"Eponine's Death" from the novel Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

"You do not know me? Eponine… I am dying. My hand, it is pierced, by a ball. Did you see that musket aimed at you? The hand that stopped it, that was mine. The ball passed through my hand, but it went out through my back. It is useless to take me from here. I will tell you how you can care for me, better then a surgeon. Sit down by me on that stone."
"Oh! How good it is! How kind he is! That is it! I don't suffer any more! Do you know, Monsieur? It worried me that you should go into her garden, it was silly, since it was I who had shown you her house, and then indeed I ought surely to have known that a young man like you-You thought me ugly, didn't you? See, you are lost! Nobody will get out of the barricade, now. It is I who led you to this, it was! You are going to die, I am sure. And still when I saw him aiming at you, I put up my hand upon the muzzle of the musket. How droll it is! But it was because I wanted to die before you. When I got this ball, I dragged myself here, nobody saw me, nobody picked me up. I waited for you, I said: He will not come then? Oh! If you knew, I bit my blouse, I suffered so much. Now I am well. Do you remember the day when I came to your room, and when I looked at myself in the mirror, and the day I met you in the boulevard near some work-woman? How the birds sang! It was not very long ago. You gave me a hundred sous, and I said to you: I don't want your money. Did you pick up your piece? You are not rich; I didn't think to tell you to pick it up. The sun shone bright, I was not cold. Do you remember, Monsieur? Oh! I am happy! We are all going to die. Oh! It is coming back! I am stifling!"
(raises herself up)
"It is he! My brother is here. He must not see me. He would scold me. That little boy, the one who is singing, he is my brother. Oh! Don't go away! It won't be long now! Listen, I don't want to decieve you. I have a letter in my pocket for you. Since yesterday. I was told to put it in the post. I kept it. I didn't want it to reach you. But you would not like it of me perhaps when we meet again so soon. We do meet again, don't we? Take your letter. Take it." "Now, for my pains, promise me---Promise me! Promise to kiss me on the forehead when I am dead, for I shall feel it.
(falls back as if she was dead, but then again opens her eyes and says the following sweetly, as if already from another world)
" And then, do you know, Monsieur, I believe I was a little in love with you."

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