Some natures cannot love on one side without hating on the other. Mother Thénardier passionately loved her own two daughters, which made her detest the stranger. It is sad to think that a mother's love can look so ugly. Though Cosette occupied so little room, it seemed to her as if her children were robbed of it, and that the little one diminished the air her daughters breathed. This woman, like many women of her class, had a certain amount of caresses and another of blows and insults to expend daily. If she had not had Cosette, it is certain that her daughters, though they were idolized, would have received the entire amount; but the strange child did the service of diverting the blows on herself, while the daughters received only the caresses. Cosette did not make a movement that did not bring down on her head a hailstorm of violent and unmerited chastisement. The poor weak child, unnecessarily punished, scolded, cuffed, and beaten, saw by her side two little creatures like herself who lived in radiant happiness.
As Madame Thénardier was unkind to Cosette, Éponine and Azelma were the same; for children, at that age, are copies of their mother; the form is smaller, that is all. A year passed, then another, and people said in the village,--
"Those Thénardiers are worthy people. They are not well off, and yet they bring up a poor child left on their hands."
Cosette was supposed to be deserted by her mother; Thénardier, however, having learned in some obscure way that the child was probably illegitimate, and that the mother could not confess it, insisted on fifteen francs a month, saying that the creature was growing and eating, and threatening to send her back. "She must not play the fool with me," he shouted, "or I'll let her brat fall like a bomb-shell into her hiding-place. I must have an increase." The mother paid the fifteen francs. Year by year the child grew, and so did her wretchedness: so long as Cosette was little, she was the scape-goat of the two other children; so soon as she began to be developed a little, that is to say, even before she was five years old, she became the servant of the house. At five years, the reader will say, that is improbable; but, alas! it is true. Social suffering begins at any age. Have we not recently seen the trial of a certain Dumollard, an orphan, who turned bandit, and who from the age of five, as the official documents tell us, was alone in the world and "worked for a living and stole"? Cosette was made to go on messages, sweep the rooms, the yard, the street, wash the dishes, and even carry heavy bundles. The Thénardiers considered themselves the more justified in acting thus, because the mother, who was still at M. sur M., was beginning to pay badly, and was several months in arrear.