Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 211
stolier adored Dahlia, who had taken for her nickname the
name of a flower; Fameuil idolized Zephine, an abridgment
of Josephine; Tholomyes had Fantine, called the Blonde, be-
cause of her beautiful, sunny hair.
Favourite, Dahlia, Zephine, and Fantine were four rav-
ishing young women, perfumed and radiant, still a little
like working-women, and not yet entirely divorced from
their needles; somewhat disturbed by intrigues, but still re-
taining on their faces something of the serenity of toil, and
in their souls that flower of honesty which survives the first
fall in woman. One of the four was called the young, be-
cause she was the youngest of them, and one was called the
old; the old one was twenty-three. Not to conceal anything,
the three first were more experienced, more heedless, and
more emancipated into the tumult of life than Fantine the
Blonde, who was still in her first illusions.
Dahlia, Zephine, and especially Favourite, could not have
said as much. There had already been more than one epi-
sode in their romance, though hardly begun; and the lover
who had borne the name of Adolph in the first chapter had
turned out to be Alphonse in the second, and Gustave in the
third. Poverty and coquetry are two fatal counsellors; one
scolds and the other flatters, and the beautiful daughters of
the people have both of them whispering in their ear, each
on its own side. These badly guarded souls listen. Hence
the falls which they accomplish, and the stones which are
thrown at them. They are overwhelmed with splendor of all
that is immaculate and inaccessible. Alas! what if the Jung-
frau were hungry?