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Part One
Shivering in the biting December winds, Mariette tried in vain to glean some warmth from the tattered and threadbare blanket that she already had tightly wrapped around her shoulders. The blanket and the rags she had on her body were the only things she owned in this world. It was growing darker, and with the night it was apt to grow colder, and Mariette trembled at the prospect. Was she to die here tonight, on this unforgiving street, from the cold? She hadn't had anything to eat either in the past few days. Oh, for a warm place to spend the night... she would gladly go another day without eating if she could spend the night somewhere warm.
At that moment a shadow fell over her. It was the shadow of a man. So wrapped up in her thoughts was Mariette that she had not even heard his footsteps.
"Mademoiselle, you cannot stay here tonight," a grave voice said over her.
She looked up at the man with her big brown eyes, and recognising him she addressed him quietly. "Monsieur Javert, I do not want to stay here tonight, but where else would you have me go? Home I have not, money I have not, and anything of value is long since gone from me."
"Mademoiselle, I cannot help you, but still you cannot stay here tonight. It matters not to me where you go, so long as you remove yourself from the streets."
Mariette returned to her hunched down state. "Monsieur, I have already told you that I cannot go anywhere. No one will have me; I have no choice."
"I shall tell you one last time that you must get off of these streets, mademoiselle. Otherwise I will be forced to have you spend the night in prison." Javert was still calmly patient. Of course he would be... at least he would have somewhere warm to sleep and something to eat if he wanted it.
Very quietly, almost inaudibly, she responded, "At least in prison it is warmer than here, and I am able to get something to eat."
"Very well mademoiselle, if you insist upon disregarding my words further, I shall have no choice." He had apparently either not heard her words or dismissed them as inconsequential. She was hauled to her feet somewhat roughly, and Mariette allowed herself to be led off without another murmur. 'Well,' she thought, 'at least I'm not going to die out in the cold tonight.' Caustically she added to herself, 'It will just have to wait until tomorrow night.'
On this December night, it seemed half of the city's delinquent population was residing in the prison. Vulgar shouts could be heard from the cells from all directions, and there were police officers running everywhere; some of them processing prisoners, some barking orders, some carrying messages and reports, and some breaking up a fight that had broken out between two prisoners.
Mariette noted that because of the unusual amount of people here, the place was warmer than usual, and, wrinkling her nose, smelled a whole lot worse than usual. She had been here before. Once before. And for the same reason that had brought her here tonight. And, surprising or not, that last time she was also brought here by Javert. Apparently tonight his mood was better than last time.
She recalled that last time: he had said then simply but fiercely, "Either get yourself off of this street or you will spend the night in prison." It had been more of an authoritative command then than it had been tonight. She had not moved and in minutes found herself occupying a cold and miserable cell alone. It was October then and much colder in the cell than it was outdoors. But tonight it was a different story, tonight it was warm.
She was again deposited into a bleak cell of her own, for apparently out of all these robbers and other riffraff none were women, and so she curled up into a corner, much warmer than before, waiting dismally for the morning to come. Waiting for the morning to come, so that she could again go through another miserable day without eating, without finding a place to stay so she could be off the streets, and without a purpose for living. She sighed deeply, and dozed off.
. . .
'Good Lord,' Javert thought to himself. 'Hasn't the beggar learned her lesson yet? Off the streets or a night in prison.' He paused and thought about it. 'But then she did say that she would rather be in prison. These people...' he trailed his thoughts off, almost disgusted. He had in fact recognised the girl, although she probably believed otherwise.
He recalled her words. "Where would you have me go?" As if she really couldn't find somewhere that she could go. This was Paris, after all; couldn't a beggar find some house that would get them off the street? Javert was so tired of dealing with these homeless beggars. If all those homeless beggars would get themselves off the street and into a job he would have a lot less of this unpleasant work to do.
But work was work, and he did it without complaining, since to do so was a blatant disrespect for the authority that had assigned the work to him. And to him respect for authority was above all things.
At last he was relieved of his duties and he could go home. It was bitterly cold, and he was glad to be going home to sleep, for he sorely needed it after today. It was a foul mood that he was currently in, and all the malefactors he had dealt with today had known it. Except for one, however... oddly enough he had been patient with the beggar girl. Her name he did not know, and did not care to know. Why had he been patient and calm with her, when he would have been able to go home hours earlier had she not been there? It couldn't be because of her age or sex; he dealt with prostitutes and female thieves far more often than he preferred to think about, and some much younger than she. Being unable to figure out what was wrong with him, he simply shrugged it off. He must have been too tired to care about his treatment of her.
In moments, Javert arrived at his house, and once inside, did nothing but ascend the stairs and drop into bed. It had really been quite a long day.
. . .
It was midmorning, and Mariette was startled awake by the guard opening up the cell in which she spent the night. Rubbing her eyes, she was surprised that she had slept as long as she had, for normally she was awake with the sun.
"Well mam'selle, you've passed your night. Off you go then." And just like that, she was free again. Or, as she preferred to think of it, cast off into the streets again, left to her own devices.
The day was bright and cold, as if the sun were hiding behind a wall of glass and laughing at the freezing world below. It was warmer than the day before, and Mariette was grateful for the fact that the wind did not blow. Aimlessly she walked the streets. This was not an activity she was used to performing, but she did not feel like returning to her street corner by the dirty and dark alley she called "home."
After a while she realized that she was hungry. "Damn," she said to herself. "I slept so long at the prison that I must have missed breakfast." Since it had been almost three days since she'd last eaten anything at all, she decided to see about getting herself something. Over the years she'd learned to become a pickpocket; the urchins had taught her most of what she knew nearly a decade ago and she'd been fine-tuning this so-called skill ever since then. Often, though, she did not need to resort to picking the pockets of the bourgeoisie because some kind-hearted soul would usually give her a sou or two, feeling sorry for her because she appeared to be so young.
Although Mariette might have looked to be a sixteen year old street rat, she was however about thirty eight years old. She was thin as a rail, her eyes were hollow, her skin was unblemished and as yet unwrinkled, but her expression was totally blank. A passer might have mistaken her for a former gamine who has become disillusioned with the freedom of being a street urchin. Her mahogany tresses were dirty and matted, not having been washed or even combed in many months. But beneath all of this dirt and beggarly appearance, if one looked long and hard, one could easily see that she would be a pretty woman if she were to be properly cleaned up.
All these years on the street had turned her heart into one of stone. She cared nothing about her fellow man, and had several years ago given up on sticking up for her fellow street urchins and beggars. She felt she had nothing in common with the other mendicants. Mariette refused to prostitute herself, which gave almost every other beggar woman a way to earn some money. She never openly sold herself, but occasionally, if she had actually had the good fortune to have bathed and eaten, some well-to-do young bourgeois might take a fancy to her. She would accept his advances, but only in return for a warm bed for the night and food. Mostly, the bargain was sealed and she was, for a night, a mistress. Yet she felt nothing towards any of them. Her belly was filled and her body was warm and she felt that giving of her body was a small price to pay for that. Her days were spent occasionally searching for something to eat or money with which to buy food, and her evenings were occupied with finding someplace to sleep. More often than not, it was a dark, dirty alley with a heap of refuse halfway down which she could hide behind and sleep. Once in a while, though, she'd get arrested, like she had the previous night, and spend the night on the dirty straw of a prison cell. The days were empty to a veteran woman of the streets, and the only prayers she ever spoke usually consisted of the following words: "Please, God, if you're there, just let me die... if death really is a reward, just let me die. Even if I do go to hell, it can't be any worse than what I've got in life." She'd even forgotten exactly how old she was. She couldn't remember her birth date; all she knew anymore was that she was born during the height of the Reign of Terror.
As she walked the streets, Mariette noticed a rich old bourgeois walking near her. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head when she saw his purse half sticking out of a pocket in his waistcoat. Quickly darting her glance around to make sure she wasn't being watched, she deftly plucked it out of his pocket and silently slipped down a side street, dropping her newly-acquired treasure into the bosom of her threadbare bodice. She was, for once, grateful for her ample cleavage, for it completely concealed the bulky purse.
She stood there, against the wall of a dingy old house loudly proclaiming that it had "Rooms to Let," waiting to see if she had, in fact, been spotted. Minutes passed, and not even an uproar. It was a perfect heist; the man probably hadn't even noticed his purse was missing yet. She sat down behind a pile of rubbish to see what the old man had kept in his little purse. Nothing. She flung it away, disgusted. Small wonder he didn't hang onto it as well as he might have; small wonder there was no commotion after it had been lost. Mariette sighed, and settled down. Here was as good a place as any to spend her day. She might even stay here overnight, since her own alley was a decent distance away and she wasn't fully in the mood to get up and walk there.
Curling up against the pile of refuse with her blanket, she closed her eyes, silently cursing God for leaving her all alone to fend for herself. Her stomach was growling. Maybe, she thought with half-hearted sarcastic hopefulness, just maybe she would die of starvation and then this cruel excuse for a life could end. Again her stomach growled, more loudly this time, and grunting she got up again. Mariette supposed that she would try for another rich old man's purse, this time making sure that there was money in it before making off.
She didn't have to wander far to find it either. And she didn't have to work for it. The man had stopped at a stall to buy fruits, and in his attempt to return his purse to his pocket, he had missed completely and it fell to the ground. Before he realized what had happened he walked away from the stall, and when the stall-keeper's back was turned, Mariette quickly snatched the purse. Testing it, she felt coins jingle. A sigh of satisfaction escaped her as she again dropped the purse into her bosom and quickly disappeared.
This time she was not so lucky as to have not been spotted. The man had walked maybe ten paces before realizing that he didn't have his purse, so he quickly turned back towards the fruit stall. He was able to turn back in time to see Mariette taking possession of his purse and walking away.
"Stop! Thief!" The man shouted in a not-so-half-hearted attempt to gain some help in his effort to get his stolen funds back. Cursing under her breath, Mariette darted down a few side streets, but before she was able to get very far, a large and firm hand was placed on her shoulder, effectively halting her flight. She cursed again, this time not bothering to do so quietly.
"Mademoiselle, you have broken the law."
She turned to face him, not at all surprised to find Javert there. "Yeah? So what else is new."
He seemed minutely startled to find that it was she he had arrested. "Did I not arrest you just last night?"
"Yeah, so?"
Javert simply shook his head. "You are to come with me, mademoiselle. And this time it will not simply be an overnight stay."
"Wonderful." And with that sarcastic remark, Mariette shut her mouth and allowed herself to be led off, not really caring that she'd probably spend the next six months in jail. She knew that was a far sight better than her normal day-to-day living, depressing though it may have seemed.
. return to the fan fic . return to the rue pontoise . return home .