Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [161]
What a sublime and sweet thing is hope in a child who has never known anything but despair!
There was nothing in this wooden shoe.
The stranger fumbled in his waistcoat, bent over, and dropped into Cosette’s shoe a gold Louis.
Then he went back to his room with stealthy tread.
9
THENARDIER MANŒUVRING
ON THE following morning, at least two hours before day, Thénardier, seated at a table in the bar-room, a candle by his side with pen in hand, was making out the bill of the traveller in the yellow coat.
His wife was standing, half bent over him, following him with her eyes. Not a word passed between them. It was, on one side, a profound meditation, on the other that religious admiration with which we observe a marvel of the human mind spring up and expand. A noise was heard in the house; it was the lark, sweeping the stairs.
After a good quarter of an hour and some erasures, Thénardier produced this masterpiece.
Bill of Monsieur in No. 1.
Supper ..... 3 frs.
Room ..... 10 frs.
Candle ..... 5 frs.
Fire ...... 4 frs.
Service ..... 1 frs.
Total. 23 frs.
Service was written servisse.
“Twenty-three francs!” exclaimed the woman, with an enthusiasm which was mingled with some hesitation.
Like all great artists, Thénardier was not satisfied.
“Pooh!” said he.
It was the accent of Castlereagh drawing up for the Congress of Vienna the bill which France was to pay.
“Monsieur Thenardier, you are right, he deserves it,” murmured the woman, thinking of the doll given to Cosette in the presence of her daughters; “it is right! but it’s too much. He won’t pay it.”
Thénardier put on his cold laugh, and said: “He will pay it.”
This laugh was the highest sign of certainty and authority. What was thus said, must be. The woman did not insist. She began to arrange the tables; the husband walked back and forth in the room. A moment after he added:
“I owe, at least, fifteen hundred francs!”
He seated himself thoughtfully in the chimney corner, his feet in the warm ashes.
“Ah ha!” replied the woman, “you don’t forget that I kick Cosette out of the house to-day? The monster! it tears my vitals to see her with her doll! I would rather marry Louis XVIII, than keep her in the house another day!”
Thénardier lighted his pipe, and answered between two puffs:
“You’ll give the bill to the man.”
Then he went out.
He was scarcely out of the room when the traveller came in.
Thénardier reappeared immediately behind him, and remained motionless in the half-open door, visible only to his wife.
The yellow man carried his staff and bundle in his hand.
“Up so soon!” said the Thénardiess; “is monsieur going to leave us already?”
While speaking, she turned the bill in her hands with an embarrassed look, and made creases in it with her nails. Her hard face exhibited a shade of timidity and doubt that was not habitual.
To present such a bill to a man who had so perfectly the appearance of “a pauper” seemed too awkward to her.
The traveller appeared pre-occupied and absent-minded.
He answered:
“Yes, madame, I am going away.”
“Monsieur, then, had no business at Montfermeil?” replied she.
“No, I am passing through; that is all. Madame,” added he, “what do I owe?”
The Thénardiess, without answering, handed him the folded bill.
The man unfolded the paper and looked at it; but his thoughts were evidently elsewhere.
“Madame,” replied he, “do you do a good business in Montfermeil?”
“So-so, monsieur,” answered the Thénardiess, stupefied at seeing no other explosion.
She continued in a mournful and lamenting strain:
“Oh! monsieur, the times are very hard, and then we have so few rich people around here! It is a very little place, you see. If we only had rich travellers now and then, like monsieur! We have so many expenses! Why, that little girl eats us out of house and home.”
“What little girl?”
“Why, the little girl you know! Cosette! the Lark, as they call her about here!”
“Ah!” said the man.
She continued:
“How stupid these peasants are with their nicknames! She looks more like a bat than a lark. You see, monsieur, we don