"Bah!" the mother would reply, "he bothers me." And the neglected child continued to shriek in the dark.
BOOK THIRD.--ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROMISE MADE TO THE DEAD WOMAN
CHAPTER II
TWO COMPLETE PORTRAITS
So far in this book the Thenardiers have been viewed only in profile; the moment has arrived for making the circuit of this couple, and considering it under all its aspects.
Thenardier had just passed his fiftieth birthday; Madame Thenardier was approaching her forties, which is equivalent to fifty in a woman; so that there existed a balance of age between husband and wife.
Our readers have possibly preserved some recollection of this Thenardier woman, ever since her first appearance,--tall, blond, red, fat, angular, square, enormous, and agile; she belonged, as we have said, to the race of those colossal wild women, who contort themselves at fairs with paving-stones hanging from their hair. She did everything about the house,--made the beds, did the washing, the cooking, and everything else.
Cosette was her only servant; a mouse in the service of an elephant.
Everything trembled at the sound of her voice,--window panes, furniture, and people. Her big face, dotted with red blotches, presented the appearance of a skimmer.
She had a beard.
She was an ideal market-porter dressed in woman's clothes.
She swore splendidly; she boasted of being able to crack a nut with one blow of her fist.
Except for the romances which she had read, and which made the affected lady peep through the ogress at times, in a very queer way, the idea would never have occurred to any one to say of her, "That is a woman." This Thenardier female was like the product of a wench engrafted on a fishwife.
When one heard her speak, one said, "That is a gendarme"; when one saw her drink, one said, "That is a carter"; when one saw her handle Cosette, one said, "That is the hangman." One of her teeth projected when her face was in repose.
Thenardier was a small, thin, pale, angular, bony, feeble man, who had a sickly air and who was wonderfully healthy.
His cunning began here; he smiled habitually, by way of precaution, and was almost polite to everybody, even to the beggar to whom he refused half a farthing. He had the glance of a pole-cat and the bearing of a man of letters. He greatly resembled the portraits of the Abbe Delille. His coquetry consisted in drinking with the carters.
No one had ever succeeded in rendering him drunk.
He smoked a big pipe. He wore a blouse, and under his blouse an old black coat.