Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [130]
He took her hand. “Cosette is beautiful,” said he. “Cosette is well; you shall see her soon, but be quiet. You talk too fast; and then you throw your arms out of bed, which makes you cough.”
In fact, coughing fits interrupted Fantine at almost every word.
She did not murmur; she feared that by too eager entreaties she had weakened the confidence which she wished to inspire, and began to talk about indifferent subjects.
“Montfermeil is a pretty place, is it not? In summer people go there on pleasure parties. Do the Thénardiers do a good business? Not many great people pass through that country. Their inn is a kind of tavern.”
Monsieur Madeleine still held her hand and looked at her with anxiety. It was evident that he had come to tell her things before which his mind now hesitated. The physician had made his visit and retired. Sister Simplice alone remained with them.
But in the midst of the silence, Fantine cried out:—
“I hear her! Oh, darling! I hear her!”
She stretched out her arm to tell the people around her to be quiet, held her breath, and set to listening with rapture.
There was a child playing in the court—the child of the portress or some workwoman. It was one of those coincidences which are always met with, and which seem to form part of the mysterious representation of tragic events. The child, which was a little girl, was running up and down to keep herself warm, singing and laughing in a loud voice. Alas! with what are not the plays of children mingled! Fantine had heard this little girl singing.
“Oh!” said she, “it is my Cosette! I know her voice!”
The child departed as she had come, and the voice died away. Fantine listened for some time. A shadow came over her face, and Monsieur Madeleine heard her whisper, “How wicked it is of that doctor not to let me see my child! That man has a bad face!”
But yet her happy train of thought returned. With her head on the pillow she continued to talk to herself. “How happy we shall be! We will have a little garden in the first place; Monsieur Madeleine has promised it to me. My child will play in the garden. She must know her letters now. I will teach her to spell. She will chase the butterflies in the grass, and I will watch her. Then there will be her first communion. Ah! when will her first communion be?”
She began to count on her fingers.
“One, two, three, four. She is seven years old. In five years. She will have a white veil and open-worked stockings, and will look like a little lady. Oh, my good sister, you do not know how foolish I am; here I am thinking of my child’s first communion!”
And she began to laugh.
He had let go the hand of Fantine. He listened to the words as one listens to the wind that blows, his eyes on the ground, and his mind plunged into unfathomable reflections. Suddenly she ceased speaking, and raised her head mechanically. Fantine had become appalling.
She did not speak any longer; she did not breathe any longer; she half-raised herself in the bed, the nightgown slipped from her emaciated shoulder; her countenance, radiant a moment before, became pale, and her eyes, dilated with terror, seemed to fasten on something before her at the other end of the room.
“Good God!” exclaimed he. “What is the matter, Fantine?”
She did not answer; she did not take her eyes from the object which she seemed to see, but touched his arm with one hand, and with the other made a sign to him to look behind him.
He turned, and saw Javert.
3
JAVERT SATISFIED
LET US SEE what had happened.
The half hour after midnight was striking when M. Madeleine left the hall of the Circuit Court of Arras. He had returned to his inn just in time to take the mail-coach, in which it will be remembered he had reserved his seat. A little before six in the morning he had reached M——sur M——, where his first care had been to post his letter