Page 692 - les-miserables

The two little girls paused in stupefaction; Cosette had
dared to take their doll!
Eponine rose, and, without releasing the cat, she ran to
her mother, and began to tug at her skirt.
‘Let me alone!’ said her mother; ‘what do you want?’
‘Mother,’ said the child, ‘look there!’
And she pointed to Cosette.
Cosette, absorbed in the ecstasies of possession, no lon-
ger saw or heard anything.
Madame Thenardier’s countenance assumed that pecu-
liar expression which is composed of the terrible mingled
with the trifles of life, and which has caused this style of
woman to be named megaeras.
On this occasion, wounded pride exasperated her wrath
still further. Cosette had overstepped all bounds; Cosette
had laid violent hands on the doll belonging to ‘these young
ladies.’ A czarina who should see a muzhik trying on her
imperial son’s blue ribbon would wear no other face.
She shrieked in a voice rendered hoarse with
indignation:—
‘Cosette!’
Cosette started as though the earth had trembled be-
neath her; she turned round.
‘Cosette!’ repeated the Thenardier.
Cosette took the doll and laid it gently on the floor with
a sort of veneration, mingled with despair; then, without
taking her eyes from it, she clasped her hands, and, what
is terrible to relate of a child of that age, she wrung them;
then—not one of the emotions of the day, neither the trip

692 Les Miserables