The tale of a little girl named Cosette begins with her mother's unhappy love story. Her mother's name was Fantina, she was madly in love with one man, but he turned out to be very insidious - he took advantage of her and left her to the mercy of fate. After their romance, the woman had a daughter.
With a little girl in her arms, Fantina is forced to wander around the world in search of food, but who will hire a woman with a small child in her arms? So, one day, their wanderings lead them to Montfermeil, to the street of Breadbakers, and a wonderful
Picture: two girls, happy and cheerful, swinging on their swing.
Fantine decided that this was the kind of life her daughter deserved. After talking with the children, she asked them to take her to her parents. So she finds herself in front of the doors of the inn, which belonged to the greedy spouses of the Thenardiers. Fantina persuades the owners to keep her daughter, promising to send money monthly for her maintenance. So Cosette finds herself in the Thenardier family.
The innkeeper and his wife hate the girl and do everything to aggravate her existence. Greed strangles these people, they believe that Cosette is eating them. She was told to eat
Scraps under the table, along with the animals, despite the fact that her mother, as promised, continued to send money as agreed. But everything was not enough for the owners of the tavern, and they constantly increased the payment for the maintenance of the girl. So, from the originally agreed seven francs per month, this amount increased to fifteen.
The unhappy woman fulfilled any of their false demands: whether it was additional money for warm clothes or expensive medicines to treat a non-existent disease. In desperation, Fantine had to sell her hair and teeth so that her daughter could live and be kept, as she thought, in decent conditions. She never stopped seeing that swing, and imagined that her daughter, along with the children of the innkeeper, swings on them just as cheerfully and carefreely every day.
As soon as Cosette was five years old, she became a servant in a greedy family. She washes, cleans, sweeps the yard, goes shopping and does all the dirtiest work. The girl entered their house as a bright pink-cheeked child, and a couple of years later she became an exhausted and tortured girl. The children of the owners did not allow her to approach them and play together. The unfortunate mother died of consumption, and she was left all alone in this world.
Before she died, the only thing Fantine wanted was to see her girl. But her prayer was not answered - the woman died without ever seeing her daughter. Reading about her life, you involuntarily overwhelm with pity for the poor child and do not understand how the Thenardier couple can be so angry and greedy. And it would seem that the girl's life was a foregone conclusion - eternal torment and serving people who hate you in the house.
But Christmas Eve came, and everyone was preparing for this sacred holiday. The night was very cold, but in spite of this, the hostess ordered Cosette to fetch water from the stream. The girl was madly afraid of the dark, but the anger of the innkeeper frightened her even more. On the way to the stream, Cosette's attention was drawn to a beautiful doll on the counter of a shop window. Looking at her, the girl thought only about how beautiful this doll is. But, having regained consciousness, she quickly walked to the water, scooped up a bucket, and, bending over from the weight, dragged the load towards the inn. Suddenly a hand grabbed her load.
The stranger turned out to be an old man, very poorly dressed. He offered his help and asked who had sent the girl at such a late hour and with such an assignment, after which he accompanied her to the inn. Madame Thenardier looked at the old man appraisingly and invited him to the table. Talking about how they got Cosette, how much trouble she brought to her family, and how the girl devours her own children, the hostess called the girl the reason for the impoverishment of the innkeeper's family. All this time, the girl obediently sat under the table.
Seeing the neglected rag doll of the Madame's daughters, Cosette pulled it off the table. The hostess, noticing this, flew into a rage and wanted to punish the girl. But the old man intervened - he left the inn and returned with the very doll that Cosette had just recently been staring at. He handed it to the girl, which infuriated the innkeeper, and made her daughters turn green with envy.
The innkeeper's husband, Monsieur Thenardier, rebuked the stranger for such generosity, referring to the fact that this girl should work, not play. And then the old man made a decision. He invited the Thenardiers to relieve them of the torment of the unhappy upbringing and take Cosette with him. The hostess almost immediately agreed, but her husband was hanged, who wanted to bargain and not let the girl go for free, because they put so much effort and money on her upbringing.
The old man firmly took her by the hand, leading her out of the inn to meet her new life. The author does not say exactly how the girl's life changed, only hints that since then she has been long and happy.
Chapter 1
What can be found on the road from Nivelle
Last year (1861), on a sunny May morning, a passer-by telling this story, arriving from Nivelle, was heading for La Gulpe. He walked along a wide, tree-lined highway that stretched along a chain of hills, now rising, now falling, as it were in huge waves. He passed Lilua and Bois-Seigneur-Isaac. To the west was the slate bell tower of Bren-l'Alle, like an upturned vase. He left behind him a grove spread out on a hill and at a turn of a country road, near some semblance of a gallows, eaten by worms, with the inscription: "Old outpost No. 4" - a tavern, the facade of which was adorned with a sign: "In the open air. Private coffee shop Eshabo.
After another quarter of a league, he descended into a small valley, where a stream flowed from under the bridge arch in the road embankment. Groups of not dense, but bright green trees, which livened the valley on one side of the highway, scattered from the opposite side through the meadows and in graceful disarray stretched towards Bren-l'Alle.
To the right, at the edge of the road, was an inn, a four-wheeled cart in front of the gate, a large bundle of hop poles, a plow, a heap of brushwood by the hedge, lime smoking in a square pit, a staircase leaning against an old open barn with thatched partitions inside. A young girl was weeding in a field where a huge yellow billboard was fluttering in the wind, announcing, in all likelihood, a fair show on the occasion of a temple festival. Around the corner of the inn, near a puddle in which a flock of ducks splashed, a badly paved path led into the bushes. A passer-by went there.
After walking about a hundred paces along the fifteenth-century fence, topped with a sharp tong of colored bricks, he found himself in front of a large stone vaulted gate, with a straight transverse bar over the stern Louis XIV style shutters and two flat medallions on the sides. The facade of a building of the same austere style towered over the gate; the wall, perpendicular to the facade, almost came close to the gate, forming a right angle. In front of them, in the clearing, were three harrows, through the teeth of which all kinds of spring flowers alternated between them. The gate was closed. They were closed by two dilapidated doors, on which an old rusty hammer hung.
The sun shone brightly; the branches of the trees swayed softly with that gentle rustle of May, which seems to come more from the nests than from the foliage swayed by the breeze. A brave little bird, apparently in love, sounded loudly between the branches of a spreading tree.
A passer-by bent down and below, on the left side of the right stubborn stone of the gate, saw a rather wide round depression, similar to the inside of a ball. At that moment the gates were thrown open, and a peasant woman appeared.
She saw a passer-by and guessed what he was looking at.
“A French cannonball got here,” she said.
- How is this place called? A passerby asked.
“Gugomon,” replied the peasant woman.
The passer-by straightened up, took a few steps and looked behind the hedge. On the horizon, through the trees, he noticed a hillock, and on this hillock something that looked like a lion from afar.
He was on the battlefield of Waterloo.
Chapter 2
Gugumont
Gugumont is that ominous place, the beginning of opposition, the first resistance met at Waterloo by the great lumberjack of Europe, whose name is Napoleon; the first stubborn bough under the blow of his ax.
Once it was a castle, now it is just a farm. Gugomon for the connoisseur of antiquity - "Gugomon". This castle was erected by Hugo, Ser de Somerél, the one who made a rich gift to the sixth chaplaincy of the Abbey of Villiers.
A passer-by pushed the gate and, brushing his elbow against an old carriage standing under their arch, entered the courtyard.
The first thing that struck him in this courtyard was the sixteenth-century gate, which looked like an arch, for everything around it had collapsed. The ruins often give the impression of grandeur. Near the arch in the wall was another vaulted gate, from the time of Henry IV, through which the trees of the orchard were visible. Near these gates there is a manure pit, hoes and shovels, several wheelbarrows, an old well with a stone slab on its front wall and an iron spinner on the gate, a frolicking foal, a turkey fanning its tail, a chapel with a small belfry, a trellis pear tree in bloom, overshadowing the branches of the wall of this chapel - such is this courtyard, which was Napoleon's dream to conquer. If he could master him, then perhaps this corner of the earth would make him the ruler of the world. Here chickens stir up dust with their beaks. The growl of a large dog is heard, it grinds its fangs and now replaces the British.
The English were astonishing here. Cook's four guards companies for seven hours withstood the fierce onslaught of an entire army.
Gugumont, depicted on the map in a horizontal plan, including all buildings and fenced areas, is an irregular rectangle with a cut corner. In this corner, under the protection of a wall from which it was possible to fire point-blank at attackers, is the southern gate. There are two gates in Gugumont: the southern gate is the castle gate, and the northern gate is the farm gate. Napoleon sent his brother Jerome against Gugaumont; here the divisions of Guillemino, Foix and Bacheloux collided; almost all of Reil's corps was brought into battle here and died, Kellerman spent his entire supply of nuclei on this heroic wall. Bauduin's detachment only with difficulty penetrated into Gugumont from the north, and the Sua brigade, although it burst there from the south, could not take it.
The farm buildings surround the courtyard from the south. Part of the northern gate, smashed by the French, hangs from the wall. These are four planks nailed to two crossbars, and the scars from the attack are clearly visible on them.
In the back of the courtyard one can see the half-open northern gate with a patch of planks in place of the sash knocked out by the French and now hanging on the wall. They are made in a brick wall with a stone base, which encloses the courtyard from the north. This is an ordinary quadrangular walk-through gate, which can be seen on all farms: two wide leaves, hammered together from unhewn planks. Behind them are meadows. The battle for this entrance was fierce. Traces of bloody hands remained on the gates for a long time. It was here that Baudouin was killed.
Even to this day, the hurricane of battle is felt in this courtyard; his horror is captured here; the fury of the hand-to-hand combat seemed to be frozen in its midst; this lives, and that dies; it seems like it was all yesterday. Walls are crumbling, stones are falling, gaps groan; breaks look like wounds; the bent and trembling trees seem to struggle to flee from here.
This courtyard was built up closer in 1815 than it is today. The buildings, which were later destroyed, formed protrusions, corners, sharp turns in it.
The British were entrenched there; the French burst in there, but could not resist. Near the chapel, the collapsed, or rather, torn apart, wing of the building has survived - all that remains of the Gugomon castle. The castle served as a fortress, the chapel served as a blockhouse. Mutual extermination took place here. The French, fired on from all sides - from behind the walls, from the attic towers, from the depths of the cellars, from all the windows, from all the vents, from all the cracks in the walls - brought the fascines and set fire to the walls and people. Fire was the answer to buckshot.
In the ruined wing of the castle, through the windows covered with iron bars, the remains of the ruined chambers of the main brick building are visible; in these chambers the English guard settled. The spiral staircase, all scattered from the ground floor to the very roof, seems to be the inside of a shattered shell. This staircase went through two floors; the British besieged and driven upward destroyed the lower steps. And now these wide slabs of bluish stone lie in a heap among the overgrown nettles. A dozen steps are still held in the wall; the first of them is carved with the image of a trident. These inaccessible steps sit firmly in their nests. The rest of the ladder is like a jaw devoid of teeth. Two trees rise right there. One is withered, the other is damaged at the root, but every spring it turns green again. It began to sprout through the stairs in 1815.
The massacre took place in the chapel. Now it is quiet again, but she looks strange. Since the time of this massacre, no services have been performed there. However, the lectern survived there - a rough wooden lectern leaning against an unhewn stone block. Four walls whitewashed with lime, a door opposite the throne, two small semicircular windows, a large wooden crucifix on the door, a quadrangular vent over the crucifix, stuffed with an armful of hay, in a corner on the ground, an old broken window frame - this is this chapel. Near the lectern is a wooden, fifteenth century, statue of St. Anne; the head of the baby Jesus was torn off with buckshot. The French, who for some time took possession of the chapel and then ousted from it, set it on fire. The flames engulfed this decrepit building. It turned into a red-hot oven. The door burned down, the floor burned down, only the wooden crucifix did not burn down. The flame charred the feet of Christ, turning them into blackened stumps, but did not go further. According to local residents, it was a miracle. The baby Jesus, who was beheaded, was less fortunate than being crucified.
The walls are all covered with inscriptions. At the feet of Christ you can read: "Henquines" 1
Enkinesis (Spanish).
Marques y Marquesa de Almagro (Habana) " 3
Marquis and Marquis de Almagro (Havanna) (Spanish).
There are also French names with exclamation marks that speak of anger. In 1849, the walls were whitewashed: here the nations reviled each other.
It was near the door of this chapel that a corpse was picked up, holding an ax in its hand. It was the corpse of Lieutenant Legros.
You leave the chapel and to the right you notice a well. There are two of them in this yard. You ask: why does this well have no bucket and block? But because no more water is drawn from it. Why is no more water being drawn from it? Because it's stuffed with skeletons.
The last person to take water from this well was Guillaume van Kiels. This peasant lived in Gugomon and worked as a gardener in the castle. On June 18, 1815, his family fled and took refuge in the forest.
The forest that surrounded the Abbey of Villiers gave shelter for many days and nights to all the unfortunate dispersed population. To this day, clear traces have survived in the form of old charred stumps, marking the places of these wretched camps, hiding in the thickets of bushes.
Guillaume van Keels, who remained in Gugumont to "guard the castle", hid in the cellar. The British found him, dragged him out of the shelter and, beating with a scabbard of sabers, forced this man, terrified to death, to serve himself. They were tormented by thirst, and Guillaume had to bring them drink, drawing water from this well. For many, it was the last breath of life. The well, from which so many doomed to perish drank, had to perish itself.
After the battle, they were in a great hurry to bury the corpses to the ground. Death has a habit inherent in it alone - to tease victory, following the glory of sending disease. Typhus is an indispensable addition to triumph. The well was deep and turned into a grave. Three hundred corpses were thrown into it. Perhaps it was done too hastily. Was everyone dead? Tradition says that not everything. They say that on the night after the burial, faint voices were heard from the well, crying for help.
This well is located in a mansion in the middle of the courtyard. Three walls, half stone, half brick, set up like screens and resembling a quadrangular turret, surround it on three sides. The fourth side is free, and water was drawn from here. There is something like an irregular round window in the back wall - probably a hole from an explosive shell. The turret once had a roof, of which only beams have survived. The iron supports of the right wall form a cross. Lean over, and your gaze drowns in the depths of a brick cylinder filled with darkness. The foot of the walls around the well is overgrown with nettles.
The broad blue slab of stone, which in Belgium serves as the front wall of the wells, has been replaced by a crossbar held together by five or six shapeless stumps of wood, knobby and crooked, like huge skeletal bones. There is no more bucket, no chain, no block, but there is still a stone gutter that served as a drain. Rainwater accumulates in it, and from time to time a birdie flies in from the neighboring groves to drink from it and immediately fly away.
The only residential building among these ruins is a farm. The door of the house faces the courtyard. Next to a beautiful, Gothic-style door lock plate, an iron trefoil handle is nailed obliquely. At the moment when the Hanoverian lieutenant Wilda took up her to take refuge on the farm, the French sapper cut off his arm with an ax.
The family now living in this house is the offspring of the long-dead gardener van Kilsom. A gray-haired woman told me: “I was a witness to what was happening. I was three years old at that time. My older sister was scared and cried. We were carried to the forest. I sat in my mother's arms. To hear better, everyone dropped their ears to the ground. And I kept repeating after the gun: "Boom, boom."
The gate in the courtyard, the ones to the left, as we have already said, go out into the orchard.
The view of the orchard is terrible.
It consists of three parts, or rather, three acts of the drama. The first part is a flower garden, the second is an orchard, and the third is a grove. All of them are surrounded by a common fence: from the side of the entrance - the buildings of the castle and a farm, to the left - a wattle fence, to the right - a wall, in the depth - a wall. The right wall is brick, the wall in the depth is stone. First of all, you enter the flower garden. It is located at the very bottom, planted with currant bushes, overgrown with weeds and ends with a huge terrace faced with hewn stone with round balusters. It was a manor's garden in the early French style that preceded Le Nôtre; now they are ruins and thorns. The pilasters are crowned with balls like stone cannonballs. Even now, there are forty-three surviving balusters on stands, the rest are lying in the grass. Traces of buckshot are visible on almost all of them. And one, damaged, holds on to its broken end, like a broken leg.
It was into this flower garden, located below the orchard, that six soldiers of the first infantry regiment penetrated and, unable to get out of there, overtaken and hunted, like bears in a den, took battle with two Hanoverian companies, one of which was armed with carbines. The Hanoverians positioned themselves behind this balustrade and fired from above. Fearless infantrymen, shooting from below, six against a hundred, and having no other cover than currant bushes, held out for a quarter of an hour.
You climb a few steps and leave the flower garden into the orchard. Here, in an area of several square fathoms, fifteen hundred people fell within an hour. It seems that the walls here and now are ready to rush into battle. Thirty-eight loopholes, pierced in them by the British at various heights, still survived. Opposite the sixteenth loophole are two English graves with granite tombstones. There are loopholes only on the southern wall, from the side of which the main offensive was carried out. Outside, this wall is hidden by a tall hedge. The French, advancing, assumed that they would only have to attack this hedge, but ran into a wall, an obstacle and an ambush - the English guard, thirty-eight guns firing simultaneously, a hurricane of cannonballs and bullets; and the Sua brigade was defeated. Thus began the Battle of Waterloo.
However, the orchard was taken. There were no stairs, the French were climbing the walls, clinging to their nails. Hand-to-hand fighting ensued under the trees. All the grass around was stained with blood. Nassau's seven hundred-man battalion was destroyed. The outer side of the wall, against which stood two of Kellerman's batteries, was all eaten away with buckshot.
But this orchard, like any other garden, does not remain indifferent to the arrival of spring. And in it buttercups and daisies bloom, tall grass grows, work horses graze; ropes stretched between trees with linen drying on them make passers-by bend down; you step on this virgin soil, and every now and then the foot falls into wormholes. In the dense grass, you can see the green trunk of a tree that has been turned upside down. Major Blackman leaned against him, dying. Under a tall nearby tree fell the German general Duplat, a French by birth, who emigrated with his family from France after the repeal of the Edict of Nantes. Nearby, an old, sick apple tree with a bandage of straw and clay was bent over. Almost all apple trees bent to the ground from old age. There is not a single one in which a rifle or grape-shot bullet would not sit. This garden is full of dead wood. Crows fly among the branches; in the distance you can see a grove where many violets bloom.
Here Bauduin was killed, Foix was wounded, there was a fire, a massacre, a massacre, here a mixed stream of English, German and French blood raged; here is a well filled with corpses; here the Nassau regiment and the Brunswick regiment were destroyed, Duplat was killed, Blackman was killed, the English guard was crippled, twenty of the forty French battalions that made up the Reil corps were destroyed, in the ruins of the Gugomon castle alone they were chopped up with sabers, chopped up, strangled, shot, three thousand people burned and all this is only so that now some peasant could say to the traveler: "Sir, give me three francs, and, if you like, I will tell you how it was at Waterloo!"
Chapter 3
June 18, 1815
Let's go back - this is the right of every narrator - and fast forward to 1815 and even a little earlier than the time from which the events described in the first part of this book begin.
If it hadn't rained on the night of June 17-18, 1815, the future of Europe would have been different. A few extra drops of water broke Napoleon. For Waterloo to serve as the end of Austerlitz, Providence needed only a light rain; it was enough for a cloud that swept across the sky in spite of this time of year to cause the collapse of the whole world.
The Battle of Waterloo could begin only at half past eleven, and this enabled Blucher to arrive on time. Why? Because the soil was soggy and it was necessary to wait until the roads were dry in order to bring up the artillery.
Napoleon was an artillery officer, he felt it himself. The whole essence of this amazing commander was expressed in one phrase of his report to the Directory about Abukir: "Such and such of our cores killed six people." All his military plans were based on artillery. To bring all the artillery to the designated place - that was the key to victory for him. He viewed the strategy of an enemy general as a fortress and made a breach in it. Weak points were suppressed with buckshot, engaged in battles and resolved their outcome with a cannon. His genius is the genius of precise aiming. To cut the square, to scatter regiments, to break the line, to destroy and disperse dense columns of troops — this is his goal; to strike, strike, strike incessantly - and he entrusted this matter to the core. A terrifying system that, in alliance with genius for fifteen years, made this grim master of the military craft invincible.
On June 18, 1815, he all the more relied on artillery, since its numerical superiority was on his side. Wellington had only one hundred and fifty-nine guns at his disposal, while Napoleon had two hundred and forty.
Imagine that the ground were dry, the artillery would arrive in time and the battle could begin at six in the morning. It would have been completed by two in the afternoon, that is, three hours before the arrival of the Prussians.
Is it Napoleon's share of fault that the battle was lost? Can the helmsman be blamed for the shipwreck?
Was not the apparent decline of Napoleon's physical strength during this period complicated by the decline of his mental strength? Have not the blade and scabbard worn out in twenty years of war, have not his spirit and body tired? Has not a soldier, who has already served, begun to gain the upper hand in the commander, regrettably? In short, was this genius not already extinguished then, as many prominent historians believed? Was he not going into a frenzy just to hide his powerlessness from himself? Did you begin to hesitate in anticipation of the wrong future, the whiff of which you felt? Has he ceased - which is so important for the commander-in-chief - to be aware of the danger? Isn't there a reality for these great people, for these giants of action, the age when their genius becomes myopic? Old age has no power over perfect geniuses; for Dante, for Michelangelo, getting old meant growing; did this mean fading for Annibal and Napoleon? Has Napoleon lost his true sense of victory? Had he not already reached the point that he did not recognize the underwater rocks, did not guess the trap, did not see the crumbling edges of the abyss? Has he lost the gift of foresight of catastrophe? Could it be that he, who once knew all the paths to glory and who pointed at them from the height of his sparkling chariot with the finger of the lord, now, in perilous blinding, carried his noisy, obedient legions into the abyss? Was he not possessed by complete madness at the age of forty-six? Has this titan-like charioteer of fortune turned into an unparalleled daredevil?
We do not think so at all.
The battle plan he had outlined was, by all accounts, exemplary. Strike the allied forces in the forehead, make a breach in the enemy's ranks, cut the enemy army in two, push the British back to Galy, the Prussians to Tongra, separate Wellington from Blucher, capture the Mont Saint-Jean plateau, capture Brussels, throw the Germans into the Rhine, and the British into the sea is what this battle was for Napoleon. The further course of action would be prompted by the future.
Cosette raised her head and replied:
- Yes, sir.
“Let me carry it,” he said.
For a book, there is always a place in the house of an intelligent person. The book gives knowledge, experience, wisdom, in the end. If we teach children from an early age to read more and watch less TV, later it will be easier for us to understand their worldview, and our children. Come with your children to the bookstore more often. And choose a decent book. Let it be a constant habit for the child.
Cosette released the bow of the bucket. The man walked beside her.
“It's really very hard,” he muttered and asked, “How old are you, baby?
“Eight years old, sir.
- And you are coming from afar?
- From the stream in the forest.
- And how far are you still going to go?
- Good quarter of an hour.
The traveler was silent for a little, then suddenly asked:
“So you don’t have a mother?”
“I don’t know,” the girl replied, and before he could speak again, she added, “I think not. Others have. But I have not. Probably never happened, ”she said after a pause.
The man stopped. He put the bucket on the ground, bent down and put both hands on the girl's shoulders, trying to make out her face in the darkness.
Cosette's thin, pitiful face was vaguely visible in the whitish-gray light.
- What is your name?
- Cosette.
The passer-by flinched as if from an electric shock. He looked at her again, then removed his hands from Cosette's shoulders, grabbed the bucket and walked.
After a moment, he asked:
- Where do you live, baby?
- In Montfermeil - maybe you know where it is?
- Are we going there?
- Yes, sir.
After a while he asked again:
- Who sent you at such a late hour to fetch water in the forest?
- Madame Thenardier.
“And what does this Madame Thenardier of yours do?” the stranger asked; he tried to speak in an indifferent tone, but his voice was somehow strangely trembling.
“She is my mistress,” the girl replied. “She runs an inn.
- An inn? - asked the traveler - Okay, there I will spend the night today. Show me off.
“But we’re going there,” the girl replied.
The man walked pretty quickly. Cosette kept pace with him easily. She no longer felt tired. From time to time she looked at him with a kind of amazing calmness, with a kind of inexpressible trust. No one had ever taught her to pray to God. However, she experienced something akin to joy and hope, aspiring to heaven.
Several minutes passed. The stranger spoke again:
“Doesn't Madame Thenardier have a maid?
- No, sir
- Are you alone with her?
- Yes, sir.
There was another silence. Then Cosette said:
- True, she has two more little girls.
- What little girls?
- Ponina and Zelma.
So Cosette simplified the romantic names so dear to the innkeeper's heart.
- Who are they, these Ponina and Zelma?
“These are the ladies of Madame Thenardier. Well, just her daughters.
- What are they doing?
- O! - exclaimed Cosette - They have beautiful dolls, different shiny things, they have a lot of things to do. They are playing, having fun.
- All day?
- Yes, sir.
- And you?
- And I'm working.
- All day?
The girl raised her large eyes, in which tears were guessed, hidden by the darkness of the night, and meekly replied:
- Yes, sir.
After a pause, Cosette added:
“Sometimes, when I’m done, and when they let me, I can play too.
- How do you play?
- How I can. They don't bother me. But I have few toys. Ponina and Zelma don't want me to play with their dolls. I only have a tin saber, like this.
The girl showed her little finger.
- Can't she cut anything with it?
- You can, sir, - replied the girl, - for example, lettuce and the heads of flies.
They reached the village; Cosette led the stranger through the streets. They walked past the bakery, but Cosette did not think of the bread she was supposed to bring. The man had stopped questioning her - now he kept a gloomy silence. When they passed the church, the stranger, seeing all these open-air shops, asked:
- Is there a fair here?
- No, sir, it's Christmas.
As they approached the inn, Cosette timidly touched his hand.
- Sir!
- Yes, my child?
- Now we are very close to home.
- And what?
- Can I take the bucket from you now?
- Why?
- If the hostess sees that they helped me to convey it, she will beat me.
The man gave her the bucket. A minute later they were at the door of the tavern.
Current page: 9 (the book has a total of 23 pages)
Chapter 7
Cosette in the dark side by side with a stranger
Cosette, as we have said, was not frightened. The man spoke to her. His voice was low and serious.
“My child, your burden is too heavy for you.
Cosette raised her head and replied:
- Yes, sir.
- Give it to me, - he said, - I will carry it.
Cosette released the bow of the bucket. The man walked beside her.
“It's really very hard,” he muttered through clenched teeth. Then he asked: - How old are you, baby?
“Eight years old, sir.
- And you are coming from afar?
- From the stream in the forest.
- And how far are you still going to go?
- Good quarter of an hour.
The traveler was silent for a little, then suddenly asked:
“So you don’t have a mother?”
“I don’t know,” the girl replied. And before he could speak again, she added, “I think not. Others have. But I have not. - And after a pause, she continued: - Probably never happened.
The man stopped. He put the bucket on the ground, bent down and put both hands on the child's shoulders, trying to make out the face in the darkness.
Cosette's thin and wretched face was vaguely visible in the whitish-gray light of the sky.
- What is your name?
- Cosette.
The passer-by flinched as if from an electric shock. He looked at her again, then removed his hands from Cosette's shoulders, grabbed the bucket and strode forward.
After a moment, he asked:
- Where do you live, baby?
- In Montfermeil - maybe you know where it is?
- Are we going there?
- Yes, sir.
After a while he asked again:
- Who sent you at such a late hour to fetch water in the forest?
- Madame Thenardier.
“And what does this Madame Thenardier of yours do?”
“She is my mistress,” the child replied. - It runs an inn.
- An inn? - asked the traveler. “Okay, I'll spend the night there today. Show me off.
- And we are going there, - the girl answered.
The man walked pretty quickly. Cosette kept pace with him easily. She no longer felt tired. From time to time she looked at him with a kind of calmness, with a kind of inexpressible trust. No one had ever taught her to pray to God. However, she experienced something akin to a sense of joy and hope directed to heaven.
Several minutes passed. The stranger spoke again:
“Doesn't Madame Thenardier have a maid?
- No, sir.
- Are you alone with her?
- Yes, sir.
There was another silence. Then Cosette said:
- True, she has two more little girls.
- What little girls?
- Ponina and Zelma.
So Cosette simplified the romantic names so dear to the innkeeper's heart.
- Who are these Ponina and Zelma?
“These are the ladies of Madame Thenardier. Well, just her daughters.
- What are they doing?
- O! - exclaimed the child. - They have beautiful dolls, different shiny things, they have a lot of things to do. They are playing, having fun.
- All day?
- Yes, sir.
- And I'm working.
- All day?
The girl raised her large eyes, in which tears were guessed, hidden by the darkness of the night, and meekly replied:
- Yes, sir. After a moment's silence, Cosette added: “Sometimes, when I’m done, and when they let me, I can play too.
- How do you play?
- How I can. They don't bother me. But I have few toys. Ponina and Zelma don't want me to play with their dolls. I have only a tin saber, of this length. - And the girl pointed to her little finger.
- Can't she cut anything with it?
- You can, sir, - replied the girl, - for example, lettuce and the heads of flies.
They reached the village; Cosette led the stranger through the streets. They walked past the bakery, but Cosette did not think of the bread she was supposed to bring. The man had stopped questioning her and was now in a gloomy silence. When they passed the church, the stranger, seeing all these open-air shops, asked:
- Is there a fair here?
- No, sir, it's Christmas.
As they approached the inn, Cosette timidly touched his hand:
- Sir.
- Yes, my child?
- Now we are very close to home.
- And what?
- Can I take a bucket from you now?
- If the hostess sees that they helped me to convey it, she will beat me.
The man gave her the bucket. A minute later they were at the door of the tavern.
Chapter 8
How unpleasant it is to let in a poor man who might be rich
Cosette could not help glancing furtively at the large doll still in the toy shop window, then knocked on the door. The innkeeper appeared on the threshold, holding a candle in her hand.
- Oh, it's you, tramp! Finally! Where have you gone? She stared at the sides, you assassin!
“Madame,” said Cosette, trembling, “this is the gentleman who would like to spend the night with us.
The sullen expression on Aunt Thenardier's face was quickly replaced by an amiable grimace - this instant transformation is characteristic of innkeepers. She gazed hungrily into the darkness, wanting to see the newcomer.
- Is that you, sir?
“Yes, madam,” the man replied, touching his hat with his hand.
Wealthy travelers are not so polite. This gesture, as well as the examination of the traveler's clothes and luggage, which the hostess made fluently, made her amiable grimace disappear, again replaced by a sullen expression. She said dryly:
- Come in, dear.
"Sweetheart" entered. Thenardier looked him over again, paying special attention to his rather shabby coat and slightly rumpled hat, then, nodding her head in his direction, wrinkled her nose and, winking, looked inquiringly at her husband, who continued to wander with the carters. The spouse responded with an imperceptible movement of the index finger, simultaneously protruding his lips, which in such a case means: "rolling pitch." Then the innkeeper exclaimed:
“Ah, my dear, I'm sorry, but I don't have a single room to spare.
“Place me wherever you like — in the attic, in the stable. I will pay as for a separate room, - said the traveler.
- Forty sous.
- Forty sous? OK.
- Good hour.
- Forty sous! - whispered one of the carters to the innkeeper. “But a room is only worth twenty sous.
“And he's forty,” she replied in a whisper, too. “I don’t charge the poor people any cheaper.”
Meanwhile the man, having laid down his bundle and stick on the bench, sat down at the table, on which Cosette hastened to put the bottle of wine and a glass. The merchant, who demanded a bucket of water for his horse, went to drink it himself. Cosette sat down again in her usual place under the kitchen table and began knitting.
The man poured himself some wine and, barely taking a sip from the glass, looked at the child with some strange attention.
Cosette was not pretty. Perhaps, if she were happy, she would be pretty. We have already sketched out this little sad image. Cosette was a thin, pale girl who looked about six years old, although she was in her eighth year. Her large eyes, surrounded by blue, seemed almost dull from constant tears. The corners of her mouth were lowered with that expression of habitual suffering that you observe in those sentenced to death and in the hopelessly sick. Her hands, as her mother predicted, "were cracked from the frost." The fire that illuminated Cosette at that moment betrayed her sharply protruding bones and emphasized her terrible thinness. Since she was constantly shivering, she developed a habit of squeezing her knees tightly. All her clothes were rags, which aroused compassion in summer and terrified in winter. It was covered only by a leaky canvas; not a shred of wool. Here and there a body shone through, on which one could see blue or black spots - traces of the touch of the master's hand. The bare thin legs were red from the cold. The deep depressions above the collarbones were pitiful to tears. The whole appearance of this child, his gait, his movements, the sound of his voice, broken speech, his gaze, his silence, the slightest gesture - everything expressed and denounced only one thing: fear.
Cosette was all imbued with this fear, he seemed to envelop her. Fear forced her to press her elbows closely to her, hide her legs under her skirt, try to take up as little space as possible, barely breathe; fear had become, so to speak, a habit of her body that could only grow stronger. Horror lurked in the depths of her pupils.
This fear was so great that, returning home completely drenched, Cosette did not dare to approach the hearth to dry herself, but quietly sat down to her work.
The look of this eight-year-old child was always so sad, and sometimes so gloomy, that at other moments it seemed that she was on the way to dementia or insanity.
Never, we have already mentioned this, she did not know what prayer is, she never crossed the threshold of the church. "Do I have time for this?" - said her mistress.
The man in the yellow coat did not take his eyes off Cosette.
Suddenly the innkeeper exclaimed:
- Wait! Where's the bread?
Cosette, as always, as soon as the hostess raised her voice, quickly crawled out from under the table.
She completely forgot about this bread. She resorted to the usual ploy of frightened children. She lied:
“Madam, the bakery was already locked.
- I should have knocked.
- I knocked, madam.
- So what?
“They didn’t open it to me.
“Tomorrow I’ll see if you’re telling the truth,” Thenardier said, “and if you lied, you’ll dance with me properly.” In the meantime, give me fifteen sous.
Cosette thrust her hand into the pocket of her apron and froze. The fifteen sous coin was not there.
- Well, - shouted the innkeeper, - are you deaf, or what?
Cosette turned her pocket inside out. Empty. But where could the money go? The unhappy little one could not find words. She turned to stone.
- So you lost money, lost fifteen sous? Wheezed Thenardier. - Or maybe you decided to steal them from me?
With these words she stretched out her hand to the whip that hung from a nail near the hearth.
This formidable movement restored Cosette's strength, she cried out: “Excuse me! Sorry! I won't anymore! "
Thenardier removed the whip.
At this time, a man in a yellow coat, unnoticed by others, fumbled in his vest pocket. However, the rest of the visitors drank, played dice and paid no attention to anything.
Cosette, in mortal fear, huddled into a corner behind the hearth, trying to curl up into a ball and somehow hide her miserable half-naked body. The innkeeper raised her hand.
“I’m sorry, madam,” the stranger intervened, “I just saw something fall from the pocket of this baby and roll on the floor. Isn't this money?
He immediately bent down, pretending to look for something on the floor.
“It is, here it is,” he said, straightening up.
And he held out a silver coin to Aunt Thenardier.
- The one! Exclaimed Aunt Thenardier.
Not "that one" at all, but a twenty sous coin, but it was profitable for the innkeeper. She put the money in her pocket and contented herself with the fact that, glancing angrily at the child, she said: "Let it be the last time!"
Cosette again climbed into her "hole," as Aunt Thenardier called the place, and her large eyes, fixed on the stranger, gradually acquired an expression completely unusual for them. So far it was only a naive surprise, but already some kind of unaccountable credulity was mingled with it.
- Well, will you have supper? The innkeeper asked the newcomer.
He said nothing. He seemed to be deep in thought.
- Who is this man? - she hissed through clenched teeth. “I'm sure he has nothing to pay for dinner. If only he paid for the night. Still, I was lucky that it did not occur to him to steal the money that was lying on the floor.
Then the door opened and Eponine and Azelma entered.
They were two pretty little girls, rather city dwellers than peasant women, very pretty, one with shiny brown pigtails around their heads, the other with long black braids running down the back. Lively, clean, plump, fresh and healthy, they delighted the eye. The girls were warmly dressed, but thanks to the maternal art, the density of the matter did not in the least detract from the flirtatiousness of their dress. The clothes were adapted for the winter, without losing at the same time the grace of a spring outfit. These two babies were emitting light. Moreover, they were here ladies. In their clothes, in their gaiety, in the noise they made, there was a sense of their supreme power. When they entered, the innkeeper said in a grumpy but adoring voice: "Ah, here, at last, you have come!"
Pulling each one in turn to her knees, she smoothed their hair, straightened the ribbons and, patting them with motherly tenderness, let go, exclaiming: "There is nothing to say, good!"
The girls sat down in a corner near the hearth. In their hands they held a doll, which they shook in every way, laying it on one or the other on their knees, and chirped merrily. From time to time Cosette raised her eyes from her knitting and gazed sadly at them.
Eponine and Azelma did not notice Cosette. She was like a dog to them. All these three girls were not even twenty-four years old together, and they already personified human society: on the one hand - envy, on the other - neglect.
The Thenardier sisters' doll was completely faded, very old and completely broken, but nevertheless it seemed delightful to Cosette: after all, she had not had a doll in her entire life, a real doll, to use an expression that all children would understand.
Suddenly Aunt Thenardier, who continued to pace up and down the room, noticed that Cosette was distracted and, instead of working, was looking at the children at play.
- But I caught you! She screamed. - Is that how you work? Wait, I'll take a whip, it'll make you work!
The stranger, without getting up from his chair, turned to the innkeeper.
“Madam,” he said, smiling almost timidly, “what’s really there, let her play with her!
On the part of any visitor who ate a piece of roast, drank two bottles of wine at dinner and did not give the impression of a ragamuffin, such a desire would be tantamount to an order. But so that a person with such a hat would allow himself to express any wish, so that a person who had such a hat would dare to express his will, the innkeeper could not allow. She sharply objected:
- The girl has to work, since she eats my bread. I'm not feeding her to mess around.
- And what is she doing? The stranger asked in a soft voice that oddly contradicted his beggarly clothes and the broad shoulders of the bearer.
The innkeeper condescended to answer:
“She knits stockings, if you want to know. Stockings for my daughters. The old ones, one might say, are all worn out, and the children will soon remain completely barefoot.
The man looked at Cosette's pitiful, red legs and continued:
- And when will she graduate from this pair?
- She will pore over her for at least three days, or even four, such a lazy woman!
- And how much can these stockings cost when they are ready?
The innkeeper gave him a scornful look.
- Not less than thirty sous.
"Would you give them up for five francs?" The man asked again.
- Damn it! - Laughing rudely, exclaimed one carter who had heard this conversation. - Five francs? Ugh you abyss! I think! As many as five coins!
Then Thenardier decided it was time to intervene in the conversation.
- Well, sir, if such is your whim, they will give you this pair of stockings for five francs. We do not know how to refuse travelers anything.
- But money on the table! - sharply and decisively declared his wife.
The driver was so shocked by the sight of the five-franc coin that he gave up drinking wine and ran to look at it.
- Indeed, look! He exclaimed. - A real five-francovik! Not fake!
Thenardier walked over and silently put the money in his waistcoat pocket.
The wife had nothing to argue. She bit her lip, her face contorted with anger.
Cosette was trembling all over. She dared, however, to ask:
- Madam, is it true? Can I play?
“Thank you, madam,” replied Cosette.
And while her lips thanked the hostess, her whole little soul expressed gratitude to the newcomer.
Thenardier sat down to drink again. His wife whispered in his ear:
- Who can he be, this yellow man?
“I have met millionaires,” Thenardier replied majestically, “who wore the same coat.
Cosette stopped knitting, but did not leave her seat. She always tried to move as little as possible. She pulled out some old scraps and her tin saber from the box behind her.
Eponine and Azelma paid no attention to what was happening around them. They have just successfully completed a very important business - they took possession of a cat. Throwing the doll on the floor, Eponine, who was older, swaddled the kitten in blue and red rags, despite his meowing and convulsive movements. Absorbed in this serious and difficult work, she chatted with her sister in that gentle, charming childish language whose charm, like the splendor of butterfly wings, disappears as soon as you want to capture it.
- You know, sister, this doll is funnier than that. Look, she moves, squeaks, she is lukewarm. You know, little sister, let's play with her. She will be my daughter. I will be a lady. I will come to visit you, and you will look at her. Then you will see her mustache little by little and you will be surprised. And then you will see her ears, and then you will see her tail, and you will be very surprised. And you will say to me: "Oh my God!" And I'll tell you: “Yes, madam, I have such a little daughter. Now all little daughters are like that. "
Azelma listened to Eponine with admiration.
Meanwhile, the drunks started an obscene song and laughed so loudly at the same time that the walls trembled. And Thenardier encouraged them and echoed them.
As birds build nests from everything, so children from everything make a doll for themselves. While Azelma and Eponine swaddled the kitten, Cosette swaddled her saber. Then she took her in her arms and, humming softly, began to lull her to sleep.
A doll is one of the most urgent needs and at the same time the embodiment of one of the most charming female instincts in a girl. To cherish, dress up, decorate, dress, undress, change clothes, teach, cheer a little, lull, caress, rock, imagine that something is someone - this is the whole future of a woman. Dreaming and chatting, preparing a toy dowry and small diapers, sewing on dresses, bras and tiny blouses, a child turns into a girl, a girl into a girl, a girl into a woman. The first child is the last doll.
A little girl without a doll is almost as unhappy and just as inconceivable as a woman without children.
Cosette made herself a saber doll.
Meanwhile, Thenardier's aunt approached the "yellow man." “My husband is right,” she decided, “maybe it’s Monsieur Lafitte himself. After all, there are rich tyrants in the world! "
She leaned her elbows on the table.
“Sir ...” she said.
At the word "sir" the man turned round. The innkeeper still called him either "sweetest" or "amiable."
“You see, sir,” she went on with her corny politeness, which was even more unpleasant than her rudeness, “I really want this child to play, I don’t mind if you’re so generous, but it’s good once.” You see, she has no one. It should work.
- So this is not your child? The man asked.
- God be with you, sir! This is a beggar woman whom we have sheltered out of mercy. She's kind of dumb. She must have dropsy in her head. See how big her head is. We do everything we can for her, but we are not rich ourselves. For six months now, we have been writing to her homeland in vain, not a word has been answered. Her mother must have died.
- How is it? - answered the man and thought again.
Throughout this conversation, Cosette, as if her instinct had suggested that it was about her, did not take her eyes off her mistress. But she listened absent-mindedly, only snatches of phrases reached her.
Meanwhile, the revelers, almost all drunk, repeated their vile refrain with redoubled passion. It was an extreme obscenity where the Blessed Virgin and the baby Jesus were dragged. The innkeeper went to them to take part in the general fun. Cosette, sitting under the table, gazed at the fire reflected in her motionless eyes; She again began to rock that semblance of a baby in diapers, which she had built for herself, and, rocking, sang softly: "My mother is dead! .. My mother is dead! .. My mother is dead!"
After new insistence from the hostess, the yellow man, the "millionaire," finally agreed to have supper.
- What would you like to serve, sir?
“Bread and cheese,” he replied.
Probably a beggar, decided Aunt Thenardier.
The drunks continued to sing their song, and the child under the table continued to sing his own.
Suddenly Cozegta fell silent: turning around, she noticed a doll of little Thenardiers, which the girls had forgotten, taking care of the cat, and thrown a few steps from the kitchen table.
Then she let go of the swaddled saber, which only half satisfied her heart, then slowly looked around the room. Thenardier's aunt whispered with her husband and counted the money; Eponine and Azelma played with the cat; visitors who dined, who drank wine, who sang - no one paid attention to her. Every minute was precious. She crawled out from under the table on all fours, made sure once again that she was not being followed, then quickly crawled over to the doll and grabbed it. A moment later, she was back in her place and sat motionless, but turned so that the doll, which she held in her arms, remained in the shadows. The happiness of playing with a doll was so rare for her that it was fraught with all the frenzy of pleasure.
No one noticed anything except the passerby slowly devouring his meager supper.
This bliss lasted for a quarter of an hour.
But as careful as Cosette was, she did not notice that one of the doll's legs was emerging from the shadows and brightly lit by the fire of the hearth. This pink and shiny leg, protruding from the darkness, suddenly struck the gaze of Azelma, who said to Eponine: "Look, sister!"
Both girls were dumbfounded. Cosette dared to take the doll!
Eponine got up and, not letting go of the cat, went up to her mother and began to pull her skirt.
- Yes, leave me alone. Well, what do you want? - asked the mother.
- Mom, - the girl answered, - but look!
She pointed her finger at Cosette.
And Cosette, all overwhelmed with delight, saw nothing and heard nothing.
The innkeeper's face took on that special expression, which is caused by the strongest rage about the little things of life and which has earned women of this kind the nickname "vixen".
This time, wounded pride fueled her anger even more. Cosette has overstepped all bounds, Cosette has attempted to kill the "young ladies" doll! The Russian tsarina, who would have seen a peasant trying on the blue sash of her august son, would have been no more angry.
- Cosette!
Cosette shuddered as if the earth was shaking beneath her. She turned around.
- Cosette! - repeated the innkeeper.
Cosette took the doll and, with a kind of reverence mixed with despair, laid it down carefully on the floor. Then, without taking her eyes off the doll, she squeezed her hands, and - it was scary to see this gesture in an eight-year-old child - she twisted them. Finally, something came to which no experience of the day could compel her - neither her trip to the forest, nor the weight of a full bucket, not the loss of money, not the sight of the whip, not even the gloomy words of the hostess she heard - came tears. She was choking with sobs.
The newcomer got up from the table.
- What's happened? - he asked.
- Don't you see? - exclaimed the innkeeper, pointing with her finger at the evidence of the crime that lay at Cosette's feet.
- So what? The man asked again.
- This filth dared to touch the doll of my children! Replied Thenardier.
- And just that? - said the man. - What's wrong with that, if she played with this doll?
“But she touched her with her dirty hands! With your disgusting hands! - continued the innkeeper.
At these words, Cosette's sobs intensified.
- Will you shut up or not! Cried Aunt Thenardier.
The stranger went straight to the exit door, opened it, and left.
As soon as he disappeared, the innkeeper took advantage of his absence and kicked Cosette under the table so that the girl screamed loudly.
The door opened and the man reappeared. He carried in his hands that very wonderful doll, which we have already talked about and which all the village children had been admiring all day. He put her before Cosette and said:
- Take this for you.
In all likelihood, during the hour that he spent here, immersed in thought, he managed to dimly see this toy shop, so brightly illuminated by bowls and candles that through the windows of the tavern this abundance of lights seemed to be an illumination.
Cosette looked up. The person approaching her with this doll seemed to her as the sun approaching her, her consciousness was touched by the unheard-of words: “This is for you,” she looked at him, looked at the doll, then slowly retreated and hid under the table in the farthest corner, to the wall.
She didn’t cry anymore, she didn’t scream — it seemed she didn’t even dare to breathe.
Kabatchitsa, Eponine and Azelma stood like idols. The drunks were silent too. A solemn silence reigned in the tavern.
Aunt Thenardier, petrified and numb with amazement, again began to speculate: “Who is he, this old man? Is it a poor man or a millionaire? Or maybe both - that is, a thief? "
That expressive fold appeared on the face of the Thenardier's spouse, which so emphasizes the character of a person whenever the dominant instinct manifests itself in him in all its animal power. The innkeeper looked alternately at the doll and at the traveler; he seemed to feel the man as he would feel a bag of money. But this lasted for an instant. Approaching his wife, he whispered: “The doll is worth at least thirty francs. Don't be silly! Spread in front of this person! "
Rough natures have in common with naive natures: they do not have gradual transitions from one feeling to another.
“Well, Cosette,” said Thenardier, in a sweet and sour voice typical of a wicked woman when she wants to appear affectionate, “why don’t you take your doll?”
Then Cosette dared to crawl out of her corner.
“Cosette,” Thenardier said affectionately, “the gentleman is giving you a doll. Take it. She's yours.
Cosette looked at the magic doll with a feeling of some kind of horror. Her face was still flooded with tears, but her eyes, like the sky at dawn, gradually brightened, radiating an extraordinary radiance of happiness. If she were suddenly told: "Baby, you are the queen of France," she would have experienced almost the same feeling as at this moment.
It seemed to her that as soon as she touched the doll, there would be a thunderclap.
To some extent this was true, since she had no doubt that the hostess would beat her and scold her.
However, the force of gravity won out. Cosette at last approached the doll and, turning to the innkeeper, shyly whispered:
- May I, madam?
There are no words to convey this tone, desperate, frightened and delighted at the same time.
- I see, you can! - answered the innkeeper. - She's yours. After all, the master gives it to you.
- Really, sir? Asked Cosette. - Is it true? Is she mine, this lady?
The traveler's eyes were full of tears. He, apparently, was on the verge of excitement when they are silent so as not to burst into tears. He nodded his head to Cosette and put the "lady's" hand in hers.
Cosette quickly drew back her hand, as if the hand of the "lady" was burning her, and looked down. We are forced to note that at that moment her tongue protruded in the most immoderate way. Suddenly she turned around and grabbed the doll with a gusty movement.
“I'll call her Katherine,” she said.
It was strange to see Cosette's rags touch and mix with the doll's ribbons and bright pink muslin dress.
“Madam,” she asked, “can I put her on a chair?
- Yes, my child, - answered the innkeeper.
Now it was Azelma and Eponine's turn to look with envy at Cosette.
Cosette put Catherine on a chair, and she sat down in front of her on the floor and, motionless, silent, plunged into contemplation.
“Play, Cosette,” said the traveler.
- Oh, I'm playing! - answered the child.
This traveler, this unknown, whom, it seemed, Providence itself sent down to Cosette, was at that moment the one whom the innkeeper hated more than anything else. However, he had to restrain himself. No matter how accustomed she was to hide her feelings, trying to imitate all the actions of her husband, but now it was beyond her strength. Hastily she sent her daughters to bed and asked the yellow man for "permission" to send Cosette as well. “She's pretty worn out today,” added the tavern woman with maternal solicitude. Cosette went to bed, carrying Catherine in her arms.
From time to time, Thenardier's aunt would retire to the opposite corner of the room, where her husband was sitting, in order, in her own words, to "take her soul away." She exchanged a few words with him, all the more furious as she did not dare to utter them aloud.
- Old beast! What fly bit him? Only disturbed us! You see, he wants this little ugly creature to play! Wants to give her a doll! A forty franc doll to that lousy little dog, which, as it is, I would give for forty sous! A little more, and he will begin to call her "Your Majesty", like the Duchess of Berry! Is he sane? Was he thrashing, perhaps, this incomprehensible old man?
- Nothing crazy! It's all very simple, said Thenardier. - And if he likes it that way? You like it when the girl works, and he likes it when she plays. He has the right to do so. The traveler, if he pays, can do whatever he wants. If this old man is a philanthropist, what is it to you? If he's a fool, it doesn't concern you. What are you fussing about since he has money?
It was the speech of the head of the house and the arguments of the innkeeper; neither one nor the other tolerated objection.
The unknown leaned on the table and thought again. All the other visitors, merchants and carters, walked away and stopped singing. They gazed at him from afar with a kind of reverent awe. This poorly dressed eccentric, who took five-francovies out of his pocket so easily and generously presented huge dolls to little dirty men in clogs, was undoubtedly an amazing, but also dangerous person.
Several hours passed. The midnight service was over, the Christmas Eve supper was over, the hawkers dispersed, the pub closed, the lower hall was empty, the fire went out, and the stranger continued to sit in the same place, in the same position. Sometimes he only changed the hand on which he was leaning. That's all. But since Cosette left, he has not said a word.