Thank you so much for the reviews and the constructive criticism. I do my best! Now, on to more Eponine…picking up from the place we left off at, with la Mademoiselle just having exited her neighbor's room and sunk to the floor…
Our room is despicable. I disliked it before for its poverty, but now I hate it because of its dirtiness. And it is our home! imagine! A room with no floor-bricks or floorboards, with dirt for a floor, with rags strewn about haphazardly, with cracks in the walls! cracks that are seeping with dirt and mildew. But, oh, it has a fireplace, so of course it is worth forty francs a year! A wretched fireplace, one filled with broken bottles and boards, rags, ashes, that piece of refuse once called a birdcage, a kettle…but nevertheless a fireplace. I have never understood how those two or three embers can keep burning so stubbornly, but they must receive that talent from my father.
My father. He is the crouching one sitting at the desk inside that door, writing another of his odious begging letters. Father! ha! he calls himself a father! He would tear me into pieces with his own hands if he would gain money by it. He has only fathered me; he has not raised, loved, cherished, or cared for me. Maman is a different story. She loves us. Azelma and I, we are her darlings, her angels. She has always wanted the best for us; when we owned the inn, she worked that wretched thing of a child that was our maidservant to the bone so that we would be served in a manner reminiscent of the rich. Subservience.
The neighbors called that girl The Lark, but she was not birdlike. She was a hideous child, with large eyes, a spindly body—she was always dirty and disgusting—she attempted to play with our things one night! and I saw, and she was punished. And then, that day, a rich Monsieur came and took her away after he gave her an enormous doll, the one that had been the envy of every girl in the town. I heard Maman and Papa talking about it late one night, that the man in the yellow coat had paid for her. Paid 1500 francs for her! for the Lark! The wretched creature of a child, no doubt born illegally of a mother of the streets.
Bah, but she is gone now, out of my life, and I will not see her again. But he…I will see him again, and soon! I must, I have to; I will suffocate if I cannot. Even now I think over that exchange and I want to fall down onto the bed and cry, cry, cry my heart to pieces. I want to climb onto the roof of this hovel and scream for joy; I want to dive into the Seine and hug every molecule of water to my body. I have never, never, felt this alive.
They talk meaninglessly to each other; that much I can gather, but I am not trying to listen. I remember the rushing in my ears and the weakness in my knees in our neighbor's room, and from time to time my heart wants to burst open. I cannot think of anything but him now. He—he—He! Marius, Marius, a god, an angel, a noble man, a beautiful boy, a—Oh, everything! he is everything that makes me want to stay in this world. Now I could not think of drowning myself or letting myself be captured by the gendarmes without revulsion. I could not...I cannot think…
I hug my knees to my chest, still sitting just outside Monsieur Marius' room, let my head fall, and am surrounded by a wall of hair. Despicable, horrid hair! dirty, disgusting, unwashed! Unbrushed, uncared for…if he had thrown his chair at me instead of letting me babble on about nothing, it would have been more just.
My hand falls, and something crackles. The letter! the one Monsieur Marius gave back to me. The old gentleman must still be at mass; I will have to run if I am to catch him. I throw on my ragged dress lying beside me and leave, pattering out of the house. I had to take off the dress before begging for money; it does not do to appear rich. Not that this gown is rich, oh, no! but it is better than simply a chemise.
These shoes squeak, they are too large, they are men's shoes. I stumble more than once, and those brats of gamins laugh at me. Damn them, have they nothing else to live for? But I cannot help but wear the shoes; they will not permit my entry into a church if I do not wear shoes.
There—the church Saint Jacques du Haut Pas. Mass is not over yet; I can still hand him the letter. Walking as quietly as possible, I step inside. He is at his usual place, the pew far to the right, and in the back. He cannot be mistaken; his hair is snowy white, as if he were one hundred and twenty years of age, although he cannot be over fifty.
"Monsieur," I whisper. I curtsey; he is a well-mannered gentleman. He starts, turns around, and I hand him the letter, which is wet and dripping from the snow I have fallen into. If only the ink has not run!
He finishes reading and looks up at me. "Where do you live, my child?" he asks.
"Monsieur, I will show you," I offer. It is easier that way.
He shakes his head, definitely no. Is this my fault?
"No, give me your address; my daughter has some purchases to make, I am going to take a carriage and I will get to your house as soon as you do."
I nod; this is all right as well. I tell him the address; he is surprised, why? And he hesitates…
"It is all the same, I will go."
"It is the last door at the end of the hall on the right, Monsieur."
He nods again. I blow out a breath, curtsey once more, and dash out of the church. Mass is ending—and there he goes, with a girl in a black velvet cloak hanging onto his arm. I cannot see her face, but I can see the number of the fiacre they take—four hundred and forty. Now—run—to home!
I reach our street and halt—the same fiacre is turning the corner. I run harder, harder, and burst into our garret. Success!
"He is coming!" I shout, triumphantly. And my father is surprised; what, did he not think I could manage?
"Who?" he asks.
"The gentleman!"
He frowns. "The philanthropist?"
"Yes."
"Of the church of Saint Jacques?"
"Yes." Oh, I am excited; he may give us money beyond our wildest dreams! To buy his daughter a velvet cloak he must be rich!
"That old man?"
"Yes."
"He is going to come?"
"He is behind me."
"You are sure?"
"I am sure." Time-wastrel, that is what he is; does he not realize our future is at stake?
"There, true, he is coming?"
I explain further. "He is coming in a fiacre."
"In a fiacre." He thinks. "It is Rothschild?"
He rises and spouts off a storm of words—how can I be sure, how did I get here before him if he took a fiacre—all ridiculous questions, all! I tell him what passed at the church, and he is content, content for him.
"Good, you are a clever girl!" he praises. But what is his praise worth to me?—what is anything worth to me now, besides the glimpse of our neighbor?
"A clever girl, that may be," I answer resolutely—and rather rudely, but I do not care. I will not waste this moment. "But I tell you that I shall never put on these shoes again, and that I will not do it, for health first, and then for decency's sake. I know nothing more provoking than soles that squeak and go ghee, ghee, ghee, all along the street. I would rather go barefoot." I would, I would! I want to see him again, and it would not do to have him see me in horrid, old, poor-house shoes. Better that he should pity barefoot poverty than to be disgusted by scrounging poverty.
But he is not angry, surprisingly. "You are right," he says, almost gently, "but they would not let you go into the churches; the poor must have shoes. People do not go to God's house barefooted." He is bitter, that is funny! He has no right to be so; he is the one acting as a leech to all rich men he comes across.
"And you are sure, then, that he is coming?"
Does he understand nothing, or does he trust nothing? Some of both, I believe. "He is at my heels."
Look, there—that familiar lack of humanity and presence of voracity in his eyes. What is he thinking?
He springs to his feet. Do sixth repetitions stir him into a frenzy? "Wife!" he cries, "you hear. Here is the philanthropist. Put out the fire."
Put out the fire? Has he gone completely mad? The little fire we have keeps us alive and warms us at least an inkling from the snows and wind that rage outside. Maman does not move. She understands less than I do.
My father ignores her, takes up the water-pitcher, and strews its contents onto the few glowing bits of fire we have left. Then he turns to me.
"You! unbottom the chair!"
I still don't understand what he is thinking. He has paid good money for these furnishings to Madame Bougon; does he not care that he will have to replace this chair if it is ruined?
He scoffs, tears the chair towards him, and kicks his leg through it, then turns to me again.
"Is it cold?"
"Very cold," I tell him, wondering. "It snows."
He whirls around to Azelma and bellows. "Quick! off the bed, good-for-nothing! will you never do anything? break a pane of glass!"
Azelma is worse than I am; I am almost amused, but she is terrified. She is trembling, probably both with fear and cold.
"Break a pane of glass!" he shouts again, and when she does nothing—"Do you hear me? I tell you to break a pane!"
Azelma has never been one to disobey. She would do his slightest commands without thinking of anything else; stupid, she is. And look—now! She has broken the window, and her hand is bleeding.
"Dear," Maman asks, patiently, "what is it you want me to do?"
"Get into bed," he orders. He is like a ship's captain, or a king—a tyrant, wishing everything to happen without needing to explain or apologize. And, there—see the results? She obeys, crawls into bed.
Azelma begins to howl. Has it taken her this long to realize that she has been hurt? A splinter of glass, a large one, is still sticking into her fist, and a large arrow-shaped mark of blood is running down her arm.
Maman rises to her defense, of course. Azelma is her petite chèrie. "You see now! what stupid things you are doing? breaking your glass, she has cut herself!"
"So much the better!" he says contentedly. "I knew she would."
"How! so much the better?" my mother asks, indignant.
He shrugs her off, looks down at his woman's chemise that he wears instead of a shirt, and tears off a strip of cloth. Hurriedly, he wraps it around Azelma's hand and wrist. He is satisfied. Satisfied? what! mad, rather!
The wind seeps into the room, crawls up my skirt, into my feet, into my eyes. Like needles, like horribly hot, piercing needles. I begin to comprehend this, but it is a bit of a chance to take! he is hoping that the gentleman will be stirred to more pity through this.
I put my hand on his arm. "Feel how cold I am."
"Pshaw!" he answers contemptuously. "I am a good deal colder than that."
I concur with my mother—he always has everything better than anyone else, even pain. He is pacing across the room—asking what if the man does not come? he will have ruined our room for nothing, cut Azelma, watered our fire. He should have thought of that before!
"The brute may have forgotten the address!" he hisses. "I will bet that the old fool—"
There is a slight, soft rap at the door, and my father breaks off his mutterings. He is glad, he smiles, and he opens the door with bows and grins comically contrasting to the attitude of scorn he held just four seconds ago.
"Come in, monsieur! deign to come in, my noble benefactor, as well as your charming young lady."
She—that is the same girl that followed him out of the church. I did not see her face then. But she is beautiful, she is stunning, she is hideously rich! Look at her, her brown and gold hair, her perfect face, her small hands. No—that face. It is familiar, and yet I recognize it. I have been thinking of her only today, is that not strange? I will never forget that habit she has of staring at someone as if she knows all about them and pities them. She looks at Azelma that same way now. It is Cosette! the Lark! the despicable, dirty girl that was our servant! What is she doing here, and in velvets, and in silks? And we—we in rags, in every proof of poverty! How dare she look at us like that; how dare she? If I were given the chance, I would be better than she—I would be able to learn! to turn heads!—to…
Bah, but I will never be given that chance. Earlier, possibly, when I was still a child and pretty, and my voice was that of a normal girl. I sound like an old man when I speak! An old, bastard drunkard. And she—she sings, no doubt, and when she speaks, musical instruments stop for fear they would disturb her. Bah! ridiculous!
Musical instruments—I remember. That voice was what I longed for in our neighbor's—Marius'—room…Oh, mon Dieu, do not let him meet her! If there is any mercy to be hoped for on this earth, do not let him see her!
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That's all for this chapter; now for translations:
Gendarmes—the police, the Cognes; this was in the last chapter as well
Fiacre—the 1830s version of a taxicab; a hansom, drawn by horses
Petite chèrie—little darling
Mon Dieu—my God
In the next chapter, Cosette and her father leave; her father with the intention of returning, and Marius asks something of Eponine. Coming soon!
To all my reviewers, thank you very, very much!
La Pamplemousse—I try! Thank you! Yes…Eponine is a rough, poor girl of the streets; and Paris was not kind to paupers!
Mlle. Verity le Virago—Will try to improve. Thanks for the comment! Yes, there is a profusion of bad Eppie fics…sigh…and she's such an amazing character…
tattered sparrow—Merci, merci, madame! Yes, I don't see much reason for changing the original script, really, since Victor Hugo is a bloody genius…(What are you talking about; I'm not obsessed! ::nods vigorously and untruthfully::)
Andi—yep, that was a really, really stupid mistake. Thanks for catching it; I've corrected it now. ::smacks self:: And I'm supposed to be a four-year French student! Eh, well; this is what they mean by brain farts, I suppose.
Elyse3—::grins happily:: Thank you. Thank you very much. If Eponine were so bloody perfect, would Marius have remained in love with Cosette? I ask you! Honestly! ::tsks::
Winter-Lady—I feel v. honored. Thank you!