第三十九章 第三章 云雀
仅靠作恶并不能确保万事亨通。那家小饭馆的生意陷入了困境。
多亏那位旅客的五十七法郎，德纳第才能避免票据拒付，保住了信用。可到了下个月，他们又缺钱花了。德纳第大娘把珂赛特的衣物带到巴黎，当铺里当了六十法郎。那笔钱一花光，德纳第夫妇便习惯地把这小姑娘仅仅看作一个他们出于慈善而收养的孩子；他们也就这样对待她了。既然她已没有衣服，他们就把自己孩子的旧裙子和破衬衫给她穿；也就是说，让她穿得破烂不堪。他们给她吃大家吃剩的东西——比狗强一点，比猫差一点。而且，猫和狗还是她日常的餐桌伙伴；珂赛特和它们一起在桌子底下吃饭，用的是一只和它们类似的木碗。
那位母亲，正如我们以后会看到的，在滨海蒙特勒伊安顿了下来，她每月写一封信，或者更确切地说，让人代笔写信，来打听她孩子的消息。德纳第夫妇总是回信说："珂赛特好极了。"
头半年刚过，母亲寄来了第七个月的七法郎，并且相当准时地月月续寄。一年还没到头，德纳第就说了："她倒真是给我们行了好啦！她这七法郎指望我们干什么呀？"于是，他写信要求增加到十二法郎。那位母亲，被他们欺骗说她的孩子很幸福，"而且长得挺好"，便顺从了，寄去了十二法郎。
有些天性，在一边爱的时候必然在另一边恨。德纳第大娘狂热地爱她的两个女儿，这便使她恨那个外来的孩子。
想到母爱竟会带有恶毒的一面，真是可悲。尽管珂赛特占的地方很小，但在她看来，仿佛是占了她自己的孩子的，是那个小家伙夺去了她女儿们呼吸的空气。这个女人，就像许多她这种类型的女人一样，每天都有满满一怀抱的爱抚和满满一背的毒打和伤害要分发。要是没有珂赛特，她那些被宠得不得了的女儿，毫无疑问会挨上全部；但那个外人替她们挡了拳头，只挨着爱抚。珂赛特只要动一动，就会招来一阵暴雨般的毒打和不应得的惩罚。那温柔、虚弱的小生命，本来对这个尘世和上帝都该一无所知，却不停地被惩罚、责骂、虐待、殴打，而她身边却有两个和她一样的小东西，生活在晨曦的光芒中！
德纳第大娘对珂赛特很凶残。爱潘妮和瑟琳也凶残。那个年龄的孩子不过是母亲的翻版。只是个子小一些罢了。
一年过去了；接着又是一年。
村里的人说：
"德纳第夫妇真是好人。他们不富裕，却还在抚养一个丢给他们的可怜孩子！"
他们都以为珂赛特的母亲把她忘了。
与此同时，德纳第不知通过什么隐秘的途径得知，那孩子很可能是个私生女，母亲无法公开认她，便要挟每月十五法郎，说"那小东西"在长大，"要吃得多"，并威胁要把她赶走。"让她别烦我，"他嚷道，"不然我就把她的崽子连她那些秘密一起抖出来。我得加钱。"母亲付了十五法郎。
年复一年，孩子长大了，她的苦难也加深了。
珂赛特小的时候，是两个别的孩子的替罪羊；等她稍微长大一点，也就是说，还不到五岁的时候，她就成了家里的仆人。
五岁！读者会说，这不可能。唉！这是真的。社会性的苦难从任何年龄开始。我们不是最近刚看过一个名叫杜莫拉的案子吗？那是一个沦为强盗的孤儿，据官方文件记载，他从五岁起，便孤身一人活在世上，"靠自己干活谋生，也偷窃"。
珂赛特被差遣跑腿，打扫房间、院子、街道，洗碗，甚至还要搬运重物。德纳第夫妇感到更有理由这样对待她，因为那位仍在滨海蒙特勒伊的母亲，付款开始变得不规律了。有几个月她拖欠了。
如果这位母亲在三年后回到蒙费梅，她将认不出自己的孩子。珂赛特当初来到这所房子时是那么漂亮、红润，如今却瘦削苍白。她脸上有一种难以形容的不安神情。"这小滑头，"德纳第夫妇说。
不公正使她变得乖戾，苦难使她变得丑陋。她身上唯一剩下的就是那双美丽的眼睛，它们看过去令人心痛，因为它们那么大，仿佛里面装着的悲哀还要更大。
看到这个还不满六岁的可怜孩子，在冬天里穿着破旧的、满是窟窿的麻布烂衫，天不亮就在扫街，冻得发抖，她那双冻得通红的小手抓着一把巨大的扫帚，大眼睛里噙着泪水，真是令人心碎。
街坊邻居叫她"云雀"。老百姓喜欢这类形象的比喻，他们乐意把这个绰号赋予这个瑟瑟发抖、惊恐不安、缩成一团的小东西——她小得像鸟一样，每天早晨总是家里和村里第一个醒来的人，天不亮就总是在街上或田野里了。
只是这只小云雀从来不唱歌。
It is not all in all sufficient to be wicked in order to prosper. The
cook-shop was in a bad way.
Thanks to the traveller’s fifty-seven francs, Thénardier had been able
to avoid a protest and to honor his signature. On the following month
they were again in need of money. The woman took Cosette’s outfit to
Paris, and pawned it at the pawnbroker’s for sixty francs. As soon as
that sum was spent, the Thénardiers grew accustomed to look on the
little girl merely as a child whom they were caring for out of charity;
and they treated her accordingly. As she had no longer any clothes,
they dressed her in the cast-off petticoats and chemises of the
Thénardier brats; that is to say, in rags. They fed her on what all the
rest had left—a little better than the dog, a little worse than the
cat. Moreover, the cat and the dog were her habitual table-companions;
Cosette ate with them under the table, from a wooden bowl similar to
theirs.
The mother, who had established herself, as we shall see later on, at
M. sur M., wrote, or, more correctly, caused to be written, a letter
every month, that she might have news of her child. The Thénardiers
replied invariably, “Cosette is doing wonderfully well.”
At the expiration of the first six months the mother sent seven francs
for the seventh month, and continued her remittances with tolerable
regularity from month to month. The year was not completed when
Thénardier said: “A fine favor she is doing us, in sooth! What does she
expect us to do with her seven francs?” and he wrote to demand twelve
francs. The mother, whom they had persuaded into the belief that her
child was happy, “and was coming on well,” submitted, and forwarded the
twelve francs.
Certain natures cannot love on the one hand without hating on the
other. Mother Thénardier loved her two daughters passionately, which
caused her to hate the stranger.
It is sad to think that the love of a mother can possess villainous
aspects. Little as was the space occupied by Cosette, it seemed to her
as though it were taken from her own, and that that little child
diminished the air which her daughters breathed. This woman, like many
women of her sort, had a load of caresses and a burden of blows and
injuries to dispense each day. If she had not had Cosette, it is
certain that her daughters, idolized as they were, would have received
the whole of it; but the stranger did them the service to divert the
blows to herself. Her daughters received nothing but caresses. Cosette
could not make a motion which did not draw down upon her head a heavy
shower of violent blows and unmerited chastisement. The sweet, feeble
being, who should not have understood anything of this world or of God,
incessantly punished, scolded, ill-used, beaten, and seeing beside her
two little creatures like herself, who lived in a ray of dawn!
Madame Thénardier was vicious with Cosette. Éponine and Azelma were
vicious. Children at that age are only copies of their mother. The size
is smaller; that is all.
A year passed; then another.
People in the village said:—
“Those Thénardiers are good people. They are not rich, and yet they are
bringing up a poor child who was abandoned on their hands!”
They thought that Cosette’s mother had forgotten her.
In the meanwhile, Thénardier, having learned, it is impossible to say
by what obscure means, that the child was probably a bastard, and that
the mother could not acknowledge it, exacted fifteen francs a month,
saying that “the creature” was growing and “eating,” and threatening to
send her away. “Let her not bother me,” he exclaimed, “or I’ll fire her
brat right into the middle of her secrets. I must have an increase.”
The mother paid the fifteen francs.
From year to year the child grew, and so did her wretchedness.
As long as Cosette was little, she was the scape-goat of the two other
children; as soon as she began to develop a little, that is to say,
before she was even five years old, she became the servant of the
household.
Five years old! the reader will say; that is not probable. Alas! it is
true. Social suffering begins at all ages. Have we not recently seen
the trial of a man named Dumollard, an orphan turned bandit, who, from
the age of five, as the official documents state, being alone in the
world, “worked for his living and stole”?
Cosette was made to run on errands, to sweep the rooms, the courtyard,
the street, to wash the dishes, to even carry burdens. The Thénardiers
considered themselves all the more authorized to behave in this manner,
since the mother, who was still at M. sur M., had become irregular in
her payments. Some months she was in arrears.
If this mother had returned to Montfermeil at the end of these three
years, she would not have recognized her child. Cosette, so pretty and
rosy on her arrival in that house, was now thin and pale. She had an
indescribably uneasy look. “The sly creature,” said the Thénardiers.
Injustice had made her peevish, and misery had made her ugly. Nothing
remained to her except her beautiful eyes, which inspired pain,
because, large as they were, it seemed as though one beheld in them a
still larger amount of sadness.
It was a heart-breaking thing to see this poor child, not yet six years
old, shivering in the winter in her old rags of linen, full of holes,
sweeping the street before daylight, with an enormous broom in her tiny
red hands, and a tear in her great eyes.
She was called the _Lark_ in the neighborhood. The populace, who are
fond of these figures of speech, had taken a fancy to bestow this name
on this trembling, frightened, and shivering little creature, no bigger
than a bird, who was awake every morning before any one else in the
house or the village, and was always in the street or the fields before
daybreak.
Only the little lark never sang.
