690 Les Miserables
‘Then this child is not yours?’ demanded the man.
‘Oh! mon Dieu! no, sir! she is a little beggar whom we
have taken in through charity; a sort of imbecile child. She
must have water on the brain; she has a large head, as you
see. We do what we can for her, for we are not rich; we have
written in vain to her native place, and have received no re-
ply these six months. It must be that her mother is dead.’
‘Ah!’ said the man, and fell into his revery once more.
‘Her mother didn’t amount to much,’ added the Thenar-
dier; ‘she abandoned her child.’
During the whole of this conversation Cosette, as though
warned by some instinct that she was under discussion, had
not taken her eyes from the Thenardier’s face; she listened
vaguely; she caught a few words here and there.
Meanwhile, the drinkers, all three-quarters intoxicated,
were repeating their unclean refrain with redoubled gayety;
it was a highly spiced and wanton song, in which the Virgin
and the infant Jesus were introduced. The Thenardier went
off to take part in the shouts of laughter. Cosette, from her
post under the table, gazed at the fire, which was reflected
from her fixed eyes. She had begun to rock the sort of baby
which she had made, and, as she rocked it, she sang in a low
voice, ‘My mother is dead! my mother is dead! my mother
is dead!’
On being urged afresh by the hostess, the yellow man,
‘the millionaire,’ consented at last to take supper.
‘What does Monsieur wish?’
‘Bread and cheese,’ said the man.
‘Decidedly, he is a beggar’ thought Madame Thenardier.