Four new travellers have arrived. Cosette is meditating sadly. Although she is only eight years old, she has already suffered so much that she reflects with the lugubrious air of an old woman. Her eye is black in consequence of a blow from Madame Thenardier's fist, which causes the latter to remark from time to time, how ugly she is with her fist-blow on her eye. Cosette is thinking that it is dark, very dark, that the pitchers and caraffes in the chambers of the travellers who have arrived must have been filled, and that there is no more water in the cistern. She is somewhat reassured because no one in the Thenardier establishment drinks much water. Thirsty people are never lacking there, but their thirst applies to the jug rather than to the pitcher. Anyone who asked for a glass of water among all those glasses of wine would have appeared a savage to all these men. But there comes a moment when the child trembles. Madame Thenardier raises the cover of a stew-pan, seizes a glass, and briskly approaches the cistern. She turns the faucet. The child has raised her head and is following all the woman's movements. A thin stream of water trickles from the faucet, and half fills the glass. Well, said she, there is no more water. A momentary silence ensues. The child does not breathe. Bah, resumed Madame Thenardier, examining the half-filled glass, this will be enough. Cosette applies herself to her work once more, but for a quarter of an hour she feels her heart leaping in her bosom like a big snow-flake. She counts the minutes, and wishes it were the next morning. From time to time one of the drinkers looks into the street and exclaims that it is as black as an oven, or that one must needs be a cat to go about without a lantern. And Cosette trembles.
All at once one of the pedlers who lodges in the hostelry enters and says in a harsh voice that his horse has not been watered. Yes it has, says Madame Thenardier. I tell you that it has not, retorts the pedler. Cosette has emerged from under the table. Oh yes, sir, said she, the horse has had a drink. He drank out of a bucket, a whole bucketful, and it was I who took the water to him, and I spoke to him. It was not true. Cosette lied. There's a brat as big as my fist who tells lies as big as the house, exclaimed the pedler. I tell you that he has not been watered, you little jade. He has a way of blowing when he has had no water, which I know well. Cosette persists, and adds in a voice rendered hoarse with anguish, and which is hardly audible, and he drank heartily. Come, said the pedler in a rage, this will not do at all. Let my horse be watered, and let that be the end of it. Cosette creeps under the table again.
In truth, that is fair, said Madame Thenardier. If the beast has not been watered, it must be. Then, glancing about her: Well, now, where's that other beast? She bends down and discovers Cosette cowering at the other end of the table, almost under the drinkers' feet. Are you coming? she shrieks. Cosette crawls out of the sort of hole in which she has hidden herself. Mademoiselle Dog-lack-name, go and water that horse. But, Madame, said Cosette, feebly, there is no water. The Thenardier throws the street door wide open. Well, go and get some, then. Cosette drops her head and goes for an empty bucket which stands near the chimney-corner. This bucket is bigger than she is, and the child could have set down in it at her ease. The Thenardier returns to her stove, tastes what is in the stewpan with a wooden spoon, and grumbles that there is plenty in the spring, and that she should have done better to strain her onions. Then she rummages in a drawer which contains sous, pepper, and shallots. See here, Mam'selle Toad, she adds, on your way back you will get a big loaf from the baker. Here's a fifteen-sou piece. Cosette has a little pocket on one side of her apron. She takes the coin without saying a word and puts it in that pocket. Then she stands motionless, bucket in hand, the open door before her. She seems to be waiting for some one to come to her rescue. Get along with you, screams the Thenardier. Cosette went out. The door closed behind her.
