CHAPTER X.
RESULT OF HER SUCCESS.
She had been discharged toward the end of winter; the next summerpassed away, and winter returned. Short days and less work; in winterthere is no warmth, no light, no mid-day, for the evening is joinedto the morning; there is fog, twilight, the window is gray, and youcannot see clearly. The sky is like a dark vault, and the sun has thelook of a poor man. It is a frightful season; winter changes into stonethe water of heaven and the heart of man. Her creditors pressed her,for Fantine was earning too little, and her debts had increased. TheTh?nardiers, being irregularly paid, constantly wrote her letters,whose contents afflicted her, and postage ruined her. One day theywrote her that little Cosette was quite naked, that she wanted aflannel skirt, and that the mother must send at least ten francs forthe purpose. She crumpled the letter in her hands all day, and atnightfall went to a barber's at the corner of the street, and removedher comb. Her splendid light hair fell down to her hips.
"What fine hair!" the barber exclaimed.
"What will you give me for it?" she asked.
"Ten francs."
"Cut it off."
She bought a skirt and sent to the Th?nardiers; it made them furious,for they wanted the money. They gave it to ?ponine, and the poor larkcontinued to shiver. Fantine thought, "My child is no longer cold, forI have dressed her in my hair." She wore small round caps which hid hershorn head, and she still looked pretty in them.
A dark change took place in Fantine's heart. When she found that shecould no longer dress her hair, she began to hate all around her. Shehad long shared the universal veneration for Father Madeleine: but,through the constant iteration that he had discharged her and was thecause of her misfortune, she grew to hate him too, and worse than therest. When she passed the factory she pretended to laugh and sing. Anold workwoman who once saw her doing so, said, "That's a girl who willcome to a bad end." She took a lover, the first who offered, a man shedid not love, through bravado and with rage in her heart. He was ascoundrel, a sort of mendicant musician, an idle scamp, who beat her,and left her, as she had chosen him, in disgust. She adored her child.The lower she sank, the darker the gloom became around her, the moredid this sweet little angel gleam in her soul. She said: "When I amrich, I shall have my Cosette with me;" and she laughed. She did notget rid of her cough, and she felt a cold perspiration in her back.One day she received from the Th?nardiers a letter to the followingeffect: "Cosette is ill with a complaint which is very prevalent in thecountry. It is called miliary fever. She must have expensive drugs, andthat ruins us, and we cannot pay for them any longer. If you do notsend us forty francs within a week, the little one will be dead." Sheburst into a loud laugh, and said to her old neighbor, "Oh, what funnypeople! they want forty francs; where do they expect me to get them?What fools those peasants are!" Still, she went to a staircase windowand read the letter again; then she went out into the street, stilllaughing and singing. Some one who met her said, "What has made you somerry?" and she answered, "It is a piece of stupidity some country folkhave written; they want forty francs of me--the asses."
As she passed across the market-place she saw a crowd surroundinga vehicle of a strange shape, on the box of which a man dressed inred was haranguing. He was a dentist going his rounds, who offeredthe public complete sets of teeth, opiates, powders, and elixirs.Fantine joined the crowd and began laughing like the rest at thisharangue, in which there was slang for the mob, and scientific jargonfor respectable persons. The extractor of teeth saw the pretty girllaughing, and suddenly exclaimed,--
"You have fine teeth, my laughing beauty. If you like to sell me yourtwo top front teeth, I will give you a napoleon apiece for them."
"What a horrible idea!" Fantine exclaimed.
"Two napoleons!" an old toothless woman by her side grumbled; "there'sa lucky girl."
Fantine ran away and stopped her ears not to hear the hoarse voice ofthe man, who shouted,--
"Think it over, my dear: two napoleons may be useful. If your heartsays Yes, come to-night to the _Tillac d'Argent_, where you will findme."
Fantine, when she reached home, was furious, and told her good neighborMarguerite what had happened. "Can you understand it? Is he not anabominable man? How can people like that be allowed to go about thecountry? Pull out my two front teeth! Why, I should look horrible; hairgrows again, but teeth! oh, the monster! I would sooner throw myselfhead first out of a fifth-floor window on to the pavement."
"And what did he offer you?" Marguerite asked.
"Two napoleons."
"That makes forty francs."
"Yes," said Fantine, "that makes forty francs."
She became thoughtful and sat down to her work. At the end of a quarterof an hour, she left the room and read Th?nardier's letter again on thestaircase. When she returned, she said to Marguerite,--
"Do you know what a miliary fever is?"
"Yes," said the old woman, "it is an illness."
"Does it require much medicine?"
"Oh, an awful lot!"
"Does it attack children?"
"More than anybody."
"Do they die of it?"
"Plenty," said Marguerite.
Fantine went out and read the letter once again on the staircase. Atnight she went out, and could be seen proceeding in the direction ofthe Rue de Paris, where the inns are. The next morning, when Margueriteentered Fantine's room before day-break, for they worked together,and they made one candle do for them both, she found her sitting onher bed, pale and chill. Her cap had fallen on her knees, and thecandle had been burning all night, and was nearly consumed. Margueritestopped in the doorway, horrified by this enormous extravagance, andexclaimed,--
"Oh, Lord! the candle nearly burnt out! something must have happened."
Then she looked at Fantine, who turned her close-shaven head towardsher, and seemed to have grown ten years older since the previous day.
"Gracious Heaven!" said Marguerite, "what is the matter with you,Fantine?"
"Nothing," the girl answered; "I am all right. My child will not die ofthat frightful disease for want of assistance, and I am satisfied."
As she said this, she pointed to two napoleons that glistened on thetable.
"Oh, Lord!" said Marguerite; "why,'t is a fortune; where ever did youget them from?"
"I had them by me," Fantine answered.
At the same time she smiled, the candle lit up her face, and it was afearful smile. A reddish saliva stained the corner of her lips, andshe had a black hole in her mouth; the two teeth were pulled out. Shesent the forty francs to Montfermeil. It had only been a trick of theTh?nardiers to get money, for Cosette was not ill.
Fantine threw her looking-glass out of the window; she had long beforeleft her cell on the second floor for a garret under the roof,--one ofthose tenements in which the ceiling forms an angle with the floor,and you knock your head at every step. The poor man can only go to theend of his room, as to the end of his destiny, by stooping more andmore. She had no bed left; she had only a rag she called a blanket,a mattress on the ground, and a bottomless chair; a little rose-treeshe had had withered away, forgotten in a corner. In another cornershe had a pail to hold water, which froze in winter, and in whichthe different levels of the water remained marked for a long time byrings of ice. She had lost her shame, and now lost her coquetry; thelast sign was, that she went out with dirty caps. Either through wantof time or carelessness, she no longer mended her linen, and as theheels of her stockings wore out, she tucked them into her shoes. Shemended her worn-out gown with rags of calico, which tore away at theslightest movement. The people to whom she owed money made "scenes,"and allowed her no rest; she met them in the street, she met them againon the stairs. Her eyes were very bright, and she felt a settled painat the top of her left shoulder-blade, while she coughed frequently.She deeply hated Father Madeleine, and sewed for seventeen hours a day;but a speculator hired all the female prisoners, and reduced the pricesof the free workmen to nine sous a
day. Seventeen hours' work for ninesous! Her creditors were more pitiless than ever, and the broker, whohad got back nearly all her furniture, incessantly said to her, "Whenare you going to pay me, you cheat?" What did they want of her, goodHeavens! She felt herself tracked, and something of the wild beast wasaroused in her. About the same time Th?nardier wrote to her, that hehad decidedly waited too patiently, and that unless he received onehundred francs at once, he would turn poor Cosette, who had scarcerecovered, out of doors into the cold, and she must do what she couldor die. "One hundred francs!" Fantine thought; "but where is the tradein which I can earn one hundred sous a day? Well! I will sell all thatis left!"
And the unfortunate girl went on the streets.