{"chapter_no":"32","chapter_title":"The Little One All Alone","book_id":"3","book_name":"Springville","subchapter_no":"0","page_no":"533","page_number":"1","verses_count":0,"total_pages":5,"page_content":"

 <\/p>

Chapter 32<\/p>

The Little One All Alone<\/h1><\/p>

 <\/p>

The story of the young Cosette from <\/i>Les Miserables continued—The <\/i>long and traumatic journey at night<\/i> <\/i>
through the forest to <\/i>obtain<\/i> water.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

 <\/p>

 <\/p>

As the Thenardier hostelry was in that part of the village which is <\/i>the Church<\/i>, it was to
the spring in the forest in the direction of Chelles that Cosette was obliged to go for her water.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

She did not glance at the display of a single other merchant. So long as she was in
Boulanger Lane and in the neighborhood of <\/i>the Church<\/i>, the lighted stalls illuminated the road;
but soon the last light from the last stall vanished. The poor child found herself in the dark. She
plunged into it. Only, as a certain emotion overcame her, she made as much motion as possible
with the handle of the bucket as she walked along. This made a noise which afforded her
company.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

The further she went, the denser the darkness became. There was no one in the streets.
However, she did encounter a woman, who turned around on seeing her, and stood still,
muttering between her teeth: \"Where can that child be going? Is it a werewolf child?\" Then the
woman recognized Cosette. \"Well,\" said she, \"it's the Lark!\"<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

In this manner Cosette traversed the labyrinth of tortuous and deserted streets which
terminate in the village of Montfermeil on the side of Chelles. So long as she had the houses or
even the walls only on both sides of her path, she proceeded with tolerable boldness. From time
to time she caught the flicker of a candle through the crack of a shutter--this was light and life;
there were people there, and it reassured her. But in proportion as she advanced, her pace
slackened mechanically, as it were. When she had passed the corner of the last house, Cosette
paused. It had been hard to advance further than the last stall; it became impossible to proceed
further than the last house. She set her bucket on the ground, thrust her hand into her hair, and
began slowly to scratch her head,--a gesture peculiar to children when terrified and undecided
what to do. It was no longer Montfermeil; it was the open fields. Black and desert space was
before her. She gazed in despair at that darkness, where there was no longer any one, where
there were beasts, where there were spectres, possibly. She took a good look, and heard the
beasts walking on the grass, and she distinctly saw spectres moving in the trees. Then she seized
her bucket again; fear had lent her audacity. \"Bah!\" said she; \"I will tell him that there was no
more water!\" And she resolutely re-entered Montfermeil.<\/i><\/p>

Hardly had she gone a hundred paces when she paused and began to scratch her head
again. Now it was the Thenardier who appeared to her, with her hideous, hyena mouth, and
wrath flashing in her eyes. The child cast a melancholy glance before her and behind her. What
was she to do? What was to become of her? Where was she to go? In front of her was the spectre
of the Thenardier; behind her all the phantoms of the night and of the forest. It was before the
Thenardier that she recoiled. She resumed her path to the spring, and began to run. She emerged
from the village, she entered the forest at a run, no longer looking at or listening to anything.
She only paused in her course when her breath failed her; but she did not halt in her advance.
She went straight before her in desperation.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

As she ran she felt like crying. <\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

The nocturnal quivering of the forest surrounded her completely.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

She no longer thought, she no longer saw. The immensity of night was facing this tiny
creature. On the one hand, all shadow; on the other, an atom.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

It was only seven or eight minutes' walk from the edge of the woods to the spring. Cosette
knew the way, through having gone over it many times in daylight. Strange to say, she did not get
lost. A remnant of instinct guided her vaguely. But she did not turn<\/i> <\/i>her eyes either to right or to
left, for fear of seeing things in the branches and in the brushwood. In this manner she reached
the spring.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

It was a narrow, natural basin, hollowed out by the water in a clayey soil, about two feet
deep, surrounded with moss and with those tall, crimped grasses which are called Henry IV.'s
frills, and paved with several large stones. A brook ran out of it,<\/i> <\/i>with a tranquil little noise.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

Cosette did not take time to breathe. It was very dark, but she was in the habit of coming
to this spring. She felt with her left hand in the dark for a young oak which leaned over the
spring, and which usually served to support her, found one of its branches, clung to it, bent
down, and plunged the bucket in the water. She was in a state of such violent excitement that her
strength was trebled. While thus bent over, she did not notice that the pocket of her apron had
emptied itself into the spring. The fifteen-soupiece fell into the water. Cosette neither saw nor
heard it fall. She drew out the bucket nearly full, and set it on the grass.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

That done, she perceived that she was worn out with fatigue. She would have liked to set
out again at once, but the effort required to fill the bucket had been such that she found it
impossible to take a step. She was forced to sit down. She dropped on the grass, and remained
crouching there.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

She shut her eyes; then she opened them again, without knowing why, but because she
could not do otherwise. The agitated water in the bucket beside her was describing circles which
resembled tin serpents.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

Overhead the sky was covered with vast black clouds, which were like masses of smoke.
The tragic mask of shadow seemed to bend vaguely over the child.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

Jupiter was setting in the depths.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

The child stared with bewildered eyes at this great star, with which she was unfamiliar,
and which terrified her. The planet was, in fact, very near the horizon and was traversing a
dense layer of mist which imparted to it a horrible ruddy hue. The mist,<\/i> <\/i>gloomily empurpled,
magnified the star. One would have called it a luminous wound.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

A cold wind was blowing from the plain. The forest was dark, not a leaf was moving;
there were none of the vague, fresh gleams of summertide. Great boughs uplifted themselves in
frightful wise. Slender and misshapen bushes whistled in the clearings. The tall grasses
undulated like eels under the north wind. The nettles seemed to twist long arms furnished with
claws in search of prey. Some bits of dry heather, tossed by the breeze, flew rapidly by, and had
the air of fleeing in terror before something which was coming after. On all sides there were
lugubrious stretches.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

The darkness was bewildering. Man requires light. Whoever buries himself in the
opposite of day feels his heart contract. When the eye sees black, the heart sees trouble. In an
eclipse in the night, in the sooty opacity, there is anxiety even for the stoutest of hearts. No one
walks alone in the forest at night without trembling. Shadows and trees--two formidable
densities. A chimerical reality appears in the indistinct depths. The inconceivable is outlined a
few paces distant from you with a spectral clearness. One beholds floating, either in space or in
one's own brain, one knows not what vague and intangible thing, like the dreams of sleeping
flowers. There are fierce attitudes on the horizon. One inhales the effluvia of the great black
void. One is afraid to glance behind him, yet desirous of doing so. The cavities of night, things
grown haggard, taciturn profiles which vanish when one advances, obscure dishevelments,
irritated tufts, livid pools, the lugubrious reflected in the funereal, the sepulchral immensity of <\/i>
silence, unknown<\/i> but possible beings, bendings of mysterious branches, alarming torsos of trees,
long handfuls of quivering plants,--against all this one has no protection. There is no hardihood
which does not shudder and which does not feel the vicinity of anguish. One is conscious of
something hideous, as though one's soul were becoming amalgamated with the darkness. This
penetration of the shadows is indescribably sinister in the case of a child.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

Forests are apocalypses, and the beating of the wings of a tiny soul produces a sound of
agony beneath their monstrous vault. <\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

Without understanding her sensations, Cosette was conscious that she was seized upon
by that black enormity of nature; it was no longer terror alone which was gaining possession of
her; it was something more terrible even than terror; she shivered. There are no words to
express the strangeness of that shiver which chilled her to the very bottom of her heart; her eye
grew wild; she thought she felt that she should not be able to refrain from returning there at the
same hour on the morrow.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

Then, by a sort of instinct, she began to count aloud, one, two, three, four, and so on up
to ten, in order to escape from that singular state which she did not understand, but which
terrified her, and, when she had finished, she began again; this restored her to a true perception <\/i><\/p>

of the things about her. Her hands, which she had wet in drawing the water, felt cold; she rose;
her terror, a natural and unconquerable terror, had returned: she had but one thought now,--to
flee at full speed through the forest, across the fields to the houses, to the windows, to the lighted
candles. Her glance fell upon the water which stood before her; such was the fright which the
Thenardier inspired in her, that she dared not flee without that bucket of water: she seized the
handle with both hands; she could hardly lift the pail.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

In this manner she advanced a dozen paces, but the bucket was full; it was heavy; she
was forced to set it on the ground once more. She took breath for an instant, then lifted the
handle of the bucket again, and resumed her march, proceeding a little further this time, but
again she was obliged to pause. After some seconds of repose she set out again. She walked bent
forward, with drooping head, like an old woman; the weight of the bucket strained and stiffened
her thin arms. The iron handle completed the benumbing and freezing of her wet and tiny hands;
she was forced to halt from time to time, and each time that she did so, the cold water which
splashed from the pail fell on her bare legs. This took place in the depths of a forest, at night, in
winter, far from all human <\/i>sight; she<\/i> was a child of eight: no one but God saw that sad thing at
the moment.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

And her mother, no doubt, alas!<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

For there are things that make the dead open their eyes in their graves.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

She panted with a sort of painful rattle; sobs contracted her throat, but she dared not
weep, so afraid was she of the Thenardier, even at a distance: it was her custom to imagine the
Thenardier always present.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

However, she could not make much headway in that manner, and she went<\/i> <\/i>on very
slowly. In spite of diminishing the length of her stops, and of walking as long as possible between
them, she reflected with anguish that it would take her more than an hour to return to<\/i> <\/i>
Montfermeil in this manner, and that the Thenardier would beat her. This anguish was mingled
with her terror at being alone in the woods at night; she was worn out with fatigue, and had not
yet emerged from the forest. On arriving near an old chestnut-tree with which she was
acquainted, made a last halt, longer than the rest, in order that she might get well rested; then
she summoned up all her strength, picked up her bucket again, and courageously resumed her
march, but the poor little desperate creature could not refrain from crying, \"O my God! my
God!\"<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

At that moment she suddenly became conscious that her bucket no longer weighed
anything at all: a hand, which seemed to her enormous, had just seized the handle, and lifted it
vigorously. She raised her head. A large black form, straight and erect, was walking beside her
through the darkness; it was a man who had come up behind her, and whose approach she had
not heard. This man, without uttering a word, had seized the handle of the bucket which she was
carrying. <\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

There are instincts for all the encounters of life.<\/i><\/p>

The child was not afraid.<\/i><\/p>"}