664 Les Miserables
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 Thenardier 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 ut-
tering 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.