1714 Les Miserables
‘As you like, but you shall not enter here. I’m not the
daughter of a dog, since I’m the daughter of a wolf. There are
six of you, what matters that to me? You are men. Well, I’m
a woman. You don’t frighten me. I tell you that you shan’t
enter this house, because it doesn’t suit me. If you approach,
I’ll bark. I told you, I’m the dog, and I don’t care a straw for
you. Go your way, you bore me! Go where you please, but
don’t come here, I forbid it! You can use your knives. I’ll use
kicks; it’s all the same to me, come on!’
She advanced a pace nearer the ruffians, she was terrible,
she burst out laughing:—
‘Pardine! I’m not afraid. I shall be hungry this summer,
and I shall be cold this winter. Aren’t they ridiculous, these
ninnies of men, to think they can scare a girl! What! Scare?
Oh, yes, much! Because you have finical poppets of mis-
tresses who hide under the bed when you put on a big voice,
forsooth! I ain’t afraid of anything, that I ain’t!’
She fastened her intent gaze upon Thenardier and
said:—
‘Not even of you, father!’
Then she continued, as she cast her blood-shot,
spectre-like eyes upon the ruffians in turn:—
‘What do I care if I’m picked up to-morrow morning on
the pavement of the Rue Plumet, killed by the blows of my
father’s club, or whether I’m found a year from now in the
nets at Saint-Cloud or the Isle of Swans in the midst of rot-
ten old corks and drowned dogs?’
She was forced to pause; she was seized by a dry cough,
her breath came from her weak and narrow chest like the