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It is sad to think that the love of a mother can possess villainous
aspects. Little as was the space occupied by Cosette,
it seemed to her as though it were taken from her own, and
that that little child diminished the air which her daughters
breathed. This woman, like many women of her sort,
had a load of caresses and a burden of blows and injuries
to dispense each day. If she had not had Cosette, it is certain
that her daughters, idolized as they were, would have
received the whole of it; but the stranger did them the service
to divert the blows to herself. Her daughters received nothing
but caresses. Cosette could not make a motion which
did not draw down upon her head a heavy shower of violent
blows and unmerited chastisement. The sweet, feeble being,
who should not have understood anything of this world or
of God, incessantly punished, scolded, ill-used, beaten, and
seeing beside her two little creatures like herself, who lived
270 Les Miserables
in a ray of dawn!
Madame Thenardier was vicious with Cosette. Eponine
and Azelma were vicious. Children at that age are o
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