Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Marguerite halted on the threshold, petrified at this tremendous wastefulness, and exclaimed: "Lord! the candle is all burned out! Something has happened." Then she looked at Fantine, who turned toward her her head bereft of its hair. Fantine had grown ten years older since the preceding night. "Jesus!" said Marguerite, "what is the matter with you, Fantine?" "Nothing," replied Fantine.
And in the meantime, what had become of that mother who according to the people at Montfermeil, seemed to have abandoned her child? Where was she? What was she doing? After leaving her little Cosette with the Thenardiers, she had continued her journey, and had reached M. sur M. This, it will be remembered, was in 1818. Fantine had quitted her province ten years before.
Of these I recall especially Bulwer's Strange Story; Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, popularly pronounced "Lee's Miserables"; and the historical novels of Louise Mühlbach, known to the Confederate soldier as "Lou Mealbag." All were eagerly read, but Cosette and Fantine and Joseph the Second would not last forever, and we fell back on the old stand-bys.
M. sur M. had changed its aspect. While Fantine had been slowly descending from wretchedness to wretchedness, her native town had prospered. About two years previously one of those industrial facts which are the grand events of small districts had taken place. This detail is important, and we regard it as useful to develop it at length; we should almost say, to underline it.
The superintendent ordered her to leave the shop on the instant. Besides, Fantine was only a moderately good workwoman. Overcome with shame, even more than with despair, she quitted the shop, and returned to her room. So her fault was now known to every one. She no longer felt strong enough to say a word. She was advised to see the mayor; she did not dare.
In fact, fits of coughing interrupted Fantine at nearly every word. Fantine did not murmur; she feared that she had injured by her too passionate lamentations the confidence which she was desirous of inspiring, and she began to talk of indifferent things. "Montfermeil is quite pretty, is it not? People go there on pleasure parties in summer. Are the Thenardiers prosperous?
"But in what trade can one earn a hundred sous a day?" "Come!" said she, "let us sell what is left." The unfortunate girl became a woman of the town. What is this history of Fantine? It is society purchasing a slave. From whom? From misery. From hunger, cold, isolation, destitution. A dolorous bargain. A soul for a morsel of bread. Misery offers; society accepts.
I say nothing of Fantine; she is a dreamer, a musing, thoughtful, pensive person; she is a phantom possessed of the form of a nymph and the modesty of a nun, who has strayed into the life of a grisette, but who takes refuge in illusions, and who sings and prays and gazes into the azure without very well knowing what she sees or what she is doing, and who, with her eyes fixed on heaven, wanders in a garden where there are more birds than are in existence.
We who believe in death, are not among the number who will reject this mysterious explanation. Hence the impossibility of uttering, even for Cosette, that name of Fantine. One day Cosette said to him: "Father, I saw my mother in a dream last night. She had two big wings. My mother must have been almost a saint during her life." "Through martyrdom," replied Jean Valjean.
Fantine raised herself in bed with a bound, supporting herself on her stiffened arms and on both hands: she gazed at Jean Valjean, she gazed at Javert, she gazed at the nun, she opened her mouth as though to speak; a rattle proceeded from the depths of her throat, her teeth chattered; she stretched out her arms in her agony, opening her hands convulsively, and fumbling about her like a drowning person; then suddenly fell back on her pillow.
Word Of The Day