She resumed dryly:--
"Enter, my good man."
The "good man" entered.
The Thenardier cast a second glance at him, paid particular attention to his frock-coat, which was absolutely threadbare, and to his hat, which was a little battered, and, tossing her head, wrinkling her nose, and screwing up her eyes, she consulted her husband, who was still drinking with the carters. The husband replied by that imperceptible movement of the forefinger, which, backed up by an inflation of the lips, signifies in such cases: A regular beggar.
Thereupon, the Thenardier exclaimed:--
"Ah! see here, my good man; I am very sorry, but I have no room left."
"Put me where you like," said the man; "in the attic, in the stable. I will pay as though I occupied a room."
"Forty sous."
"Forty sous; agreed."
"Very well, then!"
"Forty sous!" said a carter, in a low tone, to the Thenardier woman; "why, the charge is only twenty sous!"
"It is forty in his case," retorted the Thenardier, in the same tone. "I don't lodge poor folks for less."
"That's true," added her husband, gently; "it ruins a house to have such people in it."
In the meantime, the man, laying his bundle and his cudgel on a bench, had seated himself at a table, on which Cosette made haste to place a bottle of wine and a glass.
The merchant who had demanded the bucket of water took it to his horse himself. Cosette resumed her place under the kitchen table, and her knitting.
The man, who had barely moistened his lips in the wine which he had poured out for himself, observed the child with peculiar attention.
Cosette was ugly.
If she had been happy, she might have been pretty. We have already given a sketch of that sombre little figure. Cosette was thin and pale; she was nearly eight years old, but she seemed to be hardly six.
Her large eyes, sunken in a sort of shadow, were almost put out with weeping.
The corners of her mouth had that curve of habitual anguish which is seen in condemned persons and desperately sick people.