Charms exist. These two little girls were a charm to this mother.
She gazed at them in much emotion. The presence of angels is an announcement of Paradise. She thought that, above this inn, she beheld the mysterious HERE of Providence. These two little creatures were evidently happy. She gazed at them, she admired them, in such emotion that at the moment when their mother was recovering her breath between two couplets of her song, she could not refrain from addressing to her the remark which we have just read:--
"You have two pretty children, Madame."
The most ferocious creatures are disarmed by caresses bestowed on their young.
The mother raised her head and thanked her, and bade the wayfarer sit down on the bench at the door, she herself being seated on the threshold. The two women began to chat.
"My name is Madame Thenardier," said the mother of the two little girls.
"We keep this inn."
Then, her mind still running on her romance, she resumed humming between her teeth:--
"It must be so; I am a knight, And I am off to Palestine."
This Madame Thenardier was a sandy-complexioned woman, thin and angular--the type of the soldier"s wife in all its unpleasantness; and what was odd, with a languishing air, which she owed to her perusal of romances. She was a simpering, but masculine creature. Old romances produce that effect when rubbed against the imagination of cook-shop woman. She was still young; she was barely thirty. If this crouching woman had stood upright, her lofty stature and her frame of a perambulating colossus suitable for fairs, might have frightened the traveller at the outset, troubled her confidence, and disturbed what caused what we have to relate to vanish. A person who is seated instead of standing erect--destinies hang upon such a thing as that.
The traveller told her story, with slight modifications.
That she was a working-woman; that her husband was dead; that her work in Paris had failed her, and that she was on her way to seek it elsewhere, in her own native parts; that she had left Paris that morning on foot; that, as she was carrying her child, and felt fatigued, she had got into the Villemomble coach when she met it; that from Villemomble she had come to Montfermeil on foot; that the little one had walked a little, but not much, because she was so young, and that she had been obliged to take her up, and the jewel had fallen asleep.
At this word she bestowed on her daughter a pa.s.sionate kiss, which woke her. The child opened her eyes, great blue eyes like her mother"s, and looked at--what? Nothing; with that serious and sometimes severe air of little children, which is a mystery of their luminous innocence in the presence of our twilight of virtue. One would say that they feel themselves to be angels, and that they know us to be men. Then the child began to laugh; and although the mother held fast to her, she slipped to the ground with the unconquerable energy of a little being which wished to run. All at once she caught sight of the two others in the swing, stopped short, and put out her tongue, in sign of admiration.
Mother Thenardier released her daughters, made them descend from the swing, and said:--
"Now amuse yourselves, all three of you."
Children become acquainted quickly at that age, and at the expiration of a minute the little Thenardiers were playing with the new-comer at making holes in the ground, which was an immense pleasure.
The new-comer was very gay; the goodness of the mother is written in the gayety of the child; she had seized a sc.r.a.p of wood which served her for a shovel, and energetically dug a cavity big enough for a fly. The grave-digger"s business becomes a subject for laughter when performed by a child.
The two women pursued their chat.
"What is your little one"s name?"
"Cosette."
For Cosette, read Euphrasie. The child"s name was Euphrasie. But out of Euphrasie the mother had made Cosette by that sweet and graceful instinct of mothers and of the populace which changes Josepha into Pepita, and Francoise into Sillette. It is a sort of derivative which disarranges and disconcerts the whole science of etymologists. We have known a grandmother who succeeded in turning Theodore into Gnon.
"How old is she?"
"She is going on three."
"That is the age of my eldest."
In the meantime, the three little girls were grouped in an att.i.tude of profound anxiety and blissfulness; an event had happened; a big worm had emerged from the ground, and they were afraid; and they were in ecstasies over it.
Their radiant brows touched each other; one would have said that there were three heads in one aureole.
"How easily children get acquainted at once!" exclaimed Mother Thenardier; "one would swear that they were three sisters!"
This remark was probably the spark which the other mother had been waiting for. She seized the Thenardier"s hand, looked at her fixedly, and said:--
"Will you keep my child for me?"
The Thenardier made one of those movements of surprise which signify neither a.s.sent nor refusal.
Cosette"s mother continued:--
"You see, I cannot take my daughter to the country. My work will not permit it. With a child one can find no situation. People are ridiculous in the country. It was the good G.o.d who caused me to pa.s.s your inn. When I caught sight of your little ones, so pretty, so clean, and so happy, it overwhelmed me. I said: "Here is a good mother. That is just the thing; that will make three sisters." And then, it will not be long before I return. Will you keep my child for me?"
"I must see about it," replied the Thenardier.
"I will give you six francs a month."
Here a man"s voice called from the depths of the cook-shop:--
"Not for less than seven francs. And six months paid in advance."
"Six times seven makes forty-two," said the Thenardier.
"I will give it," said the mother.
"And fifteen francs in addition for preliminary expenses," added the man"s voice.
"Total, fifty-seven francs," said Madame Thenardier. And she hummed vaguely, with these figures:--
"It must be, said a warrior."
"I will pay it," said the mother. "I have eighty francs. I shall have enough left to reach the country, by travelling on foot. I shall earn money there, and as soon as I have a little I will return for my darling."
The man"s voice resumed:--
"The little one has an outfit?"
"That is my husband," said the Thenardier.
"Of course she has an outfit, the poor treasure.--I understood perfectly that it was your husband.--And a beautiful outfit, too! a senseless outfit, everything by the dozen, and silk gowns like a lady. It is here, in my carpet-bag."
"You must hand it over," struck in the man"s voice again.
"Of course I shall give it to you," said the mother. "It would be very queer if I were to leave my daughter quite naked!"
The master"s face appeared.