But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
As they turn your dream
To shame.
-Les Misérables, Alain Boublil
Félix, wonderful, handsome Félix, had once recited a poem that Fantine would remember for years to come.
They had been at a little café with the usual group of friends— Fauvorite and Blachevelle, Dahlia and Listolier, Zephine and Fameuil— tossing meaningless banter back and forth. The conversation turned to Favourite's travels to England, and then to the English poets. Félix stood up from his chair in his usual theatrical manner, cleared his throat, and recited a poem by someone called William Blake.
"Tyger, tyger, burning bright!
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?"
"But what does it mean?" Fantine asked as Félix took his seat and halfheartedly waved away the smattering of applause from the friends.
Félix looked surprised. "A seamstress, a grisette, a working girl, interested in William Blake? Whatever for?" Fantine blushed and said nothing, she was usually not this bold during these dinners at the café.
"I'll tell you what it means, Fantine, La Blonde, because you look so entrancing," Félix said. "It means that the tigers feed on hope and faith and love, they can sense it. They circle around it during the night and then they destroy it so horribly it is no longer recognizable. They turn it to pain and horror and shame instead."
"I don't think that's what William Blake thought about when he wrote The Tyger, Tholomeyès," Blachevelle said, as the others laughed at Fantine's horrified expression. "It means—"
"It sounds better the way I told it," Félix replied. He did, after all, always go for the theatrical effect. "And Fantine isn't going to know the difference."
There he went again, talking about her as if she was a fool, as if she wasn't there. But that was just Félix's way— he was indifferent, uncaring, and she would always forgive him, because there was nothing else to do.
That was years ago. That was back in a happier, sunnier time, when Fantine was innocent and naïve and looked up to the other girls and loved Félix. Now, everything was different.
Cosette was deathly ill. The Thénardiers— oh, how she hated them now, for letting her daughter become so ill!— didn't have enough money to send for a doctor. Fantine was the only one who could save her little Cosette. Fantine had lost her teeth, her hair, and the locket Félix had once given her as a trinket, long ago— anything to make sure her daughter didn't die.
There was only one thing left to sell.
Fantine kept to the edges of the street as she made her way to the main brothel down by the Montreuil-sur-Mer pier. She wrapped her threadbare tartan shawl tightly around her shoulders, almost as a defense against the many people who brushed past her. One phrase was repeating in her mind.
It's all for Cosette. If I do this, Cosette will live and then perhaps I can see her again. Cosette will live and everything will be fine.
She coughed, harshly, as she walked.
She was enormously hesitant to enter the brothel. She stood in the street, staring at the door and trying not to think about what went on in that building that surely had been built for far more innocent uses. This was what you would hear about, but never would you dream you would join their ranks—
"Do you need something, mademoiselle?"
Fantine jumped and looked around to see an old crone sitting on the street by a wall, her greasy gray hair plastered to her skull. Fantine thought wildly, Will I look like that soon?
"No, I was just—" There was her pride again, except now it was mixed with a burning desire to run from the street and never look back. Remember Cosette— "I mean, yes. Do you know who I can talk to e— enter the brothel?"
"Oh, you're one of those."
"One of what?" She couldn't bring herself to call the crone 'madame'.
"One of those doe-eyed virgins who need some extra money. I see you all the time, the ones who stare at the door and have to be pulled in."
"Excuse me! I am not a doe-eyed—"
"Oh, so you spread your legs before this? Gave your innocence— maybe the naïveté along with the virginity—" the crone snickered, making Fantine's blood boil— "to some man? A pregnancy, right? Is the child still alive?"
"Of course she is," Fantine said coldly (there was her pride again, refusing to give in), "but this conversation is getting us nowhere."
"Oh, right. I'd talk to Aimée if I were you. She's usually in the main room, just inside the door." The crone cackled. "Kiss any purity you have left goodbye, my dearie, my duck. You won't be needing it in there."
Fantine suppressed an overwhelming desire to strike the old woman, nodded curtly and opened the door before she could think about it.
The air was heady, a mix of perfume and— was it opium? She suppressed a shudder— and sweat and the smell of— of— she didn't want to think about it. Not yet. All the woman were scantily dressed, the fabrics strategically placed yet leaving nothing to the imagination. This time Fantine did shudder.
What have I gotten myself into?
She went up to one of the prostitutes that currently was not locking lips with a customer and hesitantly asked, "Could you please tell me where to find Aimée, mademoiselle?"
The prostitute pointed over her shoulder. "She's over there haggling out a deal." Fantine smiled her thanks, a smile that turned out to be more a grimace, and went in the direction the prostitute had gestured.
Aimée turned out to be a heavier-set woman whose voice was louder than a foghorn. "I tell you time and time again, my girls aren't cheap, but we have the best quality. Go somewhere where they give out frigid crones instead of girls if you don't like my prices."
The man tried to argue. "Now, Aimée, let's be reasonable—"
"Take this one or get out!"
The man sneered and grabbed the arm of the silent girl beside Aimée. "Fine." He led the girl away, earning glares as sharp as daggers from Aimée.
"Madame..." Fantine tentatively began.
"What?" Aimée barked as she spun around to face Fantine.
"I— I was—" Fantine twisted her fingers together. "I was hoping for— for employment, madame."
"I won't hire you if you can't even speak clearly. And stand up straight. No one says my girls aren't trained well."
Fantine obeyed and asked, "Does that mean I'm employed, madame?"
"I'll give you a trial run to see how you react. If you can't handle it, there's no hope for you here."
Remember Cosette. Don't forget about Cosette.
"I'll do it."
"Fine. Now, what's the name you'll be giving out to the men?"
"Fantine." With that one word, she signed her death sentence.
"All right. Are you a virgin?"
"N— no."
"So you have some vague idea of what's expected of you?"
"Yes."
"Good. Now—" Aimée gestured to a man was, surprisingly, alone— "I'll let André have you. If his reaction is anything but satisfactory, you're out. You're not here for you, you're here for the men. Remember that."
Fantine's vocal cords didn't seem to be working. She nodded shortly instead. Lord help me.
André offered a hand in a mockingly gallant fashion to Fantine, and all at once the poem Félix had recited all those years ago burned in her mind.
This is what he meant.
He hadn't been talking about real tigers, the animals. He had been talking about men. This entire place was a pit of tigers— dark, graceful, and terribly dangerous.
All of Fantine's dreams of a better life with Cosette, of reuniting with Félix, would be destroyed once she went with this man.
Oh, God...
But what choice did she have?
André and Fantine emerged some time later from a back room. Fantine's short hair was a tousled mess, her dress was wrinkled and partly unbuttoned, and she reeked of smells she didn't want to name. André, on the other hand, looked exactly the way he had when Aimée had given Fantine to him in the brothel's main room. It's because he's used to this, Fantine.
Aimée was wrapping up another deal as they came up to her. She turned to them, ignored Fantine and asked André, "How was she?"
"Pretty good. I might go with her another time, maybe."
Was that sentence her salvation or her destruction?
"Good. Where's the ten francs?" André handed Aimée the coins and left without a backward glance. Fantine had never felt so used in her entire life.
"The ten francs, madame?" she choked out.
"This was a trial run; you won't be paid for it. Although you supposedly did well. In need of a little work, but still."
"Madame, I need that ten francs!"
"We all do, my dear. Now, if you do want ten francs, find another customer. Then you can keep the money."
All Fantine could think of was burning tygers.