"Here!" said she, "this is for that old fellow who goes to mass. By the way, this is his hour.
I'll go and carry it to him. Perhaps he will give us something to breakfast on."
Then she began to laugh again, and added:--
"Do you know what it will mean if we get a breakfast today? It will mean that we shall have had our breakfast of the day before yesterday, our breakfast of yesterday, our dinner of to-day, and all that at once, and this morning.
Come!
Parbleu! if you are not satisfied, dogs, burst!"
This reminded Marius of the wretched girl's errand to himself. He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and found nothing there.
The young girl went on, and seemed to have no consciousness of Marius' presence.
"I often go off in the evening.
Sometimes I don't come home again. winter, before we came here, we lived under the arches of the bridges.
We huddled together to keep from freezing. My little sister cried.
How melancholy the water is!
When I thought of drowning myself, I said to myself:
`No, it's too cold.' I go out alone, whenever I choose, I sometimes sleep in the ditches. Do you know, at night, when I walk along the boulevard, I see the trees like forks, I see houses, all black and as big as Notre Dame, I fancy that the white walls are the river, I say to myself:
`Why, there's water there!'
The stars are like the lamps in illuminations, one would say that they smoked and that the wind blew them out, I am bewildered, as though horses were breathing in my ears; although it is night, I hear hand-organs and spinning-machines, and I don't know what all.
I think people are flinging stones at me, I flee without knowing whither, everything whirls and whirls. You feel very queer when you have had no food."
And then she stared at him with a bewildered air.
By dint of searching and ransacking his pockets, Marius had finally collected five francs sixteen sous.
This was all he owned in the world for the moment.
"At all events," he thought, "there is my dinner for to-day, and to-morrow we will see."
He kept the sixteen sous, and handed the five francs to the young girl.
She seized the coin.
"Good!" said she, "the sun is shining!"
And, as though the sun had possessed the property of melting the avalanches of slang in her brain, she went on:--
"Five francs! the shiner! a monarch! in this hole!
Ain't this fine! You're a jolly thief!
I'm your humble servant!
Bravo for the good fellows!
Two days' wine! and meat! and stew! we'll have a royal feast! and a good fill!"
She pulled her chemise up on her shoulders, made a low bow to Marius, then a familiar sign with her hand, and went towards the door, saying:--
"Good morning, sir.
It's all right.
I'll go and find my old man."
As she passed, she caught sight of a dry crust of bread on the commode, which was moulding there amid the dust; she flung herself upon it and bit into it, muttering:--
"That's good! it's hard! it breaks my teeth!"
Then she departed.