Chapter 304 Four is less than five, one more

After the ordinary man had announced the "protest of the dead body" and had spoken in the name of the common will of the group, there was a strange cry of satisfaction and horror, sad in content but high in tone, as if victory had been won. : "Long live death! We all stay here!" "Why did you stay?" Enjolras asked. "Stay all! Stay all!" Enjolras added: "The terrain is superior and the barricades are strong. Thirty men are enough. Why sacrifice forty men?" Everyone answered: "Because no one wants to leave!" "Citizens," cried Enjolras, his voice trembling with irritation, "the republic is not rich in men, save manpower. Vanity is waste. To some, if their task is Leave here, then this kind of mission should be completed like other missions."

Enjolras was a man of principle, and among his fellow-creatures he possessed a supreme authority derived from the absolute.Despite his unlimited power, there was still a lot of murmurs about him. Enjolras was a perfect leader. When he saw people talking about it, he insisted on his opinion. He continued to ask in a haughty tone: "Whoever is afraid that there are only thirty people left, let him speak." The muttering grew louder. A voice in the crowd reminded: "Get out of here, it's easy to say, the whole barricade is surrounded." Enjolras said: "There is no siege over the vegetable market. The Rue de la Mondédoux is unguarded, and from the Rue des Missions you can go to the Market of the Holy Child."

Another voice in the crowd pointed out: "There you will be arrested. We will meet the suburban or regular self-defense forces, and they will see people in work clothes and caps and ask: 'Where are you from? Are you not? People in the barricades?’ They’ll tell you to hold out your hand, and if you smell gunpowder, shoot it.” Enjolras did not answer, but touched Combeferre on the shoulder with his hand, and they went down into the hall. After a while they came out of there again.Enjolras carried in his hands the four uniforms which he had ordered left behind, and Combeferre followed with belt and cap.

Enjolras said, "It's easy to slip into their ranks with the uniforms on. There's room for at least four people here." He threw the uniforms on the ground where the paving stones had been dug. None of these imperturbable listeners moved.Combeferre went on to speak. "Okay," he said, "everyone should have a little compassion. Do you know what the problem is? It's women. Do women exist? Do children exist? Do you have a group of children around you, using your feet? Mothers who push cradles? Raise your hand any one of you who hasn't seen a nursing mother. Yes! You will sacrifice yourselves, I tell you, and I will, but I don't want the ghosts of women to weep around me. You are willing to die, yes, but you can't hurt others. The suicide that will appear here is noble, but suicide has its limits and should not be expanded; besides, once the people around you are affected by suicide, it becomes murder. It should be for those blondes Think about the children, and those old men with white hair. Listen to me, Enjolras told me just now that he saw a candle burning in a small window on the sixth floor at the corner of Swan Street, and a trembling figure was reflected in the glass window. The head of a shivering old woman who seems to have been up all night waiting. This could be the mother of one of you. Then, this person should go quickly and go back to his mother and say: 'Mom, I'm back He just needs to rest assured that our work here will continue. When a person has to use labor to support his close relatives, he has no right to sacrifice. Otherwise, he is betraying the family. And those who have daughters and sisters, you Have you thought about it? You sacrificed yourselves and died, that's all right, but what about tomorrow? It's terrible for young girls to have no bread. Men can go begging, but women have to sell themselves. Oh! These lovely people The children are so elegant and gentle, they wear flowered bonnets, talk and sing, and fill the house with a chaste atmosphere, like fragrant flowers. These innocent virgins show that there are angels in the sky, this Jeanne , this Liz, this Mimi, these lovely and honest people you bless and be proud of, oh my God, they're starving! What do you want me to say? There's a human meat market, It's not just your ghostly hands trembling around them that will stop them from entering! Think of the streets, the crowded streets, the bare-chested and bare-armed people who come and go in front of the shop windows Women in the mud pit. These women were pure before. Those who have sisters think of their sisters. Poverty, prostitution, security police, St. Lazarus prison, these small and beautiful girls are corrupted, they are fragile Wonderful people, shy, graceful, virtuous, delicate. Fresher than the lilacs of May. Ah, you sacrificed yourselves! Ah, you are dead! Well, you want to save the people from the kingship , but handed over his own daughter to the security police. Friends, take note, be sympathetic. Women, these poor women, we are often used to think about them. We feel at ease that women are not educated on the same level as men , don't let them read, don't let them think and care about politics, and you also forbid them to go to the morgue tonight to identify your dead bodies? Well! Those who have families, please show kindness and come to us obediently Shake hands and get out of here, let's work in peace. I know, getting out of here meansCourage is also difficult, but the more difficult the more commendable it is.Someone said: 'I have a gun, I belong to the barricades, I deserve it, I'm not going. ' Deserves it, to put it bluntly.But, friends, there is still tomorrow, tomorrow you will no longer be in this world, but your family will still be there.What a pain!You see, a strong and lovely child with cheeks like apples, laughing and babbling and learning how to talk, how delicate he is when you kiss him, do you know what happens to him when he is abandoned?I have seen one, a little older, only this tall. His father died, and a few poor people showed mercy and took him in, but they often couldn't eat enough themselves.Children are always hungry.This is in winter.He did not cry.He was seen going to the stove where no fire had ever been lit, and the chimney, you know, was smeared with yellow clay.The boy peeled off some of the mud with his little finger and ate it.His breathing was hoarse, his face was pale, his legs were weak, and his stomach was distended.He said nothing.People asked him, but he didn't answer.he died.When he was dying, he was sent to the Nakai poor house, where I saw him when I was a resident doctor in the poor house.Now, if any of you are fathers, go for a blissful walk on Sunday, and hold the little hand of your own child in a strong hand.Ask every father to imagine having this child as his own.The poor little baby, I remember, as if right in front of my eyes, when he lay naked on the dissecting table, his subcutaneous ribs protruding like a grave under the grass of a cemetery.In the child's stomach I found something like dirt.There is ash between the teeth.Well, let's ask ourselves and let our conscience guide us!According to statistics, the mortality rate of abandoned children is fifty-five percent.I repeat, this is a question about wives, daughters and children.I'm not talking about you guys.Everybody knows who you are, God, everybody knows you're warriors.Everyone understands that you are sacrificing your life for a great cause, and feel happy and honored in your heart.Everyone knows that you feel yourselves chosen to make wholesome and solemn sacrifices, to do your part for victory.This is all very well, but you are not single, think of other people, don't be selfish. "

Everyone lowered their heads gloomily. What strange contradictions arise in the human heart in the most heroic moments!Combeferre himself was not an orphan when he said this.He thought of other people's mothers and forgot his own.He is ready to sacrifice himself.He is a "selfish man". Marius, starved and frenzied, abandoned one after another by all hope, was tormented by pain, the most miserable torment, filled with violent emotions, feeling that the end was approaching, and gradually fell into a vision of dementia. It is a state that often occurs on the deathbed of voluntary victims.

A physiologist could study in him that gradually increasing manic dementia, which has been understood and classified by science, which arises from extreme pain, which is similar to the ecstasy of ecstasy, and which also occurs in disappointment. Fascinating, as was the case with Marius.He sees everything as an outsider, and what is happening before him, as we say, is so remote to him that he knows the general situation but not the details.He saw people coming and going in the flames, and he heard voices as if from the abyss. But this incident stimulated him.The sight touched his soul a little and woke him up with a start.His only wish was to wait for death, and he was unwilling to change his mind, but in his desolate sleepwalking state, he also thought that his death would not prevent him from saving others.

He raised his voice and said: "Enjolras and Combeferre are right. Don't make unnecessary sacrifices. I agree with them, hurry up. Combeferre has spoken decisively. Those of you who have families, mothers, sisters, wives Yes, people with children stand up." No one moved. Marius added: "Married men and those with family burdens stand up!" His prestige is very high. Although Enjolras is the commander of the barricade, Marius is the savior. Enjolras said: "I order you!" "I beg you," said Marius. So these heroes, excited by Combeferre's words, shaken by Enjolras' orders, and moved by Marius' pleas, began to expose each other.A young man said to a middle-aged man: "Yes, you are the head of the family, let's go." The man replied: "It is you, you have two sisters to support." An unprecedented debate unfolded It depends on who is not driven out of the tomb gate.

"Hurry up," said Courfeyrac, "it will be too late in a quarter of an hour." Enjolras continued: "Citizens, this is a republic with universal suffrage. Elect for yourselves those who should leave." Everyone obeyed, and after about five minutes, five people who were unanimously designated stood up from the team. "There are five of them!" cried Marius. There are only four sets of newspapers in total. The five replied, "Well, one of them has to stay." And so began another generous argument.The question is who stays, everyone says there is no reason for anyone else to stay.

"You, you have a wife who loves you." "You, you have an old mother." "You, your parents are dead, what about three little brothers?" "You, you are the father of five children." "You, you are only seventeen years old, too young, you should live." These great revolutionary barricades are the meeting place of heroes, where the unthinkable is so common that it is not even surprising among them. Courfeyrac repeated: "Hurry up!" Someone in the crowd called out to Marius: "It's up to you to decide which one should stay."

The five said in unison: "Yes, you choose, we obey." Marius did not believe that anything could excite him more emotionally, but the thought of choosing a man to die made all his blood well up.His complexion was already pale, and it was impossible to become paler. He went up to the five who were smiling at him, each with eyes blazing like those of the heroes of old who stood up to Thermopylae, and all cried to Marius: "I! I! I!" Marius counted blankly, and there were indeed five!Then his eyes moved to the four uniforms below. At this moment, the fifth uniform, as if falling from the sky, fell on top of these four.

The fifth man was saved. Marius looked up and recognized M. Fauchelevent. Jean Valjean had just entered the barricade. Perhaps he had found out the situation, or by instinct, perhaps by chance, he came from Monddu Lane.Thanks to his National Guard uniform, he passed without a hitch. The sentinels of the rebels in the Rue de Mondedoux did not sound the alarm for a National Guard.The sentry made him enter the street thinking, "This may be a reinforcement, or a prisoner at worst." The moment was too serious for the sentry to be negligent. When Jean Valjean entered the bastion without attracting any attention, all eyes were fixed on the five men and the four uniforms chosen.Jean Valjean, who saw and heard everything, took off his uniform without making a sound, and threw it on the pile of uniforms. The excitement of the emotion at that time cannot be described. Bossuet asked: "Who is he?" Combeferre replied: "A man who saves all." Marius continued in a grave tone: "I know him." This assurance reassured everyone. Enjolras turned to Jean Valjean and said: "Citizen, we welcome you." He went on to say: "You know we're all going to die." Jean Valjean, without a word, helped the insurgent he had rescued into his uniform.