CHAPTER IV.

A DOLL COMES ON THE STAGE.

The file of open-air shops, it will be remembered, ran as far as Thénardier's inn. These stalls, owing to the approaching passage of persons going to midnight mass, were all lit up with candles in paper funnels, which, as the schoolmaster, who was seated at this moment in Thénardier's tap-room, declared, produced a "magical effect." To make up for this, not a star glittered in the sky. The last of these shops, exactly facing Thénardier's door, was a child's toy establishment, all flashing with tinsel, glass beads, and magnificent things in block-tin. Right in front the dealer had placed upon a white napkin an enormous doll, nearly two feet high, which was dressed in a pink crape gown, with golden wheat-ears in her hair,--which was real hair,--and had enamel eyes. The whole day had this marvel been displayed, to the amazement of all passers-by under ten years of age; but not a mother in Montfermeil had been rich enough or extravagant enough to give it to her child, Éponine and Azelma had spent hours in contemplating it, and even Cosette had ventured to take a furtive look at it.

At the moment when Cosette went out, bucket in hand, though she felt so sad and desolate, she could not refrain from raising her eyes to the prodigious doll, the "lady" as she called it. The poor child stopped petrified, for she had not seen this doll so close before. The whole stall seemed to her a palace, and this doll was not a doll, but a vision. Joy, splendor, wealth, and happiness appeared in a sort of chimerical radiance to the unhappy little creature who was deeply buried in mournful and cold wretchedness. Cosette measured with the simple and sad sagacity of childhood the abyss which separated her from this doll. She said to herself that a person must be a queen or a princess to have a "thing" like that. She looked at the fine dress, the long smooth hair, and thought, "How happy that doll must be!" She could not take her eyes off this fantastic shop, and the more she looked the more dazzled she became, and she fancied she saw Paradise. There were other dolls behind the large one, which appeared to her fairies and genii. The tradesman, who walked about at the back of the shop, seemed to her something more than mortal. In this adoration she forgot everything, even the task on which she was sent; but suddenly the rough voice of her mistress recalled her to the reality. "What, you little devil, you have not gone! Just wait till I come to you, you little viper!" Madame Thénardier had taken a look out into the street, and noticed Cosette in ecstasy. The child ran off with her bucket, taking enormous strides.