He crawled toward her. He touched her. She fell forward with a lifeless sound upon the floor. He uttered a piercing shriek, and threw himself beside her.
A file of gendarmes, accompanied by the Chef Burke, found him the next morning lying lifeless upon the floor. They laughed brutally,—these cruel minions of the law,—and disengaged his arm from the waist of the wooden dummy which they had come to reclaim for the mantuamaker.
Emptying a few bucketfuls of water over his form, they finally succeeded in robbing him, not only of his mistress, but of that Death he had coveted without her.
Ah! we live in a strange world, Messieurs.
FANTINE.
AFTER THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO.
PROLOGUE.
As long as there shall exist three paradoxes, a moral Frenchman, a religious Atheist, and a believing sceptic; so long, in fact, as booksellers shall wait—say twenty-five years—for a new gospel; so long as paper shall remain cheap and ink three sous a bottle, I have no hesitation in saying that such books as these are not utterly profitless.
VICTOR HUGO.