No sense like nonsense Witness: The fate of the blonde woman sitting on the edge of the bed twiddling her thumbs, having forgotten what she's about for as long as her guest is about his shaving. She'll remember at the accounting, and perhaps for a moment or two before the fact. But she will forget again, ere long, being about it. it's a strange sort of sleep, this lazy, spread-legged drudgery. She makes the motions wryly, mimicking a time when the taste was true, and the instinct was need of a far different sort. Her belly rumbles and he grunts, and does not notice. Cause she's got the moves down pat, and it's all ok. The soul forgets, the body does not. The soul, surviving, forgets everything. This shadow play, this sheet dance, it should be hideous, but it isn't. "You won't think about it dearie." Says Grande-Soeur, who is almost pretty when she lets the sneer drop for her next caller. "If you try, you'll wear yourself out. Just relax... You won't even know. You'll fall asleep with one and wake up with another. As long as you've the centimes to show for it, ma petite chaud." Grande-Soeur knows these things. She's a real business girl with a good head for figures and a damned good figure, for turning heads. She winks and brings it in. She takes the Blonde by the hand and shows her the ropes- and that it's only a rope, not a noose. But the Blonde sees a gallows and is afraid. But that's just a moment-- the knots are in her own stomach-- they soon untie and the good, straight laces wrap up and tie off loose ends and deftly do business. She's bound but not blind. She knows exactly what she's doing. Her eyes know it. There she is; she's staring something that should have been terrible right in the hairy, scarlet face, and she is not even disgusted. He lack of feeling is so complete that it does not even scare her, it encompasses and laughs at fear. Void is neither painful nor terrible- it is void. Thank you, come again. She will think on it later, and then she will feel something, perhaps, in spite of Grande-Soeur's wise admonitions not to waste her time. Later, she will feel all those terrible things and think- this is how I should have felt at the time. but I didn't. And she will do it again, go to it again. It won't kill her to keep it up. There is nothing there, but it's salable, and she can eat it. What's more, she can keep her passion fed on it. She has an emotion, every once in a while; it is called 'Cosette' and it is very beautiful, and very far away. This little hope is surviving by virtue of a sacrifice of absolutely nothing. "It was harder to part with my hair," she tells Grande-Soeur with a dry laugh, "To say nothing of my teeth!" "That's right, lovey. And this way, you never run out." They laugh and it's the cold, croney laugh-- it is old women alone and tired. The humor is not apparent to you or I, but it was not a joke for us. Philosophically: It's not making love, it's making money, and the only sense she's keeping is a sense of the ridiculous. Aware of the hairy, puffing thing astride her with it's bug-eyed expression, bad teeth, lolling tongue and onion breath- it strikes her that this is just that. Or it would be, if she had not retained also some business sense. She's not bought, it strikes her-- they're fleeced. Grande-Soeur nods at that and smiles. Her teeth are white and lovely. The Blonde's bear gaping holes. Live and learn. "That's right, ma petite chaud," Says Grande-Soeur approvingly, lacing up her bodice bindings to heave her freckled cleavage higher. "Now you're talking sense." She finds that amusing, for sense is ridiculous, here, so the Blonde laughs with Grande-Soeur for there is nothing else to do. Laughter is the wall between her and the pit; it is thick and a comfort, it protects her and she leans upon it. And Grande-Soeur makes her look a painted Bossuet, swaggering off with the capitaine to leave her alone with the Marechal. The baton is more impressive on the battlefield than in the boudoir, but he bleeds well, and she'll have a little left over this month. Thus did she, bald and unlucky lady, pillage the conqueror. It's a crime, and how well does it pay! Her body sickens, and her soul resists being taken with it; it does not care about her, and gives no damn what she does with her withers. It's a crime, and we know it will catch her out, because we have read chapters called 'Fantine', and we watched her dream, we heard her sing, we saw her die. Martyress in musical form, the child she loved is not the point, not anymore. Cosette marries a baron and loses a father. Who is waiting for Fantine when she dies? The open arms of her Grande-Soeur, who died unnoted and maddened of pox a month before. Her smile is kind, not tired, and her voice does not dry or crack. "Hello dearie," she says and sighs, "Well, the schedule's not so bad here, and the pay is better-- Soldiers are soldiers, dead or alive-- there still work to be had. do you care?" "Not a bit." Her Cosette is cared for-- there is nothing to do. Old habits die hard- the body is dead, but something remembers. "Just as long as I make my entrance for 'Finale'." Tell me quickly what's the story...