第 九十八 章 · THE LITTLE ONE ALL ALONE

As the Thénardier hostelry was in that part of the village which is

near the church, it was to the spring in the forest in the direction of

Chelles that Cosette was obliged to go for her water.

She did not glance at the display of a single other merchant. So long

as she was in Boulanger Lane and in the neighborhood of the church, the

lighted stalls illuminated the road; but soon the last light from the

last stall vanished. The poor child found herself in the dark. She

plunged into it. Only, as a certain emotion overcame her, she made as

much motion as possible with the handle of the bucket as she walked

along. This made a noise which afforded her company.

The further she went, the denser the darkness became. There was no one

in the streets. However, she did encounter a woman, who turned around

on seeing her, and stood still, muttering between her teeth: “Where can

that child be going? Is it a werewolf child?” Then the woman recognized

Cosette. “Well,” said she, “it’s the Lark!”

In this manner Cosette traversed the labyrinth of tortuous and deserted

streets which terminate in the village of Montfermeil on the side of

Chelles. So long as she had the houses or even the walls only on both

sides of her path, she proceeded with tolerable boldness. From time to

time she caught the flicker of a candle through the crack of a

shutter—this was light and life; there were people there, and it

reassured her. But in proportion as she advanced, her pace slackened

mechanically, as it were. When she had passed the corner of the last

house, Cosette paused. It had been hard to advance further than the

last stall; it became impossible to proceed further than the last

house. She set her bucket on the ground, thrust her hand into her hair,

and began slowly to scratch her head,—a gesture peculiar to children

when terrified and undecided what to do. It was no longer Montfermeil;

it was the open fields. Black and desert space was before her. She

gazed in despair at that darkness, where there was no longer any one,

where there were beasts, where there were spectres, possibly. She took

a good look, and heard the beasts walking on the grass, and she

distinctly saw spectres moving in the trees. Then she seized her bucket

again; fear had lent her audacity. “Bah!” said she; “I will tell him

that there was no more water!” And she resolutely re-entered

Montfermeil.

Hardly had she gone a hundred paces when she paused and began to

scratch her head again. Now it was the Thénardier who appeared to her,

with her hideous, hyena mouth, and wrath flashing in her eyes. The

child cast a melancholy glance before her and behind her. What was she

to do? What was to become of her? Where was she to go? In front of her

was the spectre of the Thénardier; behind her all the phantoms of the

night and of the forest. It was before the Thénardier that she

recoiled. She resumed her path to the spring, and began to run. She

emerged from the village, she entered the forest at a run, no longer

looking at or listening to anything. She only paused in her course when

her breath failed her; but she did not halt in her advance. She went

straight before her in desperation.

As she ran she felt like crying.

The nocturnal quivering of the forest surrounded her completely.

She no longer thought, she no longer saw. The immensity of night was

facing this tiny creature. On the one hand, all shadow; on the other,

an atom.

It was only seven or eight minutes’ walk from the edge of the woods to

the spring. Cosette knew the way, through having gone over it many

times in daylight. Strange to say, she did not get lost. A remnant of

instinct guided her vaguely. But she did not turn her eyes either to

right or to left, for fear of seeing things in the branches and in the

brushwood. In this manner she reached the spring.

It was a narrow, natural basin, hollowed out by the water in a clayey

soil, about two feet deep, surrounded with moss and with those tall,

crimped grasses which are called Henry IV.’s frills, and paved with

several large stones. A brook ran out of it, with a tranquil little

noise.

Cosette did not take time to breathe. It was very dark, but she was in

the habit of coming to this spring. She felt with her left hand in the

dark for a young oak which leaned over the spring, and which usually

served to support her, found one of its branches, clung to it, bent

down, and plunged the bucket in the water. She was in a state of such

violent excitement that her strength was trebled. While thus bent over,

she did not notice that the pocket of her apron had emptied itself into

the spring. The fifteen-sou piece fell into the water. Cosette neither

saw nor heard it fall. She drew out the bucket nearly full, and set it

on the grass.

That done, she perceived that she was worn out with fatigue. She would

have liked to set out again at once, but the effort required to fill

the bucket had been such that she found it impossible to take a step.

She was forced to sit down. She dropped on the grass, and remained

crouching there.

She shut her eyes; then she opened them again, without knowing why, but

because she could not do otherwise. The agitated water in the bucket

beside her was describing circles which resembled tin serpents.

Overhead the sky was covered with vast black clouds, which were like

masses of smoke. The tragic mask of shadow seemed to bend vaguely over

the child.

Jupiter was setting in the depths.

The child stared with bewildered eyes at this great star, with which

she was unfamiliar, and which terrified her. The planet was, in fact,

very near the horizon and was traversing a dense layer of mist which

imparted to it a horrible ruddy hue. The mist, gloomily empurpled,

magnified the star. One would have called it a luminous wound.

A cold wind was blowing from the plain. The forest was dark, not a leaf

was moving; there were none of the vague, fresh gleams of summertide.

Great boughs uplifted themselves in frightful wise. Slender and

misshapen bushes whistled in the clearings. The tall grasses undulated

like eels under the north wind. The nettles seemed to twist long arms

furnished with claws in search of prey. Some bits of dry heather,

tossed by the breeze, flew rapidly by, and had the air of fleeing in

terror before something which was coming after. On all sides there were

lugubrious stretches.

The darkness was bewildering. Man requires light. Whoever buries

himself in the opposite of day feels his heart contract. When the eye

sees black, the heart sees trouble. In an eclipse in the night, in the

sooty opacity, there is anxiety even for the stoutest of hearts. No one

walks alone in the forest at night without trembling. Shadows and

trees—two formidable densities. A chimerical reality appears in the

indistinct depths. The inconceivable is outlined a few paces distant

from you with a spectral clearness. One beholds floating, either in

space or in one’s own brain, one knows not what vague and intangible

thing, like the dreams of sleeping flowers. There are fierce attitudes

on the horizon. One inhales the effluvia of the great black void. One

is afraid to glance behind him, yet desirous of doing so. The cavities

of night, things grown haggard, taciturn profiles which vanish when one

advances, obscure dishevelments, irritated tufts, livid pools, the

lugubrious reflected in the funereal, the sepulchral immensity of

silence, unknown but possible beings, bendings of mysterious branches,

alarming torsos of trees, long handfuls of quivering plants,—against

all this one has no protection. There is no hardihood which does not

shudder and which does not feel the vicinity of anguish. One is

conscious of something hideous, as though one’s soul were becoming

amalgamated with the darkness. This penetration of the shadows is

indescribably sinister in the case of a child.

Forests are apocalypses, and the beating of the wings of a tiny soul

produces a sound of agony beneath their monstrous vault.

Without understanding her sensations, Cosette was conscious that she

was seized upon by that black enormity of nature; it was no longer

terror alone which was gaining possession of her; it was something more

terrible even than terror; she shivered. There are no words to express

the strangeness of that shiver which chilled her to the very bottom of

her heart; her eye grew wild; she thought she felt that she should not

be able to refrain from returning there at the same hour on the morrow.

Then, by a sort of instinct, she began to count aloud, one, two, three,

four, and so on up to ten, in order to escape from that singular state

which she did not understand, but which terrified her, and, when she

had finished, she began again; this restored her to a true perception

of the things about her. Her hands, which she had wet in drawing the

water, felt cold; she rose; her terror, a natural and unconquerable

terror, had returned: she had but one thought now,—to flee at full

speed through the forest, across the fields to the houses, to the

windows, to the lighted candles. Her glance fell upon the water which

stood before her; such was the fright which the Thénardier inspired in

her, that she dared not flee without that bucket of water: she seized

the handle with both hands; she could hardly lift the pail.

In this manner she advanced a dozen paces, but the bucket was full; it

was heavy; she was forced to set it on the ground once more. She took

breath for an instant, then lifted the handle of the bucket again, and

resumed her march, proceeding a little further this time, but again she

was obliged to pause. After some seconds of repose she set out again.

She walked bent forward, with drooping head, like an old woman; the

weight of the bucket strained and stiffened her thin arms. The iron

handle completed the benumbing and freezing of her wet and tiny hands;

she was forced to halt from time to time, and each time that she did

so, the cold water which splashed from the pail fell on her bare legs.

This took place in the depths of a forest, at night, in winter, far

from all human sight; she was a child of eight: no one but God saw that

sad thing at the moment.

And her mother, no doubt, alas!

For there are things that make the dead open their eyes in their

graves.

She panted with a sort of painful rattle; sobs contracted her throat,

but she dared not weep, so afraid was she of the Thénardier, even at a

distance: it was her custom to imagine the Thénardier always present.

However, she could not make much headway in that manner, and she went

on very slowly. In spite of diminishing the length of her stops, and of

walking as long as possible between them, she reflected with anguish

that it would take her more than an hour to return to Montfermeil in

this manner, and that the Thénardier would beat her. This anguish was

mingled with her terror at being alone in the woods at night; she was

worn out with fatigue, and had not yet emerged from the forest. On

arriving near an old chestnut-tree with which she was acquainted, made

a last halt, longer than the rest, in order that she might get well

rested; then she summoned up all her strength, picked up her bucket

again, and courageously resumed her march, but the poor little

desperate creature could not refrain from crying, “O my God! my God!”

At that moment she suddenly became conscious that her bucket no longer

weighed anything at all: a hand, which seemed to her enormous, had just

seized the handle, and lifted it vigorously. She raised her head. A

large black form, straight and erect, was walking beside her through

the darkness; it was a man who had come up behind her, and whose

approach she had not heard. This man, without uttering a word, had

seized the handle of the bucket which she was carrying.

There are instincts for all the encounters of life.

The child was not afraid.