Without Permission

Being a gift for my Lovely Wife on the occasion of our 15th Wedding Anniversary: 52 pieces of cut paper, arranged to define the intrisically defiant form of Bahorel from Les Misérables, whom my wife loves so much as a character that she has, essentially, married him. She seems to have thought I had posed him like this deliberately, because I am informed that this is how I myself stand without thinking about it; my inspiration was, rather, "standing in such a way as to eat an egg with belligerent defiance". I suppose I just naturally make breakfast more exciting.



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Behind Feuilly marched, or rather bounded, Bahorel, who was like a fish in water in a riot. He wore a scarlet waistcoat, and indulged in the sort of words which break everything. His waistcoat astounded a passer-by, who cried in bewilderment: --

"Here are the reds!"

"The reds, the reds!" retorted Bahorel. "A queer kind of fear, bourgeois. For my part I don't tremble before a poppy, the little red hat inspires me with no alarm. Take my advice, bourgeois, let's leave fear of the red to horned cattle."

He caught sight of a corner of the wall on which was placarded the most peaceable sheet of paper in the world, a permission to eat eggs, a Lenten admonition addressed by the Archbishop of Paris to his "flock."

Bahorel exclaimed: --

" 'Flock'; a polite way of saying geese."

And he tore the charge from the nail. This conquered Gavroche. From that instant Gavroche set himself to study Bahorel.

"Bahorel," observed Enjolras, "you are wrong. You should have let that charge alone, he is not the person with whom we have to deal, you are wasting your wrath to no purpose. Take care of your supply. One does not fire out of the ranks with the soul any more than with a gun."

"Each one in his own fashion, Enjolras," retorted Bahorel. "This bishop's prose shocks me; I want to eat eggs without being permitted. Your style is the hot and cold; I am amusing myself. Besides, I'm not wasting myself, I'm getting a start; and if I tore down that charge, Hercle! 'twas only to whet my appetite."

--Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (Volume 4, Book Eleventh, Chapter 4)