Page 2397 - les-miserables

water?’
‘That is called thirst, and, when one does not eat at the
same time, it is called fever.’
‘I will eat to-morrow.’
‘Or at Trinity day. Why not to-day? Is it the thing to say:
‘I will eat to-morrow’? The idea of leaving my platter with-
out even touching it! My ladyfinger potatoes were so good!’
Jean Valjean took the old woman’s hand:
‘I promise you that I will eat them,’ he said, in his be-
nevolent voice.
‘I am not pleased with you,’ replied the portress.
Jean Valjean saw no other human creature than this
good woman. There are streets in Paris through which no
one ever passes, and houses to which no one ever comes. He
was in one of those streets and one of those houses.
While he still went out, he had purchased of a copper-
smith, for a few sous, a little copper crucifix which he had
hung up on a nail opposite his bed. That gibbet is always
good to look at.
A week passed, and Jean Valjean had not taken a step in
his room. He still remained in bed. The portress said to her
husband:—‘The good man upstairs yonder does not get up,
he no longer eats, he will not last long. That man has his sor-
rows, that he has. You won’t get it out of my head that his
daughter has made a bad marriage.’
The porter replied, with the tone of marital sovereignty:
‘If he’s rich, let him have a doctor. If he is not rich, let him
go without. If he has no doctor he will die.’
‘And if he has one?’

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