I know the ending of this is a bit rubbish but I'm happy with it as a first go. I know Feuilly/Éponine is a bit weird but I'm weirdly fascinated by Feuilly, I think there's a lot more to him then the little you get to see in the brick. Tell me it's crap (or if it's good, you can tell me that too :D )
Chapter 1
The Seine swirls and crashes over the weir below her, the sheer weight of water tumbling over the steps in the river bed sending up spray like welcoming, beckoning fingers. It is calling her. She has walked back and forth over the bridge five times now. It is broad daylight, fiacres containing the wealthy bourgeois of Paris trundle over the cobbles, in stark contrast to the beggarman with no legs and his gaunt faced daughter who beseech the passers-by for alms. It makes her sick. This grey, monotonous city presses in on her. Suddenly she is breathless, gasping, eyes squeezed tight as she grips the balustrade to steady herself.
She can't stay here any longer. Not like this.
No one will take notice of this lonely, ragged soul quietly exiting the world from the Pont au Change in the middle of the day. The fiacres will continue to trundle and the beggars will continue to rattle their tin mugs. The world will go on turning. And more importantly, his world will go on turning. She can't escape the cycle to which she was born, not like this. She has seen and done things at the tender age of 17 that would make the respectable young women about town raise gloved hands to mouths in shock and in horror.
She leans her head against the stone, back hunched to reveal all the vertebrae of her spine, pressing through her thin chemise. She has not known a full belly in longer than she can remember. Hunger is her constant companion, along with the unspeakable things she does and abets in order to fill the aching hole inside. The dirty nails and leering mouths of men whose faces she has blocked from memory swim under her closed eyelids. The pleading of the young student being beaten and robbed as she watches at the corner of the alley for the police fills her ears. No more.
She draws herself up and takes a last look at the grey sky. 'Alors, au revoir,´ she whispers and then she hitches up her skirt to about her knees, unashamed and past caring, before pulling herself up onto the wide, stone balustrade. She drops her skirt and draws herself to her full height. A sense of deep calm falls over her and she closes her eyes. The breeze caresses her face and she is reminded briefly of her father's adoring touch when she was a child, when she was loved. A sharp gust of wind jerks her back to reality and she tells herself bitterly that this time has long since passed. None of the passers-by have noticed her slight form above the edge of the bridge, arms arched above her head as she rises to her tiptoes. She is resolute and unafraid.
'Au revoir.'
But the sweet release of free fall does not come. Instead come arms around her middle and a grunt from behind as she crashes down on top of a human form. She can't move for a moment, all the breath knocked out of her lungs. The body upon which she has fallen pushes her off of him and rolls over to cough and splutter into the pavement whilst she fights for breath. She looks over and sees him on his hands and knees. He is young, perhaps a student though he does not have the look of bourgeois about him. His coat is threadbare at the elbows and hangs open at the neck to reveal a pale white neck. His shirt is unbuttoned to his throat, his cravat loose. He sits back on his heels and looks down at her. The other pedestrians on the bridge are funnelling around them as though this man has not just saved this girl from suicide in the Seine. The world goes on turning.
He stands without a word, brushes himself off and offers her his hands, which she accepts. Once she is on her feet and sufficiently recovered her breath, she draws back her palm and slaps him squarely on the jaw with surprising force. He holds his mouth in astonishment.
'My dear Mademoiselle, I implore you to impart to me – '
'Aware of my intention, you think you can come here and take my life into your hands? You think you can be gallant and noble and call me mademoiselle and give me your hands? I know what you think of people like me, you students are all the same. You had no right!' she all but screams at him. There is a look of genuine pity in his eyes and again he reaches out to her but she spits at his feet. She is past caring about the spectacle she is making of herself. She notes the ink smudged into his fingers and the charcoal dust on his face and knows she is wrong, that he is not a student, just a craftsman, probably working for pittance at one of the ateliers down by the river. But she continues because she is hurting so deeply, she is so tired of this pretence, and she needs to feel just once that the world is taking notice.
'I don't need your pity. I don't need your help. If you knew what you were pulling me back to, you would not have done it. You would have pushed me. I hope you burn in hell!'
And tears are falling but she is running before he sees. People whisper as they look on from the opposite side of the bridge. To them, she is just another street girl. She probably solicits her services as a fille de joie beneath the bridge, she has that look of hollowed-out desperation about her. She runs barefoot as the heavens above her open. Seeking shelter in an alley, she curls her arms around her knees and sobs, hoping that if she stays still long enough, the rain will drown her where she is.
She doesn't know that he stayed there on the bridge, watching her run and that his heart ached for her. Because he knows the pain and solitude of her life. He is not bourgeois. Not by a long shot. He is struggling on with life as the world keeps turning about him and he knows, maybe better than anyone, how it feels to have the city press in from all sides. How it feels to hear the call of the river or the rope or the musket he knows the landlord keeps downstairs.
He wipes a hand across his cheek, artist's fingers smudging a charcoal mark towards his ear. He knows. And he knows that this is not the Paris he can carry on living in. Not when a girl like her could jump off a bridge in broad daylight and never be missed. Not like this.