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Meantime, while Marius fixed upon her an astonished and sorrowful look, the young girl was walking to and fro in the room with the boldness of a spectre. She bustled about regardless of her nakedness. At times, her chemise, unfastened and torn, fell almost to her waist. She moved the chairs, she disarranged the toilet articles on the bureau, she felt of Marius’ clothes, she searched over what there was in the corners.

“Ah,” said she, “you have a mirror!”

And she hummed, as if she had been alone, snatches of songs, light refrains which were made dismal by her harsh and guttural voice. Beneath this boldness could be perceived an indescribable constraint, restlessness, and humility. Effrontery is a form of shame.

Nothing was more sorrowful than to see her amusing herself, and, so to speak, fluttering about the room with the movements of a bird which is startled by the light, or which has a wing broken. One felt that under other conditions of up-bringing and of destiny, the gay and free manner of this young girl might have been something sweet and charming. Never among animals does the creature which is born to be a dove change into an osprey. That is seen only among men.

Marius was reflecting, and let her go on.

She went to the table.

“Ah!” said she, “books!”

A light flashed through her glassy eye. She resumed, and her tone expressed that happiness of being able to boast of something, to which no human creature is insensitive:

“I can read, I can.”

She hastily caught up the book which lay open on the table, and read fluently:

“—General Bauduin received the order to take five battalions of his brigade and carry the château of Hougomont, which is in the middle of the plain of Waterloo—”

She stopped:

“Ah, Waterloo! I know that. It is a battle in old times. My father was there; my father served in the armies. We are jolly good Bonapartists at home, that we are. Against the English, Waterloo was.”

She put down the book, took up a pen, and exclaimed:

“And I can write, too!”

She dipped the pen in the ink, and turning towards Marius:

“Would you like to see? Here, I am going to write a bit to show you.”

And before he had had time to answer, she wrote upon a sheet of blank paper which was on the middle of the table: “The cops are here.”

Then, throwing down the pen:

“There are no mistakes in spelling. You can look. We have received an education, my sister and I. We have not always been what we are. We were not made—”

Here she stopped, fixed her faded eye upon Marius, and burst out laughing, saying in a tone which contained complete anguish stifled by complete cynicism:

“Bah!”

And she began to hum these words, to a lively air:

J‘ai faim, mon père.

Pas de fricot.

J’ai froid, ma mere.

Pas de tricot.

Grelotte,

Lolotte!

Sanglote,

Jacquot. dq

Hardly had she finished this stanza when she exclaimed:

“Do you ever go to the theatre, Monsieur Marius? I do. I have a little brother who is a friend of some artists, and who gives me tickets sometimes. Now, I do not like the seats in the galleries. You are crowded, you are uncomfortable. There are sometimes coarse people there; there are also people who smell bad.”

Then she looked at Marius, put on a strange manner, and said to him:

“Do you know, Monsieur Marius, that you are a very pretty boy?”

And at the same time the same thought occurred to both of them, which made her smile and made him blush.

She went to him, and laid her hand on his shoulder: “You pay no attention to me, but I know you, Monsieur Marius. I meet you here on the stairs, and then I see you visiting a man named Father Mabeuf, who lives out by Austerlitz, sometimes, when I am walking that way. That becomes you very well, your tangled hair.”

Her voice tried to be very soft, but succeeded only in being very low. Some of her words were lost in their passage from the larynx to the lips, as upon a key-board in which some notes are missing.

Marius had drawn back quietly.

“Mademoiselle,” said he, with his