In the meantime, Fantine did not recover.
Fantine owed them one hundred and twenty francs.
Fantine took the sister's hand in her moist hands, and the latter was pained to feel that perspiration.
All at once she ceased speaking, and this caused him to raise his head mechanically,Fantine had become terrible.
Fantine had the long, white, fine fingers of the vesal virgin who stirs the ashes of the sacred fire with a golden pin.
Fantine laid her head on her pillow and said in a low voice: "Yes, lie down again; be good, for you are going to have your child; Sister Simplice is right; every one here is right."
Fantine laughed with the rest.
But in the midst of this pause Fantine exclaimed:--
Fantine heard the gossips say, as they looked at her child: "Who takes those children seriously!
Fantine mingled in the group, and began to laugh with the rest at the harangue, which contained slang for the populace and jargon for respectable people.
On the morrow, towards midday, Fantine awoke. She heard some one breathing close to her bed; she drew aside the curtain and saw M. Madeleine standing there and looking at something over her head.
She was called little Fantine.
said Marguerite, "what is the matter with you, Fantine?"
"Fantine, Dahlia, Zephine, and Favourite have been teasing us for nearly a year to give them a surprise.
Some months before this, at the moment when Fantine had just lost her last modesty, her last shame, and her last joy, she was the shadow of herself; now she was the spectre of herself.
Perhaps Fantine was within that shadow.
Fantine awaited M. Madeleine's appearance every day as one awaits a ray of warmth and joy.
Fameuil and Dahlia were humming,Tholomyes was drinking,Zephine was laughing, Fantine smiling, Listolier blowing a wooden trumpet which he had purchased at Saint-Cloud.
Fantine fell back on her pillow.
Fantine was one of those beings who blossom, so to speak, from the dregs of the people.
"This Fantine is surprising.
There was no one in the house but the two nuns, Sister Perpetue and Sister Simplice, who were watching beside the body of Fantine.
Then she looked at Fantine, who turned toward her her head bereft of its hair.
Fantine had grown ten years older since the preceding night.
Fantine had not seen Javert since the day on which the mayor had torn her from the man.
Fantine had remained alone.
A little before six o 'clock in the morning he had arrived at M. Sur m., and his first care had been to post a letter to M. Laffitte, then to enter the infirmary and see Fantine.
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