Page 1354 - les-miserables

cause of all my misfortunes! For fifteen hundred francs you
got a girl whom I had, and who certainly belonged to rich
people, and who had already brought in a great deal of mon-
ey, and from whom I might have extracted enough to live
on all my life! A girl who would have made up to me for
everything that I lost in that vile cook-shop, where there
was nothing but one continual row, and where, like a fool, I
ate up my last farthing! Oh! I wish all the wine folks drank
in my house had been poison to those who drank it! Well,
never mind! Say, now! You must have thought me ridicu-
lous when you went off with the Lark! You had your cudgel
in the forest. You were the stronger. Revenge. I’m the one to
hold the trumps to-day! You’re in a sorry case, my good fel-
low! Oh, but I can laugh! Really, I laugh! Didn’t he fall into
the trap! I told him that I was an actor, that my name was
Fabantou, that I had played comedy with Mamselle Mars,
with Mamselle Muche, that my landlord insisted on be-
ing paid tomorrow, the 4th of February, and he didn’t even
notice that the 8th of January, and not the 4th of Febru-
ary is the time when the quarter runs out! Absurd idiot!
And the four miserable Philippes which he has brought me!
Scoundrel! He hadn’t the heart even to go as high as a hun-
dred francs! And how he swallowed my platitudes! That did
amuse me. I said to myself: ‘Blockhead! Come, I’ve got you!
I lick your paws this morning, but I’ll gnaw your heart this
evening!’’
Thenardier paused. He was out of breath. His little, nar-
row chest panted like a forge bellows. His eyes were full
of the ignoble happiness of a feeble, cruel, and cowardly

1354 Les Miserables