"Éponine."
Marius eagerly stooped down; it was really that hapless girl, dressed in male clothes.
"What brought you here? What are you doing?"
"Dying," she said to him.
There are words and incidents that wake up crushed beings; Marius cried with a start,—
"You are wounded! Wait, I will carry you into the wine-shop! Your wound will be dressed! Is it serious? How shall I catch hold of you so as not to hurt you? Where is it you suffer? Help, good God! But what did you come to do here?"
And he tried to pass his hand under her to lift her, and as he did so he touched her hand; she uttered a faint cry.
"Have I hurt you?" Marius asked.
"A little."
"But I only touched your hand."