Cast

Helena Bonham Carter

William Miller-Oliver

Adam Arnold-Artful Dodger

Timothy Spall-Fagin

Rob Brydon Mr Fang Morver

Christie Rose, member of Nancy's gang

Gregor Fisher Mr Bumble

Edward Fox Dr. Brownlow

Michelle Gomez Mrs Sowerberry

Tom Hardy Bill Sykes

Sarah Lancashire Mrs Corney


London

1985

Cosette

The baby is alone

The Tenardier tavern was located in the part of the city that was near the church, then Cosette had to walk through several dirty streets to fulfill the next orders of Madame Tenardier. She no longer stopped to admire any exhibition of goods. As she walked along the alley and in the vicinity of the church, lighted shops illuminated her path, but soon the last light of the last shop disappeared. The poor girl found herself in the dark. She plunged into this darkness. Feeling overwhelmed by fear, she shook the bucket handle as much as she could. It made a noise that made her feel less the corner of the last house, Cosette stopped. It was difficult to go beyond the last shop, but it became impossible to go beyond the last house... She put the bucket on the ground, ran her fingers through her hair and began to slowly scratch her head, a gesture peculiar to children in fear and indecision. There were a lot of drunks and prostitutes and drug addicts in front of her. She did not dare to buy her mistress a bottle of another drink, she was about to return to the inn.

The girl was breathing heavily with a kind of painful wheezing; sobs squeezed her throat, but she did not dare to cry, she was so afraid of Thenardier, even from a distance. It was her habit to always imagine that Thenardier was here, near her.

Meanwhile, she moved slowly and walked with a very quiet step. No matter how much she shortened her rest, no matter how hard she tried to walk without stopping, as long as possible, she kept thinking with longing that it would take her at least an hour to return in this way and that Thenardier would certainly kill her. Suddenly she felt that the bucket was completely relieved. A hand that seemed huge to her grabbed the handle and forcefully lifted the bucket. She raised her head. A tall dark figure walked beside her in the darkness. A man approached her from behind inaudibly and, without saying a word, took the handle of the bucket she was carrying.

In his clothes and in his whole figure, this man approached the type, so to speak, of a noble beggar — extreme poverty was combined in him with extraordinary neatness. This is a rather rare combination that inspires a developed mind with a double respect, which one usually feels for a very poor person and for a very worthy person. He was wearing an old, carefully cleaned hat, a frock coat, worn to the skin, of coarse ochre cloth—which at that time did not seem strange—a large waistcoat with pockets of antique cut, black pantaloons, bleached at the knees, and thick shoes with fashionable buckles. From his moon-white hair, wrinkled forehead, pale lips, and his whole face, breathing the fatigue of life, it was possible to give him much more than sixty years. But judging by his firm, albeit slow gait, by the extraordinary strength imprinted in his every movement, he could not have been given even 50. His lips, compressed, formed a strange fold that seemed stern, but in reality one could read humility in it. There was a kind of gloomy serenity in his deep gaze. In his left hand he carried a bundle tied in a handkerchief; with his right he leaned on a stick.

The stranger spoke to her in a serious, almost quiet voice:

"My child, you carry a heavy burden."

"Yes, sir," Cosette replied, raising her head.

"Give it here, I'll carry it myself."

Cosette let go of the bucket. The man walked beside her.

"It's really very hard," he said through clenched teeth. — What year are you, girl?

"14 years old, sir."

"How far are you going?"

" From the spring itself, which is in the forest.

"How far do you have to go?"

"A good quarter of an hour's walk.

The man was silent for a few minutes and suddenly asked sharply:

" So you don't have a mother?"

"I don't know," said the girl.

Before the man could say a word, she added:

" I don't think there was. Others all have mothers. But I don't."

"I don't think there ever was," she added after a pause.

The man stopped, put the bucket on the ground, bent down and, putting both hands on the shoulders of the child, tried to make out her face in the dark.

Cosette's thin, frail, frail little face loomed dimly in the gloomy light of the sky.

" What's your name?" he asked.

" Cosette."

He shuddered as if from an electric spark, looked her straight in the face again, then took his hands off her shoulders, grabbed the bucket and went on.

" Where do you live, baby?"

"Not far from the church!"

"Not far from the church we going there?"

"Yes, sir. Another pause."

" Who sent you to the at such a time to get water?"

" Madame Thenardier."

The man continued in a tone that he tried to make indifferent, but in which a strange tremor was noticed:

"What does she do, your Madame Thenardier?"

"This is my landlady, she keeps an inn.

"An inn?" — he said. "Well, I'm going to sleep there tonight. Show me out.

"That's where we're going," the child said.

A man named Fagin was walking pretty soon. Cosette could barely keep up with him. But she no longer felt tired. At times she looked up at the stranger with a kind of inexplicable calmness and trustfulness. No one taught her to turn to Providence and pray. Meanwhile, she felt something like hope and joy, crying out to God.