She had entire universes in her eyes, but only if one cared enough to see them.
There were not many people who could, though, and notice that there was amusement and wit buried somewhere in the deep wet wells of her eyes, or that her mouth would often quiver when she found something amusing, or that her smile was made from the rich velvet of swirling galaxies. But people always saw what they wanted to see in Éponine, and she could accept that. Better they saw a false reflection of her than no reflection at all.
When she was younger, she was her parents' pet, a little toy in which they could pour their money and have affection come out of. Now that she was older, she was their most lucrative asset, and they took care not to bruise her too much. For some time in her youth she had felt guilty, believed that the change was her fault, that she was responsible for the loss of their inn. Else why would Papa shower cruel words and angry fists where once he showered her with love, and affection, and kind kisses?
And for a while in her premature adulthood she had envied her brother, who had all the freedom and all the luck, but she'd long since learned the streets were no place for a girl to wander alone, and her Papa did not much like the idea of losing his steady source of income. (It was a shadow and a threat that hung over her like some grim executioner's blade.)
For the men she entertained she was just a bodily substitution for the embrace of others, more vibrant and interesting. For Montparnasse she was a little songbird, who sung on his command.
Over the years she'd learned to exploit this to her best advantage — a weak little cough, a meek please, m'sieur when she wanted a few extra coins, a toss of the hair and a jutting of the chin if she wanted to be paid for the night — and, for herself, it meant that she could easily imagine herself to be any number of people, foremost among them the altar at which Marius worshipped.
Because when M'sieur Marius came, he was pure and he was good and golden, and for a while at least, she could be just Éponine around him, and she felt so sure that his green eyes bored straight into her and saw within her the void in the space her soul used to occupy. (Now she was 'Ponine, the little sister, which did not please her but did not displease her either. Any affection, no matter how platonic, was better than no affection at all.)
She was the pilgrim and he was the god: fixed, ever-constant, never-changing, and so far above her it felt naughty, clandestine, sacrilegious even, to picture Monsieur Marius as anything other than he was. But the high of temporary bliss smoothed over any misgivings, and the appeal of imagining herself a much-loved princess outweighed the light touch of second thoughts. (He would never know; she wasn't hurting anyone.)
Upon the occasion of their first meeting he'd looked so much like the heroes she used to dream about she almost mistook him for one, and sent a prayer up to God for the confirmation of his existence and his mercy on little street rats who wanted to be taken in and coddled again. She had wanted so badly to impress him that day (impress him now) with what meagre things she still remembered from her youth — a scattered few precious words here and there and that one cognes she knew how to write. It had been a petty, and a desperate plea for attention, and it had worked, and she had been pleased, but now she wanted more.
In that book store, surrounded by all those large volumes she could not begin to decipher, she felt herself very small indeed, and very pitiable, which was not a state of being she particularly enjoyed. How pathetic he must have thought of her, so proud for knowing to write in her toddler-hand a single word, which condemned her at once as a criminal.
And she wanted to be more than that. She wanted to be someone Monsieur Marius could venerate and respect, and speak of as he spoke of other girls, with a sort of gentleness of tone and delicacy in reference that she would never be on the receiving end of ("'Tis merely 'Ponine, don't worry for her; she knows more about sin than the rest of us put together').
Éponine wanted to read, because even if M'sieur Marius refused to see, she was determined that the rest of the world should open their eyes.