The pain came in droves like a hundred knives digging into her at once. At first she hadn't even felt it. She had felt something wet and cold on her chest and hand; only when she looked down had she realized it was blood.
She raised herself on her one uninjured hand and cried in the loudest voice she could muster, which was still barely above a whisper, "Monsieur Marius!" There was no answer. The figure she was calling to had rounded the corner of a building and could be seen no more. Tears flooded her eyes and her throat became choked with sobs. Her arm gave way and she fell to the ground. So this was the end she had been praying for, alone, away from the one she had given her life for. "It could have been worse," she reasoned as she stared listlessly at the ever-growing pool of her own blood. "Montparnasse could have killed me."
Eponine leaned against the cold plaster of the building behind her. She stood on one alternating foot to relieve the pain of standing shoeless in the snow. She hugged her narrow shoulders and shivered. She should have been miserable, but she was not. She was ecstatic; her mind was filled with dreams of that lovely young man who lived next door, Marius. "He doesn't really want that other girl," she thought. "He'll come around and find me." It was wishful thinking at best, normally she would not have indulged herself in such naivete, but if fantasy could drive away the pain of reality than it was worth it.
Eponine shifted her gaze to several dark figures approaching in the falling snow. The sight was so familiar that she thought little of it. Most of the men passed her without a second glance, but Montparnasse, who was walking at the end, diverted his path and came towards her.
"Hello, my lovely," he said. Despite the misery of that day he still had a glimmer in his eyes. "You're shivering," he said simply and with that he removed his coat and placed it around her shoulders.
"Hurry up," a member of the group that had just passed yelled back to Montparnasse. "Does it look to you like we've got time for that sort of nonsense?"
Montparnasse yelled in reply, "Go to hell, I'll do what I like." The men knew then it was a lost cause and continued on, Eponine knew this too.
"Go on with them," Eponine urged. "With us off the lot of them will get nabbed, what good does that do either of us?"
"Since when did you give a damn about any of them, your father least of all?"
"It's not just him, my mother and my sister too. But you see, my dear, there's no point to this arguing, it's not a good time for this sort of thing. I'll find you after this is over, I promise you; go along, please." Saying this Eponine removed his coat and handed it to him.
"You're right there is no point in arguing; you don't have a choice in the matter, so you might as well shut up and do what you're told." Montparnasse took Eponine's arm and pulled her over to a nearby ally way. For a moment she wanted to give in and go with him, but the thought of Marius pushed that away. This would be a betrayal, she couldn't do that to him. Eponine pulled her arm away and began to run.
Montparnasse caught her. "Where the hell do you think you're going, slut? Look, I told you to come, a whore like you doesn't get to say yes or no. What the hell is your problem anyway?"
"I just don't want to," she said simply. "It isn't something you've done and I said later, I promise."
Montparnasse slapped her without a word, and then took her arm and began to pull her along again.
"He thinks he can frighten me. Does he think I've never be slapped before?" she thought angrily to herself. She knew she was being stupid; he was in a horrible mood. She risked her life by disobeying, but she couldn't hold herself back.
"Are you dumb? I said no. Leave me be and while you're at it go straight to hell."
Montparnasse shot a look of surprise and disgust back at her. "What's gotten into you? Is this something your fat bitch of a mother is telling you to do?"
Eponine knew her mother's faults, but she and Azelma were perhaps the only two people who had never hurt or betrayed her, and she would protect them. Eponine could think of one horrible thing to say, she almost felt badly about saying it, but he had pushed her far enough. He had to learn there were others in the world besides himself. "At least she isn't a whore like your mother was," Eponine shot back.
Montparnasse's face turned pale, his menacing eyes darkened. "You'll pay for that, you bitch," he said softly, and began to move towards her.
Eponine realized in horror what she had done to herself. She backed away and said sweetly, "I shouldn't have said that, love, I was kidding you. I would never mean it." Her voice became choked with sobs and trailed off. Montparnasse threw her to the ground. She tried to back away from him, but it was too late. Her eyes filled with tears, she braced herself and tried to think of Marius.
Eponine shuddered at the memory. Still, she could not be too angry at him for it. The whole thing was her fault mostly. If she hadn't said yes to him in the first place, or if she hadn't said what she had, things might have been different. In a way his actions almost touched her. "He must have loved his mother," she thought to herself. It was her fault for taking advantage of him that night, but how could she have guessed he would tell her the truth?
Eponine tried to ignore the rough concrete below her face and fall asleep. It was almost morning. She had been waiting for Montparnasse as he had asked, but he hadn't shown up. "Just as well," she thought to herself; she hadn't really been in the mood for him anyway.
It was then that she heard the tap of shoes coming down the stairs that led beneath the bridge. Eponine sat up and stared at the approaching figure. "So he's come after all."She thought bitterly. She leaned her back against the wall and watched as he staggered towards her, about as drunk as she had ever seen him.
"Eppoonnninneyyyy..." he said smiling. He plopped down next to her. He leaned over and began to kiss her neck gently. "God, you're beautiful," he said. "Let's just stay here and make love all day."
Eponine could smell the whiskey on his breath and the thought of what he had suggested disgusted her. It was impossible anyway, he would be passed out in minutes. A thought entered her head, it was really only a matter of holding him off till then, but how? She paused and then thought of something. "It couldn't work," she told herself. "He's drunk, not stupid; besides, he wouldn't go along with that for more than a second or two." Still, it was worth a try.
For the past few weeks Eponine's curiosity about her lover's past had reached almost an obsession, mostly because it gave her something to pass her free time daydreaming about. Still, it was only natural that she would wonder about a man who acted as if there was no day before yesterday. Whenever she asked him he would change the subject or give her an answer that was obviously meant as a joke. That fed her desire to know even more. It seemed obvious that something had happened to him, something that he couldn't mention even years after the fact. This might be her chance, perhaps his intoxication would cause him to forget whatever was preventing him from telling her.
Eponine kissed Montparnasse gently. She relocated to his lap and leaned her head against his chest. "We can do all that in a moment, my love, but first tell me some things. To begin with your name can't be Montparnasse. Who's ever heard of such a name as that? I mean, who would name a child after a street? It's obviously something you picked up when you were younger. So tell me, what is your name, really?"
"First or last?" asked Montparnasse pliantly.
"How about both," replied Eponine, thinking that he was just going along with the jest.
"Marlon Benoit," he said, slurring the two words together a bit.
Eponine stared back at him in shock. His face was completely serious. "Are you joking with me?" she asked him. He shook his head in reply. "He must be doing this just to be mean," she thought, "that's why he's so serious about it. Well, let's see what else he has to say, just for the hell of it."
"Where's your mother," Eponine asked simply.
"Dead," he replied in a similar tone.
"Of what?"
"She was sick."
"And your father?"
"I don't know."
"Did he abandon you?"
"No, he abandoned my mother."
"While she was pregnant with you?"
"No, before. Of course while she was pregnant, what the hell do you think?"
Not bothered by his response, Eponine pushed on, "How did she support you?"
He paused at this, "Are you done after this one?" he asked.
"Yes," she replied seeing he was tiring.
"She was a prostitute." He yawned loudly. He then bent his head down and kissed Eponine's face. "Well, enough of this, dearie. Forget this, I'm tired, I'm going to sleep."
Eponine stayed in his arms, contemplating what he had said. She tried to reassure herself he was lying, but somehow she could not. After a time she got to her feet and left, for the first time in her life she felt uncomfortable in his embrace. She was successful in forgetting what he had said for a few weeks, but one night as he kissed her softly and complimented her on how pretty her hair looked in the moonlight, she said to him simply, "Marlon?"
His face turned pale and he said, "What the hell did you just call me?"
She paused for a moment and then spoke, "You told me it was your name that night. You were drunk. You're playing with me, though, aren't you? Just to be mean, it's not true. Is it?"
He did not answer instead he asked, "What else did I tell you?"
"That your mother's dead. She was abandoned by your father. She worked as a prostitute. I didn't think you would answer me, I really didn't."
Montparnasse had covered his eyes with his hand. He said only, "I have to go," and then disappeared into the night.
Eponine had gasped as he left for she realized that he hadn't been lying. She feared she wouldn't see him again, but she did. The only time it was ever mentioned again was that night in the snow.
For a moment Eponine's thoughts left her and pain entered her mind. She cried out weakly, then took the edge of her blouse in her hand and bit it. It took her mind off the pain for a moment. "Where did I learn to do such a thing?" she wondered for a few seconds. Then she remembered; Montparnasse had told her. For once the memory that entered her head was pleasant, comforting even. "He was never all bad," she thought; she had always known that.
Eponine closed her eyes and let her mind slip to nothing. The left side of her face was covered in blood, still flowing from a cut above her eye. Her nose had stopped bleeding but she held a torn piece of her skirt to it because she was too tired to move her hand. She had run away from home and her father earlier in the evening. She'd come, without exactly knowing why, to the bridge where Montparnasse usually slept. He wasn't there; she wasn't sure if she wanted him to be. Tired of the pain, tired of her life, Eponine tried to dream of something pleasant, but nothing came to mind.
"Are you awake?"
Eponine opened her eyes and stared at the figure standing before her; he was shrouded in darkness, yet she knew who he was from his voice.
Before she had a chance to answer him Montparnasse bent down and looked at her battered face. "What have you done this time, Nina?" he asked.
"I lost something," Eponine replied her voice almost too soft to hear.
"Well, you look like you need some cleaning up." With that Montparnasse produced a rag from one of his pockets. After wetting it in the river he walked back over to her side. "Tell me if I hurt you," he said softly. He slowly lifted her hand away from her nose. Eponine let it drop limply at her side. He began to clean the blood off her face, gently pushing strands of hair to the side as he went. The texture of the rag tickled her face, and Eponine laughed lightly. Montparnasse smiled.
He wetted the rag again and moved above her eye. He had barely touched the gash when Eponine cried out meekly. "Shh, have a bit more courage, lovely! Here, bite the edge of your blouse; it helps a bit," Montparnasse said in reply. Then seeing the look of doubt on her face he added, "How the hell should I know how it works, just try. Go on." Eponine did as she we was told, and in truth it did distract her from the pain a bit; before she even knew it he was done.
Montparnasse rolled the rag up. He then asked, "May I?" After a nod from Eponine he ripped a piece of cloth from her skirt. He fastened the rag against her cut with the skirt, and then smiled. "Pretty as you ever were, my love," he said, then kissed her cheek. Eponine laughed a bit, as she knew how badly he was lying.
He sat down next to her, and Eponine rested her head on his shoulder. "When are you going back to him?" Montparnasse asked her.
"I don't know," she replied somberly. Those were the last words spoken that night. Montparnasse made no further advance towards her, and they fell asleep as they were.
"That was the second nicest thing he's ever done for me," Eponine thought. A smile almost crossed her face at the memory. The nicest thing she herself still couldn't believe. Of course he had been lying, well, probably lying at least. If he was the way he was that night every time they met, then she might have fallen in love with him, not Marius; but he wasn't. His moods shifted endlessly, and she could never guess whether he would be a lion or a lamb. "Marius is the better man anyway," she told herself. She felt ashamed that she had even dared to think things might have been different. "Why am I only thinking of Montparnasse?" she asked herself. "Marius is the reason I'm here, why not think of him?" As much as she knew she shouldn't, she remembered the night a month ago when she last spoken at length with her lover. "I owe him at least that," she reminded herself. "My thoughts will be my thanks."
Eponine repositioned herself in Monparnasse's arms so that her head rested against his chest. That way she could feel his heartbeat and the steady rhythm of his breath. This was the way it would be when she was in a far away bedroom with a light breeze blowing through an open window. Except the arms that held her would be Marius's and she would be happy. She could imagine the moment now, two lovers, both knowing the other one was awake, yet too enraptured in their love to move or speak. Yet even the comfort of her dreams could not blot out the memory of whose arms she really lay in. She tried not to let her guilt affect her. "It would have happened whatever I did; this way I wasn't hurt," she told herself. Anyway, Marius didn't care; he didn't care about her, or who she was sleeping with. She stirred as much as the restraint of Monpranasse's arms would allow her to, trying to blot the remorse that was filling her. The memories seeped into her head nonetheless. She had seen Montparnasse leaning against a wall, a rose dangling from between his teeth. At that moment dread had filled her. After that night in the snow he had discovered a new way to hurt her, and as long as she refused he rarely denied himself the pleasure. She knew that it was too late, that he had already seen her, and yet she didn't try to run while there was still time. When he walked towards her and gently placed the rose in hair, then kissed her ever so slightly, she hadn't pushed him away. Instead she had given in. She had told herself so many times that she was immune to pain, and yet at that moment she was terrified of it. She had had her fill for the day. She had given Marius his precious address, and he had acted like he wished she had never come. He had thought she wanted his money. How wrong he was. She didn't want money, she wanted affection, she wanted love. He was blind, and to top it off he disliked her more than she had thought. Perhaps, over the months in jail when she had nothing to do but dream of him, she had gotten her hopes up, and now they were irrevocably dashed. "That doesn't mean go run off with another man," she told herself. She hadn't even left Montparnasse once he was done with her; she had obeyed his wishes once again and stayed with him. She had more of a reason for that however; she could tell there was something Montparnasse wanted to ask her, and she would be doing a disservice to both of them if she tried to keep him from asking it. This was the best time, she reminded herself; after he got his way he was always docile, immune to things that would usually unleash a torrent of anger. It was taking him longer than usual, yet Eponine knew he would speak before daybreak.
Just as Eponine was about to surrender completely to her own thoughts Montparnasse's familiar voice rang through the darkness. "Why don't you speak argot anymore, Nina?"
He was going to dance around his question, she thought to herself; she could play that game. "I could ask the same of you," she replied.
"But it would be stupid, because you know why. It's uncivilized, in case you forgot," he said in a tone of arrogance.
Eponine could not help but laugh after hearing that. "What's so funny?" Montparnasse said menacingly as he wrapped his arms around her neck pretending to strangle her. Eponine giggled as she pulled at his arms trying to free herself. While his jest was amusing, at the same time it was unsettling, as she recalled how much stronger he was than her, even when just playing.
Montparnasse loosened his grip and moved his arms back to their previous position. "Well?" he asked.
"Well what?"
"Well, to begin with what was so funny?"
"You."
"Idiot," replied Montparnasse. "What about me?"
"Well, simply that it isn't very civilized to rob men blind in alleyways and bed a woman like me underneath a bridge. I wouldn't say so at least."
"I'm carrying out my life's ambition by robbing men, and I like sleeping with you no matter what kind of woman you are. Besides a factory worker will never be wealthy, I on the other hand might be."
"That's not true. You haven't always wanted to be a robber, have you? This sort of a life couldn't be what you dreamt of when you were little." Eponine said this in a distant manner, almost as if she was asking the question of herself.
"I wanted to be rich. No child dreams of this life, no child is capable of imagining it," Montparnasse replied in a manner not common to him.
Eponine was surprised by the depth of his statement. "That's perhaps the most intelligent thing you've ever said to me." She paused for a moment. "This isn't what we're meaning to talk about. I know that and so do you. You want to ask me something, so ask it; stop pretending like you're interested in what kind of slang I'm using this month."
Montparnasse paused at such length after hearing this that Eponine wondered if perhaps he was planning to leave the conversation on that note; but he was not. "What's his name, Eponine?"
She knew it had been coming, she had prompted it and yet when it hit her she had no idea how to react. He was expecting a serious answer; after all, he had called her by her real name, not one of the many pet names he had created for her. He would not be satisfied if she pretended not to know who "he" was or if she joked with him. She had no choice but to tell the truth; it couldn't hurt her much more than she had been hurt already.
"Marius," she said finally. "That's his name."
"Marius," Montparnasse repeated faintly under his breath. He kissed her head gently and tightened his hold on her. Then asked, "Well, you might as will tell me the whole story, lovely. How did you meet, to begin with?"
"This couldn't bother him, could it?" Eponine wondered as she felt him stroke her hair softly. No, it was impossible, why did she think these things? "I took one of father's letters to him; he used to live next door to us."
"Well, so what happened? Did you have him then? Is that what happened? Did he show his affection to you once than deny you? Is that what is causing you to act like this?" Montparnasse questioned.
"No," Eponine replied somberly. "He never so much as touched me. He's not like you, he's not interested in that sort of thing, or at least when it's with me." She said the last line in a tone of bitter sadness.
"Well, that's it then. It's because he refused you. You've lived all your life among men that will bed anything that walks. You finally found someone who refuses. You always want most what you can't have."
Eponine was beginning to become aggravated by Montparnasse trying to write this off as some casual attraction. How could he imagine that anything else existed? He saw the opposite sex as a good time, not in the same way she now did. He only understood lust; love was beyond him. She filled with anger; how dare he question what she knew more than anything to be true? "That's not it, though. Perhaps it hard for someone like you to understand, but there are feelings that run deeper than passion and lust. If this was just some passing obsession with a man that I can't have, then I would have realized it when you threw me to the ground. But I didn't stop you then, did I? And I didn't stop you the next time. Would I have even said what I did in the first place? Of course not, I really didn't mean it. Why the hell would I care about what your mother did? This is something more, don't you see?"
Montparnasse seemed angered by this remark. She realized it might have been a mistake to say what she had said about his mother. Perhaps he could live without guilt for the worst of his crimes if he had justification.
Eponine looked on with fear as his eyes darkened; she almost knew what he was going to say. "Well, you didn't refuse me tonight did you?" he screamed at her. "You didn't push me away, far from it. You didn't even take the chance to see if I would be angry, if I would even give a damn that some ugly useless slut like you refused me. If you love this man so much then what are you doing sleeping with me?"
Eponine had pushed his arms away and gotten up. She stood facing the river, her body trembling, and tears began to fall from her weary eyes. The culmination of the day's events had finally hit her, and though she longed to run into the darkness she was unable to move. Her betrayal of Marius didn't seem so real to her till someone else had spoken of it. It seemed like so many other things: just a fantasy inside her head. This was real, though, and he didn't love her. Now she wondered if she even loved him. She had seemed so assured before, but then why had she acted the way she had? She felt a hand grab her arm and spin her around. She stared at Montparnasse, expecting to see anger in his cold dark eyes, and yet he seemed surprised.
Montparnasse loosened the grip of his hand and stepped back slightly. He turned his head toward the wall without a sound. Eponine turned to face his back. She reached a hand to touch his shoulder, then pulled it away. They stood like that for what seemed like forever until finally Montparnasse spoke.
"Go," he said simply, without looking at her.
Eponine failed to understand his command. "Have I done something wrong?" she asked. "Why do you want me to leave?"
"I don't," he replied. "But you don't want to be here, so go. I won't come and find you again, you never have to see me if you don't want. Go find whoever the hell it is you're in love with, forget me, I have plenty of girls like you."
Eponine was stunned. He had used the last line to play down the kindness of what he was doing. She knew he enjoyed her, for whatever reason, and he was giving her up because of what she wanted. What he had said before was true; in the world in which they lived, it wasn't her place to say yes or no. Giving consent once meant yes for life. Montparnasse would have gladly continued pursuing her, and no one would have bothered to stop him; but he for once had thought of someone besides himself. Eponine was touched that he thought of her.
She gently took his arm and turned him around so he faced her, then she kissed him. It felt for a moment the way it did before, when life was simple, and Montparnasse evoked happiness instead of fear and remorse. It faded away though, and when she was done she said simply, "Goodbye, Montparnasse." And she walked off into the dawn.
He had kept the promise he made that night. Though Eponine knew he had been more than willing to slit her throat, but at that moment a figure appeared in the light of a nearby street lamp. All thoughts of Montparnasse ceased when she saw who it was. A smile crossed Eponine's ashen face as she called out to him again. At first he did not seem to hear her, but the second time he replied into the darkness, "Who is it?" When he found out he bent down at her side and Eponine smiled because she knew she would die happily.