Excess of toil wore out Fantine, and the little dry cough which troubled her increased.
She sometimes said to her neighbor, Marguerite, "Just feel how hot my hands are!"
Nevertheless, when she combed her beautiful hair in the morning with an old broken comb, and it flowed about her like floss silk, she experienced a moment of happy coquetry.
BOOK FIFTH.--THE DESCENT
CHAPTER X
RESULT OF THE SUCCESS
She had been dismissed towards the end of the winter; the summer passed, but winter came again.
Short days, less work.
Winter:
no warmth, no light, no noonday, the evening joining on to the morning, fogs, twilight; the window is gray; it is impossible to see clearly at it.
The sky is but a vent-hole. The whole day is a cavern.
The sun has the air of a beggar.
A frightful season! Winter changes the water of heaven and the heart of man into a stone. Her creditors harrassed her.
Fantine earned too little.
Her debts had increased.
The Thenardiers, who were not promptly paid, wrote to her constantly letters whose contents drove her to despair, and whose carriage ruined her. One day they wrote to her that her little Cosette was entirely naked in that cold weather, that she needed a woollen skirt, and that her mother must send at least ten francs for this. She received the letter, and crushed it in her hands all day long. That evening she went into a barber's shop at the corner of the street, and pulled out her comb.
Her admirable golden hair fell to her knees.
"What splendid hair!" exclaimed the barber.