One Mother Meets Another Mother — Les Misérables

There is, at Montfermeil, a cook-shop that no longer exists, kept by people named Thénardier. Over the door a board shows a man carrying a general on his back, red spots for blood: AT THE SIGN OF SERGEANT OF WATERLOO. One spring evening in 1818 the fore-carriage of a timber truck encumbers the street: iron axle, huge wheels, mud like cathedral paint, a chain worthy of Goliath hanging under it. In the loop of that chain, as in the rope of a swing, sit two little girls, two and a half and eighteen months, knotted in with a handkerchief. A mother has seen that frightful chain and said, Come, there is a plaything for my children. They are two roses amid old iron. The hideous links cry like rage; the girls are in ecstasies. The mother, crouching on the threshold, hums a warrior romance and does not see the street.

A voice at her ear: You have two beautiful children there, Madame. The woman who has spoken is Fantine, ten months after the pretty farce, pale, nun-like cap, sunburnt needle-finger, a large carpet-bag, her daughter asleep in her arms. The child is two or three, linen and Valenciennes, admirably rosy. After abandonment Fantine lost the other three women as soon as the men were gone. She can barely read, cannot write; a public letter-writer sent three letters to Tholomyès; he answered none. She sold everything, kept about eighty francs, put her silks on the child, and at twenty-two left Paris on a spring morning with Cosette on her back. She coughs a little. Twenty years later Tholomyès will be a severe juryman and still a man of pleasure. We have no further occasion to speak of him.

The two roses dazzle her. She thinks she sees the HERE of Providence above the inn. She sits. Madame Thénardier, sandy, angular, barely thirty, would frighten if she stood; destinies hang on a person being seated. Fantine tells a modified story: widow, work failed, going home. Cosette wakes, great blue eyes, slips down, puts out her tongue at the swing. The three dig holes; a worm appears; three heads in one aureole. One would swear they were three sisters, says the innkeeper. Fantine seizes her hand. Will you keep my child for me? Six francs a month. A man's voice from the cook-shop: not less than seven, and six months in advance, plus fifteen for preliminary expenses. Total fifty-seven. I will pay it. I have eighty. The outfit must be handed over. The bargain is concluded. She passes the night, leaves the child, and sets out light. A neighbour sees a woman crying in the street enough to rend your heart. That will pay my note for one hundred and ten francs, says the man. You played the mouse-trap nicely with your young ones. Without suspecting it, says the woman.