He approached Marius, who still lay livid and motionless, and to whom the physician had returned, and began once more to wring his hands.
The old man''s pallid lips moved as though mechanically, and permitted the passage of words that were barely audible, like breaths in the death agony:
"Ah! heartless lad!
Ah! clubbist!
Ah! wretch!
Ah!
Septembrist!"
Reproaches in the low voice of an agonizing man, addressed to a corpse.
Little by little, as it is always indispensable that internal eruptions should come to the light, the sequence of words returned, but the grandfather appeared no longer to have the strength to utter them, his voice was so weak, and extinct, that it seemed to come from the other side of an abyss:
"It is all the same to me, I am going to die too, that I am. And to think that there is not a hussy in Paris who would not have been delighted to make this wretch happy!
A scamp who, instead of amusing himself and enjoying life, went off to fight and get himself shot down like a brute!
And for whom?
Why?
For the Republic! Instead of going to dance at the Chaumiere, as it is the duty of young folks to do!
What''s the use of being twenty years old?
The Republic, a cursed pretty folly!
Poor mothers, beget fine boys, do!
Come, he is dead.
That will make two funerals under the same carriage gate. So you have got yourself arranged like this for the sake of General Lamarque''s handsome eyes!▽本▽作▽品▽由▽思▽兔▽在▽線▽閱▽讀▽網▽友▽整▽理▽上▽傳▽