Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [146]
“Here,” said she, “there is no more water!” Then she was silent for a moment. The child held her breath.
“Pshaw!” continued the Thénardiess, examining the half-filled glass, “there is enough of it, such as it is.”
Cosette resumed her work, but for more than a quarter of an hour she felt her heart leaping into her throat like a great ball.
She counted the minutes as they thus rolled away, and eagerly wished it were morning.
From time to time, one of the drinkers would look out into the street and exclaim:—“It is as black as an oven!” or, “It would take a cat to go along the street without a lantern to-night!” And Cosette shuddered.
All at once, one of the pedlars who lodged in the tavern came in, and said in a harsh voice:
“You have not watered my horse.”
“Yes, we have, sure,” said the Thénardiess.
“I tell you no, ma‘am,” replied the pedlar.
Cosette came out from under the table.
“Oh, yes, monsieur!” said she, “the horse did drink; he drank in the bucket, the bucket full, and ‘twas me that carried it to him, and I talked to him.”
This was not true. Cosette lied.
“Here is a girl as big as my fist, who can tell a lie as big as a house,” exclaimed the pedlar. “I tell you that he has not had any water, little wench! He has a way of blowing when he has not had any water, that I know well enough.”
Cosette persisted, and added in a voice stifled with anguish, and which could hardly be heard:
“But he did drink a good deal.”
“Come,” continued the pedlar, in a passion, “that is enough; give my horse some water, and say no more about it.”
Cosette went back under the table.
“Well, of course that is right,” said the Thénardiess; “if the beast has not had any water, she must have some.”
Then looking about her:
“Well, what has become of that girl?”
She stooped down and discovered Cosette crouched at the other end of the table, almost under the feet of the drinkers.
“Aren’t you coming?” cried the Thénardiess.
Cosette came out of the kind of hole where she had hidden. The Thénardiess continued:
“Mademoiselle Dog-without-a-name, go and carry some drink to this horse.”
“But, ma‘am,” said Cosette feebly, “there is no water.”
The Thénardiess threw the street door wide open.
“Well, go after some!”
Cosette hung her head, and went for an empty bucket that was by the chimney corner.
The bucket was larger than she, and the child could have sat down in it comfortably.
The Thénardiess went back to her range, and tasted what was in the kettle with a wooden spoon, grumbling the while.
“There is some at the spring. It’s as simple as that. I think ‘twould have been better if I’d left out the onions.”
Then she fumbled in a drawer where there were some pennies, pepper, and scallions.
“Here, Mamselle Toad,” added she, “get a big loaf at the baker‘s, as you come back. Here is fifteen sous.”
Cosette had a little pocket in the side of her apron; she took the coin without saying a word, and put it in that pocket.
Then she remained motionless, bucket in hand, the open door before her. She seemed to be waiting for somebody to come to her aid.
“Get along!” cried the Thénardiess.
Cosette went out. The door closed.bh
4
A DOLL COMES ONSTAGE
THE ROW of booths extended along the street from the church, the reader will remember, as far as the Thénardier tavern. These booths, on account of the approaching passage of the citizens on their way to the midnight mass, were all illuminated with candles, burning in paper cones, which, as the schoolmaster of Montfermeil, who was at that moment seated at one of Thénardier’s tables, said, produced a magical effect. On the other hand,