗吠。可是佐伊尔和西塞罗是两回事，西塞罗用思想来裁判，布鲁图斯以利剑来裁判。至于我，我斥责后面这种裁判，可是古代却允许这种方式。恺撒是破坏鲁比肯协议的人，他把人民给他的高官显职当作他自己给的，在元老院议员进来时也不起立，正如欧忒洛庇①所说：‘所作所为如帝王，类似暴君，象暴君一样执政。’②他是一个伟人，很遗憾，或者是好极了，教训是巨大的。我对他身受的二十三刀比向耶稣脸上吐唾沫更无动于衷。恺撤被元老院议员刺死，耶稣挨了奴仆的巴掌。受尽人间侮辱的莫过于上帝。”

①欧忒洛庇（Eutrope），公元前四世纪拉丁历史学家。

②“所作所为如帝王，类似暴君，象暴君一样执政。”原文为拉丁文poenètyrannica。

博须埃站在一个石堆上，在众人之上，他手中握着卡宾枪，向谈论的人大声说：

“啊，西达特伦，啊，密利吕斯，啊，勃罗巴兰特，啊，美丽的安蒂德！使我象洛约姆或艾达普台翁那儿的希腊人一样，朗诵荷马的诗吧！”

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