Page 314 - les-miserables

like a north wind.
It seems as though an unfortunate woman were utterly
bare beneath the sarcasm and the curiosity of all in small
towns. In Paris, at least, no one knows you, and this obscu-
rity is a garment. Oh! how she would have liked to betake
herself to Paris! Impossible!
She was obliged to accustom herself to disrepute, as she
had accustomed herself to indigence. Gradually she decided
on her course. At the expiration of two or three months she
shook off her shame, and began to go about as though there
were nothing the matter. ‘It is all the same to me,’ she said.
She went and came, bearing her head well up, with a
bitter smile, and was conscious that she was becoming bra-
zen-faced.
Madame Victurnien sometimes saw her passing, from
her window, noticed the distress of ‘that creature’ who,
‘thanks to her,’ had been ‘put back in her proper place,’ and
congratulated herself. The happiness of the evil-minded is
black.
Excess of toil wore out Fantine, and the little dry cough
which troubled her increased. She sometimes said to her
neighbor, Marguerite, ‘Just feel how hot my hands are!’
Nevertheless, when she combed her beautiful hair in the
morning with an old broken comb, and it flowed about her
like floss silk, she experienced a moment of happy coquet-
ry.

314 Les Miserables