e last house, Cosette paused. It had been hard to advance further than the last stall; it became impossible to proceed further than the last house. She set her bucket on the ground, thrust her hand into her hair, and began slowly to scratch her head,--a gesture peculiar to children when terrified and undecided what to do.
It was no longer Montfermeil; it was the open fields.
Black and desert space was before her. She gazed in despair at that darkness, where there was no longer any one, where there were beasts, where there were spectres, possibly. She took a good look, and heard the beasts walking on the grass, and she distinctly saw spectres moving in the trees.
Then she seized her bucket again; fear had lent her audacity.
"Bah!" said she; "I will tell him that there was no more water!"
And she resolutely re-entered Montfermeil.
Hardly had she gone a hundred paces when she paused and began to scratch her head again.
Now it was the Thenardier who appeared to her, with her hideous, hyena mouth, and wrath flashing in her eyes. The child cast a melancholy glance before her and behind her. What was she to do?
What was to become of her?
Where was she to go? In front of her was the spectre of the Thenardier; behind her all the phantoms of the night and of the forest.
It was before the Thenardier that she recoiled.