Brick Club 4.11.3, 4.11.4
Get wreckt, asshole barber.
This chapter starts off with a real bang, forcing me to read the words “paternal intestines of the elephant” with no warning.
I think that Georges Pontmercy is, in fact, the only officer of Napoleon’s army who really got the short end of the stick because here’s another legionnaire doing quite well, getting a shave while the insurrection revs up and reminiscing about the glory days. Gavroche does the world a good turn, he “who had the two mômes on his mind, could not resist the desire to bid him a good-day, and had sent a stone through the sash.” Good sir, we salute you, doing the Lord’s work on the streets. “What has anybody done to that gamin,” pah!
Gavroche is traveling toward the plot steadily but surely and distributing karma as he goes like a particularly enthusiastic newspaper delivery boy. Comeuppance for you! Street wisdom for you! Revolutionary ditty for you!
Can I just get a hell yeah for this excellent illustration that is all I ever wanted? Gavroche leading the triumvirate, get on that Eugène Delacroix. Is it rain or light coming down? Or both? It’s just so good.
Gavroche meets Enjolras and (most of) his lieutenants, who are fantastically kitted out. The image of Combeferre with a pistol on each hip and the musket from a National Guardsmen is badass, his coat is definitely flapping majestically in the revolutionary wind and he’s backlit by the fires of the émeute. And of course Courfeyrac has a sword-cane, honestly, thank God.
“They came from Quai Morland cravatless, hatless, breathless, soaked by rain, lightning in their eyes.” Squad, squad, squad. Bahorel’s crimson waistcoat is so frightening it sends a passerby reeling in fear and Bahorel laughs. Gavroche is instantly starstruck, “this conquered Gavroche…this tearer-down of posters had his esteem.” Oh, Gavroche, you should see Courfeyrac burn a charter.
