CHAPTER XIX.

THE BATTLE-FIELD BY NIGHT.

We must return, for it is a necessity of the story, to the fatal

battle-field of June 18, 1815. The moon shone brightly, and this

favored Blücher's ferocious pursuit, pointed out the trail of the

fugitives, surrendered this sad crowd to the Prussian cavalry, and

assisted the massacre. Such tragical complacency of the night is

witnessed at times in catastrophes. After the last cannon was fired

the plain of Mont St. Jean remained deserted. The English occupied the

French encampment, for the usual confirmation of victory is to sleep

in the beds of the conquered. They established their bivouac a little

beyond Rossomme, and while the Prussians followed up the fugitives,

Wellington proceeded to the village of Waterloo, to draw up his report

for Lord Bathurst. Were ever the _Sic vos non vobis_ applicable, it

is most certainly to this village of Waterloo, which did nothing, and

was half a league away from the action. Mont St. Jean was cannonaded,

Hougomont burned, Papelotte burned, Plancenoit burned, La Haye Sainte

carried by storm, and La Belle Alliance witnessed the embrace of the

two victors; but these names are scarce known, and Waterloo, which did

nothing during the battle, has all the honor of it.

We are not of those who flatter war, and when the opportunity offers,

we tell it the truth. War has frightful beauties which we have not

concealed; but it has also, we must allow, some ugly features. One of

the most surprising is the rapid stripping of the dead after victory;

the dawn that follows a battle always rises on naked corpses. Who does

this? Who sullies the triumph in this way? Whose is the hideous furtive

hand which slips into the pocket of victory? Who are the villains

dealing their stroke behind the glory? Some philosophers, Voltaire

among them, assert that they are the very men who have made the glory;

they say that those who keep their feet plunder those lying on the

ground, and the hero of the day is the vampire of the night. After

all, a man has the right to strip a corpse of which he is the author.

We do not believe it, however; reaping a crop of laurels and stealing

the shoes of a dead man do not seem to us possible from the same hand.

One thing is certain, that, as a usual rule, after the conquerors come

the thieves; but we must leave the soldier, especially the soldier of

to-day, out of the question.

Every army has a tail; and it is that which must be accused.

Batlike beings, half servants, half brigands, all the species of

the vespertilio which the twilight called war engenders, wearers of

uniform who do not fight, malingerers, formidable invalids, interloping

sutlers, trotting with their wives in small carts and stealing things

which they sell again, beggars offering themselves as guides to

officers, villains, marauders,--all these, armies marching in former

times (we are not alluding to the present day) had with them, so that,

in the special language, they were called "the stragglers." No army

and no nation was responsible for these beings,--they spoke Italian,

and followed the Germans; they spoke French, and followed the English.

It was by one of these scoundrels, a Spanish camp-follower who spoke

French, that the Marquis de Fervacques, deceived by his Picardy

accent, and taking him for a Frenchman, was killed and robbed on the

battle-field during the night that followed the victory of Cerisolles.

The detestable maxim, "Live on the enemy," produced this leprosy, which

strict discipline alone could cure. There are some reputations which

deceive, and we do not always know why certain generals, in other

respects great, became so popular. Turenne was adored by his troops,

because he tolerated plunder; evil permitted is kindness, and Turenne

was so kind that he allowed the Palatinate to be destroyed by sword

and fire. A larger or a smaller number of marauders followed an army,

according as the chief was more or less severe. Hoche and Morceau had

no camp-followers, and Wellington, we willingly do him the justice of

stating, had but few.

Still, on the night of June 18, the dead were stripped. Wellington was

strict; he ordered that everybody caught in the act should be shot, but

rapine is tenacious, and marauders plundered in one corner of the field

while they were being shot in the other. The moon frowned upon this

plain. About midnight a man was prowling, or rather crawling, about

the hollow road of Ohain: he was, according to all appearance, one of

those whom we have just described, neither English nor French, nor

peasant nor soldier, less a man than a ghoul, attracted by the smell

of the dead, whose victory was robbery, and who had come to plunder

Waterloo. He was dressed in a blouse, which looked something like a

gown, was anxious and daring, and looked behind while he went onwards.

Who was this man? Night knew probably more about him than did day. He

had no bag, but evidently capacious pockets under his blouse. From time

to time he stopped, examined the plain around him as if to see whether

he was watched, bent down quickly, disturbed something lying silent and

motionless on the ground, and then drew himself up again and stepped

away. His attitude, and his rapid mysterious movements, made him

resemble those twilight _larvæ_ which haunt ruins, and which the old

Norman legends call "les alleurs;" certain nocturnal fowlers display

the same outline on the marshes.

Any one who had attentively examined would have seen behind the house

which stands at the intersection of the Nivelles and Mont St. Jean

roads, a sort of small vivandière's cart with a tilt of tarpaulin

stretched over wicker-work, drawn by a hungry-looking, staggering

horse, which was nibbling the nettles. In this cart, a woman was

seated on chests and bundles, and there was probably some connection

between this cart and the prowler. There was not a cloud in the sky,

and though the ground may be blood red, the moon remains white; that

is the indifference of nature. In the fields branches of trees broken

by cannon-balls, but still holding on by the bark, waved softly in

the night breeze. A breath shook the brambles, and there was a quiver

in the grass that resembled the departure of souls. In the distance

could be confusedly heard the march of the English patrols and rounds.

Hougomont and La Haye Sainte continued to burn, making, one in the

west, the other in the east, two large bodies of flames, to which were

joined the English bivouac fires, stretching along the hills on the

horizon, in an immense semicircle. The scene produced the effect of an

unfastened ruby necklace, with a carbuncle at either end.

We have described the catastrophe of the Ohain road; the heart is

chilled by the thought of what this death had been for so many brave

men. If there be anything frightful, if there exist a reality which

surpasses dreaming, it is this,--to live; to see the sun; to be in full

possession of manly vigor; to have health and joy; to laugh valiantly;

to run toward a glory glittering before you; to feel in your chest

lungs that breathe, a heart that beats, and a will that reasons; to

speak, to think, to hope, to love; to have a mother, a wife, and

children; to have light, and then suddenly, before there is time for a

cry, to be hurled into an abyss; to fall, roll, crush, and be crushed;

to see corn-stalks, flowers, leaves, and branches, and to be unable

to hold on to anything; to feel your sabre useless, men under you and

horses over you; to struggle in vain; to have your ribs fractured by

some kick in the gloom; to feel a heel on your eyes; to bite with rage

the horses' bits; to stifle, to yell, to writhe; to be underneath, and

to say to yourself, "A moment ago I was a living man!"

At the spot where this lamentable disaster occurred, all was now

silence. The hollow way was filled with an inextricable pile of horses

and their riders. There was no slope now, for the corpses levelled

the road with the plain, and came up flush to the top, like a fairly

measured bushel of barley. A pile of dead atop, a stream of blood at

bottom,--such was the road on the night of June 18, 1815. The blood ran

as far as the Nivelles road, and extravasated there in a wide pool, in

front of the barricade, at a spot which is still pointed out. It will

be remembered that the destruction of the cuirassiers took place at the

opposite point, near the Genappe road. The depth of the corpses was

proportionate to that of the hollow way; toward the middle, at the spot

where Delord's division passed, the layer of dead was thinner.

The nocturnal prowler, at whom we have allowed the reader a glance,

proceeded in that direction, searching this immense tomb. He looked

around and held a hideous review of the dead; he walked with his feet

in the blood. All at once he stopped. A few paces before him in the

hollow way, at the point where the pile of dead ended, an open hand,

illumined by the moon, emerged from a heap of men and horses. This

hand had on one finger something that glittered, and was a gold ring.

The man bent down, and when he rose again there was no longer a ring

on this finger. He did not exactly rise; he remained in a savage and

shy attitude, turning his back to the pile of dead, investigating the

horizon, supporting himself on his two forefingers, and his head spying

over the edge of the hollow way. The four paws of the jackal are suited

for certain actions. Then, making up his mind, he rose, but at the same

moment he started, for he felt that some one was holding him behind. He

turned and found that it was the open hand, which had closed and seized

the skirt of his coat. An honest man would have been frightened, but

this one began laughing.

"Hilloh!" he said, "it is only the dead man. I prefer a ghost to a

gendarme."

The hand, however, soon relaxed its hold, for efforts are quickly

exhausted in the tomb.

"Can this dead man be alive?" the marauder continued; "let me have a

look."

He bent down again, removed all the obstacles, seized the hand,

liberated the head, pulled out the body, and a few minutes later

dragged an inanimate or at least fainting man into the shadow of the

hollow way. He was an officer of cuirassiers of a certain rank, for a

heavy gold epaulette peeped out from under his cuirass. This officer

had lost his helmet, and a furious sabre-cut crossed his face, which

was covered with blood. He did not appear, however, to have any bones

broken, and through some fortunate accident,--if such a word be

possible here,--the dead had formed an arch over him so as to save him

from being crushed. His eyes were closed. He had on his cuirass the

silver cross of the Legion of Honor, and the prowler tore away this

cross, which disappeared in one of the gulfs he had under his blouse.

After this he felt the officer's fob, found a watch, and took it; then

he felt in his pockets and drew from them a purse. When he was at this

stage of the assistance he was rendering the dying man, the officer

opened his eyes.

"Thanks," he said feebly.

The roughness of the man's movements, the freshness of the night, and

the freely inhaled air had aroused him from his lethargy. The prowler

did not answer, but raised his head. A sound of footsteps could be

heard on the plain; it was probably some patrol approaching. The

officer murmured, for there was still the agony of death in his voice,--

"Who won the battle?"

"The English," the marauder answered.

The officer continued,--

"Feel in my pockets; you will find a purse and a watch, which you can

take."

Though this was already done, the prowler did what was requested, and

said,--

"There is nothing in them."

"I have been robbed," the officer continued; "I am sorry for it, as I

meant the things for you."

The footsteps of the patrol became more and more distinct.

"Some one is coming," the marauder said, preparing to go away.

The officer, raising his arm with difficulty, stopped him.

"You have saved my life; who are you?"

The prowler answered rapidly and in a low voice.

"I belong, like yourself, to the French army; but I must leave you, for

if I were caught I should be shot. I have saved your life, so now get

out of the scrape as you can."

"What is your rank?"

"Sergeant."

"Your name?"

"Thénardier."

"I shall not forget that name," the officer said; "and do you remember

mine; it is Pontmercy."

BOOK II

THE SHIP ORION.

CHAPTER I.

NO. 24,601 BECOMES NO. 9430.

Jean Valjean was recaptured. As our readers will probably thank us

for passing rapidly over painful details, we confine ourselves to the

quotation of two paragraphs published by the newspapers of the day,

a few months after the occurrence of the surprising events at M----.

These articles are rather summary, but it must be remembered that no

_Gazette des Tribunaux_ existed at that period. The first we take from

the _Drapeau Blanc_, dated July 25, 1823.

"A bailiwick of the Pas de Calais has just been the scene of an

uncommon event. A man, who was a stranger to the department and called

M. Madeleine, had some years previously revived by a new process an old

local trade,--the manufacture of jet and black beads. He made his own

fortune, and, let us add, that of the bailiwick, and in acknowledgment

of his services he was appointed Mayor. The police discovered that

M. Madeleine was no other than an ex-convict, who had broken his ban,

condemned in 1796 for robbery, of the name of Jean Valjean. He has

been sent back to the Bagne. It appears that prior to his arrest he

succeeded in withdrawing from M. Lafitte's a sum of more than half a

million, which he had banked there, and which it is said that he had

honestly acquired by his trade. Since his return to Toulon futile

efforts have been made to discover where this amount is concealed."

The second article, which is rather more detailed, is extracted from

the _Journal de Paris_ of the same date:--

"An ex-convict of the name of Jean Valjean has just been tried at the

Var assizes, under circumstances which attract attention. This villain

had succeeded in deceiving the vigilance of the police, and had behaved

so cleverly as to be made Mayor of one of our small towns in the north,

where he established a rather considerable trade. He was at length

unmasked, and arrested through the indefatigable zeal of the public

authorities. He had, as his concubine, a girl of the town, who died of

a fit at the moment of his arrest. This scoundrel, who is endowed with

Herculean strength, managed to escape but three or four days later the

police again captured him in Paris, at the moment when he was entering

one of those small coaches which run from the capital to the village

of Montfermeil (Seine et Oise). It is said that he took advantage of

these three or four days of liberty to withdraw from one of our chief

bankers an amount estimated at six or seven hundred thousand francs.

According to the indictment he buried it at some spot only known to

himself, and it has not been found; but however this may be, this

Jean Valjean has just been tried at Var assizes for a highway robbery

committed with violence some eight years ago upon one of those honest

lads, who, as the patriarch of Ferney has said in immortal verse,--

'De Savoie arrivent tous les ans

Et dont la main légèrement essuie

Ces longs canaux engorgés par la suie.'

This bandit made no defence, but it was proved by the skilful and

eloquent organ of public justice that Jean Valjean was a member of a

band of robbers in the south. Consequently Valjean was found guilty

and sentenced to death. The criminal refused to appeal to the Court

of Cassation, but the King, in his inexhaustible mercy, deigned to

commute his sentence into penal servitude for life. Jean Valjean was

immediately removed to the galleys at Toulon."

It will not be forgotten that Jean Valjean had displayed religious

tendencies at M----, and some of the papers, among them the

_Constitutionnel_, regarded this commutation as a triumph of the Priest

party. Jean Valjean changed his number at Toulon, and was known as

9430. Let us state here once and for all that with M. Madeleine the

prosperity of M---- disappeared: all he had foreseen in his night

of hesitation and fever was realized; his absence was in truth the

absence of the soul. After his fall there took place at M---- that

selfish division of great fallen existences, that fatal break-up of

flourishing things, which is daily accomplished obscurely in the human

community, and which history has only noticed once because it occurred

after the death of Alexander. Lieutenants crown themselves kings;

overseers suddenly became manufacturers, and envious rivalries sprang

up. M. Madeleine's large work-shops were shut up; the buildings fell

into a ruinous condition, and the artisans dispersed, some leaving

the town, others the trade. All was henceforth done on a small scale

instead of a large one, for lucre instead of the public welfare. There

was no centre, but on all sides violent competition. M. Madeleine had

commanded and directed everything. When he fell, a spirit of contest

succeeded that of organization, bitterness succeeded cordiality, and

mutual hatred the good-will of the common founder. The threads tied

by M. Madeleine became knotted and broken; the process was falsified,

the articles became worse, and confidence was destroyed; the outlets

diminished, and there were fewer orders; wages fell, there were

stoppages, and lastly came bankruptcy.

The State itself perceived that some one had been crushed somewhere,

for less than four years after the sentence of the court identifying

M. Madeleine and Jean Valjean, to the profit of the galleys, the cost

of collecting the taxes was doubled in the bailiwick of M----. M. de

Villèle made a remark to that effect in the House in February, 1827.

CHAPTER II.

TWO LINES OF A DOUBTFUL ORIGIN.

Before going further we will enter into some details about a strange

fact that occurred at about the same period at Montfermeil, and which

may possibly possess some coincidence with certain police conjectures.

There is at Montfermeil a very old superstition, which is the more

curious and valuable because a popular superstition in the neighborhood

of Paris is like an aloe-tree in Siberia. We are of those who respect

everything which is in the condition of a rare plant. This, then, is

the Montfermeil superstition: it is believed that from time immemorial

the fiend has selected the forest as the spot where he buries his

treasure. Old women declare that it is not rare to meet at nightfall,

and in remote parts of the forest, a black man resembling a wagoner or

wood-cutter, dressed in wooden shoes and canvas trousers and blouse,

and recognizable from the fact that he has on his head two enormous

horns in place of cap or hat. This man is usually engaged in digging

a hole, and there are three modes of action in the event of meeting

him. The first is to go up to the man and address him; in that case you

perceive that he is simply a peasant, that he appears black because it

is twilight, that he is not digging a hole, but cutting grass for his

kine, and that what you had taken for horns is nothing but a dung-fork

he carries on his back, whose prongs seem to grow out of his head.

You go home and die within the week. The second plan is to watch him,

wait till he has dug his hole and filled it up and gone away; then you

run up to the hole and take out the treasure which the black man had

necessarily deposited in it. In this case you die within the month. The

last way is not to speak to the black man at all, not to look at him,

but run away at full speed, and you die within the year.

All three modes have their inconveniences; but the second, which

offers at any rate some advantages, among others that of possessing a

treasure, if only for a month, is the one most generally adopted. Bold

men whom chances tempt have consequently, so it is declared, frequently

reopened the hole dug by the black man, and robbed the demon. It seems,

however, as if the profits are small; at any rate if we may believe

tradition, and particularly and especially two enigmatical lines in

dog Latin, which a wicked Norman monk, a bit of a sorcerer, and of the

name of Tryphon, left on the subject. This Tryphon lies at St. George's

Abbey at Bocherville near Rouen, and frogs are born on his tomb. A

man makes enormous exertions, then, for the holes are generally very

deep: he perspires, works the whole night through (for the operation

must be carried out at night), gets a wet shirt, burns out his candle,

breaks his pick, and when he at last reaches the bottom of the hole

and lays his hand on the treasure, what does he find? What is the

fiend's treasure? A sou, at times a crown-piece, a stone, a skeleton,

a bleeding corpse, or a spectre folded up like a sheet of paper in a

pocket-book, and sometimes nothing at all! This appears to be revealed

to the searchers by Tryphon's lines,--

"Fodit et in fossâ thesauros condit opacâ,

As, nummos, lapides, cadaver, simulacra, nihilque."

It seems that in our days there are also found sometimes a gunpowder

flask and balls, or an old pack of greasy, dirty cards which have

evidently been used by the fiends. Tryphon does not record these two

facts, because he lived in the 12th century, and it does not appear

that the fiend had the sense to invent gunpowder before Roger Bacon,

or playing cards before Charles VI. If you play with the cards you

are safe to lose all you possess; while the gunpowder displays the

peculiarity of making your gun burst in your face.

A very short time after the period when it occurred to the police that

Jean Valjean during his four days of liberty had been prowling round

Montfermeil, it was noticed in the same village that a certain old

road-mender of the name of Boulatruelle was "up to his tricks" in the

forest. It was believed generally that this Boulatruelle had been to

the galleys: he was to some extent under police inspection, and as he

could not find work anywhere, the administration employed him at a low

wage as mender of the cross-road from Gagny to Lagny. This Boulatruelle

was a man looked on askance by the villageois, as he was too

respectful, too humble, ready to doff his cap to everybody, trembling

and fawning before the gendarmes, and probably allied with the robbers,

so it was said, and suspected of lurking about the roads after dark.

The only thing in his favor was that he was a drunkard.

This is what people fancied that they noticed. For some time past

Boulatruelle had left work at an early hour, and gone into the forest

with his pickaxe. He was met toward evening in the most desolate

clearings, in the wildest thickets, apparently seeking something, and

at times digging holes. The old women who passed at first took him for

Beelzebub, and when they recognized Boulatruelle did not feel at all

more easy in mind. Such meetings greatly annoyed Boulatruelle, and

hence it was plain that he tried to hide himself, and that there was a

mystery in what he was doing. It was said in the village, "It is clear

that the fiend has made his appearance. Boulatruelle saw him, and is

seeking; well, he is cunning enough to pocket Lucifer's treasure." The

Voltairians added: "Will Boulatruelle cheat the devil, or the devil

cheat Boulatruelle?" while the old women crossed themselves repeatedly.

Boulatruelle, however, discontinued his forest rambles, and regularly

resumed his work, whereupon something else was talked about. Some

persons, however, remained curious, thinking that there was probably

in the affair, not the fabulous treasure of the legend, but something

more palpable and tangible than the fiend's bank-notes, and that the

road-mender had doubtless found out half the secret. The most puzzled

were the schoolmaster and Thénardier the publican, who was everybody's

friend, and had not disdained an intimacy with Boulatruelle.

"He has been to the galleys," Thénardier would say. "Well, good

gracious! we do not know who is there, or who may go there."

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."

CHAPTER III.

ON BOARD THE "ORION."

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."

BOOK III.

THE PROMISE TO THE DEAD FULFILLED.

CHAPTER I.

THE WATER QUESTION AT MONTFERMEIL.

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.

CHAPTER II

TWO FULL-LENGTH PORTRAITS.

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?

CHAPTER III.

MEN WANT WINE AND HORSES WATER.

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.

CHAPTER IV.

A DOLL COMES ON THE STAGE.

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.

CHAPTER V.

THE LITTLE ONE ALONE.

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.

CHAPTER VI.

BOULATRUELLE MAY HAVE BEEN RIGHT.

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.

CHAPTER VII.

COSETTE IN THE DARK WITH THE STRANGER.

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.

CHAPTER VIII.

IS HE RICH OR POOR?

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."

"You ought to have knocked."

"I did do so, but he would not open."

"I shall know to-morrow whether that is the truth," said her mistress;

"and if it is not, look out, that's all. In the mean while give me back

my fifteen-sous piece."

Cosette plunged her hand into the pocket of her apron and turned green:

the coin was no longer in it.

"Well," her mistress said, "did you not hear me?"

Cosette turned her pocket out, but there was nothing in it: what could

have become of the money? The wretched little creature could not find a

word to say; she was petrified.

"Have you lost it," her mistress asked, "or are you trying to rob me?"

At the same time she stretched out her hand to the cat-o'-nine-tails;

this formidable gesture restored Cosette the strength to cry,--

"Mercy, Madame! I will never do it again."

Madame Thénardier took down the whip.

The man in the yellow coat had been feeling in his waistcoat pocket,

though no one noticed it. Moreover, the other guests were drinking or

card-playing, and paid no attention to him. Cosette had retreated in

agony to the chimney-corner, shivering to make herself as little as she

could, and protect her poor half-naked limbs. Her mistress raised her

arm.

"I beg your pardon, Madame," said the man, "but just now I saw

something fall out of the little girl's pocket and roll away. It may be

that."

At the same time he stooped and appeared to be searching for a moment.

"Yes, here it is," he continued, as he rose and held out a coin to the

landlady.

"Yes, that's it," she said.

It was not the real coin, it was a twenty-sous piece, but Madame made

a profit by the transaction. She put it in her pocket, and confined

herself to giving the child a stern glance, saying,--"That had better

not happen again."

Cosette returned to what her mistress called her niche, and her large

eyes, fixed on the strange traveller, began to assume an expression

they had never had before. It was no longer a simple astonishment, but

a sort of stupefied confidence was mingled with it.

"Do you want any supper?" the landlady asked the traveller.

He did not reply, but seemed to be lost in thought. "What can this man

be?" she muttered to herself. "He is some wretched beggar who has not a

penny to pay for his supper. Will he be able to pay for his bed-room?

It is lucky, after all, that he did not think of stealing the silver

coin that was on the ground."

At this moment a door opened, and Éponine and Azelma came in. They

were really two pretty little girls, of the middle class rather than

peasants, and very charming, one with her auburn well-smoothed tresses,

the other with long black plaits hanging down her back; both were

quick, clean, plump, fresh, and pleasant to look on through their

beaming health. They were warmly clothed, but with such maternal art

that the thickness of the stuff did not remove anything of the coquetry

of the style; winter was foreseen, but spring was not effaced. In their

dress, their gayety, and the noise which they made, there was a certain

queenliness. When they came in, their mother said to them in a scolding

voice, which was full of adoration, "There you are, then."

Then, drawing them on to her knees in turn, smoothing their hair,

re-tying their ribbons, and letting them go with that gentle shake

which is peculiar to mothers, she exclaimed, "How smart they are!" They

sat down by the fire-side, with a doll which they turned over on their

knees with all sorts of joyous prattle. At times Cosette raised her

eyes from her knitting and mournfully watched their playing, Éponine

and Azelma did not look at Cosette, for to them she was like the dog.

These three little girls did not count four-and-twenty years between

them, and already represented human society,--on one side envy, on

the other, disdain. The doll was very old and broken, but it did not

appear the less wonderful to Cosette, who never in her life possessed a

doll,--a "real doll," to employ an expression which all children will

understand. All at once the landlady, who was going about the room,

noticed that Cosette was idling, and watching the children instead of

working.

"Ah, I have caught you," she exclaimed; "that's the way you work, is

it? I'll make you work with the cat-o'-nine tails."

The stranger, without leaving his chair, turned to Madame Thénardier.

"Oh, Madame," he said with an almost timid smile, "let her play!"

Such a wish would have been a command from any traveller who had

ordered a good supper and drunk a couple of bottles of wine, and who

did not look like a beggar. But the landlady did not tolerate a man who

had such a hat, having a desire, and one who wore such a coat, daring

to have a will of his own! Hence she answered sharply,--

"She must work, since she eats; I do not keep her to do nothing."

"What is she doing, pray?" the stranger continued, in that gentle voice

which formed such a strange contrast with his beggar clothes and porter

shoulders.

The landlady deigned to reply,--

"She is knitting stockings, if you please, for my little girls, who

have none, so to speak, and are forced to go about barefooted."

The man looked at Cosette's poor red feet, and said,--

"When will she have finished that pair of stockings?"

"She has three or four good days' work, the idle slut!"

"And how much may such a pair be worth when finished?"

The landlady gave him a contemptuous glance.

"At least thirty sous."

"Will you sell them to me for five francs?" the man continued.

"Pardieu!" a carrier who was listening exclaimed, with a coarse laugh,

"I should think so,--five balls!"

Thénardier thought it his duty to speak.

"Yes, sir, if such be your fancy, you can have the pair of stockings

for five francs; we cannot refuse travellers anything."

"Cash payment," the landlady said in her peremptory voice.

"I buy the pair of stockings," the man said, and added, as he drew a

five-franc piece from his pocket and laid it on the table, "I pay for

them."

Then he turned to Cosette,--

"Your labor is now mine; so play, my child."

The carrier was so affected by the five-franc piece that he left his

glass and hurried up.

"It is real," he exclaimed, after examining it; "a true hind-wheel, and

no mistake."

Thénardier came up and silently put the coin in his pocket. The

landlady could make no answer, but she bit her lips, and her face

assumed an expression of hatred. Cosette was trembling, but still

ventured to ask,--

"Is it true, Madame? May I play?"

"Play!" her mistress said, in a terrible voice.

And while her lips thanked the landlady, all her little soul thanked

the traveller. Thénardier had returned to his glass, and his wife

whispered in his ear,--

"What can this yellow man be?"

"I have seen," Thénardier replied, with a sovereign air, "millionnaires

who wore a coat like his."

Cosette had laid down her needle, but did not dare leave her place,

for, as a rule, she moved as little as possible. She took from a box

behind her a few old rags and her little leaden sword, Éponine and

Azelma paid no attention to what was going on, for they were carrying

out a very important operation. They had seized the cat, thrown the

doll on the ground, and Éponine, who was the elder, was wrapping up

the kitten, in spite of its meawings and writhings, in a quantity of

red and blue rags. While performing this serious and difficult task,

she was saying to her sister in the sweet and adorable language of

children, the grace of which, like the glistening of butterflies'

wings, disappears when you try to fix it,--

"This doll, sister, is more amusing than the other, you see, for it

moves, cries, and is warm; so we will play with it. It is my little

daughter, and I am a lady; you will call upon me, and look at it. By

degrees you will see its whiskers, and that will surprise you, and then

you will see its ears and its tail, and that will surprise you too,

and you will say to me, 'Oh, my goodness!' and I shall answer, 'Yes,

Madame, it is a little child I have like that; little children are so

at present.'"

Azelma listened to Éponine in admiration; in the mean while the topers

had begun singing an obscene song at which they laughed till the

ceiling shook, Thénardier encouraging and accompanying them. In the

same way as birds make a nest of everything, children make a doll of

no matter what. While Éponine and Azelma were wrapping up the kitten,

Cosette on her side was performing the same operation on her sword.

This done, she laid it on her arm, and sang softly to lull it to sleep.

A doll is one of the most imperious wants, and at the same time one of

the most delicious instincts, of feminine childhood. To clean, clothe,

adorn, dress, undress, dress again, teach, scold a little, nurse, lull,

send to sleep, and imagine that something is somebody,--the whole

future of a woman is contained in this. While dreaming and prattling,

making little trousseaux and cradles, while sewing little frocks and

aprons, the child becomes a girl, the girl becomes a maiden, and the

maiden a woman. The first child is a continuation of the last doll. A

little girl without a doll is nearly as unhappy and quite as impossible

as a wife without children; Cosette, therefore, made a doll of her

sword. The landlady, in the mean while, walked up to the "yellow man."

"My husband is right," she thought, "it is perhaps M. Lafitte. Some

rich men are so whimsical." She leaned her elbow on the table and said,

"Sir--"

At the word "Sir" the man turned round, for the female Thénardier had

up to the present only addressed him as "My good man."

"You see, sir," she continued, assuming her gentle air, which was still

more dreadful to see than her fierce look, "I am glad to see the child

play, and do not oppose it, and it is all right for once, as you are

generous. But, you see, she has nothing, and must work."

"Then, she is not a child of yours?" the man asked.

"Oh! Lord, no, sir; she is a poor little girl we took in out of

charity. She is a sort of imbecile, and I think has water on the brain,

for she has a big head. We do all we can for her; but we are not rich,

and though we write to her people, we have not had an answer for six

months. It looks as if the mother were dead."

"Ah!" said the man, and fell back into his reverie.

"The mother could n't have been much," the landlady added, "for she

deserted her child."

During the whole of the conversation Cosette, as if an instinct warned

her that she was being talked about, did not take her eyes off her

mistress. She listened, and heard two or three indistinct words here

and there. In the mean while, the drinkers, who were three parts

intoxicated, struck up their unclean song again with redoubled gayety,

and Madame Thénardier went to take part in the bursts of laughter.

Cosette, under her table, looked at the fire, which was reflected in

her fixed eyes; she had begun rocking the species of doll which she had

made, and while lulling it to sleep, sang in a low voice,--"My mother

is dead, my mother is dead, my mother is dead." On being pressed again

by the landlady, the yellow man, the "millionnaire," consented to take

some supper.

"What will you have, sir?"

"Bread and cheese."

"He is certainly a beggar," the landlady thought. The drunkards were

still singing their song, and the child, under the table, still sang

hers. All at once Cosette broke off: she turned, and perceived, lying

on the ground a few paces from the kitchen table, the doll which

the children had thrown down on taking up the kitten. She let the

wrapped-up sword, which only half satisfied her, fall, and then slowly

looked round the room. The landlady was whispering to her husband and

reckoning some change, Éponine and Azelma were playing with the kitten;

the guests were eating, drinking, or singing, and no one noticed her.

She had not a moment to lose, so she crept on her hands and knees from

under the table, assured herself once again that she was not watched,

and seized the doll. A moment after she was back in her seat, and

turned so that the doll which she held in her arms should be in the

shadow. The happiness of playing with this doll was almost too much

for her. No one had seen her, excepting the traveller, who was slowly

eating his poor supper. This joy lasted nearly a quarter of an hour.

But in spite of the caution which Cosette took, she did not notice

that one of the doll's feet was peeping out, and that the fire lit it

up very distinctly. This pink luminous foot emerging from the glow

suddenly caught the eye of Azelma, who said to Éponine, "Look, sister!"

The two little girls were stupefied. Cosette had dared to take their

doll! Éponine rose, and without letting the cat go, ran to her mother

and plucked the skirt of her dress.

"Let me be," said the mother; "what do you want now?"

"Mother," said the girl, "just look!"

And she pointed to Cosette, who, yielding entirely to the ecstasy of

possession, saw and heard nothing more. The landlady's face assumed

that peculiar expression which is composed of the terrible blended with

the trifles of life, and which has caused such women to be christened

Megæras. This time wounded pride exasperated her wrath: Cosette had

leaped over all bounds, and had made an assault on the young ladies'

doll. A czarina who saw a moujik trying on her Imperial son's blue

ribbon would not have a different face. She cried in a voice which

indignation rendered hoarse,--"Cosette!"

Cosette started as if the earth had trembled beneath her, and turned

round.

"Cosette!" her mistress repeated.

Cosette gently laid the doll on the ground with a species of veneration

mingled with despair; then, without taking her eyes off it, she clasped

her hands, and, frightful to say of a child of her age, wrung them, and

then burst into tears, a thing which none of the emotions of the day

had caused,--neither the walk in the wood, the weight of the bucket,

the loss of the coin, the sight of the lash, nor the harsh remarks of

her mistress. The traveller had risen from his chair. "What is the

matter?" he asked the landlady.

"Don't you see?" she replied, pointing to the _corpus delicti_ which

lay at Cosette's feet.

"Well, what?" the man continued.

"That wretch," the landlady answered, "has had the audacity to touch my

children's doll!"

"So much noise about that!" the man said. "Well, suppose that she did

play with the doll!"

"She has touched it with her dirty hands," the landlady

continued,--"her frightful hands."

Here Cosette redoubled her sobs.

"Will you be quiet?" her mistress yelled.

The man went straight to the street door, opened it, and walked out;

the landlady took advantage of his absence to give Cosette a kick under

the table, which made her scream. The door opened again, and the man

reappeared, carrying in his hands the fabulous doll to which we have

alluded, and which all the village children had been contemplating

since the morning. He placed it on its legs before Cosette, saying,--

"Here, this is for you."

We must suppose that, during the hour he had been sitting in a reverie,

he had confusedly noticed the toyman's shop, which was so brilliantly

lit with lamps and candles that it could be seen through the tap-room

window like an illumination. Cosette raised her eyes: she had looked

at the man coming toward her with the doll, as if he were the sun;

she heard the extraordinary words "This is for you;" she looked at

him, looked at the doll, then drew back slowly, and concealed herself

entirely in a corner under the table. She did not cry, she did not

speak, but looked as if she dared hardly breathe. The landlady,

Éponine, and Azelma were so many statues: the topers themselves had

stopped drinking, and there was a solemn silence in the tap-room. The

mother, petrified and dumb, began her conjectures again. "Who is this

man? Is he poor, or a millionnaire? He is, perhaps, both; that is to

say, a thief." The husband's face offered that expressive wrinkle which

marks the human face each time that the ruling instinct appears on it

with all its bestial power. The landlord looked in turn at the doll and

the traveller: he seemed to be sniffing round the man, as he would have

done round a money-bag. This only lasted for a second; then he went up

to his wife and whispered:

"That machine costs at least thirty francs. No nonsense; crawl in the

dust before the man."

Coarse natures have this in common with simple natures, that they have

no transitions.