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MADAME VICTURNIEN EXPENDS THIRTY FRANCS ON MORALITY
When Fantine saw that she was making her living, she felt
joyful for a moment.
To live honestly by her own labor, what mercy from heaven!
The taste for work had really returned to her. She bought
a looking-glass, took pleasure in surveying in it her youth, her
beautiful hair, her fine teeth; she forgot many things; she thought
only of Cosette and of the possible future, and was almost happy.
She hired a little room and furnished on credit on the strength
of her future work--a lingering trace of her improvident ways.
As she was not able to say that she was married she took good
care, as we have seen, not to mention her little girl.
At first, as the reader has seen, she paid the Thenardiers
promptly. As she only knew how to sign her name, she was obliged
to write through a public letter-writer.
She wrote often, and this was noticed.
It began to be said in an undertone, in the women's workroom,
that Fantine "wrote letters" and that "she had
ways about her."
There is no one for spying on people's actions like those
who are not concerned in them.
Why does that gentleman never come except at nightfall?
Why does Mr. So-and-So never hang his key on its nail on Tuesday?
Why does he always take the narrow streets? Why does Madame
always descend from her hackney-coach before reaching her house?
Why does she send out to purchase six sheets of note paper,
when she has a "whole stationer's shop full of it?"
etc.
There exist beings who, for the sake of obtaining the key
to these enigmas, which are, moreover, of no consequence whatever
to them, spend more money, waste more time, take more trouble,
than would be required for ten good actions, and that gratuitously,
for their own pleasure, without receiving any other payment for
their curiosity than curiosity.
They will follow up such and such a man or woman for whole
days; they will do sentry duty for hours at a time on the corners
of the streets, under alley-way doors at night, in cold and rain;
they will bribe errand-porters, they will make the drivers of
hackney-coaches and lackeys tipsy, buy a waiting-maid, suborn
a porter.
Why?
For no reason. A pure passion for seeing, knowing, and penetrating
into things. A pure itch for talking.
And often these secrets once known, these mysteries made public,
these enigmas illuminated by the light of day, bring on catastrophies,
duels, failures, the ruin of families, and broken lives, to the
great joy of those who have "found out everything,"
without any interest in the matter, and by pure instinct.
A sad thing.
Certain persons are malicious solely through a necessity for
talking. Their conversation, the chat of the drawing-room, gossip
of the anteroom, is like those chimneys which consume wood rapidly;
they need a great amount of combustibles; and their combustibles
are furnished by their neighbors.
So Fantine was watched.
In addition, many a one was jealous of her golden hair and
of her white teeth.
It was remarked that in the workroom she often turned aside,
in the midst of the rest, to wipe away a tear.
These were the moments when she was thinking of her child;
perhaps, also, of the man whom she had loved.
Breaking the gloomy bonds of the past is a mournful task.
It was observed that she wrote twice a month at least, and
that she paid the carriage on the letter.
They managed to obtain the address: Monsieur, Monsieur Thenardier,
inn-keeper at Montfermeil. The public writer, a good old man who
could not fill his stomach with red wine without emptying his
pocket of secrets, was made to talk in the wine-shop. In short,
it was discovered that Fantine had a child. "She must be
a pretty sort of a woman."
An old gossip was found, who made the trip to Montfermeil,
talked to the Thenardiers, and said on her return:
"For my five and thirty francs I have freed my mind.
I have seen the child."
The gossip who did this thing was a gorgon named Madame Victurnien,
the guardian and door-keeper of every one's virtue. Madame Victurnien
was fifty-six, and re-enforced the mask of ugliness with the mask
of age.
A quavering voice, a whimsical mind. This old dame had once
been young--astonishing fact!
In her youth, in '93, she had married a monk who had fled
from his cloister in a red cap, and passed from the Bernardines
to the Jacobins. She was dry, rough, peevish, sharp, captious,
almost venomous; all this in memory of her monk, whose widow she
was, and who had ruled over her masterfully and bent her to his
will. She was a nettle in which the rustle of the cassock was
visible. At the Restoration she had turned bigot, and that with
so much energy that the priests had forgiven her her monk.
She had a small property, which she bequeathed with much ostentation
to a religious community. She was in high favor at the episcopal
palace of Arras.
So this Madame Victurnien went to Montfermeil, and returned
with the remark, "I have seen the child."
All this took time.
Fantine had been at the factory for more than a year, when,
one morning, the superintendent of the workroom handed her fifty
francs from the mayor, told her that she was no longer employed
in the shop, and requested her, in the mayor's name, to leave
the neighborhood.
This was the very month when the Thenardiers, after having
demanded twelve francs instead of six, had just exacted fifteen
francs instead of twelve.
Fantine was overwhelmed.
She could not leave the neighborhood; she was in debt for
her rent and furniture.
Fifty francs was not sufficient to cancel this debt.
She stammered a few supplicating words. The superintendent
ordered her to leave the shop on the instant. Besides, Fantine
was only a moderately good workwoman. Overcome with shame, even
more than with despair, she quitted the shop, and returned to
her room.
So her fault was now known to every one.
She no longer felt strong enough to say a word.
She was advised to see the mayor; she did not dare.
The mayor had given her fifty francs because he was good,
and had dismissed her because he was just. She bowed before the
decision.
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