Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [74]
The traveller told her story, a little modified.
She said she was a working woman, and her husband was dead. Not being able to procure work in Paris she was going in search of it elsewhere ; in her own province; that she had left Paris that morning on foot, that carrying her child she had become tired, and meeting the Villemomble stage had got in; that from Villemomble she had come on foot to Montfermeil; that the child had walked a little but not much, she was so young, that she was compelled to carry her, and the jewel had fallen asleep.
And at these words she gave her daughter a passionate kiss which wakened her. The child opened its large blue eyes, like its mother‘s, and saw—what ? Nothing, everything, with that serious and sometimes severe air of little children, which is one of the mysteries of their shining innocence before our shadowy virtues. One would say that they felt themselves to be angels, and knew us to be human. Then the child began to laugh, and, although the mother restrained her, slipped to the ground, with the indomitable energy of a little one that wants to run about. All at once she perceived the two others in their swing, stopped short, and put out her tongue in token of admiration.
Mother Thénardier untied the children and took them from the swing saying:
“Play together, all three of you.”
At that age acquaintance is easy, and in a moment the little Thénardiers were playing with the new-comer, making holes in the ground to their intense delight.
This new-comer was very sprightly: the goodness of the mother is written in the gaiety of the child; she had taken a splinter of wood, which she used as a spade, and was stoutly digging a hole fit for a fly. The gravedigger’s work is charming when done by a child.
The two women continued to chat.
“What do you call your brat?”
“Cosette.”
“How old is she?”
“She is going on three years.”
“The age of my oldest.”
The three girls were grouped in an attitude of deep anxiety and bliss; a great event had occurred; a large worm had come out of the ground; they were afraid of it, and yet in ecstasies over it.
Their bright foreheads touched each other: three heads in one halo of glory.
“Children,” exclaimed the Thénardier mother; “how soon they know one another. See them! one would swear they were three sisters.”
These words were the spark which the other mother was probably awaiting. She seized the hand of Madame Thénardier and said:
“Will you keep my child for me?”
Madame Thénardier made a motion of surprise, which was neither consent nor refusal.
Cosette’s mother continued:
“You see I cannot take my child into the country. Work forbids it. With a child I could not find a place there; they are so absurd in that district. It is God who has led me before your inn. The sight of your little ones, so pretty, and clean, and happy, has overwhelmed me. I said: there is a good mother; they will be like three sisters, and then it will not be long before I come back. Will you keep my child for me?”
“I must think over it,” said Thénardier.
“I will give six francs a month.”
Here a man’s voice was heard from within:
“Not less than seven francs, and six months paid in advance.”
“Six times seven are forty-two,” said Thénardier.
“I will give it,” said the mother.
“And fifteen francs extra for the first expenses,” added the man.
“That’s fifty-seven francs,” said Madame Thénardier, and in the midst of her reckoning she sang indistinctly:
“Il le faut, disait un guerrier.”
“I will give it,” said the mother; “I have eighty francs. That will leave me enough to go into the country if I walk. I will earn some money there, and as soon as I have I will come for my little love.”
The man’s voice returned:
“Has the child a wardrobe?”
“That is my husband,” said Thénardier.
“Certainly she has, the poor darling. I knew it was your husband. And a fine wardrobe it is too, an extravagant wardrobe, everything in dozens, and silk dresses like a lady. They are there