A/N: This is just a short little thing that I thought up while listening to Hamlet, and I was amused to see that Eponine is compared to Ophelia by Victor Hugo himself, in the very same scene. And I don't own Victor Hugo's work, in case anyone was in doubt.
Looking back, it was a stupid thing to do.
She could still feel the coolness of the coins Marius had pressed into her hands, and how thick, how beautiful they felt. Coins like that could buy food. Or maybe even a warm place to sleep. They were just sitting there, in the dirt, for someone else to pick up, to get something to eat with. But she couldn't pick them up now, not after she'd already dropped them. Not after she'd already refused his generosity; it was extended to someone else now.
The chemise she was wearing was barely decent, but she ignored that, opting to find out why Marius came and sat in this meadow so much. Right now, it looked like an empty field, overgrown and dirty. The only person there was a single washerwoman, an old maid, whose calloused hands rinsed her soap out of soddy garments floating in the squalid river. It was almost dark, but no moon or stars threatened to rise and shake off the miserable prospect of the place.
A clock in some nearby cathedral began to hum, informing the field of the advent of night. She was preparing to leave, and perhaps see if she could manage to obtain a slice of bread or two by smiling in her prettiest way at the baker whose shop was no more than a quarter of a mile from here. However, she was distracted by something that surprised her greatly.
A gentle haze of moonlight covered the silent meadow, and by its rays, she could see tiny flowers opening their petals and drinking in the night, all over the ground. Joyful, she began to run, to rip them from the ground and weave them here and there into her tangled hair. Her sparkling gown twirled gracefully around her as she ran, making her feel like one of the gentlewomen who she saw sometimes walking through the Tuilieries, with her elegant gown and hat.
Feeling the sudden urge to imitate those women, she stopped running and stood up as straight as she could. Her back was arched steeply, and her shoulders were so far back, she felt as though she would fall over. But, she was certain that she looked exactly like a gentlewoman. Since she was holding her head up as high as possible, she didn't see the river, and was unpleasantly shocked when she landed in it.
Being waist-deep in filth and mud didn't seem as gentlewomanly as she had planned, and she realized now that she was hungry. Cursing (but just a little, since she was still entranced by the idea of being noble, and noblewomen certainly did not curse), she waded out onto the opposite bank, and wandered away in search of a place to get some food, or a short nap.
The washerwoman turned to watch her slouch away, merely because the waif was clearly so young, and it was rather charming to run around in rags, with grass and straw all over her hair. The old woman smiled to herself, and gazed up at the cloud-filled sky, before turning back to her work.