Les Misérables

CHAPTER VII – COSETTE SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE STRANGER IN THE DARK

Cosette, as we have said, was not frightened.

The man accosted her. He spoke in a voice that was grave and almost bass.

“My child, what you are carrying is very heavy for you.”

Cosette raised her head and replied: —

“Yes, sir.”

“Give it to me,” said the man; “I will carry it for you.”

Cosette let go of the bucket-handle. The man walked along beside her.

“It really is very heavy,” he muttered between his teeth. Then he added: —

“How old are you, little one?”

“Eight, sir.”

“And have you come from far like this?”

“From the spring in the forest.”

“Are you going far?”

“A good quarter of an hour’s walk from here.”

The man said nothing for a moment; then he remarked abruptly: —

“So you have no mother.”

“I don’t know,” answered the child.

Before the man had time to speak again, she added: —

“I don’t think so. Other people have mothers. I have none.”

And after a silence she went on: —

“I think that I never had any.”

The man halted; he set the bucket on the ground, bent down and placed both hands on the child’s shoulders, making an effort to look at her and to see her face in the dark.

Cosette’s thin and sickly face was vaguely outlined by the livid light in the sky.

“What is your name?” said the man.

“Cosette.”

The man seemed to have received an electric shock. He looked at her once more; then he removed his hands from Cosette’s shoulders, seized the bucket, and set out again.

After a moment he inquired: —

“Where do you live, little one?”

“At Montfermeil, if you know where that is.”

“That is where we are going?”

“Yes, sir.”

He paused; then began again: —

“Who sent you at such an hour to get water in the forest?”

“It was Madame Thénardier.”

The man resumed, in a voice which he strove to render indifferent, but in which there was, nevertheless, a singular tremor: —

“What does your Madame Thénardier do?”

“She is my mistress,” said the child. “She keeps the inn.”

“The inn?” said the man. “Well, I am going to lodge there to-night. Show me the way.”

“We are on the way there,” said the child.

The man walked tolerably fast. Cosette followed him without difficulty. She no longer felt any fatigue. From time to time she raised her eyes towards the man, with a sort of tranquillity and an indescribable confidence. She had never been taught to turn to Providence and to pray; nevertheless, she felt within her something which resembled hope and joy, and which mounted towards heaven.

Several minutes elapsed. The man resumed: —

“Is there no servant in Madame Thénardier’s house?”

“No, sir.”

“Are you alone there?”

“Yes, sir.”

Another pause ensued. Cosette lifted up her voice: —

“That is to say, there are two little girls.”

“What little girls?”

“Ponine and Zelma.”

This was the way the child simplified the romantic names so dear to the female Thénardier.

“Who are Ponine and Zelma?”

“They are Madame Thénardier’s young ladies; her daughters, as you would say.”

“And what do those girls do?”

“Oh!” said the child, “they have beautiful dolls; things with gold in them, all full of affairs. They play; they amuse themselves.”

“All day long?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you?”

“I? I work.”

“All day long?”

The child raised her great eyes, in which hung a tear, which was not visible because of the darkness, and replied gently: —

“Yes, sir.”

After an interval of silence she went on: —

“Sometimes, when I have finished my work and they let me, I amuse myself, too.”

“How do you amuse yourself?”

“In the best way I can. They let me alone; but I have not many playthings. Ponine and Zelma will not let me play with their dolls. I have only a little lead sword, no longer than that.”

The child held up her tiny finger.

“And it will not cut?”

“Yes, sir,” said the child; “it cuts salad and the heads of flies.”

They reached the village. Cosette guided the stranger through the streets. They passed the bakeshop, but Cosette did not think of the bread which she had been ordered to fetch. The man had ceased to ply her with questions, and now preserved a gloomy silence.

When they had left the church behind them, the man, on perceiving all the open-air booths, asked Cosette: —

“So there is a fair going on here?”

“No, sir; it is Christmas.”

As they approached the tavern, Cosette timidly touched his arm: —

“Monsieur?”

“What, my child?”

“We are quite near the house.”

“Well?”

“Will you let me take my bucket now?”

“Why?”

“If Madame sees that some one has carried it for me, she will beat me.”

The man handed her the bucket. An instant later they were at the tavern door.

CHAPTER VIII – THE UNPLEASANTNESS OF RECEIVING INTO ONE’S HOUSE A POOR MAN WHO MAY BE A RICH MAN

Cosette could not refrain from casting a sidelong glance at the big doll, which was still displayed at the toy-merchant’s; then she knocked. The door opened. The Thénardier appeared with a candle in her hand.

“Ah! so it’s you, you little wretch! good mercy, but you’ve taken your time! The hussy has been amusing herself!”

“Madame,” said Cosette, trembling all over, “here’s a gentleman who wants a lodging.”

The Thénardier speedily replaced her gruff air by her amiable grimace, a change of aspect common to tavern-keepers, and eagerly sought the newcomer with her eyes.

“This is the gentleman?” said she.

“Yes, Madame,” replied the man, raising his hand to his hat.

Wealthy travellers are not so polite. This gesture, and an inspection of the stranger’s costume and baggage, which the Thénardier passed in review with one glance, caused the amiable grimace to vanish, and the gruff mien to reappear. She resumed dryly: —

“Enter, my good man.”

The “good man” entered. The Thénardier cast a second glance at him, paid particular attention to his frock-coat, which was absolutely threadbare, and to his hat, which was a little battered, and, tossing her head, wrinkling her nose, and screwing up her eyes, she consulted her husband, who was still drinking with the carters. The husband replied by that imperceptible movement of the forefinger, which, backed up by an inflation of the lips, signifies in such cases: A regular beggar. Thereupon, the Thénardier exclaimed: —

“Ah! see here, my good man; I am very sorry, but I have no room left.”

“Put me where you like,” said the man; “in the attic, in the stable. I will pay as though I occupied a room.”

“Forty sous.”

“Forty sous; agreed.”

“Very well, then!”

“Forty sous!” said a carter, in a low tone, to the Thénardier woman; “why, the charge is only twenty sous!”

“It is forty in his case,” retorted the Thénardier, in the same tone. “I don’t lodge poor folks for less.”

“That’s true,” added her husband, gently; “it ruins a house to have such people in it.”

In the meantime, the man, laying his bundle and his cudgel on a bench, had seated himself at a table, on which Cosette made haste to place a bottle of wine and a glass. The merchant who had demanded the bucket of water took it to his horse himself. Cosette resumed her place under the kitchen table, and her knitting.

The man, who had barely moistened his lips in the wine which he had poured out for himself, observed the child with peculiar attention.

Cosette was ugly. If she had been happy, she might have been pretty. We have already given a sketch of that sombre little figure. Cosette was thin and pale; she was nearly eight years old, but she seemed to be hardly six. Her large eyes, sunken in a sort of shadow, were almost put out with weeping. The corners of her mouth had that curve of habitual anguish which is seen in condemned persons and desperately sick people. Her hands were, as her mother had divined, “ruined with chilblains.” The fire which illuminated her at that moment brought into relief all the angles of her bones, and rendered her thinness frightfully apparent. As she was always shivering, she had acquired the habit of pressing her knees one against the other. Her entire clothing was but a rag which would have inspired pity in summer, and which inspired horror in winter. All she had on was hole-ridden linen, not a scrap of woollen. Her skin was visible here and there and everywhere black and blue spots could be descried, which marked the places where the Thénardier woman had touched her. Her naked legs were thin and red. The hollows in her neck were enough to make one weep. This child’s whole person, her mien, her attitude, the sound of her voice, the intervals which she allowed to elapse between one word and the next, her glance, her silence, her slightest gesture, expressed and betrayed one sole idea, – fear.

Fear was diffused all over her; she was covered with it, so to speak; fear drew her elbows close to her hips, withdrew her heels under her petticoat, made her occupy as little space as possible, allowed her only the breath that was absolutely necessary, and had become what might be called the habit of her body, admitting of no possible variation except an increase. In the depths of her eyes there was an astonished nook where terror lurked.

Her fear was such, that on her arrival, wet as she was, Cosette did not dare to approach the fire and dry herself, but sat silently down to her work again.

The expression in the glance of that child of eight years was habitually so gloomy, and at times so tragic, that it seemed at certain moments as though she were on the verge of becoming an idiot or a demon.

As we have stated, she had never known what it is to pray; she had never set foot in a church. “Have I the time?” said the Thénardier.

The man in the yellow coat never took his eyes from Cosette.

All at once, the Thénardier exclaimed: —

“By the way, where’s that bread?”

Cosette, according to her custom whenever the Thénardier uplifted her voice, emerged with great haste from beneath the table.

She had completely forgotten the bread. She had recourse to the expedient of children who live in a constant state of fear. She lied.

“Madame, the baker’s shop was shut.”

“You should have knocked.”

“I did knock, Madame.”

“Well?”

“He did not open the door.”

“I’ll find out to-morrow whether that is true,” said the Thénardier; “and if you are telling me a lie, I’ll lead you a pretty dance. In the meantime, give me back my fifteen-sou piece.”

Cosette plunged her hand into the pocket of her apron, and turned green. The fifteen-sou piece was not there.

“Ah, come now,” said Madame Thénardier, “did you hear me?”

Cosette turned her pocket inside out; there was nothing in it. What could have become of that money? The unhappy little creature could not find a word to say. She was petrified.

“Have you lost that fifteen-sou piece?” screamed the Thénardier, hoarsely, “or do you want to rob me of it?”

At the same time, she stretched out her arm towards the cat-o’-nine-tails which hung on a nail in the chimney-corner.

This formidable gesture restored to Cosette sufficient strength to shriek: —

“Mercy, Madame, Madame! I will not do so any more!”

The Thénardier took down the whip.

In the meantime, the man in the yellow coat had been fumbling in the fob of his waistcoat, without any one having noticed his movements. Besides, the other travellers were drinking or playing cards, and were not paying attention to anything.

Cosette contracted herself into a ball, with anguish, within the angle of the chimney, endeavoring to gather up and conceal her poor half-nude limbs. The Thénardier raised her arm.

“Pardon me, Madame,” said the man, “but just now I caught sight of something which had fallen from this little one’s apron pocket, and rolled aside. Perhaps this is it.”

At the same time he bent down and seemed to be searching on the floor for a moment.

“Exactly; here it is,” he went on, straightening himself up.

And he held out a silver coin to the Thénardier.

“Yes, that’s it,” said she.

It was not it, for it was a twenty-sou piece; but the Thénardier found it to her advantage. She put the coin in her pocket, and confined herself to casting a fierce glance at the child, accompanied with the remark, “Don’t let this ever happen again!”

Cosette returned to what the Thénardier called “her kennel,” and her large eyes, which were riveted on the traveller, began to take on an expression such as they had never worn before. Thus far it was only an innocent amazement, but a sort of stupefied confidence was mingled with it.

“By the way, would you like some supper?” the Thénardier inquired of the traveller.

He made no reply. He appeared to be absorbed in thought.

“What sort of a man is that?” she muttered between her teeth. “He’s some frightfully poor wretch. He hasn’t a sou to pay for a supper. Will he even pay me for his lodging? It’s very lucky, all the same, that it did not occur to him to steal the money that was on the floor.”

In the meantime, a door had opened, and Éponine and Azelma entered.

They were two really pretty little girls, more bourgeois than peasant in looks, and very charming; the one with shining chestnut tresses, the other with long black braids hanging down her back, both vivacious, neat, plump, rosy, and healthy, and a delight to the eye. They were warmly clad, but with so much maternal art that the thickness of the stuffs did not detract from the coquetry of arrangement. There was a hint of winter, though the springtime was not wholly effaced. Light emanated from these two little beings. Besides this, they were on the throne. In their toilettes, in their gayety, in the noise which they made, there was sovereignty. When they entered, the Thénardier said to them in a grumbling tone which was full of adoration, “Ah! there you are, you children!”

Then drawing them, one after the other to her knees, smoothing their hair, tying their ribbons afresh, and then releasing them with that gentle manner of shaking off which is peculiar to mothers, she exclaimed, “What frights they are!”

They went and seated themselves in the chimney-corner. They had a doll, which they turned over and over on their knees with all sorts of joyous chatter. From time to time Cosette raised her eyes from her knitting, and watched their play with a melancholy air.

Éponine and Azelma did not look at Cosette. She was the same as a dog to them. These three little girls did not yet reckon up four and twenty years between them, but they already represented the whole society of man; envy on the one side, disdain on the other.

The doll of the Thénardier sisters was very much faded, very old, and much broken; but it seemed nonetheless admirable to Cosette, who had never had a doll in her life, a real doll, to make use of the expression which all children will understand.

All at once, the Thénardier, who had been going back and forth in the room, perceived that Cosette’s mind was distracted, and that, instead of working, she was paying attention to the little ones at their play.

“Ah! I’ve caught you at it!” she cried. “So that’s the way you work! I’ll make you work to the tune of the whip; that I will.”

The stranger turned to the Thénardier, without quitting his chair.

“Bah, Madame,” he said, with an almost timid air, “let her play!”

Such a wish expressed by a traveller who had eaten a slice of mutton and had drunk a couple of bottles of wine with his supper, and who had not the air of being frightfully poor, would have been equivalent to an order. But that a man with such a hat should permit himself such a desire, and that a man with such a coat should permit himself to have a will, was something which Madame Thénardier did not intend to tolerate. She retorted with acrimony: —

“She must work, since she eats. I don’t feed her to do nothing.”

“What is she making?” went on the stranger, in a gentle voice which contrasted strangely with his beggarly garments and his porter’s shoulders.

The Thénardier deigned to reply: —

“Stockings, if you please. Stockings for my little girls, who have none, so to speak, and who are absolutely barefoot just now.”

The man looked at Cosette’s poor little red feet, and continued: —

“When will she have finished this pair of stockings?”

“She has at least three or four good days’ work on them still, the lazy creature!”

“And how much will that pair of stockings be worth when she has finished them?”

The Thénardier cast a glance of disdain on him.

“Thirty sous at least.”

“Will you sell them for five francs?” went on the man.

“Good heavens!” exclaimed a carter who was listening, with a loud laugh; “five francs! the deuce, I should think so! five balls!”

Thénardier thought it time to strike in.

“Yes, sir; if such is your fancy, you will be allowed to have that pair of stockings for five francs. We can refuse nothing to travellers.”

“You must pay on the spot,” said the Thénardier, in her curt and peremptory fashion.

“I will buy that pair of stockings,” replied the man, “and,” he added, drawing a five-franc piece from his pocket, and laying it on the table, “I will pay for them.”

Then he turned to Cosette.

“Now I own your work; play, my child.”

The carter was so much touched by the five-franc piece, that he abandoned his glass and hastened up.

“But it’s true!” he cried, examining it. “A real hind wheel! and not counterfeit!”

Thénardier approached and silently put the coin in his pocket.

The Thénardier had no reply to make. She bit her lips, and her face assumed an expression of hatred.

In the meantime, Cosette was trembling. She ventured to ask: —

“Is it true, Madame? May I play?”

“Play!” said the Thénardier, in a terrible voice.

“Thanks, Madame,” said Cosette.

And while her mouth thanked the Thénardier, her whole little soul thanked the traveller.

Thénardier had resumed his drinking; his wife whispered in his ear: —

“Who can this yellow man be?”

“I have seen millionaires with coats like that,” replied Thénardier, in a sovereign manner.

Cosette had dropped her knitting, but had not left her seat. Cosette always moved as little as possible. She picked up some old rags and her little lead sword from a box behind her.

Éponine and Azelma paid no attention to what was going on. They had just executed a very important operation; they had just got hold of the cat. They had thrown their doll on the ground, and Éponine, who was the elder, was swathing the little cat, in spite of its mewing and its contortions, in a quantity of clothes and red and blue scraps. While performing this serious and difficult work she was saying to her sister in that sweet and adorable language of children, whose grace, like the splendor of the butterfly’s wing, vanishes when one essays to fix it fast.

“You see, sister, this doll is more amusing than the other. She twists, she cries, she is warm. See, sister, let us play with her. She shall be my little girl. I will be a lady. I will come to see you, and you shall look at her. Gradually, you will perceive her whiskers, and that will surprise you. And then you will see her ears, and then you will see her tail and it will amaze you. And you will say to me, ‘Ah! Mon Dieu!’ and I will say to you: ‘Yes, Madame, it is my little girl. Little girls are made like that just at present.’”

Azelma listened admiringly to Éponine.

In the meantime, the drinkers had begun to sing an obscene song, and to laugh at it until the ceiling shook. Thénardier accompanied and encouraged them.

As birds make nests out of everything, so children make a doll out of anything which comes to hand. While Éponine and Azelma were bundling up the cat, Cosette, on her side, had dressed up her sword. That done, she laid it in her arms, and sang to it softly, to lull it to sleep.

The doll is one of the most imperious needs and, at the same time, one of the most charming instincts of feminine childhood. To care for, to clothe, to deck, to dress, to undress, to redress, to teach, scold a little, to rock, to dandle, to lull to sleep, to imagine that something is some one, – therein lies the whole woman’s future. While dreaming and chattering, making tiny outfits, and baby clothes, while sewing little gowns, and corsages and bodices, the child grows into a young girl, the young girl into a big girl, the big girl into a woman. The first child is the continuation of the last doll.

A little girl without a doll is almost as unhappy, and quite as impossible, as a woman without children.

So Cosette had made herself a doll out of the sword.

Madame Thénardier approached the yellow man; “My husband is right,” she thought; “perhaps it is M. Laffitte; there are such queer rich men!”

She came and set her elbows on the table.

“Monsieur,” said she. At this word, Monsieur, the man turned; up to that time, the Thénardier had addressed him only as brave homme or bonhomme.

“You see, sir,” she pursued, assuming a sweetish air that was even more repulsive to behold than her fierce mien, “I am willing that the child should play; I do not oppose it, but it is good for once, because you are generous. You see, she has nothing; she must needs work.”

“Then this child is not yours?” demanded the man.

“Oh! mon Dieu! no, sir! she is a little beggar whom we have taken in through charity; a sort of imbecile child. She must have water on the brain; she has a large head, as you see. We do what we can for her, for we are not rich; we have written in vain to her native place, and have received no reply these six months. It must be that her mother is dead.”

“Ah!” said the man, and fell into his reverie once more.

“Her mother didn’t amount to much,” added the Thénardier; “she abandoned her child.”

During the whole of this conversation Cosette, as though warned by some instinct that she was under discussion, had not taken her eyes from the Thénardier’s face; she listened vaguely; she caught a few words here and there.

Meanwhile, the drinkers, all three-quarters intoxicated, were repeating their unclean refrain with redoubled gayety; it was a highly spiced and wanton song, in which the Virgin and the infant Jesus were introduced. The Thénardier went off to take part in the shouts of laughter. Cosette, from her post under the table, gazed at the fire, which was reflected from her fixed eyes. She had begun to rock the sort of baby which she had made, and, as she rocked it, she sang in a low voice, “My mother is dead! my mother is dead! my mother is dead!”

On being urged afresh by the hostess, the yellow man, “the millionaire,” consented at last to take supper.

“What does Monsieur wish?”

“Bread and cheese,” said the man.

“Decidedly, he is a beggar” thought Madame Thénardier.

The drunken men were still singing their song, and the child under the table was singing hers.

All at once, Cosette paused; she had just turned round and caught sight of the little Thénardiers’ doll, which they had abandoned for the cat and had left on the floor a few paces from the kitchen table.

Then she dropped the swaddled sword, which only half met her needs, and cast her eyes slowly round the room. Madame Thénardier was whispering to her husband and counting over some money; Ponine and Zelma were playing with the cat; the travellers were eating or drinking or singing; not a glance was fixed on her. She had not a moment to lose; she crept out from under the table on her hands and knees, made sure once more that no one was watching her; then she slipped quickly up to the doll and seized it. An instant later she was in her place again, seated motionless, and only turned so as to cast a shadow on the doll which she held in her arms. The happiness of playing with a doll was so rare for her that it contained all the violence of voluptuousness.