Les Misérables, v. 1/5: Fantine

by Victor Hugo

  CHAPTER I.

  TWO MOTHERS MEET.

  There was in the first quarter of this century a sort of pot-houseat Montfermeil, near Paris, which no longer exists. It was kept bya couple of the name of Th?nardier, and was situated in the Rue duBoulanger. Over the door a board was nailed to the wall, and on thisboard was painted something resembling a man carrying on his backanother man, who wore large gilt general's epaulettes with silverstars; red dabs represented blood, and the rest of the painting wassmoke, probably representing a battle. At the bottom could be read theinscription: THE SERGEANT OF WATERLOO.

  Though nothing is more common than a cart at a pot-house door, thevehicle, or rather fragment of a vehicle, which blocked up the streetin front of the Sergeant of Waterloo, one spring evening in 1818,would have certainly attracted the attention of any painter who hadpassed that way. It was the forepart of one of those wains used in woodcountries for dragging planks and trunks of trees; it was composedof a massive iron axle-tree, in which a heavy pole was imbedded andsupported by two enormous wheels. The whole thing was sturdy, crushing,and ugly, and it might have passed for the carriage of a monster gun.The ruts had given the wheels, felloes, spokes, axle-tree, and pole acoating of mud, a hideous yellow plaster, much like that with whichcathedrals are so often adorned. The wood-work was hidden by mud andthe iron by rust. Under the axle-tree was festooned a heavy chainsuited for a convict Goliath. This chain made you think, not of thewood it was intended to secure, but of the mastodons and mammoths forwhich it would have served as harness; it had the air of a cyclopeanand superhuman bagne, and seemed removed from some monster. Homer wouldhave bound Polyphemus with it, and Shakespeare, Caliban.

  Why was this thing at this place in the street? First, to block it up;secondly, to finish the rusting process. There is in the old socialorder a multitude of institutions which may be found in the same wayin the open air, and which have no other reasons for being there.The centre of the chain hung rather close to the ground, and on thecurve, as on the rope of a swing, two little girls were seated on thisevening, in an exquisite embrace, one about two years and a half, theother eighteen months; the younger being in the arms of the elder. Anartfully-tied handkerchief prevented them from falling, for a motherhad seen this frightful chain, and said, "What a famous playthingfor my children!" The two children, who were prettily dressed andwith some taste, were radiant; they looked like two roses among oldiron; their eyes were a triumph, their healthy cheeks laughed; onehad auburn hair, the other was a brunette; their innocent faces hada look of surprise; a flowering shrub a little distance off sent topassers-by a perfume which seemed to come from them; and the youngerdisplayed her nudity with the chaste indecency of childhood. Aboveand around their two delicate heads, moulded in happiness and bathedin light, the gigantic wheels, black with rust, almost terrible, andbristling with curves and savage angles, formed the porch of a cavern,as it were. A few yards off, and seated in the inn door, the mother, awoman of no very pleasing appearance, but touching at this moment, wasswinging the children by the help of a long cord, and devouring themwith her eyes, for fear of an accident, with that animal and heavenlyexpression peculiar to maternity. At each oscillation the hideous linksproduced a sharp sound, resembling a cry of anger. The little girlswere delighted; the setting sun mingled with the joy, and nothing couldbe so charming as this caprice of accident which had made of a Titanicchain a cherub's swing. While playing with her little ones, the mothersang, terribly out of tune, a romance, very celebrated at that day,--

  "Il le faut, disait un guerrier."

  Her song and contemplation of her daughters prevented her hearing andseeing what took place in the street. Some one, however, had approachedher, as she began the first couplets of the romance, and suddenly sheheard a voice saying close to her ear,--

  "You have two pretty children, Madame."

  "--a la belle et tendre Imog?ne,"

  the mother answered, continuing her song, and then turned her head. Awoman was standing a few paces from her, who also had a child, whichshe was carrying in her arms. She also carried a heavy bag. Thiswoman's child was one of the most divine creatures possible to behold;she was a girl between two and three years of age, and could have viedwith the two other little ones in the coquettishness of her dress. Shehad on a hood of fine linen, ribbons at her shoulders, and Valencienneslace in her cap. Her raised petticoats displayed her white, dimpled,fine thigh; it was admirably pink and healthy, and her cheeks madeone long to bite them. Nothing could be said of her eyes, except thatthey were very large, and that she had magnificent lashes, for shewas asleep. She was sleeping with the absolute confidence peculiar toher age; a mother's arms are made of tenderness, and children sleepsoundly in them. As for the mother, she looked grave and sorrowful, andwas dressed like a work-girl who was trying to become a country-womanagain. She was young; was she pretty? Perhaps so; but in this dressshe did not appear so. Her hair, a light lock of which peeped out,seemed very thick, but was completely hidden beneath a nun's hood;ugly, tight, and fastened under her chin. Laughter displays fine teeth,when a person happens to possess them; but she did not laugh. Her eyeslooked as if they had not been dry for a long time; she had a fatiguedand rather sickly air, and she looked at the child sleeping in her armsin the manner peculiar to a mother who has suckled her babe. A largeblue handkerchief, like those served out to the invalids, folded likea shawl, clumsily hid her shape. Her hands were rough and covered withred spots, and her forefinger was hardened and torn by the needle. Shehad on a brown cloth cloak, a cotton gown, and heavy shoes. It wasFantine.

  It was difficult to recognize her, but, after an attentive examination,she still possessed her beauty. As for her toilette,--that aeriantoilette of muslin and ribbons which seemed made of gayety, folly, andmusic, to be full of bells, and perfumed with lilacs,--it had fadedaway like the dazzling hoar-frost which looks like diamonds in the sun;it melts, and leaves the branch quite black.

  Ten months had elapsed Bince the "good joke." What had taken placeduring these ten months? We can guess. After desertion, want. Fantineat once lost sight of Favourite, Z?phine, and Dahlia, for this tiebroken on the side of the men separated the women. They would havebeen greatly surprised a fortnight after had they been told that theywere friends, for there was no reason for it. Fantine remained alonewhen the father of her child had gone away--alas! such ruptures areirrevocable. She found herself absolutely isolated; she had lost herhabit of working, and had gained a taste for pleasure. Led away by her_liaison_ with Tholomy?s to despise the little trade she knew, she hadneglected her connection, and it was lost. She had no resource. Fantinecould hardly read, and could not write; she had been merely taught inchildhood to sign her name, and she had sent a letter to Tholomy?s,then a second, then a third, through a public writer, but Tholomy?sdid not answer one of them. One day Fantine heard the gossips say,while looking at her daughter, "Children like that are not regardedseriously, people shrug their shoulders at them." Then she thought ofTholomy?s who shrugged his shoulders at her child, and did not regardthe innocent creature seriously, and her heart turned away from thisman. What was she to do now? She knew not where to turn. She hadcommitted a fault, but the foundation of her nature, we must remember,was modesty and virtue. She felt vaguely that she was on the eve offalling into distress, and gliding into worse. She needed courage, andshe had it. The idea occurred to her of returning to her native town M.sur M. There some one might know her, and give her work; but she musthide her fault. And she vaguely glimpsed at the possible necessity of aseparation more painful still than the first; her heart was contracted,but she formed her resolution. Fantine, as we shall see, possessed thestern bravery of life. She had already valiantly given up dress; shedressed in calico, and had put all her silk ribbons and laces upon herdaughter, the only vanity left her, and it was a holy one. She soldall she possessed, which brought her in 200 francs; and when she hadpaid her little debts, she had only about 80 francs left. At the ageof two-and-twenty, on a fine Spring morni
ng, she left Paris, carryingher child on her back. Any one who had seen them pass would have feltpity for them; the woman had nothing in the world but her child, andthe child nothing but her mother in her world. Fantine had suckled herchild; this had strained her chest, and she was coughing a little.

  We shall have no further occasion to speak of M. F?lix Tholomy?s.We will merely say that twenty years later, in the reign of LouisPhilippe, he was a stout country lawyer, influential and rich, asensible elector, and a very strict juror, but always a man of pleasure.

  About mid-day, after resting herself now and then by travelling fromtime to time, at the rate of three or four leagues an hour, in whatwere then called the "little vehicles of the suburbs of Paris," Fantinefound herself at Montfermeil, in the Ruelle Boulanger. As she passedthe Sergeant of Waterloo, the two little girls in their monster swinghad dazzled her, and she stopped before this vision of joy. There arecharms in life, and these two little girls were one for this mother.She looked at them with great emotion, for the presence of angelsis an announcement of Paradise. She thought she saw over this innthe mysterious HERE of Providence. These two little creatures wereevidently happy! She looked then, and admired them with such tendernessthat at the moment when the mother was drawing breath between twoverses of her song, she could not refrain from saying to her what wehave already recorded.

  "You have two pretty children, Madame."

  The most ferocious creatures are disarmed by a caress given to theirlittle ones. The mother raised her head, thanked her, and bade her sitdown on the door bench. The two women began talking.

  "My name is Madame Th?nardier," the mother of the little ones said; "wekeep this inn."

  Then returning to her romance, she went on humming,--

  "Il le faut, je suis chevalier, Et je pars pour la Palestine."

  This Madame Th?nardier was a red-headed, thin, angular woman, thesoldier's wife in all its ugliness, and, strange to say, with alanguishing air which she owed to reading romances. She was a sort oflackadaisical male-woman. Old romances, working on the imaginations oflandladies, produce that effect. She was still young, scarce thirty. Ifthis woman, now sitting, had been standing up, perhaps her height andcolossal proportions, fitting for a show, would have at once startledthe traveller, destroyed her confidence, and prevented what we have torecord. A person sitting instead of standing up--destinies hang on this.

  The woman told her story with some modification. She was a work-girl,her husband was dead; she could get no work in Paris, and was going toseek it elsewhere, in her native town. She had left Paris that verymorning on foot; as she felt tired from carrying her child, she hadtravelled by the stage-coach to Villemomble, from that place she walkedto Montfermeil. The little one had walked a little, but not much, forshe was so young, and so she had been obliged to cany her, and thedarling had gone to sleep,--and as she said this she gave her daughtera passionate kiss, which awoke her. The babe opened her eyes, largeblue eyes like her mother's, and gazed at what? Nothing, everything,with that serious and at times stern air of infants, which is a mysteryof their luminous innocence in the presence of our twilight virtues.We might say that they feel themselves to be angels, and know us tobe men. Then the child began laughing, and, though its mother had tocheck it, slipped down to the ground with the undauntable energy ofa little creature wishing to run. All at once, she noticed the othertwo children in their swing, stopped short, and put out her tongue asa sign of admiration. Mother Th?nardier unfastened her children, tookthem out of the swing, and said,--

  "Play about, all three."

  Children soon get familiar, and in a minute the little Th?nardiers wereplaying with the new-comer at making holes in the ground, which was animmense pleasure. The stranger child was very merry; the goodness ofthe mother is written in the gayety of the baby. She had picked up apiece of wood which she used as a spade, and was energetically digginga grave large enough for a fly. The two went on talking.

  "What 's the name of your bantling?"

  "Cosette."

  For Cosette read Euphrasie, for that was the child's real name; butthe mother had converted Euphrasie into Cosette, through that gentle,graceful instinct peculiar to mothers and the people, which changesJosefa into P?pita, and Fran?oise into Sellette. It is a speciesof derivation which deranges and disconcerts the entire science ofetymologists. We know a grandmother who contrived to make out ofTheodore, Gnon.

  "What is her age?"

  "Going on to three."

  "Just the same age as my eldest."

  In the mean time the children were grouped in a posture of profoundanxiety and blessedness; an event had occurred. A large worm crept outof the ground, and they were frightened, and were in ecstasy; theirradiant brows touched each other; and they looked like three heads in ahalo.

  "How soon children get to know one another," Mother Th?nardierexclaimed; "why, they might be taken for three sisters."

  The word was probably the spark which the other mother had been waitingfor; she seized the speaker's hand, looked at her fixedly, and said,--

  "Will you take charge of my child for me?"

  The woman gave one of those starts of surprise which are neither assentnor refusal. Fantine continued,--

  "Look you, I cannot take the child with me to my town, for when a womanhas a baby, it is a hard matter for her to get a situation. People areso foolish in our part. It was Heaven that made me pass in front ofyour inn; when I saw your little ones so pretty, so clean, so happy,it gave me a turn. I said to myself, "She is a kind mother." It is so;they will be three sisters. Then I shall not be long before I comeback. Will you take care of my child?"

  "We will see, said Mother Th?nardier.

  "I would pay six francs a month."

  Here a man's voice cried from the back of the tap-room,--

  "Can't be done under seven, and six months paid in advance."

  "Six times seven are forty-two," said the landlady.

  "I will pay it," said the mother.

  "And seventeen francs in addition for extra expenses," the man's voiceadded.

  "Total fifty-seven francs," said Madame Th?nardier; and through thesefigures she sang vaguely,--

  "Il le faut, disait un guerrier."

  "I will pay it," the mother said; "I have eighty francs, and shall haveenough left to get home on foot. I shall earn money there, and so soonas I have a little I will come and fetch my darling."

  The man's voice continued,--

  "Has the little one a stock of clothing?"

  "It is my husband," said Mother Th?nardier.

  "Of course she has clothes, poor little treasure. I saw it was yourhusband; and a fine stock of clothes too, a wonderful stock, a dozen ofeverything, and silk frocks like a lady. The things are in my bag."

  "They must be handed over," the man's voice remarked.

  "Of course they must," said the mother; "it would be funny if I left mychild naked."

  The master's face appeared.

  "All right," he said.

  The bargain was concluded, the mother spent the night at the inn, paidher money and left her child, fastened up her bag, which was now light,and started the next morning with the intention of returning soon. Suchdepartures are arranged calmly, but they entail despair. A neighbor'swife saw the mother going away, and went home saying,--

  "I have just seen a woman crying in the street as if her heart wasbroken."

  When Cosette's mother had gone, the man said to his wife,--

  "That money will meet my bill for one hundred and ten francs, whichfalls due to-morrow, and I was fifty francs short. It would have beenprotested, and I should have had a bailiff put in. You set a famousmouse-trap with your young ones."

  "Without suspecting it," said the woman.