What the heck? For some really bizarre reason, reading Les Miserables in French is having a greater impact on me than reading it in English! I don't understand half of what the words are, but I know what they say (somehow I remember the story's details really well), and they make me cry way worse than I did when I first read the book! For example, I read the note Tholomyes, Fantine's lover, and his friends wrote to Fantine and the other girls (Dahlia, Zephine, and Favourite), knowing what it meant, and I started crying.

The girls got this note an hour after their lovers had said, "We have a surprise for you!" and left the place: "Sachez que nous avons des parents. Des parents, vous ne connaissez pas beaucoup ca. Ca s'appelle des peres et meres dans le code civil...A l'heure ou vous lirez ceci, cinq chevaux fougueux nous rapporteront a nos papas et a nos mamans...Nous partons, nous sommes partis...Nous rentrons dans la societe, dans le devoir et dans l'ordre...Pleurez-nous rapidement et remplacez-nous vite. Si cette lettre vous dechire, rendez-le-lui. Adieu."

Translation: "You must know that we have parents. Parents--you don't really know what they are. They are called mothers and fathers in the civil code [common language]...By the time you read this, five spirited horses will have taken us to our mothers and fathers...We are going, we are gone...We are returning to society, to responsiblity and to order...Mourn over us in haste and replace us quickly. If this letter tears you apart, do the same to it. Good-bye."

I hate those boys for abandoning the girls. I hate them! They are just fictional characters, but I hate them for doing that!

And poor Fantine. I never, ever felt so strongly for her while reading the English translation as I did reading it in French.

The last bit of the third book hits me so hard now, though:

Favourite rompit la premiere le silence.
--Eh bien! s'ecria-t-elle, c'est tout de meme une bonne farce.
C'est tres drole, dit Zephine.
--Ce doit etre Blachevelle qui a eu cette idee-la, reprit Favourite. Ca me rend amoureuse de lui. Sitot parti, sitot aime. Voila l'histoire.
--Non, dit Dahlia, c'est une idee de Tholomyes. Ca se reconnait.
--En ce cas, repartit Favourite, mort a Blanchvelle et vive Tholomyes!
--Vive Tholomyes! crierent Dahlia et Zephine.
Et elles eclaterent de rire.
Fantine rit comme les autres.
Une heure apres, quand elle fut rentree dans sa chambre, elle pleura. C'etait, nous l'avons dit, son premier amour; elle s'etait donnee a ce Tholomyes comme a un mari, et la pauvre fille avait un enfant.

Translation: Favourite broke the silence first.
"Well!" she said. "It was a good prank all the same."
"It is very funny," said Zephine.
"It must have been Blanchevelle who had the idea," responded Favourite. "That makes me finally fall in love with him. No sooner left than loved. That's the story."
"No," said Dahlia, "it is Tholomyes' idea. That is evident."
"In that case," responded Favourite, "death to Blanchvelle and long live Tholomyes!"
"Long live Tholomyes!" cried Dahlia and Zephine.
And they burst into laughter.
Fantine laughed with the others.
An hour later, when she had returned to her room, she wept. It was, as we said, her first love. She had given to Tholomyes as to a husband, and the poor girl had a child."

There were other parts that made me cry harder than the first time, too, and I think a lot of what's making it hurt so much is this whole deal with Nate. I've been SO emotional since Friday... Mood swings like crazy. I don't know what to do... I haven't talked to him since then, even though he was supposed to call Sunday. (He didn't. Again.) And then I feel just as brokenhearted as Fantine, or maybe a little less--since she gave herself fully to Tholomyes. But Nate was my "first love", and, as of Friday, he's left me, unexpectedly.

Ugh. That isn't even telling everything correctly--"he left me," pleh. I do not feel like explaining, though; it diminishes the tragedy of it all. I probably need to stop dwelling on it, anyway. Get away from this awful computer and go enter society again. (Though that's the last thing I feel like doing.) That's what all the books say... Don't just sit alone with all your grief and stuff.

{sigh} Bye.

-Stephanie