One evening the schoolmaster declared that in other times the authorities would have inquired what Boulatruelle was about in the wood, and that he would have been obliged to speak; they would have employed torture if necessary, and Boulatruelle would not have resisted the ordeal of water, for instance. "Let us give him the ordeal of wine," said Thénardier. They set to work, and Boulatruelle drank enormously, but held his tongue. He combined, with admirable tact and in magisterial proportions, the thirst of a sponge with the discretion of a judge. Still, by returning to the charge, and by putting together the few obscure words that escaped him, this is what Thénardier and the schoolmaster fancied that they could make out.
Boulatruelle, on going to work at daybreak one morning, was surprised at seeing under a bush a spade and a pick, which "looked as if they were hidden;" still he fancied that they belonged to Father Six-fours, the water-carrier, and did not think any more of the matter. On the evening of the same day, however, he saw, without being himself seen, as he was hidden behind a tree, "an individual who did not belong to these parts, and whom he, Boulatruelle, knew," proceeding toward the most retired part of the wood. This Thénardier translated as "a comrade at the galleys," but Boulatruelle obstinately refused to mention his name. This individual was carrying a bundle, something square, like a box or small chest. Boulatruelle was surprised; but it was not till some ten minutes later that the idea of following the "individual" occurred to him. But it was too late; the individual was already among the trees, night had fallen, and Boulatruelle was unable to overtake him. Then he resolved to watch the skirt of the wood, and the moon was shining. Boulatruelle, some two or three hours after, saw this individual come out of the wood, not carrying the box, however, but a spade and pick. Boulatruelle allowed him to pass, and did not address him, for he said to himself that the other man was thrice as strong as he, and being armed with a pick would probably smash him on recognizing him and finding himself recognized; a touching effusion on the part of two old comrades who suddenly meet. But the spade and pick were a ray of light for Boulatruelle; he hurried to the bush at daybreak, and no longer found them there. From this he concluded that his individual, on entering the wood, had dug a hole with his pick, buried his box in it, and then covered it up with the spade. Now, as the box was too small to contain a corpse, it must contain money, and hence his researches. Boulatruelle explored the forest in all directions, and especially at spots where the ground seemed to have been recently turned up, but it was all of no use; he discovered nothing. Nobody in Montfermeil thought any more of the matter, except some worthy gossips who said,—"You may be sure that the road-mender did not take all that trouble for nothing; it is certain that the fiend has been here."
Toward the close of October, in the same year, 1823, the inhabitants of Toulon saw a vessel enter their port which had sustained some damage in a heavy storm. It was the "Orion," which at a later date was employed at Brest as a training school, but now formed part of the Mediterranean fleet. This vessel, battered as it was, for the sea had ill-treated it, produced an effect on entering the roads. It displayed some flag which obtained it the regulation salute of eleven guns, to which it replied round for round,—a total of two-and-twenty rounds. It has been calculated that in salvos, royal and military politeness, exchanges of courtesy signals, formalities of roads and citadels, sunrise and sunset saluted every day by all the fortresses and vessels of war, opening and closing gates, etc., the civilized world fired every twenty-four hours, and in all parts of the globe, one hundred and fifty thousand useless rounds. At six francs the round, this makes 900,000 francs a day. Three hundred millions a year expended in smoke. During this time poor people are dying of starvation.
The year 1823 was what the Restoration called "the epoch of the Spanish war." This war contained many events in one, and many singularities. It was a great family affair for the House of Bourbon; the French branch succoring and protecting the Madrid branch, that is to say, proving its majority; an apparent return to national traditions, complicated by servitude and subjection to the northern cabinets. The Duc d'Angoulême, surnamed by the liberal papers the "hero of Andujar," repressing in a triumphal attitude, which what somewhat spoiled by his peaceful looks, the old and very real terrorism of the Holy Office, which was contending with the chimerical terrorism of the liberals; the sans culottes resuscitated to the great alarm of dowagers, under the name of Descamisados; monarchy offering an obstacle to the progress which it termed anarchy; the theories of '89 suddenly interrupted in their sap; a European check given to the French idea which was making its voyage round the world by the side of the Generalissimo son of France; the Prince de Carignan, afterwards Charles Albert, enrolling himself as a volunteer with the red wool epaulettes of a grenadier in this crusade of the kings against the peoples; the soldiers of the empire taking the field again, after eight years rest, aged, sad, and wearing the white cockade; the tricolor waved in a foreign country by an heroic handful of Frenchmen, as the white flag had been at Coblentz thirty years previously; monks mingled with the French troopers; the spirit of liberty and novelty set right by bayonets; principles checkmated by artillery; France undoing by her arms what she had done by her mind; the enemy's leaders sold; the soldiers hesitating; towns besieged by millions; no military perils, and yet possible explosions, as in every mine which is surprised and invaded; disgrace for a few persons, and glory for none,—such was this war, brought about by princes who descended from Louis XIV., and conducted by generals who issued from Napoleon. It had the sad fate of recalling neither the great war nor the great policy.
Some engagements were serious. The passage of the Trocadero, for instance, was a brilliant military achievement; but on the whole, we repeat, the trumpets of that war have a cracked sound, the whole affair was suspicious, and history agrees with France in the difficulty of accepting this false triumph. It seemed evident that certain Spanish officers ordered to resist, yielded too easily, and the idea of corruption was evolved from the victory; it seemed as if generals rather than battles had been gained, and the victorious soldier returned home humiliated. It was, in truth, a diminishing war, and the words "Bank of France" could be read in the folds of the flag. The soldiers of the war of 1808, on whom the ruins of Saragossa fell so formidably, frowned in 1823 at the easy opening of citadel gates, and began regretting Palafox. It is the humor of France to prefer a Rostopchin before her rather than a Ballesteros. From a more serious point of view, on which it is right to dwell here, this war, which offended the military spirit in France, humiliated the democratic spirit. It was undertaken on behalf of serfdom; in this campaign the object of the French soldier, who was the son of democracy, was to bow others under the yoke. This was a hideous mistake, for France has the mission of arousing the soul of nations, and not stifling it. Since 1792 all the revolutions of Europe have been the French Revolution, and liberty radiates from France. He must be blind who does not recognize this. It was Bonaparte who said so.
The war of 1823, an attempt upon the generous Spanish nation, was therefore at the same time an attack on the French Revolution. It was France that committed this monstrous act of violence; for, with the exception of wars of liberation, all that armies do they do by force, as the words "passive obedience" indicate. An army is a strange masterpiece of combination, in which strength results from an enormous amount of impotence. In this way can we explain war carried on by humanity against humanity, in spite of humanity. The war of 1823 was fatal to the Bourbons; they regarded it as a triumph, for they did not see what danger there is in killing an idea by a countersign. In their simplicity they committed the mistake of introducing into this establishment the immense weakness of a crime as an element of strength; the spirit of ambuscading entered into their policy, and 1830 germinated in 1823. The Spanish campaign became in their councils an argument for oppression, and the government by right divine. France, having re-established el rey neto in Spain, could establish the absolute king at home. They fell into the formidable error of taking the obedience of the soldier for the consent of the nation, and such a confidence is the destruction of thrones. Men must go to sleep neither in the shadow of a machineel-tree nor in that of an army.
Let us now return to the "Orion." During the operations of the army commanded by the Prince generalissimo a squadron cruised in the Mediterranean, to which, as we said, the "Orion" belonged, and was driven into Toulon roads to repair damages. The presence of a man-of-war in a port has something about it which attracts and occupies the mob. It is grand, and the multitude love anything that is grand. A vessel of the line is one of the most magnificent encounters which the genius of man has with the might of nature; it is composed simultaneously of what is the heaviest and lightest of things, because it has to deal with three forms of substance at once,—the solid, the liquid, and the fluid, and must contend against all three. It has cloven iron claws to seize the granite of the sea-bed, and more wings and antennæ than the two-winged insect to hold the wind. Its breath issues from its one hundred and twenty guns as through enormous bugles, and haughtily replies to the thunder. Ocean tries to lead it astray in the frightful similitude of its waves; but the vessel has its soul in its compass, which advises it and always shows it the north, and on dark nights its lanterns take the place of the stars. Hence it has tackle and canvas to oppose the wind, wood to oppose water, iron, copper, and lead to oppose the rocks, light to oppose darkness, and a needle to oppose immensity. If we wish to form an idea of all the gigantic proportions whose ensemble constitute a vessel of the line, we need only enter one of the covered building-docks at Toulon or Brest. The vessels in construction are there under glass, so to speak. That colossal beam is a yard; that huge column of wood of enormous length lying on the ground is the main-mast. Measuring from its root in the keel to its truck in the clouds it is three hundred and sixty feet in length, and is three feet in diameter at its base. The navy of our fathers employed hemp cables, but ours has chains; the simple pile of chain cable for a hundred-gun vessel is four feet high and twenty feet in width. And then, again, in building such a vessel three thousand loads of wood are used; it is a floating forest. And it must not be left out of sight that we are here describing a man-of-war of forty years ago, a simple sailing-vessel; steam, then in its infancy, has since added new miracles to the prodigy which is called a vessel of war. At the present day, for instance, the screw man-of-war is a surprising machine, impelled by a surface of canvas containing three thousand square yards, and a boiler of two thousand five hundred horse power. Without alluding to these new marvels, the old vessel of Christopher Columbus and De Ruyter is one of the great masterpieces of man; it is inexhaustible in strength as infinity is in width; it garners the wind in its sails, it is exact in the immense diffusion of the waves; it floats, and it reigns.
And yet the hour arrives when a gust breaks like a straw this yard, fifty feet in length; when the wind bends like a reed this mast, four hundred feet in height; when this anchor, weighing thousands of pounds, twists in the throat of the waves like a fisherman's hook in the mouth of a pike; when these monstrous cannon utter plaintive and useless groans, which the wind carries away into emptiness and night, and when all this power and majesty are swallowed up by a superior power and majesty. Whenever an immense force is displayed in attacking immense weakness, it causes men to reflect. Hence at seaports curious persons throng around these marvellous machines of war and navigation, without exactly explaining the reason to themselves. Every day, then, from morning till night, the quays and piers of Toulon were covered with numbers of idlers, whose business it was to look at the "Orion." This vessel had long been in a sickly state. During previous voyages barnacles had collected on her hull to such an extent that she lost half her speed; she had been taken into dry dock the year previous to scrape off these barnacles, and then put to sea again. But this scraping had injured the bolts, and when off the Balearic Isles, she sprang a leak, and took in water, as vessels were not coppered in those days. A violent equinoctial gale supervened, which injured her larboard bows and destroyed the fore-chains. In consequence of this damage the "Orion" put into Toulon, and anchored near the arsenal for repairs. The hull was uninjured, but a few planks had been unnailed here and there to let air in, as is usually the case.
One morning the crowd witnessed an accident. The crew were engaged in bending the sails, and the top-man, who had charge of the starboard tack of the main-top-sail, lost his balance. He was seen to totter, the crowd on the arsenal quay uttered a cry, his head dragged him downwards, and he turned round the yard, with his hands stretched down to the water; but he caught hold of the foot-rope as he passed it, first with one hand then with the other, and remained hanging from it. The sea was below him at a dizzy depth, and the shock of his fall had given the foot-rope a violent swinging movement. The man swung at the end of the rope like a stone in a sling. To go to his assistance would be running a frightful risk, and not one of the sailors, all coast fishermen lately called in for duty, dared to venture it. Still the unhappy top-man was growing tired: his agony could not be seen in his face, but his exhaustion could be distinguished in all his limbs, and his arms were awfully dragged. Any effort he made to raise himself only caused the foot-rope to oscillate the more, and he did not cry out, for fear of exhausting his strength. The minute was close at hand when he must let go the rope, and every now and then all heads were turned away not to see it happen. There are moments in which a rope, a pole, the branch of a tree, is life itself, and it is a fearful thing to see a living being let go of it and fall like ripe fruit. All at once a man could be seen climbing up the shrouds with the agility of a tiger-cat. As he was dressed in red, this man was a convict; as he wore a green cap, he was a convict for life. On reaching the top a puff of wind blew away his cap and displayed a white head; hence he was not a young man.
A convict, employed on board with a gang, had in fact at once run up to the officer of the watch, and in the midst of the trouble and confusion, while all the sailors trembled and recoiled, asked permission to risk his life in saving the top-man. At a nod of assent from the officer he broke with one blow of a hammer the chain riveted to his ankle, took up a rope, and darted up the shrouds. No one noticed at the moment with what ease this chain was broken; and the fact was not remembered till afterwards. In a second he was upon the yard, where he stood for a little while as if looking round him. These seconds, during which the wind swung the top-man at the end of a thread, seemed ages to the persons who were looking at him. At length the convict raised his eyes to heaven and advanced a step. The crowd breathed again, as they saw him run along the yard. On reaching the end he fastened to it the rope he had brought with him, let it hang down, and then began going down it hand over hand. This produced a feeling of indescribable agony, for instead of one man hanging over the gulf, there were now two. He resembled a spider going to seize a fly; but in this case the spider brought life and not death. Ten thousand eyes were fixed on the group: not a cry, not a word could be heard; every mouth held its breath, as if afraid of increasing in the slightest degree the wind that shook the two wretched men. The convict, in the interim, had managed to get close to the sailor, and it was high time, for a minute later the man, exhausted and desperate, would have let himself drop into the sea. The convict fastened him securely with the rope to which he clung with one hand, while he worked with the other. At length he was seen to climb back to the yard and haul the sailor up: he supported him there for a moment to let him regain his strength, then took him in his arms and carried him along the yard to the cap, and thence to the top, where he left him with his comrades. The crowd applauded him, and several old sergeants of the chain-gang had tears in their eyes: women embraced each other on the quay, and every voice could be heard shouting with a species of frenzy,—"Pardon for that man!"
The convict, however, began going down again immediately to rejoin his gang. In order to do so more rapidly he slid down a rope and ran along a lower yard. All eyes followed him, and at one moment the spectators felt afraid, for they fancied they could see him hesitate and totter, either through fatigue or dizziness; all at once the crowd uttered a terrible cry,—the convict had fallen into the sea. The fall was a dangerous one, for the frigate "Algésiras" was anchored near the "Orion," and the poor galley-slave had fallen between the two ships, and might be sucked under one of them. Four men hastily got into a boat, and the crowd encouraged them, for all felt anxious again. The man did not come to the surface again, and disappeared in the sea without making a ripple, just as if he had fallen into a barrel of oil. They dragged for him, but in vain; they continued the search till nightfall, but his body was not even found. The next day the Toulon paper printed the following lines: "Nov. 17, 1823.—Yesterday a convict, one of a gang on board the "Orion," fell into the sea and was drowned, as he was returning from assisting a sailor. His body has not been found, and is supposed to be entangled among the piles at arsenal point. The man was imprisoned as No. 9430, and his name the Jean Valjean."
Montfermeil is situated between Livry and Chelles, on the southern slope of the lofty plateau which separates the Ourque from the Marne. At the present day it is a rather large place, adorned with stucco villas all the year round, and with holiday-making cits on Sunday. In 1823 there were neither so many white houses nor so many happy cits as there are now, and it was merely a village in the woods. A visitor certainly came across here and there a few country-houses of the last century, recognizable by their air of pretension, their balconies of twisted iron, and the tall windows, in which the little squares produce all sorts of green hues on the white of the closed shutters. But Montfermeil was not the less a village; retired cloth-dealers and persons fond of country life had not yet discovered it. It was a quiet, pleasant spot, which was not on a road to anywhere. Persons lived there cheaply that peasant life which is so tranquil and abundant. The only thing was that water was scarce, owing to the elevation of the plateau, and it had to be fetched from some distance. That end of the village which was on the Gagny side obtained its water from the splendid ponds in the forest there; but the other end, which surrounds the church and is on the Chelles side, could only obtain drinking-water from a little spring about a quarter of an hour's walk from Montfermeil, near the road to Chelles; laying in water was therefore a hard task for every family. The large houses and the aristocracy, among which Thénardier's pot-house may be reckoned, paid a liard a bucket to a man whose trade it was, and who earned by it about eight sous a day. But this man only worked till seven P.M. in summer, and till five in winter; and once night had set in and the ground-floor shutters were closed, any person who had no water to drink must either fetch it or go without.
This was the terror of the poor creature whom the reader will not have forgotten, little Cosette. It will be remembered that Cosette was useful to the Thénardiers in two ways,—they made the mother pay and the child act as servant. Hence when the mother ceased payment, for the reason which we know, the Thénardiers kept Cosette, who took the place of a servant. In this quality she had to fetch water when it was wanted, and the child, terrified at the idea of going to the spring at night, was very careful that the house should never be without water. Christmas of 1823 was peculiarly brilliant at Montfermeil; the beginning of the winter was mild, and there had been neither snow nor frost. Some mountebanks, who came from Paris, had obtained leave from the mayor to erect their booth in the village high street, and a party of travelling hawkers had put their stalls in the church square, and even in the lane in which Thénardier's pot-house was situated. This filled the inns and pot-houses, and produced a noisy, joyous life in this quiet little place. As a faithful historian we are bound to add that among the curiosities displayed in the market-place was a menagerie, in which some ragged fellows showed the peasants of Montfermeil one of those terrific Brazilian vultures of which the Paris Museum did not possess a specimen till 1845, and which have a tricolor cockade for an eye. Naturalists, I believe, call this bird Caracara Polyborus; it belongs to the Apicide order and the vulture family. A few old Bonapartist soldiers living in the village went to see this bird with devotion, and the mountebanks declared that the tricolor cockade was a unique phenomenon, and expressly produced by Nature for their menagerie.
On the Christmas evening several carters and hawkers were sitting to drink, round four or five candles, in Thénardier's tap-room. This room was like those usually found in pot-houses; there were tables, pewter pots, bottles, drinkers, and smokers, but little light, and a good deal of uproar. The date of the year was, however, indicated by the two objects, fashionable at that time among tradespeople, and which were on a table,—a kaleidoscope and a lamp of clouded tin. Madame Thénardier was watching the supper, which was roasting before a bright clear fire, while her husband was drinking with his guests and talking politics. In addition to the political remarks, which mainly referred to the Spanish war and the Duc d'Angoulême, local parentheses like the following could be heard through the Babel:—
"Over at Nanterre and Suresne the vintage has been very productive, and where people expected ten barrels they have a dozen. The grapes were very juicy when put under the press."—"But the grapes could not have been ripe?"—"In these parts, they must not be picked ripe, for the wine becomes oily in spring."—"Then it must be a very poor wine?"—"There are poorer wines than those about here," etc.
Or else a miller exclaimed,—
"Are we responsible for what there is in the sack? We find a lot of small seeds, which we can't waste time in sifting, and which must pass under the mill-stones; such as tares, lucern, cockles, vetches, amaranths, hemp-seed, and a number of other weeds, without counting the pebbles which are so frequent in some sorts of wheat, especially Breton wheat. I don't like grinding Breton wheat, any more than sawyers like sawing beams in which there are nails. You can fancy the bad dust all this makes in the hopper, and then people complain unfairly of the flour, for it is no fault of ours."
Between two windows a mower seated at a table with a farmer, who was making a bargain to have a field mown in spring, said,—
"There is no harm in the grass being damp, for it cuts better. But your grass is tender, and hard to cut, sir, for it is so young, and bends before the scythe," etc. etc.
Cosette was seated at her usual place, the cross-bar of the table, near the chimney; she was in rags, her bare feet were thrust into wooden shoes, and she was knitting, by the fire-light, stockings intended for the young Thénardiers. Two merry children could be heard laughing and prattling in an adjoining room; they were Éponine and Azelma. A cat-o'-nine-tails hung from a nail by the side of the chimney. At times, the cry of a baby somewhere in the house was audible through the noise of the tap-room; it was a little boy Madame Thénardier had given birth to one winter, "without knowing how," she used to say, "it was the effect of the cold," and who was a little over three years of age. The mother suckled him, but did not love him; when his cries became too troublesome, Thénardier would say,—"There's your brat squalling; go and see what he wants." "Bah!" the mother would answer, "he's a nuisance;" and the poor deserted little wretch would continue to cry in the darkness.
Up to the present, only a side-view of the Thénardiers has been offered the reader of this book; but the moment has now arrived to walk round the couple and regard them on all sides. Thénardier had passed his fiftieth year, Madame Thénardier was just on her fortieth, which is fifty in a woman; and in this way there was a balance of age between husband and wife. Our readers may probably have retained from the first meeting some recollection of this tall, light-haired, red, fat, square, enormous, and active woman; she belonged, as we said, to the race of giantesses, who show themselves at fairs, with paving-stones hanging from their hair. She did everything in the house; made the beds, cleaned the rooms, was cook and laundress, produced rain and fine weather, and played the devil. Her only assistant was Cosette,—a mouse in the service of an elephant. All trembled at the sound of her voice,—windows, furniture, and people; and her large face, dotted with freckles, looked like a skimmer. She had a beard, and was the ideal of a market porter dressed in female attire. She swore splendidly, and boasted of being able to crack a walnut with a blow of her fist. Had it not been for the romances she had read, and which at times made the affected woman appear under the ogress, no one would ever have dreamed of thinking that she was feminine. She seemed to be the product of a cross between a young damsel and a fish fag. When people heard her speak, they said,—"'T is a gendarme;" when they saw her drink, they said,—"'T is a carter;" and when they saw her treatment of Cosette, they said,—"'T is the hangman;" when she was quiet, a tooth projected from her mouth.
Thénardier was a short, thin, sallow, angular, bony, weak man, who looked ill, and was perfectly well—his cunning began with this. He smiled habitually through caution, and was polite to nearly everybody, even to the beggar whom he refused a halfpenny. He had the eye of a ferret and the face of a man of letters, and greatly resembled the portraits of Abbé Delille. His coquetry consisted in drinking with carriers, and no one had ever been able to intoxicate him. He wore a blouse and under it an old black coat, and had pretensions to literature and materialism. There were some names he frequently uttered in order to support an argument, such as Voltaire, Raynal, Parny, and, strangely enough, St. Augustine. He declared that he had "a system." He was a thorough scamp, however. It will be remembered that he asserted he had been a soldier, and told people with some pomp how at Waterloo, where he was sergeant in the 6th or 9th light something, he alone, against a squadron of Hussars of death, had covered with his body and saved "a severely wounded general." Hence came his flaming sign, and the name by which his house was generally known, "The Sergeant of Waterloo." He was liberal, classical, and Bonapartist; he had subscribed to the Champ d'Asile, and it was said in the village that he had studied for the priesthood. We believe that he had simply studied in Holland to be an inn-keeper. This scoundrel of a composite order was in all probability some Fleming of Lille, a Frenchman at Paris, a Belgian at Brussels, conveniently striding over two frontiers. We know his prowess at Waterloo, and, as we see, he exaggerated slightly. Ebb and flow and wandering adventures were the elements of his existence. A tattered conscience entails an irregular life, and probably at the stormy period of June 18, 1815, Thénardier belonged to that variety of marauding sutlers to whom we have alluded, who go about the country selling to some and robbing others, and moving about in a halting cart after marching troops, with the instinct of always joining the victorious army. When the campaign was over, having, as he said, "some brads," he opened a pot-house at Montfermeil. These "brads," consisting of purses and watches, gold rings and silver crosses, collected in ditches filled with corpses, did not make a heavy total, and did not carry very far this sutler turned inn-keeper.
Thénardier had something rectangular in his movements, which, when joined to an oath, recalls the barrack,—to the sign of the cross, the seminary. He was a clever speaker, and liked to be thought educated; but the schoolmaster noticed that he made mistakes. He drew up a traveller's bill in a masterly way, but practised eyes sometimes found orthographical errors in it. Thénardier was cunning, greedy, indolent, and skilful: he did not despise his servant-girls, and for that reason his wife no longer kept any. This giantess was jealous, and fancied that this little yellow man must be an object of universal covetousness. Thénardier above all, as a crafty and well-balanced man, was a villain of the temperate genus; and this breed is the worst, as hypocrisy is mixed up in them. It was not that Thénardier was not at times capable of passion, at least quite as much as his wife, but it was very rare, and at such moments,—as he owed a grudge to the whole human race, as he had within him a profound furnace of hatred, as he was one of those persons who avenge themselves perpetually, who accuse everybody who passes before them for what falls upon them, and who are ever ready to cast on the first-comer, as a legitimate charge, the whole of the annoyances, bankruptcies, and deceptions of their life,—when all this leaven was working in him and boiling in his mouth and eyes, he was fearful. Woe to the person who came under his fury at such times.
In addition to his other qualities, Thénardier was attentive and penetrating, silent or chattering according to occasion, and always with great intelligence. He had the glance of sailors who are accustomed to wink when looking through a telescope. Thénardier was a statesman. Any new-comer, on entering the pot-house, said upon seeing the woman, "That is the master of the house." Mistake. She was not even the mistress, for her husband was both master and mistress. She did and he created, he directed everything by a species of invisible and continuous magnetic action; a word, sometimes a sign, from him was sufficient, and the mastodon obeyed. The husband was to his wife, though she did not know it, a species of peculiar and sovereign being. However much she might dissent from "Monsieur Thénardier,"—an inadmissible hypothesis,—she would have never proved him publicly in the wrong for any consideration. She would never have committed "in the presence of strangers" that fault which wives so often commit, and which is called, in parliamentary language, "exposing the crown." Although their agreement only resulted in evil, there was meditation in Madame Thénardier's submission to her husband. This mountain of noise and flesh moved under the little finger of this frail despot; seen from its dwarfish and grotesque aspect, it was the great universal thing,—adoration of matter for the mind. There was something strange in Thénardier, and hence came the absolute dominion of this man over this woman. At certain moments she saw him as a lighted candle, at others she felt him as a claw. This woman was a formidable creature, who only loved her children, and only feared her husband. She was a mother because she was mammiferous; her maternity ceased, however, with her girls, and, as we shall see, did not extend to boys.
Thénardier himself had only one thought,—to enrich himself; but he did not succeed, for a suitable stage was wanting for this great talent. Thénardier ruined himself at Montfermeil, if ruin is possible at zero; in Switzerland or the Pyrenees he would have become a millionnaire. But where fate fastens a landlord he must browse. In this year, 1823, Thénardier was in debt to the amount of 1500 francs, which rendered him anxious. Whatever might be the obstinate injustice of destiny against him, Thénardier was one of those men who thoroughly understand, and in the most modern fashion, the theory which is a virtue in barbarous nations, and an article of sale among civilized nations,—hospitality. He was also an admirable poacher, and renowned for the correctness of his aim, and he had a certain cold and peaceful laugh, which was peculiarly dangerous.
His landlord theories burst forth from him at times in flashes, and he had professional aphorisms which he drove into his wife's mind. "The duty of a landlord," he said one day savagely, and in a low voice, "is to sell to the first-comer ragouts, rest, light, fire, dirty sheets, chamber-maids, fleas, and smiles; to arrest passers-by, empty small purses, and honestly lighten heavy ones; to shelter respectfully travelling families, rasp the husband, peck the wife, and pluck the children; to set a price on the open window, the shut window, the chimney-corner, the easy-chair, the sofa, the stool, the feather-bed, the mattress, and the bundle of straw; to know how much the reflection wears off the looking-glass, and charge for it, and by the five hundred thousand fiends to make the traveller pay for everything, even to the flies his dog eats!"
This husband and this wife were craft and rage married, and formed a hideous and terrible pair. While the husband ruminated and combined, the she Thénardier did not think about absent creditors, had not thought of yesterday or to-morrow, and lived violently only for the moment. Such were these two beings, between whom Cosette stood, enduring their double pressure, like a creature who was being at once crushed by a mill-stone and torn with a pair of pincers. Man and wife had each a different way. Cosette was beaten, that came from the wife; she went about barefoot in winter, that came from the husband. Cosette went up and down stairs, washed, brushed, scrubbed, swept, ran about, panted for breath, moved heavy weights, and, little though she was, did all the hard work. She could expect no pity from a ferocious mistress and a venomous master, and the "Sergeant of Waterloo" was, as it were, a web in which Cosette was caught and trembled. The ideal of oppression was realized by this gloomy household, and it was something like a fly serving spiders. The poor child was passively silent. What takes place in these souls, which have just left the presence of God, when they find themselves thus, in their dawn, all little and naked among human beings?
Four new travellers arrived. Cosette was sorrowfully reflecting; for though only eight years of age she had already suffered so much that she thought with the mournful air of an old woman. Her eye-lid was blackened by a blow which the woman had given her, which made Madame say now and then, "How ugly she is with her black eye!" Cosette was thinking then that it was late, very late; that she had been suddenly obliged to fill the jugs and bottles in the rooms of the travellers who had just arrived, and that there was no water in the cistern. What reassured her most was the fact that but little water was drunk at the "Sergeant of Waterloo." There was no lack of thirsty souls, but it was that sort of thirst which applies more readily to the wine-jar than to the water-bottle. Any one who asked for a glass of water among the glasses of wine would have appeared a savage to all these men. At one moment, however, the child trembled; her mistress raised the cover of a stew-pan bubbling on a stove, then took a glass and hurried to the cistern. The child had turned, and was watching all the movements. A thin stream of water ran from the tap and filled the glass. "Hilloh!" she add, "there is no water," Then she was silent for a moment, during which the child did not breathe.
"Well," Madame Thénardier continued, as she examined the half-filled glass, "this will be enough."
Cosette returned to her work, but for more than a quarter of an hour she felt her heart beating in her chest. She counted the minutes that passed thus, and wished that it were next morning. From time to time one of the topers looked out into the street and said, "It's as black as pitch," or "A man would have to be a cat to go into the street at this hour without a lantern," and Cosette shivered. All at once one of the pedlers lodging at the inn came in and said in a harsh voice,—
"My horse has had no water."
"Oh yes, it has," said Madame Thénardier.
"I tell you it has not, mother," the pedler went on.
Cosette had crept out from under the table.
"Oh yes, sir," she said, "your horse drank a bucketful, and I gave it the water and talked to it."
This was not true.
"There's a girl no bigger than one's fist who tells a lie as big as a house," the pedler exclaimed. "I tell you it has not had any water, you little devil; it has a way of breathing which I know well when it has not drunk."
Cosette persisted, and added in a voice rendered hoarse by agony, and which was scarce audible,—
"Oh, indeed, the horse drank a lot."
"Enough of this," the pedler said savagely; "give my horse water."
Cosette went back under the table.
"Well, that is but fair," said Madame; "if the brute has not drunk it ought to drink." Then she looked around her. "Why, where is the little devil?"
She stooped down, and discovered Cosette hidden at the other end of the table, almost under the feet of the topers.
"Come out of that!" her mistress shouted.
Cosette came out of the hole in which she had hidden herself, and the landlady continued,—
"Miss What's-your-name, give the horse water."
"There is no water, Madame," Cosette said faintly.
Her mistress threw the street door wide open.
"Well, go and fetch some."
Cosette hung her head, and fetched an empty bucket standing in a corner near the chimney; it was larger than herself, and she could have sat down in it comfortably. Madame Thénardier returned to her stove and tasted the contents of a stew-pan with a wooden spoon, while growling,—
"There's plenty at the spring. I believe it would have been better to sift the onions."
Then she rummaged in a drawer which contained halfpence, pepper, and shalots.
"Here, Miss Toad," she added, "as you come back, you will fetch a loaf from the baker's. Here's a fifteen-sous piece."
Cosette had a small pocket in her apron, in which she placed the coin; then she stood motionless, bucket in hand, and with the door open before her. She seemed to be waiting for some one to come to her help.
"Be off!" her mistress shouted.
Cosette went out and shut the door after her.
The file of open-air shops, it will be remembered, ran as far as Thénardier's inn. These stalls, owing to the approaching passage of persons going to midnight mass, were all lit up with candles in paper funnels, which, as the schoolmaster, who was seated at this moment in Thénardier's tap-room, declared, produced a "magical effect." To make up for this, not a star glittered in the sky. The last of these shops, exactly facing Thénardier's door, was a child's toy establishment, all flashing with tinsel, glass beads, and magnificent things in block-tin. Right in front the dealer had placed upon a white napkin an enormous doll, nearly two feet high, which was dressed in a pink crape gown, with golden wheat-ears in her hair,—which was real hair,—and had enamel eyes. The whole day had this marvel been displayed, to the amazement of all passers-by under ten years of age; but not a mother in Montfermeil had been rich enough or extravagant enough to give it to her child, Éponine and Azelma had spent hours in contemplating it, and even Cosette had ventured to take a furtive look at it.
At the moment when Cosette went out, bucket in hand, though she felt so sad and desolate, she could not refrain from raising her eyes to the prodigious doll, the "lady" as she called it. The poor child stopped petrified, for she had not seen this doll so close before. The whole stall seemed to her a palace, and this doll was not a doll, but a vision. Joy, splendor, wealth, and happiness appeared in a sort of chimerical radiance to the unhappy little creature who was deeply buried in mournful and cold wretchedness. Cosette measured with the simple and sad sagacity of childhood the abyss which separated her from this doll. She said to herself that a person must be a queen or a princess to have a "thing" like that. She looked at the fine dress, the long smooth hair, and thought, "How happy that doll must be!" She could not take her eyes off this fantastic shop, and the more she looked the more dazzled she became, and she fancied she saw Paradise. There were other dolls behind the large one, which appeared to her fairies and genii. The tradesman, who walked about at the back of the shop, seemed to her something more than mortal. In this adoration she forgot everything, even the task on which she was sent; but suddenly the rough voice of her mistress recalled her to the reality. "What, you little devil, you have not gone! Just wait till I come to you, you little viper!" Madame Thénardier had taken a look out into the street, and noticed Cosette in ecstasy. The child ran off with her bucket, taking enormous strides.
As Thénardier's inn was in that part of the village near the church, Cosette had to fetch the water from the spring in the forest on the Chelles side. She did not look at another stall; so long as she was in the lane and the vicinity of the church, the illuminated booths lit up the road, but the last gleam of the last stall soon disappeared, and the poor child found herself in darkness. She went farther into it; but, as she felt some emotion while walking, she shook the handle of her bucket as much as she could, which produced a noise that gave her company. The farther she went, the more dense the gloom became; there was no one in the streets except a woman, who turned on seeing her pass, and muttered between her teeth, "Wherever can the child be going? Can she be a goblin?" Then she recognized Cosette. "Why," she said, "it is the Lark." Cosette in this way went through the labyrinth of winding deserted streets which end the village of Montfermeil on the side of Chelles; and so long as she had houses, or even walls on both sides of the way, she walked rather boldly. From time to time she saw a candle glimmering through the crack of a shutter; it was light and life, people were there, and this reassured her. Still, in proportion as she advanced, her step became slower, as if mechanical, and when she had passed the corner of the last house, Cosette stopped. Going beyond the last stall had been difficult, but going farther than the last house became an impossibility. She put her bucket on the ground, plunged her hand into her hair, and began scratching her head slowly,—a gesture peculiar to terrified and undecided children. It was no longer Montfermeil, but the fields, and black deserted space was before her. She looked despairingly at this space in which there was nobody, but where there were beasts, and there might be ghosts. She looked out, and heard the beasts walking in the grass, and distinctly saw the ghosts moving among the trees. Then she took her bucket again, and fear gave her boldness. "Well," she said, "I will tell her that there was no water;" and she boldly re-entered Montfermeil. She had scarce gone one hundred yards when she stopped, and began scratching her head again. Now it was her mistress who appeared to her,—her hideous mistress with her hyena mouth, and her eyes flashing with passion. The child took a lamentable glance before and behind her. What should she do? What would become of her? Where should she go? It was from her mistress she recoiled; she turned back in the direction of the spring, and began running. She left the village running, she entered the wood running, looking at nothing, hearing nothing. She did not stop till breath failed her, but she still went on ahead, wildly. While running she felt inclined to cry, for the nocturnal rustling of the forest completely surrounded her. She did not think, she did not see; the immensity of night was opposed to this little creature; on one side was darkness, on the other an atom. It was only seven or eight minutes' walk from the skirt of the wood to the spring, and Cosette knew the road from having gone there several times by day. Strange to say, she did not lose her way, for a remnant of instinct vaguely guided her; still she did not look either to the right or left, for fear of seeing things in the branches and shrubs. In this way she reached the spring; it was a narrow natural basin hollowed by the water in the dry soil, about two feet in depth, surrounded by moss and that gauffered grass which is called Henri IV.'s ruff, and paved with a few heavy stones. A rivulet escaped from it with a little gentle murmur.
Cosette did not take the time to breathe; it was very dark, but she was accustomed to come to this fountain. She felt in the obscurity for a young oak that leaned over the spring, and usually served her as a support, caught a branch, stooped down, and plunged the bucket into the water. She was in such a violent state that her strength was tripled. While thus bent, she did not notice that the pocket of her apron emptied itself into the stream, and that the fifteen-sous piece fell into the water. Cosette neither saw nor heard it fall; she drew up the bucket nearly full, and placed it on the grass. This done, she felt that she was exhausted with fatigue; she would have liked to start again at once, but the effect of filling the bucket had been so great that she found it impossible to move a step. She fell on to the grass, and lay there utterly exhausted. She shut her eyes, then opened them again, not knowing why, but unable to do otherwise. By her side the water stirring in the bucket made circles that resembled snakes of white fire. Over her head the sky was covered with large black clouds, which seemed like smoke; the tragic mask of the gloom seemed to bend vaguely over this child. Jupiter was setting in the profundity; the child gazed with a wondering eye at this large star, which she did not know, and which terrified her. The planet, in fact, was at this moment very near the horizon, and was passing through a dense fog, which gave it a horrible redness. The fog, which was of a gloomy purple hue, enlarged the planet and it looked like a luminous wound. A cold wind blew from the plain; the wood was dark, but there was no rustling of leaves, and none of the vague and fresh gleams of summer. Large branches stood out frightfully, and shapeless, stunted bushes soughed in the glades. The tall grass twined under the breeze like eels, and the brambles writhed like long arms provided with claws seeking to clutch their prey. A few withered patches of fern, impelled by the breeze, passed rapidly, and seemed to be flying before something that was coming up.
Darkness produces a dizziness. Man requires light, and any one who enters the opposite of light, feels his heart contracted. When the eye sees darkness, the soul sees trouble: in an eclipse, in night, in sooty opaqueness, there is anxiety even for the strongest men. No one walks alone at night in a forest without a tremor, for shadows and trees are formidable densities. A chimerical reality appears in the indistinct profundity; the inconceivable is visible a few paces from you with spectral clearness. You see floating in space, or in your own brain, something vague and intangible, like the dreams of sleeping flowers. There are stern attitudes on the horizon, and you breathe the effluvia of the great black vacuum. You feel frightened and inclined to look behind you. The cavities of night, the silent outlines which disperse as you advance, the irritated tufts, the lurid pools, the lugubrious reflected in the mournful, the sepulchral immensity of silence, the possible strange beings, the bending of mysterious branches, the frightful torsos of trees, the long waves of quivering grass,—you are defenceless against this. There is no man, however bold, who does not shudder and feel this proximity of agony; something hideous is experienced, as if the soul were amalgamated with the shades. This penetration of darkness is indescribably sinister in a child. Forests are apocalypses, and the beating of the wings of a little soul produces a sound of death beneath their monstrous dome.
Without understanding what she experienced, Cosette felt herself affected by this black enormity of nature: it was no longer terror alone that over-powered her, but something even more terrible than terror. She shuddered, and words fail us to describe the strange nature of this shudder which chilled her to the heart. Her eye had become stern, and she felt as if she could not prevent herself from returning to the same spot on the morrow. Then, by a species of instinct, and in order to emerge from this singular state which she did not understand, but which terrified her, she began counting aloud one, two, three, four, up to ten, and when she finished, she began again. This restored her a true perception of the things that surrounded her: she felt the coldness of her hands, which she had wetted in drawing the water. She rose, for fear had seized upon her again, a natural and insurmountable fear. She had only one thought left, to fly, fly at full speed through the wood, and across the fields, as far as the houses, the windows, and the lighted candles. Her eye fell on the bucket before her; and such was the terror with which her mistress inspired her that she did not dare fly without the bucket. She seized the handle with both hands and found it difficult to lift. She proceeded thus for about a dozen yards, but the bucket was full and heavy, and she was compelled to set it on the ground. She breathed for a moment, and then lifted the bucket and started again, this time going a little farther. But she was still obliged to stop once more, and after a few moments' rest, set out again. She walked with body bent forward and drooping head, like an old woman, and the weight of the bucket stiffened her thin arms. The iron handle swelled and froze her small white hands. From time to time she was forced to stop, and each time she did so, the cold water from the bucket plashed her bare legs. This occurred in the heart of a wood, at night, in winter, far from any human eye. She was a child of eight years of age, and God alone at this moment saw this sorrowful sight, and her mother too, doubtless! for there are things which open the eyes of the dead in their graves.
She breathed with a sort of dolorous rattle; sobs contracted her throat, but she did not dare cry, for she was so afraid of her mistress, even at a distance. It was her habit always to imagine Madame Thénardier present. Still, she did not make much progress in this way, and she walked very slowly, although she strove to lessen the length of her halts and walk as long as she possibly could between them. She thought with agony that it would take her more than an hour to get back to Montfermeil in this way, and that her mistress would beat her. This agony was mingled with her terror at being alone in the wood at night; she was worn out with fatigue, and had not yet left the forest. On reaching an old chestnut-tree which she knew, she made a longer halt than the others to rest herself thoroughly; then she collected all her strength, took up the bucket again, and began walking courageously. Still the poor little creature in her despair could not refrain from exclaiming,—"My God! my God!" All at once she suddenly felt that the bucket no longer weighed anything; a hand which seemed to her enormous had seized it, and was vigorously lifting it. She raised her head, and saw a tall black form walking by her side; it was a man who had come up behind her, and whom she had not heard. This man, without saying a word, had seized the handle of the bucket which she was carrying. There is an instinct in every meeting of this life. The child felt no fear.
On the afternoon of this same Christmas day, 1823, a man walked for a long time about the most desolate part of the Boulevard de l'Hôpital, at Paris. He seemed to be looking for a lodging, and to stop for choice at the most shabby houses in this skirt of the Faubourg St. Marceau. As we shall see presently, this man had really hired a bed-room in this isolated district. Both in dress and person he realized the type of what might be called the respectable mendicant, or extreme misery combined with extreme cleanliness. This is a very rare blending, which inspires intelligent minds with the twofold respect which is felt for the very poor and the very worthy man. He wore a very old and carefully-brushed round hat, a threadbare coat of coarse yellow-ochre colored cloth,—a color which was not absolutely odd at that day,—a long waistcoat with enormous pockets, black breeches which had turned gray at the knees, black worsted stockings, and stout shoes with brass buckles. He looked like the ex-tutor of a good family returned from emigration. From his white hair, wrinkled forehead, livid lips, and his face in which everything revealed weariness of life, he might have been supposed much beyond sixty years of age; but his firm though slow step, and the singular vigor imprinted on all his movements, made him look scarce fifty. The wrinkles on his forehead were well placed, and would have favorably disposed any one who observed him closely; his lip was contracted by a strange curve, which seemed stern, but was humble, and there was a lugubrious serenity in his look. He carried in his left hand a small parcel tied up in a handkerchief; and in his right he had a stick cut from a hedge. This stick had been carved with some care, and was not too bad-looking; advantage had been taken of the knots, and a coral knob had been made with red sealing-wax,—it was a cudgel and seemed a cane.
Few people pass along this boulevard, especially in winter; this man, however, seemed to avoid rather than seek them, though without affectation. At this period Louis XVIII. went almost daily to Choisy le Roi, which was one of his favorite drives. At two o'clock the royal carriage and escort could almost invariably be seen passing at full gallop along the Boulevard de l'Hôpital. This did as well as a clock or watch for the poor women of the district, who said, "It is two o'clock, for he is returning to the Tuileries." And some ran up and others drew up, for a king who passes always produces a tumult. Moreover, the appearance and disappearance of Louis XVIII. produced a certain effect in the streets of Paris, for it was rapid but majestic. This impotent king had a taste for galloping; unable to walk, he wished to run; and this cripple would have liked to be drawn by lightning. He passed, peaceful and stern, amid drawn sabres; his heavy gilded berline, with large branches of lilies painted on the panels, rolled noisily along. There was scarce time to take a glance at him; you saw in the right-hand corner a broad, firm, red face, a healthy forehead powdered à l'oiseau royal, a proud, harsh, artful eye, an intelligent smile, two heavy epaulettes with hanging fringe upon a civilian coat; the golden fleece, the Cross of St. Louis, the Cross of the Legion of Honor, the silver plate of the Holy Ghost, a large stomach, and a wide blue ribbon,—it was the king. When out of Paris he carried his white feathered hat on his knees, up to which came tall English gaiters; when he returned to the city he put his hat on his head, and bowed rarely. He looked at the people coldly, and they returned the compliment; when he appeared for the first time in the Faubourg St. Marceau, his entire success consisted in a remark made by a workman to his chum,—"That fat man is the government."
The infallible passage of the king at the same hour was hence the daily event of the Boulevard de l'Hôpital. The promenader in the yellow coat plainly did not belong to that quarter, and probably not to Paris, for he was ignorant of the fact. When at two o'clock the royal carriage, surrounded by Life Guards with their silver aiguillettes, turned into the boulevard, after coming round the Salpêtrière, he seemed surprised and almost terrified. As he was alone in the walk, he quickly concealed himself behind an angle of the wall; but this did not prevent the Duc d'Havre from noticing him. As Captain of the Guards on duty that day, he was seated in the carriage opposite to the king, and said to his Majesty,—"There is an ill-looking fellow." The policemen, who cleared the way for the king, also noticed him, and one of them received orders to follow him. But the man turned into the solitary streets of the Faubourg, and, as night was setting in, the agent lost his trail, as is proved by a report addressed the same evening to Count Anglès, Minister of State and Prefect of Police. When the man in the yellow coat had thrown out the agent, he doubled his pace, though not without looking back many times to make sure that he was not followed. At a quarter-past four, that is to say, at nightfall, he passed in front of the Porte St. Martin theatre, where the "Two Convicts" would be performed that evening. This bill, lit up by theatre lamps, struck him, for though he was walking rapidly, he stopped to read it. A moment later he entered "The Pewter Platter," which was at that time the office of the Lagny coach, which started at half-past four. The horses were put in, and the passengers, summoned by the driver, were hastily clambering up the iron steps of the vehicle. The man asked,—
"Have you a seat left?"
"Only one, by my side, on the box," the driver said.
"I will take it."
"Get up," the driver said.
Before starting, however, he took a glance at the passenger's poor dress and the smallness of his bundle, and asked for the fare.
"Are you going all the way to Lagny?" he said.
"Yes," the man answered.
The traveller paid his fare to Lagny and the coach started. After passing the city gate, the driver tried to get up a conversation, but the traveller only answered in monosyllables; so the driver began whistling and swearing at his horses. As the night was cold, he wrapped himself in his cloak, but the passenger did not seem to notice it. At about six o'clock they reached Chelles, where the driver stopped for a moment to let his horses breathe, at an inn opened in the old buildings of the Royal Abbey.
"I shall get down here," the man said.
He took his bundle and stick and jumped off the coach. A moment after he had disappeared, but he did not enter the inn. When the coachman started again a few moments after, he did not meet him in the high street of Lagny, and he turned round to his inside passengers:—
"That man," he said, "does not belong to these parts, for I do not know him. He looks as if he had not a penny; and yet he don't care for money, as he paid his fare to Lagny and only came as far as Chelles. It is night, all the houses are closed, he has not gone into the inn, and yet I can't see him, so he must have sunk into the ground."
The man had not sunk into the ground, but walked hastily along the main street of Chelles, in the darkness; then he turned to his left before reaching the church, into a cross-road that runs to Montfermeil, like a man who knows the country and had been there before. He followed this road rapidly, and at the spot where it is intersected by the old road that runs from Lagny to Gagny, he heard wayfarers coming. He hurriedly concealed himself in a ditch, and waited till they had passed; the precaution, however, was almost superfluous, for, as we have said, it was a very dark December night, and only two or three stars were visible in the sky. The man did not return to the Montfermeil road, but went to his right, across the fields, and hurried in the direction of the wood. When he was in it, he slackened his pace, and began looking carefully at all the trees, walking step by step, as if seeking and following a mysterious road known to himself alone. There was a moment at which he seemed to lose himself and appeared undecided; but at last, by repeated groping, he reached a glade in which there was a pile of large white stones. He walked hurriedly toward these stones and attentively examined them, as if passing them in review. A large tree, covered with those excrescences which are the warts of vegetation, was a few paces from the heap; he went up to it and passed his hand over the back as if trying to recognize and count all the warts. Opposite this tree, which was an ash, there was a sickly chestnut shedding its bark, upon which a ring of zinc had been placed as a poultice. He stood on tip-toe and felt this ring; then he examined for some time the ground in the space contained between the tree and the stones, as if assuring himself that the ground had not been freshly turned up. This done, he looked about him, and resumed his walk through the wood.
It was this man who came across Cosette. While proceeding in the direction of Montfermeil, he perceived this little shadow depositing a load on the ground, then taking it up again and continuing her journey. He went up and saw that it was a young child carrying an enormous bucket; then he drew to her side and silently took the bucket handle.
Cosette, as we stated, was not frightened. The man spoke to her in a serious, almost low voice,—
"My child, what you are carrying is very heavy."
Cosette raised her head and replied, "Yes, sir."
"Give it to me," the man continued; "I will carry it."
Cosette let go the bucket, and the man walked on by her side.
"It is really very heavy," he muttered; then added, "What is your age, little one?"
"Eight years, sir."
"And have you come far with this?"
"From the spring in the wood."
"And how far have you to go?"
"About a quarter of an hour's walk."
The man stopped for a moment, and then suddenly said,—
"Then you have not a mother?"
"I do not know," the child answered.
Before the man had time to speak, she continued,—
"I do not think so; other girls have one, but I have not."
And after a silence, she added,—
"I believe that I never had one."
The man stopped, put the bucket on the ground, and laid his two hands on her shoulders, making an effort to see her face in the darkness. Cosette's thin sallow countenance was vaguely designed in the vivid gleam of the sky.
"What is your name?" the man asked her.
"Cosette."
The man seemed to have an electric shock; he looked at her again, then removed his hands, took the bucket up again, and continued his walk. A moment after he asked,—
"Where do you live, little one?"
"At Montfermeil, if you know the place."
"Are we going there?"
"Yes, sir."
There was another pause, and then he began again.
"Who was it that sent you to fetch water from the wood at this hour?"
"Madame Thénardier."
The man continued with an accent which he strove to render careless, but in which there was, for all that, a singular tremor:—
"What is this Madame Thénardier?"
"She is my mistress," the child said, "and keeps the inn."
"The inn?" remarked the man; "well, I am going to lodge there to-night. Show me the way."
"We are going to it."
Though the man walked rather quickly, Cosette had no difficulty in keeping up with him; she no longer felt fatigue, and from time to time raised her eyes to this man with a sort of indescribable calmness and confidence. She had never been taught to turn her eyes toward Providence, and yet she felt within her something that resembled hope and joy, and which rose to heaven. After the lapse of a few minutes the man continued,—
"Does Madame Thénardier keep no servant?"
"No, sir."
"Is there no one but you?"
"No, sir."
There was another interruption, and then Cosette raised her voice,—
"That is to say, there are two little girls."
"What little girls?"
"Ponine and Zelma."
The child simplified in this way the romantic names dear to Madame Thénardier.
"Who are they?"
"They are Madame Thénardier's young ladies, as you may say,—her daughters."
"And what do they do?"
"Oh!" said the child, "they have handsome dolls, and things all covered with gold. They play about and amuse themselves."
"All day?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you?"
"Oh, I work."
"All day?"
The child raised her large eyes, in which stood a tear, invisible in the darkness, and replied softly,—
"Yes, sir." After a silence she continued: "Sometimes, when I have finished my work and they allow me, I amuse myself."
"In what way?"
"As I can; they let me be, but I have not many toys. Ponine and Zelma do not like me to play with their dolls, and I have only a little leaden sword, no longer than that."
The child held out her little finger.
"And which does not cut?"
"Oh yes, sir," said the child; "it cuts salad and chops flies' heads off."
They reached the village, and Cosette guided the stranger through the streets. When they passed the baker's, Cosette did not think of the loaf which she was to bring in. The man had ceased questioning her, and preserved a gloomy silence; but when they had left the church behind them, on seeing all the open-air shops, he asked Cosette,—
"Is it the fair-time?"
"No, sir, it is Christmas."
When they approached the inn, Cosette touched his arm timidly.
"Sir."
"What is it, my child?"
"We are close to the house."
"Well?"
"Will you let me carry my bucket now?"
"Why?"
"Because Madame will be at me if she sees that it has been carried for me."
The man gave her the bucket, and a moment later they were at the door of the pot-house.
Cosette could not refrain from taking a side glance at the large doll which was still displayed at the toy-shop, and then tapped at the door; it opened, and Madame Thénardier appeared, candle in hand.
"Oh, it's you, you little devil! Well, I'll be hanged if you have not taken time enough; you've been playing, I expect."
"Madame," said Cosette, with a violent tremor, "this gentleman wants a bed-room."
Madame Thénardier exchanged her coarse look for an amiable grimace,—a change peculiar to landladies,—and greedily turned her eyes on the new-comer.
"Is this the gentleman?" she said.
"Yes, Madame," the man answered, touching his hat.
Rich travellers are not so polite. This gesture and the inspection of the stranger's clothes and luggage, which the landlady took in at a glance, caused the amiable grimace to disappear and the rough look to return. She continued dryly,—
"Come in, my good man."
The "good man" entered; the landlady gave him a second look, carefully examined his threadbare coat and broken-brimmed hat, and consulted her husband, who was still drinking with the carter, by a toss of the head, a curl of her nose, and a wink. The husband answered with that imperceptible movement of the forefinger which, laid on the puffed-out lips, signifies, "No go!" Upon this the landlady exclaimed,—
"My good man, I am very sorry, but I haven't a bed-room disengaged."
"Put me where you like," the man said,—"in the loft or the stable. I will pay as if it were a bed-room."
"Forty sous."
"Be it so."
"Forty sous!" a carrier whispered to the landlady; "why, it is only twenty sous."
"It's forty for a man like him," Madame Thénardier replied in the same tone; "I do not lodge poor people under."
"That is true," the husband added gently; "it injures a house to have customers of that sort."
In the mean while the man, after leaving his bundle and stick on a form, sat down at a table on which Cosette had hastened to place a bottle of wine and a glass. The pedler who had asked for the bucket of water himself carried it to his horse, while Cosette returned to her place under the kitchen table and her knitting. The man, who had scarce moistened his lips with the glass of wine he poured out, gazed at the child with strange attention. Cosette was ugly, but had she been happy she might possibly have been pretty. We have already sketched her little overclouded face: Cosette was thin and sickly, and, though eight years of age, looked hardly six. Her large eyes, buried in a species of shadow, were almost extinguished by constant crying, while the corners of her mouth had the curve of habitual agony, which may be observed in condemned prisoners and in patients who are given over. "Her hands were," as her mother had foretold, "ruined with chilblains." The fire-light, which shone upon her at this moment, brought out the angles of her bones and rendered her thinness frightfully visible; as she constantly shivered, she had grown into the habit of always keeping her knees pressed against each other. Her entire clothing was one rag, which would have aroused pity in summer, and caused horror in winter. She had only torn calico upon her person, and not a morsel of woollen stuff: her skin was here and there visible, and everywhere could be distinguished blue or black marks, indicating the spots where her mistress had beaten her. Her bare legs were red and rough, and the hollow between her shoulder-blades would have moved you to tears. The whole person of this child, her attitude, the sound of her voice, the interval between one word and the next, her look, her silence, her slightest movement, expressed and translated but one idea,—fear. Fear was spread over her; she was, so to speak, clothed in it; fear drew up her elbows against her hips, withdrew her heels under her petticoats, made her occupy as little room as possible, breathe only when absolutely necessary, and had become what might be called the habit of her body, without any possible variation save that of increasing. There was a corner in her eye in which terror lurked. This fear was so great that Cosette on returning wet through did not dare go to the fire, but silently began her work again. The expression of this child's eye was habitually so gloomy and at times so tragical, that it seemed at certain moments as if she were on the point of becoming either an idiot or a demon. Never, as we said, had she known what prayer was; never had she set foot in a church. "Can I spare the time for it?" Madame Thénardier used to say. The man in the yellow coat did not take his eyes off Cosette. All at once her mistress cried,—
"Hilloh! where's the loaf?"
Cosette, according to her custom whenever Madame Thénardier raised her voice, quickly came from under the table. She had completely forgotten the loaf, and had recourse to the expedient of terrified children,—she told a falsehood.
"Madame, the baker's was shut up."