Eponine shrugs awkwardly. "In the winter, it's cold and wet. The ditches fill with rain and everywhere to sleep is puddles and cold. In the summer, you fry with the heat and there is nowhere to cool, only the Seine, and it can suck you in if you go too close."

She looks down, embarrassed. Eponine knows nothing of art or writing or poetry. She doesn't even know what a croissant is, or fancy French food. She scuffs her foot on the dusty floor.
"I think if you have money, Madame, Paris might be as glorious as you make it sound," she eventually says, quietly. "Me, I don't know such a place. I hate Paris. But my brother, he knows some actors. He can sometimes get me a ticket to watch from the floor or the sides."

But what's to be done? Her cookie suddenly tastes bitter, of lost dreams, of what-might-have-beens, of regret. Eponine tucks the remainder into her pocket. She probably won't eat it. It's embarrassing to admit just how needy she is.

"The United States? America? That is a long way from Paris. I've seen the boats, Ma'am, coming in. I always thought of running to there... perhaps if I hadn't come here. Now that my Pa will have me dead, I would've come."