Last time, on Les Misérables…
– Jean Valjean went back to prison!
– Then he broke his chains and saved a sailor from certain death!
– Only to fall into the sea and drown himself!
– RIP Jean Valjean, I’m sure we’ll never hear from him again.
– Meanwhile, the Devil buried treasure at Montfermeil.
…and now, the thrilling continuation!
COSETTE, Book Three: Fulfillment of the Promise Made to the Dead legit made me cry, I am not even joking.
In Chapter I: The Water Question at Montfermeil, we learn where the Thénardiers get their drinking water: from a little spring about fifteen minutes of walking outside of town. The Thénardiers make it the eight-year-old Cosette’s job to fetch it.
pg. 375: So the child, always terrified by the idea of going to the spring at night, made sure that the house always had water.
(And hey, after two books in the section named for her, Cosette’s finally shown up! Well done Cosette!)
We also get a glimpse into life inside the Thénardiers’ tavern, which is a pretty standard one as far as taverns go; full of local people and travelers alike talking shop. But there’s also this.
pg. 377: At times, the cry of a very young child, somewhere around the house, was heard above the noise of the barroom. It was a little boy the woman had had some winters before. “I don’t know why,” she said; “it was the cold weather,”––and now a little more than three years old. The mother had nursed him, but did not love him. When the brat’s insistent racket became too much to bear, “Your boy is squalling,” Thénardier said. “Why don’t you go and see what he wants?”
“Aah!” the mother answered. “I’m sick of him.” And the poor little fellow went on crying in the darkness.
I don’t think I like the Thénardiers much.
Chapter II: Two Portraits Filled In tells us yet more about the Thénardiers, in case we forgot the previous descriptions we had of them.
Thénardier is fifty, skinny, and sallow; Thénardiess is forty, tall, broad, and blonde, rather like a sinister Miss Pross.
More on the Thénardiess:
pg. 378: She had a beard. […] she prided herself on being able to crack a nut with her fist […] This Thénardiess was a cross between a whore and a fishwife. To hear her speak, you would say this was a policeman; to see her drink, you would say this was a cartman; if you saw her handle Cosette, you would say this was the hangman.
In short, like most female villains, she displays a number of unseemly, so-called masculine traits. Side-eyeing you so hard right now, Hugo.
And as for Thénardier?
pg. 378: He smiled habitually as a matter of good business and tried to be polite to everybody, even to the beggar to whom he was refusing a penny.
The fiend!
Basically, Thénardier is a con man. He got his start camp-following and corpse-robbing and used the funds to open his tavern.
pg. 379: He was a fine talker. He liked being thought learned. Nevertheless, the schoolmaster remarked that he made mistakes in pronunciation. He made out travelers’ bills in a high style, but practiced eyes sometimes found spelling mistakes in them.
Again, like with the Thénardiess, none of these traits are particularly bad on their own. So I’m confused as to why Hugo is listing them as though they are proof that the Thénardiers are eeeeeeeevil. Their actions are more convincing than Hugo’s words.
pg. 380: This woman was a formidable creation, who loved nothing but her children, and feared nothing but her husband. She was a mother because she was a mammal. Actually, her maternal feelings ended with her girls and, as we shall see, did not extend to boys. The man had only one thought––to get rich.
And how’s he doing on that front?
pg. 381: In Monfermeil Thénardier was ruining himself, if ruin is possible at zero.
He owes about 1,500 francs. As a result, he becomes even more of a penny-pincher than anyone thought possible.
pg. 381: to know how much the reflection wears the mirror down and to tax that
While their methods are different, each of the Thénardiers has roughly the same effect on Cosette. The Thénardiess beats her physically, and Thénardier’s miserly ways ensure that she freezes and starves. All in all, not a great time.
Chapter III: Men Must Have Wine and Horses Water
Christmas Eve, 1823, Montfermeil, the Thénardiers’ tavern. The weather outside is frightful, but inside the tavern people are drinking, food is cooking, fireplaces are blazing, Cosette’s hiding under one of the tables knitting socks for her adopted siblings, and everything is fine and dandy until…
pg. 383: All at once, one of the peddlers who lodged in the tavern came in and said in a harsh voice, “You haven’t watered my horse.”
Looks like somebody will have to go out into the dark, cold night and fetch water from the spring. And by “somebody” we mean Cosette. Cosette, terrified by the prospect, tells the peddler she already gave his horse like a whole bunch of water. The peddler is not buying it, and demands Cosette go out and water his horse.
pg. 383: Cosette went back under the table.
:c
The Thénardiess drags her back out, shoves the bucket in her hand, and tells her to get going. She also gives her a fifteen-sous piece and tells her to buy bread from the bakery while she’s out.
pg. 384: The bucket was larger than she, and the child could have sat down in it comfortably. […] Then she remained motionless, bucket in hand, the open door in front of her. She seemed to be waiting for somebody to come to her aid.
Of course, nobody does, and out into the cold dark night goes Cosette.
Chapter IV: A Doll Enters the Scene
It being the Christmas season, a bunch of peddlers have set up shop along the street outside the tavern. They sell loads of junk, tin goods, glass beads, trinkets, etc. One of the peddlers specializes in toys, and his prize item is a magnificent doll, two feet high with a splendid pink dress, gold garlands, and real hair. It’s set up at the front of his booth right outside the tavern, so it’s the first thing Cosette sees as she leaves.
pg. 385: Cosette was measuring with the sad and simple wisdom of childhood the abyss that separated her from that doll. She was saying to herself that one must be a queen, or at least a princess, to have a “thing” like that.
If that doll is not in Cosette’s arms by the end of the book I will cry.
The Thénardiess catches her stopped and staring and orders her once again to get going. Cosette scrambles to obey.
Chapter V: The Little Girl All Alone
In case you’ve forgotten, Cosette is eight years old, dressed in rags, malnourished, etc. She’s also just been sent out into the dark woods at night in the middle of winter to fetch a bucket of water bigger than herself.
pg. 386: She put the bucket on the ground, buried her hands in her hair, and began to scratch her head slowly, a motion peculiar to terrified and hesitating children.
Unspeakably afraid of the woods (and can you blame her?), she starts running back to the tavern. But her fear of the Thénardiess’ wrath forces her to turn back, and into the woods she goes.
pg. 387: Even while running, she felt like crying.
Since I can’t in good conscience type up the entire chapter word-for-word and call it a “review,” please trust me when I tell you that reading this chapter is like being a small, frightened child all over again. Probably some of the best Hugo I’ve read yet.
When Cosette reaches the stream, she has to suspend herself over the water via a tree branch to put the bucket in the water. As she does this, the fifteen-sous piece falls out of her pocket and into the stream without her noticing.
Bucket full, Cosette begins the trip back to the tavern. She has to stop to rest almost as soon as she starts because, as previously mentioned, the bucket is as big as she is. And she’s hungry. And cold. And tired. And eight freakin’ years old. And it’s really, really dark out.
pg. 389: Forests are apocalypses; and a tiny soul’s beating wings make an agonizing sound beneath their monstrous vault.
She makes her way a dozen steps at a time, ever so slowly and miserably, until…
pg. 390: At that moment she suddenly felt that the weight of the bucket was gone. A hand, which seemed enormous to her, had just caught the handle, and was carrying it easily. She looked up. A large dark form, straight and erect, was walking beside her in the darkness. A man who had come up behind her and whom she had not heard. This man, without saying a word, had grasped the handle of the bucket she was carrying.
AUGH GODDAMNIT HUGO WHY ARE YOUR CHARACTERS SUCH CREEPS
Chapter IV: Which May Prove the Intelligence of Boulatruelle
We flash back to afternoon of the same day, on the Boulevard de l’Hôpital in Paris. A mysterious gentleman in no way related to the very much deceased Jean Valjean is walking softly and carrying a big stick. He’s dressed in fashionable yet threadbare clothing.
He’s also not from ’round here, judging by his unfamiliarity with the King’s daily race around Paris.
pg. 392: This gout-ridden king loved fast driving; not able to walk, he wanted to run; this cripple would have gladly been chaffeured by the lightning.
The King’s speeding carriage startles the stranger, and the stranger being startled by an everyday occurrence attracts the attention of the police, whom the stranger narrowly evades. He hitches a ride on a coach and pays his way through to Lagny but jumps off at Chelles.
pg. 394: The driver turned to the inside passengers. “There,” he said, “is a man who is not from these parts, because I don’t know him. He looks like he doesn’t have a sou, but he doesn’t care about money: He pays to Lagny, and he only goes to Chelles. Its night, all the houses are shut, he doesn’t go to the tavern, and we don’t overtake him. Ergo, he must have sunk into the ground!”
Or gone into the woods. Which he has. He pokes around for a bit, looking for and finding particular landmarks and checking to make sure the earth hasn’t been dug up. Satisfied, he continues on his way.
pg. 395: As he made his way through the copse toward Montfermeil, he had seen that little shadow struggling along with a sob, setting her burden on the ground, then taking it up and going on again. He had approached her and seen that it was a very young child carrying an enormous bucket of water. Then he had gone to the child and silently taken hold of the bucket’s handle.
For the love of God, not!Valjean, would it kill you to say “hello”?
Chapter VII: Cosette Side by Side with the Unknown Man in the Dark sounds like it can’t possibly end well.
Hugo goes out of his way to point out that, however the audience may feel about the situation, Cosette feels totally unafraid in the presence of this man.
pg. 395: The man spoke to her. His voice was serious, and almost a whisper.
“My child, that’s very heavy for you, what you’re carrying there.”
Creeper no creeping! Creeper no creeping! Creeper no creeping!
Anyway, the creeper man offers to carry the bucket for her. Cosette hands it over. The man asks her how old she is, how far she has to go, etc. The answers (eight, like a billion miles) are not to his liking.
pg. 396: For a moment the man did not speak, then he said abruptly, “Don’t you have a mother?”
“I don’t know,” answered the child.
Before the man had time to say a word, she added, “I don’t think I do. Everyone else does. But I don’t have one.”
And after a pause, she added, “I don’t think I ever had one.”
The man stops walking, crouches down, grabs her shoulders, and stares deeply into her face. Somehow, this fails to set off any alarm bells. He asks her name, where she lives, and who the hell sent a small, defenseless child out here at this time of night. The answer to that last question is, naturally, Madame Thénardier.
The man, much like the audience, is barely able to contain his rage at Madame Thénardier’s irresponsibility, but he shows this by having his voice waver rather than by putting his fist through a tree.
Upon hearing that Madame Thénardier is the tavernkeeper’s wife, the man announces his intention to go to the tavern tonight and resumes following Cosette. As they walk, he asks yet more questions about her life. She tells him about her wicked stepsisters (my words, not hers), and how they get to play all day while she has to work. She does get to play sometimes, when she’s done working, but she doesn’t have as many toys as they do.
pg. 397: “[…] I only have a little lead sword no longer than that.”
The child showed her little finger.
“And it doesn’t cut?”
“Yes, monsieur,” said the child, “it cuts lettuce and flies’ heads.”
Tragic tiny badass! D:
At last, they reach the tavern, but Cosette has a request to make before they go in.
pg. 398: As they drew near the tavern, Cosette timidly touched his arm: “Monsieur?”
“What, my child?”
“Here we are near the house.”
“Well?”
“Will you let me take the bucket now?”
“Why?”
“Because, if madame sees that someone carried it for me, she will beat me.”
The man gave her the bucket.
Classic Rants 