Enjolras smiles back at Joly, only a little rueful. Yes, all right, there's Javert; Javert shackled to his arm, restricting both of their freedom of motion, and drawing petty little drawings of guillotines and trials of the sort his comrades never granted Jean Prouvaire. And Joly and Bossuet shackled together, a perversion of their voluntary close company no matter how temporarily and jokingly it's meant.

But there's also this growing circle of fraternity, laughing and singing and jostling companionably together. Telling the truths of their hearts, brave and steadfast, and laughing in the face of all disapproval from the agents of oppression. Incomprehensibly artistic some of those truths might be, but that doesn't matter; they're Bahorel and Prouvaire's truths, not Enjolras's, and that's as it should be. And Joly with his warmth, and Bossuet with his sarcasms and jokes, and Courfeyrac out searching for a solution to free them, and bringing his verve and whirlwind charm and a moment's chatting to everyone he speaks to.

Who could ask for better friends than his? No one. He's honored to know them, always.

"It was a long poem of fairy lovers who defied their monarchs' tyranny," he tells Joly. The explanation is partly for Joly's sake, but rather more for Prouvaire and Bahorel, as mingled gratification and entertainment for them. "You'd understand the poetry better than I," because so would most people, "but he spoke very well of freedom and the defiance of love. There were some fine turns of phrase."

And then there were the bits about love and nature and the transcendent spirituality of gazing into a lover's eyes, but whatever.