In every small town there is a class of young men who nibble away an income of fifteen hundred francs with the same air their prototypes devour two hundred thousand in Paris. They are beings of the great neuter species: impotent men, parasites, cyphers, with a little land, a little folly, a little wit. They would be rustics in a drawing-room and think themselves gentlemen in the dram-shop. If they were richer, one would say dandies; if poorer, idlers. They are simply men without employment. Félix Tholomyès, had he remained in his own province, would have been one of them. It is the period of Bolivar against Morillo. Narrow-brimmed hats are royalist and called morillos; liberals wear wide brims, called bolivars.
Eight or ten months after what has been related, toward the first of January, 1823, on a snowy evening, one of these unemployed, a right thinker because he wears a morillo, is amusing himself by tormenting a creature who is prowling in a ball-dress, neck uncovered, flowers in her hair, in front of the officers' café. This dandy is known as Bamatabois. Each time the woman passes he bestows, with a puff from his cigar, some apostrophe he considers witty: How ugly you are. Will you get out of my sight. You have no teeth. The woman, a melancholy, decorated spectre, makes him no reply, does not even glance at him, and continues her promenade in silence, with a sombre regularity that brings her every five minutes within reach of the sarcasm, like the condemned soldier who returns under the rods.
The small effect piques him. When her back is turned he creeps up with the gait of a wolf, picks up a handful of snow, and thrusts it abruptly into her back, between her bare shoulders. She utters a roar, whirls, leaps like a panther, and hurls herself upon him, burying her nails in his face, with the most frightful words that could fall from the guard-room into the gutter. The insults proceed in hideous wise from a mouth which lacks its two front teeth. It is Fantine. Officers run out; a merry circle forms. Suddenly a man of lofty stature seizes the woman by her satin bodice, which is covered with mud, and says, Follow me. She raises her head. Her furious voice dies away. Her eyes are glassy; she turns pale instead of livid, and trembles with a quiver of terror. She has recognized Javert. The dandy takes advantage of the incident to make his escape.
Coming Up in Chapter 52
Javert breaks the circle and sets out for the police station, dragging the wretched woman after him. Neither of them utters a word. The cloud of spectators follows, jesting. Curiosity, Hugo says, is a sort of gluttony. To see is to devour.
