The Friends of the ABC were to have a meeting that Sunday evening and the Musain was slowly filling up. At a quarter to eight, only Enjolras, Combeferre and Courfeyrac were missing. The already present lieutenants were passing the time with raucous conversation.
"You know," Prouvaire was saying, "I'm having terrible cravings."
"For what?" Bahorel laughed. "If it's that pretty edition of Agrippa d'Aubigné, I can't see why you cannot simply run back to the shop and get it. It was hardly expensive anyway."
"Ah," Prouvaire sighed, "that was a magnificent book. I'll be dreaming about that gorgeous Prussian blue cover, I have no doubt, and the golden lettering and the embossed violets… Ah, they drive me half mad with passion! I only wish I was friends with whoever its lucky buyer will be."
"Come on," Bossuet said sympathetically, "just go back now and get it now before someone else lays their filthy hands on it. We'll explain it to Enjolras somehow."
"I'd love to see you do that," Joly said, restraining a sneeze. "- Where's Prouvaire? - Ah, don't worry, Enjolras, he's simply buying poetry. He'll be back in a second. Oh, of course the revolution is more important, he knows that perfectly well."
"Enjolras reads poetry too," Prouvaire said. "I gave him William Blake to read and he really liked it, once he got a good dictionary and Combeferre to help him make sense of the English. He even asked me to translate it into French, especially The French Revolution, London and Auguries of Innocence. I'm working on it now."
Grantaire, previously lying on the table for all purposes dead to the world, now stirred at the mention of Enjolras.
"He'd like d'Aubigné too," he slurred. "The old chap has poems right up his alley."
And, sitting up straighter and projecting one arm in the air, he began to declaim:
"J'ai veu tant de fortes villes
Dont les clochers orguilleux
Percent la nuë et les cieux
De piramides subtiles,
La terreur de l'univers,
Braves de gendarmerie,
Superbes d'artillerie,
Furieuses en boulevers -"
Feuilly was sitting quietly in the corner, committing the names of all those poets to memory, so he could search for them in the Bibliothèque royale, if ever he finishes the latest order of fans.
He knew how hard it was to silence Grantaire once he got started, so he hurried to say to Prouvaire:
"What was that craving, then?"
"Eggnog," Prouvaire announced. "Good old eggnog, from my grandmother's recipe."
"Corsé, if possible," Bahorel winked.
"Absolutely!" Grantaire exclaimed. "Eggnog is vile and the only thing to make it bearable is lashes and lashes of cognac."
"Definitely not," Joly protested, "raw egg yolks make you horribly ill."
"They certainly do not!" Prouvaire flared up. "Are you suggesting that my grandmother - "
"In any case," Bossuet interceded, patting him on the back, "neither Enjolras nor Combeferre will approve of something that sounds so much like Corsica."
"Enjolras has long ago learnt to take nothing seriously if it happens in these premises," a quiet voice said right behind him.
Enjolras was standing right behind them, flanked by a bemused-looking Combeferre, and Courfeyrac who seemed to have difficulties stifling his laugher. The combination of dim lighting and loud conversation meant that no one had noticed them come in.
"That's where you're wrong, Enjolras," Prouvaire said earnestly. "We've been discussing matters of the utmost importance."
"So it seems," Combeferre said dryly.
Enjolras only smiled in response. He walked over to his place at the top of the table, in his usual graceful stride that looked far more like gliding, followed by Combeferre and Courfeyrac that sat down on either side.
"Now, if you don't mind," he said, "eggnog and poetry will have to wait. I have important news to tell you."
