Part 77 (1/2)
Eponine and Azelma did not look at Cosette. She was the same as a dog to them. These three little girls did not yet reckon up four and twenty years between them, but they already represented the whole society of man; envy on the one side, disdain on the other.
The doll of the Thenardier sisters was very much faded, very old, and much broken; but it seemed none the less admirable to Cosette, who had never had a doll in her life, a real doll, to make use of the expression which all children will understand.
All at once, the Thenardier, who had been going back and forth in the room, perceived that Cosette's mind was distracted, and that, instead of working, she was paying attention to the little ones at their play.
”Ah! I've caught you at it!” she cried. ”So that's the way you work!
I'll make you work to the tune of the whip; that I will.”
The stranger turned to the Thenardier, without quitting his chair.
”Bah, Madame,” he said, with an almost timid air, ”let her play!”
Such a wish expressed by a traveller who had eaten a slice of mutton and had drunk a couple of bottles of wine with his supper, and who had not the air of being frightfully poor, would have been equivalent to an order. But that a man with such a hat should permit himself such a desire, and that a man with such a coat should permit himself to have a will, was something which Madame Thenardier did not intend to tolerate.
She retorted with acrimony:--
”She must work, since she eats. I don't feed her to do nothing.”
”What is she making?” went on the stranger, in a gentle voice which contrasted strangely with his beggarly garments and his porter's shoulders.
The Thenardier deigned to reply:--
”Stockings, if you please. Stockings for my little girls, who have none, so to speak, and who are absolutely barefoot just now.”
The man looked at Cosette's poor little red feet, and continued:--
”When will she have finished this pair of stockings?”
”She has at least three or four good days' work on them still, the lazy creature!”
”And how much will that pair of stockings be worth when she has finished them?”
The Thenardier cast a glance of disdain on him.
”Thirty sous at least.”
”Will you sell them for five francs?” went on the man.
”Good heavens!” exclaimed a carter who was listening, with a loud laugh; ”five francs! the deuce, I should think so! five b.a.l.l.s!”
Thenardier thought it time to strike in.
”Yes, sir; if such is your fancy, you will be allowed to have that pair of stockings for five francs. We can refuse nothing to travellers.”
”You must pay on the spot,” said the Thenardier, in her curt and peremptory fas.h.i.+on.
”I will buy that pair of stockings,” replied the man, ”and,” he added, drawing a five-franc piece from his pocket, and laying it on the table, ”I will pay for them.”
Then he turned to Cosette.