Going to the drapers at my usual time on Monday, I was somewhat concerned not to see Gavroche at all, but my worry was alleviated when he pounced on me as I was heading back through Les Halles.
"I'm afraid our waterman's not very cheerful, but he talks a great deal about money, and how times have changed, and I though you might find that interesting!" he began, without so much as a greeting.
"We're not doing small talk today?" I asked.
He grinned. "How-are-you-isn't-the-weather-nice-yes-I'm-fine-aren't-the-streets-busy-today-is-that-a-new-bonnet-my-how-you've-grown-since-last-I-saw-you! Happy?"
I rolled my eyes. "You know what I mean! And I'm not even wearing a bonnet!"
"Yes! So? There's more interesting things than the weather, and I only saw you yesterday evening!"
"Fair enough. I mean, most people would start a conversation with 'Hello' at the very least, but we can entirely do away with greetings if you like. You shall cause quite the revolution in language."
"Especially since I know more language now than I used to!"
"Certainly more language that's proper to be used in polite society."
"What? I speak proper French when I'm doing the book learning! None of the argot that we speak normally."
"Though I must say, I'd be interested in learning it."
"P'raps I can learn it you in return for you learning me the reading. Though you promised writing as well - can we do that one day?"
"Certainly at some point. You're picking up the reading very quickly. I'll see about getting a slate and chalk, so that we can practise writing without worrying about the cost of paper."
"There's always paving slabs!"
"Yes, though I'd rather not be arrested for graffitiing..."
"You just need to run faster!"
"Thank you for that. You can practise writing on paving slabs if you like, but I'm going to stick to trying to be respectable."
"Trying," he laughed.
"You know, I really don't know why I keep your company," I smiled. "It seems that you do nothing but demand things of me, kick me under the table, and now insult me! Perhaps I should break off our acquaintance once and for all!"
"No, don't! I'm nice to you really!"
"I know you are. And I shan't ever break off our acquaintance, for all that you kick me with the shoes that I bought you! Are we nearly here?" I asked, as we approached the Pont Neuf.
"Yep! Here we go," he led me to the stairs, to one of the boatmen, who must have been in his late forties or early fifties, grey haired and sturdy looking. After introductions, and the explanation of what I was doing, he gave me the following story:
"I have been a waterman eight-and-twenty years. I served my seven years duly and truly to my father. I had nothing but my keep and clothes, and that's the regular custom. We must serve seven years to be free of the river. It's the same now in our apprenticeship. No pay; and some masters will neither wash, nor clothe, nor mend a boy: and all that ought to be done by the master, by rights. Times and masters is harder than ever. After my time was out I went to sea, and was pretty lucky in my voyages. I was at sea in the merchant service five years. When I came back I bought a boat.
"My father helped me to start as a waterman on the Seine. The boat cost me 25 livres, it would carry eight fares. It cost 3 livres 9 francs to be made an apprentice, and about 100 francs to have a license to start for myself. In my father's time—from what I know when I was his apprentice, and what I've heard him say—a waterman's was a jolly life. He earned 18 to 22 francs a-day, and spent it accordingly. When I first started for myself, twenty-eight years ago, I made 15 to 17 francs a-day, more than I make in a week now, but that was before the new steamers. Many of us watermen saved money then, but now we're starving. These good times lasted for me nine or ten years, and in the middle of the good times I got married. I was justified, my earnings was good. But steamers have come in, and we're wrecked.
"Mine's a very bad trade—I make from 12 to 15 francs a-week, and that's all my wife and me has to live on. I've no children—thank the Lord for it: for I see that several of the watermen's children run about without shoes or stockings. On Thursday I earned 1 franc, 4 sous, and 17 centimes; on Friday, 1 franc, 3 sous, and 19 centimes; on Saturday, which was a very wet day, 1 franc, and yesterday, Sunday, 1 franc, 3 sous, and 9 centimes, and up to this day, Monday noon, I've earned nothing as yet. We work Sundays and all. My expenses when I'm out isn't much. My wife puts me up a bit of meat, or bacon and bread, if we have any in the house, and if I've earned anything I eat it with half-a-pint of beer, or a pint at times.
"Ours is hard work, and we requires support if we can only get it. If I bring no meat with me to the stairs, I bring some bread, and get half-a-pint of coffee with it, which is nine centimes. We have to slave hard in some weathers when we're at work, and indeed we're always either slaving or sitting quite idle. Our principal customers are people that want to go across in a hurry. At night—and we take night work two and two about, two dozen of us, in turn—we have double fares.
"There's very few country visitors take boats now to see sights upon the river. The swell of the steamers frightens them. Last Friday a lady and gentleman engaged me for 2 francs, but a steamer passed, and the lady said, 'Oh, look what a surf! I don't like to venture;' and so she wouldn't, and I sat five hours after that before I'd earned a centime. I remember the first steamer on the river. It was good for us men at first, as the passengers came ashore in boats. There was no steam-piers then, but now the big foreign steamers can come alongside, and ladies and cattle and all can step ashore on platforms. The good times is over, and we are ready now to snap at one another for five sous, when once we didn't care about a franc. We're beaten by engines and steamings that nobody can well understand, and wheels."
Having thanked the man, and paid him (he hadn't ever run across a former innkeeper called Thénardier), Gavroche and I continued across the bridge, and wandered along the Ile de la Cite, through the flower market, purely for the joy of seeing so many colours all bound up together in one place. Once back on the Pantheon side of the river, we made our customary stop in a baker's shop for bread and an apple puff each for lunch, before going and sitting on a bench in the Luxembourg gardens. He sat swinging his legs, observing everything and commenting now and then on what he saw, while I sat next to him, seaming a sleeve to the body of a shirt, and soaking up the early May sunshine. We must have looked something of a peculiar sight - me in my almost new clothes and respectable cap next to the ragged street urchin who, for all that he now had shoes, was somewhat lacking when it came to knees and elbows on his trousers and shirt. When I next had some spare money, I thought to myself, I'd either find him some new trousers, or at least enough material to patch up these ones.
I couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty about having spent money on myself, on such useless things as shoes and a bonnet, but as Courfeyrac and Musichetta both pointed out at the time, I was not spending an extortionate amount on them - their cost would not help anyone in the long term. And, as Musichetta had also pointed out, it was not a bad thing to want the odd pretty thing in life - sometimes, however silly it sounded, it could make the more difficult parts of life a little more bearable.
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Lisette
Fanfiction"Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come round again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes." - Terry Pratchett, Night Watch A retelling of part of Les Miserables, from about 1828-1832. Élise was born i...
