Les Misérables Volume I Book 4 Chapter 1 - One Mother meets Another Mother

In which two mothers, alike in their cares yet differing in fortunes, meet by chance at a rustic inn where innocence and hardship mingle beneath the shadow of a rusting truck carriage, and a tender yet cautious bargain is struck concerning the care of a sleeping child. The scene softly unveils the fragile hope and quiet despair of maternal love, tempered by the heavy hand of circumstance and the indifferent passage of time.