LES MISERABLES (Illustrated Edition). Victor Hugo

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СКАЧАТЬ had ridiculous hands when she was only a year old; like this! she must be a big girl now; she is seven years old; she is quite a young lady; I call her Cosette, but her name is really Euphrasie. Stop! this morning I was looking at the dust on the chimney-piece, and I had a sort of idea come across me, like that, that I should see Cosette again soon. Mon Dieu! how wrong it is not to see one’s children for years! One ought to reflect that life is not eternal. Oh, how good M. le Maire is to go! it is very cold! it is true; he had on his cloak, at least? he will be here to-morrow, will he not? to-morrow will be a festival day; to-morrow morning, sister, you must remind me to put on my little cap that has lace on it. What a place that Montfermeil is! I took that journey on foot once; it was very long for me, but the diligences go very quickly! he will be here to-morrow with Cosette: how far is it from here to Montfermeil?”

      The sister, who had no idea of distances, replied, “Oh, I think that he will be here to-morrow.”

      “To-morrow! to-morrow!” said Fantine, “I shall see Cosette to-morrow! you see, good sister of the good God, that I am no longer ill; I am mad; I could dance if any one wished it.”

      A person who had seen her a quarter of an hour previously would not have understood the change; she was all rosy now; she spoke in a lively and natural voice; her whole face was one smile; now and then she talked, she laughed softly; the joy of a mother is almost infantile.

      “Well,” resumed the nun, “now that you are happy, mind me, and do not talk any more.”

      Fantine laid her head on her pillow and said in a low voice: “Yes, lie down again; be good, for you are going to have your child; Sister Simplice is right; every one here is right.”

      And then, without stirring, without even moving her head, she began to stare all about her with wide-open eyes and a joyous air, and she said nothing more.

      The sister drew the curtains together again, hoping that she would fall into a doze. Between seven and eight o’clock the doctor came; not hearing any sound, he thought Fantine was asleep, entered softly, and approached the bed on tiptoe; he opened the curtains a little, and, by the light of the taper, he saw Fantine’s big eyes gazing at him.

      She said to him, “She will be allowed to sleep beside me in a little bed, will she not, sir?”

      The doctor thought that she was delirious. She added:—

      “See! there is just room.”

      The doctor took Sister Simplice aside, and she explained matters to him; that M. Madeleine was absent for a day or two, and that in their doubt they had not thought it well to undeceive the invalid, who believed that the mayor had gone to Montfermeil; that it was possible, after all, that her guess was correct: the doctor approved.

      He returned to Fantine’s bed, and she went on:—

      “You see, when she wakes up in the morning, I shall be able to say good morning to her, poor kitten, and when I cannot sleep at night, I can hear her asleep; her little gentle breathing will do me good.”

      “Give me your hand,” said the doctor.

      She stretched out her arm, and exclaimed with a laugh:—

      “Ah, hold! in truth, you did not know it; I am cured; Cosette will arrive to-morrow.”

      The doctor was surprised; she was better; the pressure on her chest had decreased; her pulse had regained its strength; a sort of life had suddenly supervened and reanimated this poor, worn-out creature.

      “Doctor,” she went on, “did the sister tell you that M. le Maire has gone to get that mite of a child?”

      The doctor recommended silence, and that all painful emotions should be avoided; he prescribed an infusion of pure chinchona, and, in case the fever should increase again during the night, a calming potion. As he took his departure, he said to the sister:— “She is doing better; if good luck willed that the mayor should actually arrive to-morrow with the child, who knows? there are crises so astounding; great joy has been known to arrest maladies; I know well that this is an organic disease, and in an advanced state, but all those things are such mysteries: we may be able to save her.”

CHAPTER VII—THE TRAVELLER ON HIS ARRIVAL TAKES PRECAUTIONS FOR

      DEPARTURE

      It was nearly eight o’clock in the evening when the cart, which we left on the road, entered the porte-cochère of the Hotel de la Poste in Arras; the man whom we have been following up to this moment alighted from it, responded with an abstracted air to the attentions of the people of the inn, sent back the extra horse, and with his own hands led the little white horse to the stable; then he opened the door of a billiard-room which was situated on the ground floor, sat down there, and leaned his elbows on a table; he had taken fourteen hours for the journey which he had counted on making in six; he did himself the justice to acknowledge that it was not his fault, but at bottom, he was not sorry.

      The landlady of the hotel entered.

      “Does Monsieur wish a bed? Does Monsieur require supper?”

      He made a sign of the head in the negative.

      “The stableman says that Monsieur’s horse is extremely fatigued.”

      Here he broke his silence.

      “Will not the horse be in a condition to set out again to-morrow morning?”

      “Oh, Monsieur! he must rest for two days at least.”

      He inquired:—

      “Is not the posting-station located here?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      The hostess conducted him to the office; he showed his passport, and inquired whether there was any way of returning that same night to M. sur M. by the mail-wagon; the seat beside the postboy chanced to be vacant; he engaged it and paid for it. “Monsieur,” said the clerk, “do not fail to be here ready to start at precisely one o’clock in the morning.”

      This done, he left the hotel and began to wander about the town.

      He was not acquainted with Arras; the streets were dark, and he walked on at random; but he seemed bent upon not asking the way of the passers-by. He crossed the little river Crinchon, and found himself in a labyrinth of narrow alleys where he lost his way. A citizen was passing along with a lantern. After some hesitation, he decided to apply to this man, not without having first glanced behind and in front of him, as though he feared lest some one should hear the question which he was about to put.

      “Monsieur,” said he, “where is the court-house, if you please.”

      “You do not belong in town, sir?” replied the bourgeois, who was an oldish man; “well, follow me. I happen to be going in the direction of the court-house, that is to say, in the direction of the hotel of the prefecture; for the court-house is undergoing repairs just at this moment, and the courts are holding their sittings provisionally in the prefecture.”

      “Is it there that the Assizes are held?” he asked.

      “Certainly, sir; you see, the prefecture of to-day was the bishop’s palace before СКАЧАТЬ