London, 1848
Cosette reads a lot.
She reads both English and French, Shakespeare and Keats, Nodier and Dumas and Gautier. She reads poems, novellas, opera librettos and plays. She likes to sit on the window-sill of her bedroom, with French magazine or English book in her lap; sometimes she makes scrapbook from the music sheets, lithograph cutouts and her favorite poems and quotes. Her guardian does not like England and London, but she disagrees; she would like to go out to explore this intriguing city.
Then, one day, she sees him.
.
Dark-haired young man stands in the street and watches up, straight to Cosette´s window. He is handsome; he sees Cosette and Cosette is happy that she is wearing that dress. Her guardian does not let her out, but the seamstress comes to their house when Cosette wants new clothes and she has created some lovely dresses and morning-gowns. That dress is luxurious rose-pink silk, lined by white lace; it is a masterpiece of opulence and purity. Cosette´s hair is chestnut-red, but she thinks that the color becomes her. Not a young girl´s dress, her guardian had said, but he had smiled.
For some reason he had seemed.. pleased.
.
Toussaint brings a message to her. Old woman smiles.
Fleur dans la vitrine...*
Elle est là, devant moi, une rose dans la vitrine, irréelle.
"His name is Marius Pontmercy," Toussaint says. "He is French, too."
.
They meet secretly in the garden, surrounded by rose bushes. They speak and laugh, learning to know each others. They fall in love.
Then her guardian wants to marry her.
.
"Gentleman knocks before coming to lady´s room."
He looks at her bag on the bed. It is full of clothes and she has also stuffed her scrapbook in.
"I see no ladies here, only harlots." He turns toward the man standing in the corridor. "Take her, Montparnasse." Judge Turpin takes the bag and pushes it to her arms. "You don´t escape with that boy."
.
Asylum is just outside London. It is full of smelling, raggy, incoherent people. Food is bad and scant; Cosette pushes the platter away. Two women, tied together with ropes, cry helplessly .
"When I get out of here, I will make sure that they change this place ," Cosette thinks and tries in vain to comfort women. Then she remembers her scrapbook and starts to read her favorite poems and quotes.
She walks in beauty, like the night...
She reads Byron, Keats, Shakespeare. The women start to listen, quietly.
That´s how Marius and her friends - Courfeyrac, Enjolras and Prouvaire - find her; sitting on the floor, dress around her like silk puddle, and reading.
.
Eventually they are allowed to leave. Enjolras and Prouvaire are from the wealthy families; the director, an intelligent young man, blames smoothly "misunderstanding" and Turpin.
Cosette smiles. When I come back, this place will change." "I do understand."
.
FIN
.
AN: *Flower in the window ...she is there in front of me, a rose in the window, unreal is based on the French lyrics of the musical.
She walks in beauty is a real poem by Byron.
In 19th century pink was not thought to be a girl color.
My treatment of mentally ill may sound dehumanizing, but the story is set in 1847.