She remained silent for a moment, then she turned her face with an effort, and looked at Marius.
"Do you know what, Monsieur Marius? It puzzled me because you entered that garden; it was stupid, because it was I who showed you that house; and then, I ought to have said to myself that a young man like you--"
She paused, and overstepping the sombre transitions that undoubtedly existed in her mind, she resumed with a heartrending smile:--
"You thought me ugly, didn"t you?"
She continued:--
"You see, you are lost! Now, no one can get out of the barricade. It was I who led you here, by the way! You are going to die, I count upon that.
And yet, when I saw them taking aim at you, I put my hand on the muzzle of the gun. How queer it is! But it was because I wanted to die before you. When I received that bullet, I dragged myself here, no one saw me, no one picked me up, I was waiting for you, I said: "So he is not coming!" Oh, if you only knew. I bit my blouse, I suffered so! Now I am well. Do you remember the day I entered your chamber and when I looked at myself in your mirror, and the day when I came to you on the boulevard near the washerwomen? How the birds sang! That was a long time ago. You gave me a hundred sous, and I said to you: "I don"t want your money." I hope you picked up your coin? You are not rich. I did not think to tell you to pick it up. The sun was shining bright, and it was not cold. Do you remember, Monsieur Marius? Oh! How happy I am! Every one is going to die."
She had a mad, grave, and heart-breaking air. Her torn blouse disclosed her bare throat.
As she talked, she pressed her pierced hand to her breast, where there was another hole, and whence there spurted from moment to moment a stream of blood, like a jet of wine from an open bung-hole.
Marius gazed at this unfortunate creature with profound compa.s.sion.
"Oh!" she resumed, "it is coming again, I am stifling!"
She caught up her blouse and bit it, and her limbs stiffened on the pavement.
At that moment the young c.o.c.k"s crow executed by little Gavroche resounded through the barricade.
The child had mounted a table to load his gun, and was singing gayly the song then so popular:--
"En voyant Lafayette, "On beholding Lafayette, Le gendarme repete:-- The gendarme repeats:-- Sauvons nous! sauvons nous! Let us flee! let us flee!
sauvons nous!" let us flee!
Eponine raised herself and listened; then she murmured:--
"It is he."
And turning to Marius:--
"My brother is here. He must not see me. He would scold me."
"Your brother?" inquired Marius, who was meditating in the most bitter and sorrowful depths of his heart on the duties to the Thenardiers which his father had bequeathed to him; "who is your brother?"
"That little fellow."
"The one who is singing?"
"Yes."
Marius made a movement.
"Oh! don"t go away," said she, "it will not be long now."
She was sitting almost upright, but her voice was very low and broken by hiccoughs.
At intervals, the death rattle interrupted her. She put her face as near that of Marius as possible. She added with a strange expression:--
"Listen, I do not wish to play you a trick. I have a letter in my pocket for you. I was told to put it in the post. I kept it. I did not want to have it reach you. But perhaps you will be angry with me for it when we meet again presently? Take your letter."
She grasped Marius" hand convulsively with her pierced hand, but she no longer seemed to feel her sufferings. She put Marius" hand in the pocket of her blouse. There, in fact, Marius felt a paper.
"Take it," said she.
Marius took the letter.
She made a sign of satisfaction and contentment.
"Now, for my trouble, promise me--"
And she stopped.
"What?" asked Marius.
"Promise me!"
"I promise."
"Promise to give me a kiss on my brow when I am dead.--I shall feel it."
She dropped her head again on Marius" knees, and her eyelids closed. He thought the poor soul had departed. Eponine remained motionless. All at once, at the very moment when Marius fancied her asleep forever, she slowly opened her eyes in which appeared the sombre profundity of death, and said to him in a tone whose sweetness seemed already to proceed from another world:--
"And by the way, Monsieur Marius, I believe that I was a little bit in love with you."
She tried to smile once more and expired.
CHAPTER VII--GAVROCHE AS A PROFOUND CALCULATOR OF DISTANCES
Marius kept his promise. He dropped a kiss on that livid brow, where the icy perspiration stood in beads.
This was no infidelity to Cosette; it was a gentle and pensive farewell to an unhappy soul.
It was not without a tremor that he had taken the letter which Eponine had given him. He had immediately felt that it was an event of weight.
He was impatient to read it. The heart of man is so const.i.tuted that the unhappy child had hardly closed her eyes when Marius began to think of unfolding this paper.
He laid her gently on the ground, and went away. Something told him that he could not peruse that letter in the presence of that body.
He drew near to a candle in the tap-room. It was a small note, folded and sealed with a woman"s elegant care. The address was in a woman"s hand and ran:--