At every backward and forward swing the hideous links emitted a strident sound, which resembled a cry of rage; the little girls were in ecstasies; the setting sun mingled in this joy, and nothing could be more charming than this caprice of chance which had made of a chain of Titans the swing of cherubim.
As she rocked her little ones, the mother hummed in a discordant voice a romance then celebrated:—
“It must be, said a warrior.”
Her song, and the contemplation of her daughters, prevented her hearing and seeing what was going on in the street.
In the meantime, some one had approached her, as she was beginning the first couplet of the romance, and suddenly she heard a voice saying very near her ear:—
“You have two beautiful children there, Madame.”
“To the fair and tender Imogene—”
replied the mother, continuing her romance; then she turned her head.
A woman stood before her, a few paces distant.
This woman also had a child, which she carried in her arms.
She was carrying, in addition, a large carpet-bag, which seemed very heavy.
This woman’s child was one of the most divine creatures that it is possible to behold.
It was a girl, two or three years of age.
She could have entered into competition with the two other little ones, so far as the coquetry of her dress was concerned; she wore a cap of fine linen, ribbons on her bodice, and Valenciennes lace on her cap.
The folds of her skirt were raised so as to permit a view of her white, firm, and dimpled leg.
She was admirably rosy and healthy.
The little beauty inspired a desire to take a bite from the apples of her cheeks.
Of her eyes nothing could be known, except that they must be very large, and that they had magnificent lashes.
She was asleep.
She slept with that slumber of absolute confidence peculiar to her age.
The arms of mothers are made of tenderness; in them children sleep profoundly.
As for the mother, her appearance was sad and poverty-stricken.
She was dressed like a working-woman who is inclined to turn into a peasant again.
She was young.
Was she handsome?
Perhaps; but in that attire it was not apparent.
Her hair, a golden lock of which had escaped, seemed very thick, but was severely concealed beneath an ugly, tight, close, nun-like cap, tied under the chin.
A smile displays beautiful teeth when one has them; but she did not smile.
Her eyes did not seem to have been dry for a very long time.
She was pale; she had a very weary and rather sickly appearance. She gazed upon her daughter asleep in her arms with the air peculiar to a mother who has nursed her own child.
A large blue handkerchief, such as the Invalides use, was folded into a fichu, and concealed her figure clumsily.
Her hands were sunburnt and all dotted with freckles, her forefinger was hardened and lacerated with the needle; she wore a cloak of coarse brown woollen stuff, a linen gown, and coarse shoes.
It was Fantine.
It was Fantine, but difficult to recognize.
Nevertheless, on scrutinizing her attentively, it was evident that she still retained her beauty.
A melancholy fold, which resembled the beginning of irony, wrinkled her right cheek.
As for her toilette, that aerial toilette of muslin and ribbons, which seemed made of mirth, of folly, and of music, full of bells, and perfumed with lilacs had vanished like that beautiful and dazzling hoar-frost which is mistaken for diamonds in the sunlight; it melts and leaves the branch quite black.
Ten months had elapsed since the “pretty farce.”
What had taken place during those ten months?
It can be divined.
After abandonment, straightened circumstances.
Fantine had immediately lost sight of Favourite, Zephine and Dahlia; the bond once broken on the side of the men, it was loosed between the women; they would have been greatly astonished had any one told them a fortnight later, that they had been friends; there no longer existed any reason for such a thing.
Fantine had remained alone.
The father of her child gone,—alas! such ruptures are irrevocable,—she found herself absolutely isolated, minus the habit of work and plus the taste for pleasure.
Drawn away by her liaison with Tholomyes to disdain the pretty trade which she knew, she had neglected to keep her market open; it was now closed to her.
She had no resource.
Fantine barely knew how to read, and did not know how to write; in her childhood she had only been taught to sign her name; she had a public letter-writer indite an epistle to Tholomyes, then a second, then a third.
Tholomyes replied to none of them.
Fantine heard the gossips say, as they looked at her child:
“Who takes those children seriously!