Chapter 96 Two or two complete portraits

We have only seen the Thenardiers in profile in this book, and now we must see them clearly from all sides, in front of, behind, and left behind. Thénardier had just passed fifty, and Madame Thénardier was nearly forty, that is, a woman's fifty, so the two of them were balanced in terms of age. Readers have met Madame Thenardier for the first time, and now they should have some impressions. They remember that she is a tall, fair-haired, red-skinned, fat, succulent, broad-shouldered, huge-waisted, burly, magnificent, and agile woman. Madame Thenardier, as we have said, is one of those gigantic savages who, with paving stones hanging from their hair, are often seen at the fairs, leaning forward before people.She takes care of everything at home, makes the bed, cleans the house, does the laundry, cooks, tyrannizes, and runs amok.Her only servant is Cosette, a mouse who waits on an elephant.When she spoke, the window panes, the furniture, the people, everything shook.Her broad, freckled face looked like a colander.she has a beard.He was the ideal kind of burly man dressed as a girl.She was so good at swearing that she boasted that she could break a walnut with one blow.If she hadn't read those novels, if the hag hadn't learned some coquettishness from those strange books, no one would have thought she was a woman.Madame Thenardier was a mixture of the amorous and the savage.When people heard her speak, they said, "This is Chuba", when they saw her drinking, they said, "This is a mule driver", and when they saw her manipulate Cosette, they said, "This is an executioner."When she was resting, there was a fang protruding from the corner of her mouth.

Thenardier, on the other hand, was a short, thin, blue-faced, bony, apparently sickly man who was perfectly healthy, and it was here that his inconsistency began to show.He kept a smile on his face just to be on guard against others, and he was polite to almost everyone, even a beggar who couldn't get a penny from him.His eyes are as smooth as a squirrel, and his face is as gentle as a literati.Just like Father de Lisle's air.His hospitality is manifested in his love of drinking with the coachmen.No one ever got him drunk.He often smokes a big pipe.Wearing a coarse smock, under the smock is an old black trousers.He fancied himself a lover of literature and materialism.Some of the names he kept on his lips as references in his ramblings were Voltaire, Renard, Parny, and, oddly enough, St. Augustine.He claims to have "one set" of theories, but in fact it is a complete lie. We can only say that he is a thief scientist.The subtle difference between philosophers and thieves is understandable.We remember that he made false claims of his own merits, and he used to say that he was a sergeant in some Sixth or Ninth Hussars at the Battle of Waterloo, and that he stood alone against a squadron of deadly cavalry, with his own His body shielded a "badly wounded general" and saved him from a hail of bullets.That's why there was such a bombarding sign on his door wall, and the local people called his inn "The Sergeant's Lodge at Waterloo."He was a liberal, a classicist, an admirer of Bonaparte.He once applied to join the American Colonial Organization.People in the village said he had a missionary education.

We think he was only educated as an innkeeper in Holland.This complicated scum, shamelessly crossing the borders frequently, spying on the situation at any time, calls himself a Flemish from Lille in Flanders, a Frenchman in Paris, and a Belgian in Brussels. .His valor at Waterloo is familiar to us.We know that he exaggerated somewhat.The ups and downs of the turmoil and the twists and turns of personnel have all become opportunities for him to make a living. Because of the ambiguity in his heart, his life experience is wandering. This is very likely. Well, Thenardier is exactly the kind of peddler we were talking about in the name of thieves, spying on the enemy along the way, doing business with these people, stealing from them, the husband and wife, children and the whole family are seated. The broken car rolled in along the way with the troops on the front line, and followed the victorious army with its own instinct.After that battle, in his own words, he had some "oil and water", so he came to Montfermeil to open an inn.

That kind of oil and water is nothing more than wallets and watches, gold rings and silver crosses, which he obtained during the autumn harvest from the fields full of corpses. Didn't help much. There was an indescribably straight line in Thenardier's movements, the tone of his curses reminded one of a barracks, and the way he made the sign of the cross reminded one of a priestly institution.He can speak well.He likes to be respected as a learned man.But a primary school teacher will also find that he often "shows his feet".He was also eloquent when he billed his customers, but knowledgeable people sometimes found typos on it.Thenardier is insidious, greedy, idle, and good at dealing with things.He had no difficulty talking to the maids at home, so his wife simply didn't hire them.That pungent woman is very jealous.She felt that her withered, yellow and shriveled short man could be the envy of all women.

Thénardier is characterized by subtlety, insidiousness, and stability, and he is indeed a steady and steady villain.That kind of person is the worst, because he looks good but is deceitful. Don't think that Thenardier can't lose his temper like his woman, but it is rare, but when he does, he is cruel to the extreme, because he hates all mankind, because his heart is full of fire. to burn the fire of resentment, for he, like some, is perpetually vengeful, blaming himself for everything that happens to him, such as legal claims, all frustrations, bankruptcies, sufferings and embarrassments in life. He is always ready to seek compensation from anyone who falls into his hands, because that resentment has been swelling in his heart and burning in his mouth and eyes.Whoever bumps into his rage suffers.

Thenardier also has his strengths, such as being cautious, sharp-eyed, speaking more or less according to the situation, and always maintaining a high level of vigilance.He had the smell of a sailor winking through a telescope.Thenardier was a politician. People who came into the inn for the first time always said when they saw Madame Thenardier: "This must be the master of the family." There was no such thing.She is not even a housewife.Master and housewife, all her husband.She executes, he orders.He is manipulated by a continual, invisible magnetism.He speaks a single word with power, and sometimes it only takes a wink for the elephant to obey.Thenardier was a unique master in his wife's heart, and she herself did not know why.She has a set of moral standards for being a person, she never disputes with "Mr. Husband lost face.She never made the mistake of "going out of the house," which is so common to women, that is, in Parliament parlance, of uncovering the crown.Although the result of their harmony was nothing but crimes, Madame Thenardier's obedience to her husband was tinged with reverence.That humming and roaring mountain of meat can actually move under the little finger of a weak and despotic demon king. From that humble and vulgar aspect, it is also a kind of magnificence in the world: it is the worship of matter to spirit, because some ugly phenomena are in the world. There is also a reason for being in the depths of eternal beauty.Thénardier was somewhat incomprehensible, which created the absolute master-slave relationship between them.At certain times, she sees him as a bright light, at other times, she sees him as a devil's palm.

This woman is an ugly creature who loves only her child and is afraid of her husband.She is a mother because she is a mammal.Moreover, her motherly love was confined to her two daughters, and never to the boys, as we shall see later on.As for him, that fellow, he has only one desire: to be rich. He has achieved nothing in this regard.Jiaolong is not allowed to cloud and rain.Thenardier was so empty at Montfermeil that, if it had been so, the bachelor might have been a millionaire if he had gone to Switzerland or the Pyrenees.But fate had placed the innkeeper there, and there he had to eat grass roots.

The "innkeeper" mentioned here is of course in a narrow sense, and does not refer to the entire class. In that year, 1823, Thenardier had an emergency debt of about fifteen hundred francs, which made him restless day and night. No matter how unfair fate has always been to Thenardier, he himself is extremely sober, and can understand with the most penetrating vision and the most modern point of view what is called a virtue among savages but a transaction among civilized people: customer problem.In addition, he is an excellent contraband hunter, and his marksmanship is also admired by people.He sometimes had a self-possessed sneer that was especially dangerous.

His innkeeper's theories sometimes shot out of his head like lightning.He used to instill professional secrets into the minds of his women.One day, he whispered to her through gritted teeth: "An innkeeper's job is to sell meat scraps, light, fire, dirty sheets, maids, fleas, smiling faces to any customer; soliciting customers, emptying small purses , compacting the big purse gracefully, respectfully serving the family when they go out, skinning the men, plucking the hairs of the women, digging out the flesh of the children; all open windows, closed windows, fireplace corners, armchairs , armchairs, round stools, low stools, eiderdown quilts, cotton-wool mattresses, and straw mats all have to be priced; you should know that mirrors are easy to break without light, and you have to charge a fee. You should come up with half a million ghost ideas. The customers who want to come and go pay for everything, even the flies that their dogs eat!"

These two men and women are a naughty ghost and a plague goddess who sing one to one and follow each other, they are a pair of ugly donkeys and bad horses. While her husband was racking his brains, Madame Thenardier did not think about those creditors who had not yet come to her door. She was carefree about the past and the future, and only knew to live the present life with an open mind. Such was the case with the couple.Cosette lived between them, under two pressures, like a small animal being crushed by the millstone and torn by the pincers at the same time.The man and the woman had different styles, Cosette was covered with bruises from the woman, and she wintered barefoot from the man.

Cosette went up and down, washed, brushed, wiped, swept, ran, bustled, panted, and carried heavy things, all kinds of heavy work for a scrawny child.Absolutely not getting any sympathy, but there is an unreasonable proprietress, and a boss who is as poisonous as a snake.The Thenardier's inn was like a spider's web, and Cosette was bound and trembling on it.A high level of persecution was realized in that wicked family.She was like a fly serving a spider. The poor child was slow and silent. Those souls who have just left God and come to the world in the morning light, when they see themselves so weak and naked, what will they think?