Kabanata Kabanata 97 · ENTRANCE ON THE SCENE OF A DOLL

The line of open-air booths starting at the church, extended, as the

reader will remember, as far as the hostelry of the Thénardiers. These

booths were all illuminated, because the citizens would soon pass on

their way to the midnight mass, with candles burning in paper funnels,

which, as the schoolmaster, then seated at the table at the

Thénardiers’ observed, produced “a magical effect.” In compensation,

not a star was visible in the sky.

The last of these stalls, established precisely opposite the

Thénardiers’ door, was a toy-shop all glittering with tinsel, glass,

and magnificent objects of tin. In the first row, and far forwards, the

merchant had placed on a background of white napkins, an immense doll,

nearly two feet high, who was dressed in a robe of pink crepe, with

gold wheat-ears on her head, which had real hair and enamel eyes. All

that day, this marvel had been displayed to the wonderment of all

passers-by under ten years of age, without a mother being found in

Montfermeil sufficiently rich or sufficiently extravagant to give it to

her child. Éponine and Azelma had passed hours in contemplating it, and

Cosette herself had ventured to cast a glance at it, on the sly, it is

true.

At the moment when Cosette emerged, bucket in hand, melancholy and

overcome as she was, she could not refrain from lifting her eyes to

that wonderful doll, towards _the lady_, as she called it. The poor

child paused in amazement. She had not yet beheld that doll close to.

The whole shop seemed a palace to her: the doll was not a doll; it was

a vision. It was joy, splendor, riches, happiness, which appeared in a

sort of chimerical halo to that unhappy little being so profoundly

engulfed in gloomy and chilly misery. With the sad and innocent

sagacity of childhood, Cosette measured the abyss which separated her

from that doll. She said to herself that one must be a queen, or at

least a princess, to have a “thing” like that. She gazed at that

beautiful pink dress, that beautiful smooth hair, and she thought, “How

happy that doll must be!” She could not take her eyes from that

fantastic stall. The more she looked, the more dazzled she grew. She

thought she was gazing at paradise. There were other dolls behind the

large one, which seemed to her to be fairies and genii. The merchant,

who was pacing back and forth in front of his shop, produced on her

somewhat the effect of being the Eternal Father.

In this adoration she forgot everything, even the errand with which she

was charged.

All at once the Thénardier’s coarse voice recalled her to reality:

“What, you silly jade! you have not gone? Wait! I’ll give it to you! I

want to know what you are doing there! Get along, you little monster!”

The Thénardier had cast a glance into the street, and had caught sight

of Cosette in her ecstasy.

Cosette fled, dragging her pail, and taking the longest strides of

which she was capable.