Note: I do not own Les Misérables, nor La Belle Dame Sans Merci.
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I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
Éponine is cold.
Her fault really-hadn't she chose to go barefoot? She is hungry-when was the last time she ate? The day before yesterday, perhaps. Her stomach twists with the hollow sensation of starvation. 'J'ai faim, mon père, pas de fricot...j'ai froid, ma mère, pas de tricot..' she sings to herself. Her voice is dull and rasping, as she sits on the cobblestones in the freezing rain, slowly starving to death and watching the coppers for that mongrel of a father, those wolves of men. Montparnasse spared her a glance as he passed, but there is no pity in his eyes. Why should there be? She is no more a fairy princess then the rest of them, despite what her father may call her. Hadn't she herself told that handsome student-Marius, was it? Not to walk with women like herself? She feels a grin stretch itself across her ruined features, and it is hideous to behold.
Ah, M'sieur Marius.
The handsome student. She knew not his family, nor his hopes, nor his dreams, but what did she care? He was handsome and kind. He treated her like a lady, what she should have been. She, and not that dratted Lark. Who does she think she was? Her, with the fine silks and laces. And beauty! How dare she look down with pity upon her, the lady she should've been. She hated her. She hated her with all the unjust bitterness one feels when glimpsing the more fortunate who-if not for chance of fate-could, perhaps, have been themselves. Éponine knows it's not fair, but since when has life ever been? When did anyone ask her if she quite minded barely surviving through the winter, having her body sold at her father's leisure, and debating whether drowning herself in the Sienne would be a better death then starving under the streets of Paris?
There, exactly.
That's why she hates the Lark. The gamine (no, she is too old to be called such-it implys innocence, which she certainly does not possess) lifts her face to the sky, feeling the ice pinch her face. If she blinks hard enough, she can almost see the stars...the sight is dazzling, and she laughs with the sensation. The lanterns and stars seem to merge together, until she cannot tell where the flames end and the stars begin. She wishes the spinning to stop, and closes her eyes against the blur. The sleet pricks at her skin like needles, and she wonders why people are throwing stones at her. She runs, and knows not why. She wishes her Marius were here-he would take her gloved hands
(she has none)
in his, spin her slippered feet
(barefoot and red)
on the shinning stones, and waltz with her in the icy rain (for that is what every hero does in her maman's books). She smiles her horrifying smile and laughs her galley slave laugh as she spins alone in the rain, bare feet slipping on the slushy cobblestones. People stare at her, alarmed. They must think she is mad. Perhaps she is, but what does she care? She shall gladly descend into madness if it means escape from this hell she's trapped in, escape without the slow agony of starvation, nor the iciness of the Sienne. When you haven't eaten, you feel funny. She begins to cough, a dry, hacking cough, tearing her from her revelries, and leaving her shivering and alone in the rain and mud and slush. Lost, she slowly makes her way back to the Gorbeau House, and creeps to her watchpost. She frowns slightly; her head has not stopped spinning. If she listens closely, she can hear music in the distance. Shaking her head, she stands, frost bitten, barefoot, wild-eyed.
And Éponine Thénardier waits.
And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
-La Belle Dame Sans Merci
John Keats, 1884