Essential Novelists - Victor Hugo. Victor Hugo

      “My horse has not been watered.”

      “Yes, it has,” said Madame Thénardier.

      “I tell you that it has not,” retorted the pedler.

      Cosette had emerged from under the table.

      “Oh, yes, sir!” said she, “the horse has had a drink; he drank out of a bucket, a whole bucketful, and it was I who took the water to him, and I spoke to him.”

      It was not true; Cosette lied.

      “There’s a brat as big as my fist who tells lies as big as the house,” exclaimed the pedler. “I tell you that he has not been watered, you little jade! He has a way of blowing when he has had no water, which I know well.”

      Cosette persisted, and added in a voice rendered hoarse with anguish, and which was hardly audible:—

      “And he drank heartily.”

      “Come,” said the pedler, in a rage, “this won’t do at all, let my horse be watered, and let that be the end of it!”

      Cosette crept under the table again.

      “In truth, that is fair!” said Madame Thénardier, “if the beast has not been watered, it must be.”

      Then glancing about her:—

      “Well, now! Where’s that other beast?”

      She bent down and discovered Cosette cowering at the other end of the table, almost under the drinkers’ feet.

      “Are you coming?” shrieked Madame Thénardier.

      Cosette crawled out of the sort of hole in which she had hidden herself. The Thénardier resumed:—

      “Mademoiselle Dog-lack-name, go and water that horse.”

      “But, Madame,” said Cosette, feebly, “there is no water.”

      The Thénardier threw the street door wide open:—

      “Well, go and get some, then!”

      Cosette dropped her head, and went for an empty bucket which stood near the chimney-corner.

      This bucket was bigger than she was, and the child could have set down in it at her ease.

      The Thénardier returned to her stove, and tasted what was in the stewpan, with a wooden spoon, grumbling the while:—

      “There’s plenty in the spring. There never was such a malicious creature as that. I think I should have done better to strain my onions.”

      Then she rummaged in a drawer which contained sous, pepper, and shallots.

      “See here, Mam’selle Toad,” she added, “on your way back, you will get a big loaf from the baker. Here’s a fifteen-sou piece.”

      Cosette had a little pocket on one side of her apron; she took the coin without saying a word, and put it in that pocket.

      Then she stood motionless, bucket in hand, the open door before her. She seemed to be waiting for some one to come to her rescue.

      “Get along with you!” screamed the Thénardier.

      Cosette went out. The door closed behind her.

      Chapter IV

      Entrance On The Scene Of A Doll

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      THE LINE OF OPEN-AIR booths starting at the church, extended, as the reader will remember, as far as the hostelry of the Thénardiers. These booths were all illuminated, because the citizens would soon pass on their way to the midnight mass, with candles burning in paper funnels, which, as the schoolmaster, then seated at the table at the Thénardiers’ observed, produced “a magical effect.” In compensation, not a star was visible in the sky.

      The last of these stalls, established precisely opposite the Thénardiers’ door, was a toy-shop all glittering with tinsel, glass, and magnificent objects of tin. In the first row, and far forwards, the merchant had placed on a background of white napkins, an immense doll, nearly two feet high, who was dressed in a robe of pink crepe, with gold wheat-ears on her head, which had real hair and enamel eyes. All that day, this marvel had been displayed to the wonderment of all passers-by under ten years of age, without a mother being found in Montfermeil sufficiently rich or sufficiently extravagant to give it to her child. Éponine and Azelma had passed hours in contemplating it, and Cosette herself had ventured to cast a glance at it, on the sly, it is true.

      At the moment when Cosette emerged, bucket in hand, melancholy and overcome as she was, she could not refrain from lifting her eyes to that wonderful doll, towards the lady, as she called it. The poor child paused in amazement. She had not yet beheld that doll close to. The whole shop seemed a palace to her: the doll was not a doll; it was a vision. It was joy, splendor, riches, happiness, which appeared in a sort of chimerical halo to that unhappy little being so profoundly engulfed in gloomy and chilly misery. With the sad and innocent sagacity of childhood, Cosette measured the abyss which separated her from that doll. She said to herself that one must be a queen, or at least a princess, to have a “thing” like that. She gazed at that beautiful pink dress, that beautiful smooth hair, and she thought, “How happy that doll must be!” She could not take her eyes from that fantastic stall. The more she looked, the more dazzled she grew. She thought she was gazing at paradise. There were other dolls behind the large one, which seemed to her to be fairies and genii. The merchant, who was pacing back and forth in front of his shop, produced on her somewhat the effect of being the Eternal Father.

      In this adoration she forgot everything, even the errand with which she was charged.

      All at once the Thénardier’s coarse voice recalled her to reality: “What, you silly jade! you have not gone? Wait! I’ll give it to you! I want to know what you are doing there! Get along, you little monster!”

      The Thénardier had cast a glance into the street, and had caught sight of Cosette in her ecstasy.

      Cosette fled, dragging her pail, and taking the longest strides of which she was capable.

      Chapter V

      The Little One All Alone

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      AS THE THÉNARDIER HOSTELRY was in that part of the village which is near the church, it was to the spring in the forest in the direction of Chelles that Cosette was obliged to go for her water.

      She did not glance at the display of a single other merchant. So long as she was in Boulanger Lane and in the neighborhood of the church, the lighted stalls illuminated the road; but soon the last light from the last stall vanished. The poor child found herself in the dark. She plunged into it. Only, as a certain emotion overcame her, she made as much motion as possible with the handle of the bucket as she walked along. This made a noise which afforded her company.

      The further she went, the denser the darkness became. There was no one in the streets. However, she did encounter a woman, who turned around on seeing her, and stood still, muttering between her teeth: “Where can that child be going? Is it a werewolf child?” Then the woman recognized Cosette. “Well,” said she, “it’s the Lark!”

      In this manner Cosette traversed the labyrinth of tortuous and deserted streets which terminate in the village of Montfermeil on the side of Chelles. So long as she had the houses or even the walls only on both sides of her path, she proceeded with tolerable boldness. From time to time she caught the flicker of a candle through the crack of a shutter—this was light and life; there were people there, and it reassured her. But in proportion as she advanced, her pace slackened mechanically,