Page 313 - les-miserables

who have grown old in privation and honesty, can get out of
a sou. It ends by being a talent. Fantine acquired this sub-
lime talent, and regained a little courage.
At this epoch she said to a neighbor, ‘Bah! I say to myself,
by only sleeping five hours, and working all the rest of the
time at my sewing, I shall always manage to nearly earn my
bread. And, then, when one is sad, one eats less. Well, suf-
ferings, uneasiness, a little bread on one hand, trouble on
the other,—all this will support me.’
It would have been a great happiness to have her little girl
with her in this distress. She thought of having her come.
But what then! Make her share her own destitution! And
then, she was in debt to the Thenardiers! How could she pay
them? And the journey! How pay for that?
The old woman who had given her lessons in what may
be called the life of indigence, was a sainted spinster named
Marguerite, who was pious with a true piety, poor and char-
itable towards the poor, and even towards the rich, knowing
how to write just sufficiently to sign herself Marguerite, and
believing in God, which is science.
There are many such virtuous people in this lower world;
some day they will be in the world above. This life has a
morrow.
At first, Fantine had been so ashamed that she had not
dared to go out.
When she was in the street, she divined that people
turned round behind her, and pointed at her; every one
stared at her and no one greeted her; the cold and bitter
scorn of the passers-by penetrated her very flesh and soul

313