Cosette could not help casting one last look toward the beautiful doll displayed in the toy-shop stall. Then she knocked on the door of the inn.
"Here you are at last!" said Madame Thenardier as she threw open the door. "You certainly took your time getting that water. What were you doing—playing?"
"Madame," said Cosette, trembling, "here’s a gentleman who needs a room."
Madame Thenardier quickly replaced her fierce scowl with a friendly demeanor.
"Come in, monsieur. Welcome!"
As Jean Valjean stepped inside, she caught sight of his long, threadbare yellow coat and his tattered hat. His luggage consisted of a walking stick and a mysterious bundle. She glanced at her husband and wrinkled her nose. The innkeeper, who was sitting with some of the inn’s guests, nodded in response.
"Oh, I’m sorry, my good man," said Madame Thenardier, "but we have no rooms available."
"Put me wherever you have space—in the garret, in the stable. I’ll be happy to pay as if I had a regular room."
"That’ll be forty sous, paid in advance."
"Forty sous?" whispered one of the guests to Monsieur Thenardier. "I thought a room was only twenty sous."
"It’s forty sous for him," replied the innkeeper. "We try to discourage guests like him. They ruin the inn’s reputation."
Meanwhile Valjean handed the cash to Madame Thenardier and took a seat at another table. Cosette quickly brought him something to drink and then took water to the guest's horse. When Cosette returned and resumed her place under the kitchen table with her knitting, Valjean couldn’t take his eyes off her. This plain, thin little girl had dark circles under her eyes, which were dull from constant weeping. Her hands and bare legs were red and rough. Everything she wore was made of cotton and full of holes. She was shivering, so she drew up her knees and hugged them to her chest while she knit. Cosette was still wet from getting the water but didn’t dare to warm herself by the fire. Fear made her take up the smallest possible space and prevented her from breathing more than necessary.
Suddenly Madame Thenardier shouted, "Oh! Where is that bread?"
Cosette, as she always did whenever Madame Thenardier raised her voice, sprang from under the table. The child had completely forgotten the bread, so she did the only thing she could think of. She lied.
"Madame, the bakery was closed."
"You should have knocked!"
"I did, but no one answered."
"I’ll find out tomorrow if that’s true, and if you’re lying, you’ll be in trouble. Give me the 15-sous coin."
Cosette plunged her hand into her apron pocket and turned white. The coin was gone. She turned the pocket inside out, but there was still nothing. The poor girl was too frightened to utter a word.
"Have you lost it or did you try to steal it from me?" screamed Madame Thenardier. She reached for a whip hanging near the fireplace.
"Forgive me, madame!" cried Cosette.
Watching this scene unfold, Valjean deftly removed a coin from his own waistcoat pocket.
"I beg your pardon, madame," said Valjean, "but I just saw something fall out of the little girl’s pocket and roll away."
At the same time, he stooped down and appeared to search the floor.
"Aha, here it is!" He handed Madame Thenardier a silver coin.
"Yes, that’s it." She put the coin in her own apron pocket and contented herself with giving Cosette a ferocious look and saying, "Don’t ever let that happen again."
Valjean’s coin was actually a twenty-sous piece. That made up for the lack of bread as far as Madame Thenardier was concerned.
A door now opened and Eponine and Azelma came in. They were so lively, neat, and plump that it was a pleasure to look at them. Madame Thenardier took them on her lap, one at a time, smoothing their hair and retying their hair ribbons.
"What good girls they are!" she said.
They went and sat by the fire and played with a doll. From time to time, Cosette raised her eyes from her knitting and looked sadly at them as they played. Eponine and Azelma paid no attention to Cosette. Their doll was old and faded, but it still seemed wonderful to Cosette, who had never had a doll.
All of a sudden Madame Thenardier noticed that Cosette was watching the girls instead of knitting.
"Is that how you work?" she cried. "I’ll make you work with the whip, I will."
"Oh, let her play," said Valjean.
Now if a wealthy guest had made this request, Madame Thenardier might have agreed. But to hear such a thing from a pauper like this man!
"She has to work in order to eat," snapped Madame Thenardier. "I don’t support her so she can do nothing."
"What’s she making?"
"Stockings for my girls, who have none to speak of and will soon be going barefoot."
Valjean looked at Cosette’s chapped red feet. "When will she be finished with a pair of stockings?"
"It’ll take her at least three or four days, the lazy thing."
"If I pay you five francs, will you let her play?" asked Valjean. His offer was almost five times what the stockings were worth.
Monsieur Thenardier decided to join the conversation now that Valjean was spending money. "If you want to pay that much for a pair of stockings, we can’t refuse you."
Valjean turned to Cosette and said, "Now your work belongs to me, and I say you should play."
"Is it true, madame?" asked Cosette. "Can I really play?"
"Play!" said Madame Thenardier in a terrible voice.
Cosette did not move from her spot under the table. She reached behind her and took out a little toy sword and a few old rags. She pretended that the sword was a doll and the rags were its clothes. Meanwhile Eponine and Azelma had abandoned their doll. They had caught the cat and were busy trying to dress it in doll clothes.
"This little girl is not your own child?" Valjean asked Madame Thenardier.
"No, her mother left her with us. We do all we can for her, but we aren’t rich. We haven’t heard from her mother for months, so we suspect she’s dead."
Cosette overheard this conversation and said to herself, "My mother is dead!" But as hard as she tried, she could not remember anything about her mother.
She darted out and brought the girls’ doll back under the table. There she played with it for some time until Azelma noticed what was happening.
"Mother!" she cried. "Look there!"
"Cosette!" shouted Madame Thenardier. "Stop playing with that doll!"
Sobbing, Cosette came out from under the table and laid the doll at Madame Thenardier’s feet.
"Why is it a problem that Cosette is playing with the doll?" asked Valjean. "The girls weren’t using it."
"That beggar dared to touch my children’s doll with her horrid, dirty hands."
Valjean walked straight to the door, opened it, and went outside. In a few minutes he returned with the beautiful doll from the Christmas stall.
"Here, Cosette," he said, tenderly laying the doll in her arms. "This is for you."