After that, it is a bleak winter. The encounter fades to the back of Éponine's mind, like other bright things, as she braces herself for survival. She wraps her callused feet in rags, lets her hair fall loose and matted around her shoulders. On the coldest days she puts her fingers in her mouth to keep them from freezing. "You look like a half-wit," her father says in disgust.
Once she fights with a cluster of other girls for a tattered shawl some shopkeeper's wife has thrown out. She wins, because most of them are smaller and weaker; but three days later she gives the shawl to Azelma, who forfeits it in turn to an older girl who leaves scratch marks on her cheek.
"Can't trust you with nuffin," Éponine mutters, dabbing the blood away. "Oh, dammit, don't cry. Never mind. We'll find you another."
"What's that brat whining about now?" The door of the garret opens and shuts with its customary clatter. Éponine looks up warily.
"Nuffin, papa."
"If it's nothing, she can shut up."
"I'm bleeding," Azelma whimpers. "I lost 'Ponine's shawl and now I'm bleeding."
He turns his back on them, drops heavily into the chair. "Well, that was stupid of you, wasn't it?"
Azelma begins to cry a little harder. Éponine shakes her shoulder. "Come on, Zelma. You'll mend. Leave off." But now their mother is making vague sympathetic noises from the corner, and Azelma, caught up in her misfortune, lapses into sobs.
"Damn the wench! I'll give her something to cry about in half a minute--"
"Goddamn, papa, it's not her fault."
"You watch your mouth."
"What am I, a fine lady?" Éponine laughs in spite of herself. "That's what I love, the way we're supposed to be respectable. Beggars an' housebreakers, but I have to watch my mouth."
Her father gives her a scalding look. "Shut up. --Woman, keep your brat quiet!"
Azelma wails. Éponine moves, more out of instinct than from any sympathy with her sister, and her father's fist connects with her jaw, knocking a gasp out of her. "Shit!" For an instant she is blind with pain. As her eyes clear, she glimpses maman, gathering Azelma into a protective embrace. It's been years since her mother held her like that.
Her father is snarling. "Stupid, mewling, useless bitches, all of you--"
"Useless my precious hind end. If we've 'ad anything to eat this week, it was my doing, so don't give me 'useless', sweet papa."
"Quiet, you."
"Said what I had to say." Éponine spits, experimentally, but no teeth come out. "And I won't say any more, but it's no good smacking Zelma. She's been smacked already."
"Quiet," her father says again, but the murder has gone from his eyes. "You're an impudent little hussy. Get out of here. If you're so useful, go prove it."
"It's snowing out there," her mother protests.
Éponine gives them a level look: papa cold and smug, maman frowning, Azelma sniveling into her hands. At the moment she loathes them all. "I don't care." She turns away, steadying herself against the wall until the room stops swaying, and pads out into the hall.
She could probably pick up a handful of small change, standing ragged and bruised and plaintive in the snow; but she is still too infuriated for that. Let them go to the devil! Let papa lower himself to find real work for once, let Zelma go out and sit on the corner whinging for charity.
Éponine stomps along for a block or two, kicking up slush at every step, then reverts to her habitual slinking gait. For more than an hour, she wanders, letting her exasperation dissipate into the cold. She hardly notices the moment when she stops.
Night has fallen. The street around her is unlit; looking up, she can see a few stars in the narrow strip of sky. She has no clear idea where she is, and no strength left just now to find her way home. With a sigh, she sits down in a darkened doorway, hugging her knees, and listens to the long, cold sound of the wind blowing over the roofs.