“Little one, you are the Queen of France.”
It seemed to her that if she touched that doll, lightning would dart from it.
This was true, up to a certain point, for she said to herself that the Thénardier would scold and beat her.
Nevertheless, the attraction carried the day. She ended by drawing near and murmuring timidly as she turned towards Madame Thénardier:—
“May I, Madame?”
No words can render that air, at once despairing, terrified, and ecstatic.
“Pardi!” cried the Thénardier, “it is yours. The gentleman has given it to you.”
“Truly, sir?” said Cosette. “Is it true? Is the ‘lady’ mine?”
The stranger’s eyes seemed to be full of tears. He appeared to have reached that point of emotion where a man does not speak for fear lest he should weep. He nodded to Cosette, and placed the “lady’s” hand in her tiny hand.
Cosette hastily withdrew her hand, as though that of the “lady” scorched her, and began to stare at the floor. We are forced to add that at that moment she stuck out her tongue immoderately. All at once she wheeled round and seized the doll in a transport.
“I shall call her Catherine,” she said.
It was an odd moment when Cosette’s rags met and clasped the ribbons and fresh pink muslins of the doll.
“Madame,” she resumed, “may I put her on a chair?”
“Yes, my child,” replied the Thénardier.
It was now the turn of Éponine and Azelma to gaze at Cosette with envy.
Cosette placed Catherine on a chair, then seated herself on the floor in front of her, and remained motionless, without uttering a word, in an attitude of contemplation.
“Play, Cosette,” said the stranger.
“Oh! I am playing,” returned the child.
This stranger, this unknown individual, who had the air of a visit which Providence was making on Cosette, was the person whom the Thénardier hated worse than any one in the world at that moment. However, it was necessary to control herself. Habituated as she was to dissimulation through endeavoring to copy her husband in all his actions, these emotions were more than she could endure. She made haste to send her daughters to bed, then she asked the man’s permission to send Cosette off also; “for she has worked hard all day,” she added with a maternal air. Cosette went off to bed, carrying Catherine in her arms.
From time to time the Thénardier went to the other end of the room where her husband was, to relieve her soul, as she said. She exchanged with her husband words which were all the more furious because she dared not utter them aloud.
“Old beast! What has he got in his belly, to come and upset us in this manner! To want that little monster to play! to give away forty-franc dolls to a jade that I would sell for forty sous, so I would! A little more and he will be saying Your Majesty to her, as though to the Duchesse de Berry! Is there any sense in it? Is he mad, then, that mysterious old fellow?”
“Why! it is perfectly simple,” replied Thénardier, “if that amuses him! It amuses you to have the little one work; it amuses him to have her play. He’s all right. A traveller can do what he pleases when he pays for it. If the old fellow is a philanthropist, what is that to you? If he is an imbecile, it does not concern you. What are you worrying for, so long as he has money?”
The language of a master, and the reasoning of an innkeeper, neither of which admitted of any reply.
The man had placed his elbows on the table, and resumed his thoughtful attitude. All the other travellers, both pedlers and carters, had withdrawn a little, and had ceased singing. They were staring at him from a distance, with a sort of respectful awe. This poorly dressed man, who drew “hind-wheels” from his pocket with so much ease, and who lavished gigantic dolls on dirty little brats in wooden shoes, was certainly a magnificent fellow, and one to be feared.
Many hours passed. The midnight mass was over, the chimes had ceased, the drinkers had taken their departure, the drinking-shop was closed, the public room was deserted, the fire extinct, the stranger still remained in the same place and the same attitude. From time to time he changed the elbow on which he leaned. That was all; but he had not said a word since Cosette had left the room.
The Thénardiers alone, out of politeness and curiosity, had remained in the room.
“Is he going to pass the night in that fashion?” grumbled the Thénardier. When two o’clock in the morning struck, she declared herself vanquished, and said to her husband, “I’m going to bed. Do as you like.” Her husband seated himself at a table in the corner, lighted a candle, and began to read the Courrier Français.
A good hour passed thus. The worthy inn-keeper had perused the Courrier Français at least three times, from the date of the number to the printer’s name. The stranger did not stir.
Thénardier fidgeted, coughed, spit, blew his nose, and creaked his chair. Not a movement on the man’s part. “Is he asleep?” thought Thénardier. The man was not asleep, but nothing could arouse him.
At last Thénardier took off his cap, stepped gently up to him, and ventured to say:—
“Is not Monsieur going to his repose?”
Not going to bed would have seemed to him excessive and familiar. To repose smacked of luxury and respect. These words possess the mysterious and admirable property of swelling the bill on the following day. A chamber where one sleeps costs twenty sous; a chamber in which one reposes costs twenty francs.
“Well!” said the stranger, “you are right. Where is your stable?”
“Sir!” exclaimed Thénardier, with a smile, “I will conduct you, sir.”
He took the candle; the man picked up his bundle and cudgel, and Thénardier conducted him to a chamber on the first floor, which was of rare splendor, all furnished in mahogany, with a low bedstead, curtained with red calico.
“What is this?” said the traveller.
“It is really our bridal chamber,” said the tavern-keeper. “My wife and I occupy another. This is only entered three or four times a year.”
“I should have liked the stable quite as well,” said the man, abruptly.
Thénardier pretended not to hear this unamiable remark.
He lighted two perfectly fresh wax candles which figured on the chimney-piece. A very good fire was flickering on the hearth.
On the chimney-piece, under a glass globe, stood a woman’s head-dress in silver wire and orange flowers.
“And what is this?” resumed the stranger.
“That, sir,” said Thénardier, “is my wife’s wedding bonnet.”
The traveller surveyed the object with a glance which seemed to say, “There really
