I feel like every Les Mis translation is taking a part in a competition: “How violent and macabre can we make Javert sound in One Day More?”
If “wetting themselves with blood” isn’t enough for you, there are other options…
Swedish!Javert wants to rinse children’s clothes in blood; Icelandic!Javert wishes the cowards to be quickly slaughtered; Spanish!Javert shares the thought that watering France with blood is a good idea; Finnish!Javert wants to end the games of these schoolboys by dipping them in blood; Polish!Javert wants to let them dance in their own blood.
Just saying, javerts around the world do need to chill.
And according to a Danish friend Danish!Javert may be talking about drowning schoolboys in blood.
German!Javert, meanwhile, has found all the other Javerts’ missing chill: the line is, depending on version, “we won’t be fooled by anybody” or “we’ll send them home bloody”.
hah, I love that! It makes me imagine a whole bunch of Javerts getting arguing with each other. “ THEY WILL WET THEMSELVES WITH BLOOD! “ “WE WILL DROWN THESE SCHOOLBOYS IN BLOOD!” “ LET US SLAUGHTER THE COWARDS” “ AND THEN THEY CAN DANCE IN THEIR OWN BLOOD!”
“ …or maybe we could just like…talk it out…? No…? Okay, how about we just smack them and send them home?”
*crickets*
“ …send them home…in blood?”