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Éponine is not Cosette. She knows this, and it eats her up inside. Where had everything gone so wrong? Why had Cosette gotten everything she could have wanted, while Eponine was still stagnant?
She tried to be good. Often as she could, she’d do little good deeds around the city, trying to make an impression where it counted. She didn’t use vulgar language or complain outright or make her voice too loud. She avoided stealing unless absolutely necessary, and even then abhorred it: the slyness, the uncontrolled quickness of her feet, the strange heaviness it left in her pocket and the familiar emptiness it left in her chest.
Even so, even with all her goodness, She would never be Cosette. She could never be a sweet and gentle dove the way she was, constantly spilling words of love and serenity wherever she went. Éponine hated her for it. Hated how she never had to try, how she always managed to know what to say and when to say it, how she could carry herself as if she didn’t have a thing holding her back, and most of all, how she was able to capture her beloved, her Monsieur Marius without a single word.
It really was no wonder that he chose her. Cosette is everything a girl could wish to be. She is all sleek golden curls and rosy dimpled cheeks and sparkling blue eyes. Éponine is all that Cosette is not, all that she would never wish to be. Matted dark hair and brassy brown eyes make up her features, and dirt stains her skin.
It’s like comparing a star to a fading ember. It’s hardly even a decision.
Éponine has made her peace with it. She has learned to live in spite of it. She has to, because she loves Monsieur Marius even if he cannot see it, even if he could never return it.
Truly, she thinks, It’s not his fault. She’d like to think that he is never at fault, because how could such a sweet boy ever do anything wrong? The fact is, she reasons, he was never going to love a girl like her. Just looking at him, he is the type to have a brilliant wife and brilliant family. She is not that. She could never be that.
She does however fault him for Cosette.
Had it been anyone else, she may have been able to handle it better. But Cosette, the girl who she once had lived with, the girl who had been stripped from that old inn and left everyone behind, the girl who had everything.
The girl who had every reason to hate her, and yet didn’t.
They had only spoken once. A few passing words when delivering one of Monsieur Marius’ letters. Éponine was no expert when it came to others, but the look on Cosette’s face gave away easily that she recognized who she was talking to. Even with all of Cosette’s charms, subtlety was not one of them.
And yet she did not yell. She did not order her away. She did not snap her hand away immediately after grabbing the letter.
Éponine found herself in despair again. If only she could find it in herself to be so forgiving. She thinks, though she’d never declare it out loud, that would make it too real, but she thinks that had circumstances been different, they could have been good friends.
Monsieur Marius chose Cosette. But that doesn’t keep Éponine from wondering.
She likes to think that she will wear a pretty white dress when she marries him. She will be able to afford a pretty white dress. And she will be transformed by it. Gone will be the old, tarnished ´Ponine. She Will welcome in her new, elegant self with open arms, the same arms she would open for her brilliant new husband. Her father will be happy for her, and he won’t need to steal anymore, and Gavroche and Azelma will be in the wedding and everyone in attendance will coo at their sweetness.
She can’t think about it. It makes her stomach sour. The same way it would sour when she was still a young girl, when maman would stomp around the gorbeau tenement late into the night because the floor wasn’t adequately swept, or the fire was put out to early, or he draft in the window hadn’t been fixed. Or back in the inn, when customers weren’t coming in and the rooms echoed, when there was no meat to be be cooked for dinner and no money to buy any, and she’d loudly exclaim that they would chew on bones instead of eat that night. When Cosette’s little frame would shake under the table, giving away her hiding spot and Maman suddenly had a place to take out all her frustration. That was enough to keep Éponine in line.
Cosette was frustrating.
She was good.
She got pushed about the worst.
Éponine is not Cosette. She’s not sure she should want to be.
But, alas, sometimes.
She imagines Cosette’s life as if it were always her own. A house tucked neatly behind a garden gate, and Curtains in the window, and a dresser lined with glass perfume bottles and jewels. And Books. More than she could know what to do with. Theres a dinner that sits prepared for her instead of one she must steal, and a father who adores her, and a boy who looks at her like she has moved the stars.
It’s not real. She knows this too well. It’s never been real, but it is hers. A tiny rebellion, quiet and sure beneath her ribs.
Still, fantasies will turn bitter after a while. Especially when unfulfilled.
Éponine is smart enough to know that how she lives, how she is choosing to spend her days, is degrading. What does she do, really, but follow after Monsieur Marius like a dog on a leash? What pride can she claim when she is nothing but a shadow? Her goodness, if it truly exists at all, is unseen, and perhaps worse, unwanted.
Sometimes she thinks about walking away from him. Disappearing. There’s a kind of mercy in being forgotten. No more unwavering devotion to his side. No more letters delivered with shaking hands. No more waiting to hear her name said with anything more than obligation.
But then she sees him, and she’s right where she started, right where she should have never ended up in the first place.
She can’t leave. She doubts she will ever be able to
.
And so her life moves as normal. So long as Cosette lives in luxury, Éponine lives in despair. She walks the uneven roads with her arms wrapped around herself, the movement remnant of how she imagines Monsieur Marius would hold her. She buys what she can and steals what she must. She scrapes her life together as best as she possibly can and hides the cuts beneath fraying skirts and thinning shawls.
Maman once assured her that there was beauty lingering in her, the kind that would blossom once they were all back to the comfort they once knew. She’s not entirely sure she believes it. Neither about the beauty in her nor the prospect that they will someday return to wealth.
But at the end of the day, she has to believe it. What else is there to tell herself? That she is pitiful? That she is unlovable? That despite her attempts at redemption, she will always be the same rotten girl who lived at the inn in Montfermeil?
She cannot bear to tell it. And so, hidden beauty it is.
But she grows tired. Tired of being rotten, seemingly obvious to those around her. Tired of pretending that her heart doesn’t break every time Monsieur Marius looks past her.
When the rebellion commences, the night stretches long and bright with flame and gunfire. Its immense presence is magnetic, the smoke drawing her in from her spot outside the tenement. The noise from the guns and the men and the shattering glass is thunderous and unwavering. She can see him behind the barricade, torch in one hand and a gun clutched in the other. He looks like a proper soldier, steadfast and resolute.
And then there is a musket aimed at him, and it’s as if her own life is on the line.
It is.
She doesn’t think. She just acts. The way she always has, all too much passion and too little reason.
It hurts. It rings throughout her body in waves, making her muscles seize and her eyes blur. She’s never known pain like this. And still, her mind clings to him. She is a moth and he is the open flame. She thinks he’s crying, but she’s not sure.
He says her name. É-po-nine.
For the first time, it sounds the way she always imagined it. The way she always wanted it. Not casual, but tender, almost pleading.
She wonders, no longer bitterly, if he has ever spoken Cosette’s name in such a way. She likes to think he hasn’t, that this was saved just for her, quiet enough for her ears only and special enough to never be repeated to another soul.
She smiles. Not sweetly, not beautifully. Never beautiful. She can taste blood and wonders where it is coming from.
And then the light leaves her eyes like the fading ember she always knew herself to be.
She is gone.
Éponine is not Cosette.
But for a moment, she didn’t want to be.