Les Misérables, v. 2

The prioress breathed, and then turned to Fauchelevent. "Father Fauvent, is it settled?"

"It is, Reverend Mother."

"Can we reckon on you?"

"I will obey."

"Very good."

"I am entirely devoted to the convent."

"You will close the coffin, and the sisters will carry it into the chapel. The office for the dead will be read, and then we shall return to the cloisters. Between eleven and twelve you will come with your iron bar, and everything will be performed with the utmost secrecy; there will be no one in the chapel but the four singing mothers, Mother Ascension, and yourself."

"And the sister who will be at the post?"

"She will not turn round."

"But she will hear."

"She will not listen. Moreover, what the convent knows the world is ignorant of."

There was another pause, after which the prioress continued, —

"You will remove your bell, for it is unnecessary for the sister at the stake to notice your presence."

"Reverend Mother?"

"What is it, Father Fauvent?"

"Has the physician of the dead paid his visit?"

"He will do so at four o'clock to-day; the bell has been rung to give him notice. But do you not hear any ringing?"

"I only pay attention to my own summons."

"Very good, Father Fauvent."

"Reverend Mother, I shall require a lever at least six feet long."

"Where will you get it?"

"Where there are plenty of gratings there are plenty of iron bars. I have a pile of old iron at the end of the garden."

"About three quarters of an hour before midnight, do not forget."

"Reverend Mother?"

"What is it?"

"If you have other jobs like this, my brother is a strong fellow for you, – a Turk."

"You will be as quick as possible."

"I cannot do things quickly, for I am infirm, and for that reason require an assistant. I halt."

"Halting is not a crime, and may be a blessing. The Emperor Henry II., who combated the Anti-pope Gregory, and re-established Benedict VIII., has two surnames, – the saint and the cripple."

"Two excellent surtouts," muttered Fauchelevent, who really was rather hard of hearing.

"Father Fauvent, now I think of it, take a whole hour, for it will not be too much. Be at the High Altar with your crowbar at eleven o'clock, for the service begins at midnight, and all must be finished a good quarter of an hour previously."

"I will do everything to prove my zeal to the community. I will nail up the coffin, and be in the chapel at eleven o'clock precisely; the singing mothers and Mother Ascension will be there. Two men would be better; but no matter, I shall have my crowbar. We will open the vault, let down the coffin, and close it again. After that there will not be a trace, and the Government will have no suspicion. Reverend Mother, is all arranged thus?"

"No."

"What is there still?"

"There is the empty coffin."

This was a difficulty; Fauchelevent thought of and on it, and so did the prioress.

"Father Fauvent, what must be done with the other coffin."

"It must be buried."

"Empty?"

Another silence. Fauchelevent made with his left hand that sort of gesture which dismisses a disagreeable question.

"Reverend Mother, I will nail up the coffin and cover it with the pall."

"Yes; but the bearers, while placing it in the hearse and lowering it into the grave, will soon perceive that there is nothing in it."

"Oh, the de – !" Fauchelevent exclaimed. The prioress began a cross, and looked intently at the gardener; the

vil

 stuck in his throat, and he hastily improvised an expedient to cause the oath to be forgotten.

"Reverend Mother, I will put earth in the coffin, which will produce the effect of a body."

"You are right, for earth is the same as a human being. So you will manage the empty coffin?"

"I take it on myself."

The face of the prioress, which had hitherto been troubled and clouded, now grew serene. She made the sign of a superior dismissing an inferior, and Fauchelevent walked toward the door. As he was going out, the prioress gently raised her voice.

"Father Fauvent, I am satisfied with you; to-morrow, after the interment, bring me your brother, and tell him to bring me his daughter."

CHAPTER IV

A PLAN OF ESCAPE

The strides of halting men are like the glances of squinters, they do not reach their point very rapidly. Fauchelevent was perplexed, and he spent upwards of a quarter of an hour in returning to the garden cottage. Cosette was awake, and Jean Valjean had seated her by the fireside. At the moment when Fauchelevent entered, Jean Valjean was pointing to the gardener's basket leaning in a corner, and saying to her, —

"Listen to me carefully, little Cosette. We are obliged to leave this house, but shall return to it, and be very happy. The good man will carry you out in that thing upon his back, and you will wait for me with a lady till I come to fetch you. If you do not wish Madame Thénardier to catch you again, obey, and say not a word."

Cosette nodded her head gravely; at the sound Fauchelevent made in opening the door Jean Valjean turned round.

"Well?"

"All is arranged, and nothing is so," said Fauchelevent. "I have leave to bring you in, but to bring you in you must go out. That is the difficulty; it is easy enough with the little one."

"You will carry her out?"

"Will she be quiet?"

"I answer for that."

"But you, Father Madeleine?"

And after an anxious silence Fauchelevent cried, —

"Why, go out in the same way as you came in."

Jean Valjean, as on the first occasion, confined himself to saying "Impossible!"

Fauchelevent, speaking to himself rather than to Jean Valjean, growled, —

"There is another thing that troubles me. I said that I would put earth in it, but now I come to think of it, earth instead of a body will not do, for it will move about and the men will notice it. You understand, Father Madeleine, the Government will perceive the trick?"

Jean Valjean looked at him, and fancied that he must be raving; Fauchelevent continued, —

"How the deuce are you going to get out? For everything must be settled to-morrow, as the prioress expects you then."

Then he explained to Valjean that it was a reward for a service which he, Fauchelevent, was rendering the community. It was part of his duty to attend to the funerals, nail up the coffin, and assist the grave-digger at the cemetery. The nun who had died that morning requested to be buried in the coffin which served her as bed in the vault under the altar of the chapel. This was forbidden by the police regulations, but she was one of those women to whom nothing could be refused. The prioress and the vocal mothers intended to carry out the wishes of the deceased, and so all the worse for the Government. He, Fauchelevent, would nail up the coffin in the cell, lift the stone in the chapel, and let down the body into the vault. As a reward for this the prioress would admit into the house his brother as gardener, and his niece as boarder. The prioress had told him to bring his brother the next day after the pretended funeral; but he could not bring M. Madeleine in from outside if he were not there. This was his first embarrassment, and then he had a second in the empty coffin.

"What do you mean by the empty coffin?" Valjean asked.

"Why, the Government coffin."

"I do not understand you."

"A nun dies, and the physician of the municipality comes and says: 'There is a nun dead.' Government sends a coffin; the next day it sends a hearse and undertaker's men to fetch the coffin and carry it to the cemetery. They will come and lift the coffin, and there's nothing in it."

"Put something in it."

"A dead person? I have n't such a thing."

"Well, then, a living one."

"Who?"

"Myself," said Jean Valjean.

Fauchelevent, who was seated, sprang up as if a shell had exploded under his chair.

"You?"

"Why not?"

Jean Valjean had one of those rare smiles which resembled a sunbeam in a wintry sky.

"You know that you said, Fauchelevent, 'Mother Crucifixion is dead,' and I added, 'And Father Madeleine is buried,' It will be so."

"Oh, you are joking, not speaking seriously."

"Most seriously. Must I not get out of here?"

"Of course."

"I have told you to find for me also a basket and a tilt."

"Well?"

"The basket will be of deal, and the tilt of black cloth."

"No, white cloth. Nuns are buried in white."

"All right, then, white cloth."

"You are not like other men, Father Madeleine."

To see such ideas, which are nought but the wild and daring inventions of the hulks, issue from his peaceful surrounding, and mingled with what he called "the slow pace of the convent," produced in Fauchelevent a stupor comparable to that which a passer-by would feel on seeing a whaler fishing in the gutter of the Rue St. Denis. Jean Valjean went on.

"The point is to get out of here unseen, and that is a way. But just tell me, how does it all take place? Where is the coffin?"

"The empty one?"

"Yes."

"In what is called the dead-house. It is upon two trestles, and covered with the pall."

"What is the length of the coffin?"

"Six feet."

"What is this dead-house?"

"A ground-floor room with a grated window looking on the garden, and two doors, one leading to the church, the other to the convent."

"What church?"

"The street church, the one open to everybody."

"Have you the keys of these doors?"

"No, I have the key of the one communicating with the convent; but the porter has the other."

"When does he open it?"

"Only to let the men pass who come to fetch the body. When the coffin has gone out the door is locked again."

"Who nails up the coffin?"

"I do."

"Who places the pall over it?"

"I do."

"Are you alone?"

"No other man, excepting the doctor, is allowed to enter the dead-house. It is written on the wall."

"Could you hide me in that house to-night, when all are asleep in the convent?"

"No; but I can hide you in a dark hole opening out of the dead-house, in which I put the burial tools, of which I have the key."

"At what hour to-morrow will the hearse come to fetch the body?"

"At three in the afternoon. The interment takes place at the Vaugirard cemetery a little before nightfall, for the ground is not very near here."

"I will remain concealed in your tool-house during the night and morning. How about food? For I shall be hungry."

"I will bring you some."

"You can nail me up in the coffin at two o'clock." Fauchelevent recoiled and cracked his finger-bones.

"Oh, it is impossible!"

"Nonsense! To take a hammer and drive nails into a board?"

What seemed to Fauchelevent extraordinary was, we repeat, quite simple to Jean Valjean, for he had gone through worse straits; and any man who has been a prisoner knows how to reduce himself to the diameter of the mode of escape. A prisoner is affected by flight just as a sick man is by the crisis which saves or destroys him, and an escape is a cure. What will not a man undergo for the sake of being cured? To be nailed up and carried in a box, to live for a long time in a packing-case, to find air where there is none, to economize one's breath for hours, to manage to choke without dying, was one of Jean Valjean's melancholy talents.

Besides, a coffin in which there is a living body, this convict's expedient, is also an imperial expedient. If we may believe the monk Austin Castillejo, it was the way employed by Charles V., who, wishing to see La Plombes for the last time after his abdication, contrived to get her in and out of the monastery of St. Yuste. Fauchelevent, when he had slightly recovered, exclaimed, —

"But how will you manage to breathe?"

"I will manage it."

"In that box? Why, the mere idea of it chokes me.

"You have a gimlet. You will make a few holes round the mouth, and nail down the lid, without closing it tightly."

"Good! and suppose you cough or sneeze?"

"A man who is escaping does not do such a thing."

And Jean Valjean added, —

"Father Fauchelevent, we must make up our minds. I must either be captured here or go out in the hearse."

Everybody must have noticed the fancy which cats have of stopping and sniffing in a half-opened door. Who has not said to a cat, "Come in, then"? There are men who, when an incident stands half opened before them, have also a tendency to remain undecided between two resolutions, at the risk of being crushed by destiny as it hurriedly closes the adventure. The more prudent, cats though they are, and because they are cats, often incur greater danger than the more daring. Fauchelevent was of this hesitating nature; still, Jean Valjean's coolness involuntarily mastered him, and he growled, —

"After all, there is no other way."

Jean Valjean continued, —

"The only thing I am anxious about is what will take place at the cemetery."

"There is the very thing I am not anxious about," said Fauchelevent; "if you feel sure of getting out of the coffin, I feel sure of getting you out of the grave. The grave-digger is a friend of mine and a drunkard of the name of Father Mestienne; he puts the dead in the grave, and I put the grave-digger in my pocket. I will tell you what will occur. We shall arrive a little before twilight, three quarters of an hour before the cemetery gates are closed The hearse will drive up to the grave; and I shall follow, for that is my business. I shall have a hammer, a chisel, and pincers in my pocket; the hearse stops, the undertaker knots a cord round your coffin and lets you down; the priest says the prayers, makes the sign of the cross, sprinkles the holy water, and bolts. I remain alone with Father Mestienne; and he is a friend of mine, I tell you. One of two things is certain; he will either be drunk or not be drunk. If he is not drunk, I shall say to him, 'Come, and have a drink before the "Bon Coing" closes.' I take him away, make him drunk, which does not take long, as he has always made a beginning. I lay him under the table, take his card, and return to the cemetery without him. You will have only to deal with me. If he is drunk I shall say to him, 'Be off; I will do your work for you.' He will go, and I get you out of the hole."

Jean Valjean held out his hand, which Father Fauchelevent seized with a touching peasant devotion.

"It is settled, Father Fauchelevent. All will go well."

"Providing that nothing is deranged," Fauchelevent thought; "suppose the affair was to have a terrible ending!"

CHAPTER V

A DRUNKARD IS NOT IMMORTAL

The next day, as the son was setting, the few passers-by on the Boulevard de Maine took off their hats to an old-fashioned hearse, ornamented with death's-head, thigh-bones, and tears. In this hearse was a coffin covered with a white pall, on which lay an enormous black cross, like a tall dead woman with hanging arms. A draped carriage, in which could be noticed a priest in his surplice, and a chorister in his red skull-cap, followed. Two mutes in a gray uniform with black facings walked on the right and left of the hearse, while behind them came an old man in workman's garb, who halted. The procession proceeded toward the Vaugirard cemetery. Projecting from the man's pocket could be seen the handle of a hammer, the blade of a cold-chisel, and the double antennæ of a pair of pincers. This cemetery formed an exception to the others in Paris. It had its peculiar usages, just as it had a large gate and a side gate, which old people in the quarters, tenacious to old names, called the horseman's gate and the footman's gate. The Bernardo-Benedictines of the Little Picpus had obtained, as we have stated, permission to be buried there in a separate corner, and by night, because the cemetery had formerly belonged to their community. The grave-diggers, having thus an evening duty in summer and a night duty in winter, were subjected to special rules. The gates of Parisian cemeteries were closed at that period at sunset; and as this was a police measure, the Vaugirard cemetery was subjected to it like the rest. The two gates adjoined a pavilion, built by the architect Perronet, in which the porter lived, and they were inexorably closed at the moment when the sun disappeared behind the dome of the Invalides. If any grave-digger were detained at that moment in the cemetery, he had only one way to get out, his card, with which the undertaker's department supplied him. There was a species of letter-box in the shutter of the porter's window; the grave-digger threw his card into this box, the porter heard it fell, pulled the string, and the small gate opened. If the grave-digger had not his card he gave his name; the porter got up, recognized him, and opened the gate with his key; but in that case the grave-digger paid a fine of fifteen francs.

This cemetery, with its own regulations, was a flaw on the administrative symmetry, and it was put down shortly after 1830. The cemetery of Mont Parnasse succeeded it, and inherited the famous cabaret attached to the Vaugirard cemetery, which was known by the sign, "Au Bon Coing," one side of which looked out on the drinking tables, the other on the tombs. It was what might be called a faded cemetery, and it was falling into decay; green mould was invading it, and the flowers deserted it. Respectable tradesmen did not care to be buried at Vaugirard, for it had a poverty-stricken smell. La Père Lachaise, if you like! to be buried there was like having a mahogany suit of furniture. The Vaugirard cemetery was a venerable enclosure, laid out like an old French garden; in it were straight walks, box-trees, holly-trees, old tombs under old yew-trees, and very tall grass. At night it was a tragical-looking spot.

The sun had not yet set when the hearse with the white pall and black cross entered the avenue of this cemetery; and the halting man who followed it was no other than Fauchelevent. The interment of Mother Crucifixion in the vault under the altar, getting Cosette out, and introducing Jean Valjean into the dead-house, had been effected without the slightest hitch.

Let us say, in passing, that the burial of Mother Crucifixion beneath the altar is to us a very venial thing, and one of those faults which resemble a duty. The nuns had accomplished it, not only without feeling troubled, but with the applause of their conscience. In a convent, what is called "the Government" is only an interference with the authorities, which admits of discussion. First comes the rule, – as for the code, time enough for that. Men, make as many laws as you please, but keep them for yourselves! Rendering unto Cæsar only comes after rendering unto God, and a prince is nothing by the side of a principle.

Fauchelevent limped after the hearse with great satisfaction; his twin plots, the one with the nuns, the other with M. Madeleine, one for, the other against, the convent, were getting on famously. The calmness of Jean Valjean was one of those powerful tranquillities which are contagious, and Fauchelevent no longer doubted of success. What he still had to do was nothing; during the last two years he had made the grave-digger drunk a dozen times, and he played with him. He could do what he liked with Father Mestienne, and his head exactly fitted Fauchelevent's cap. The gardener's security was complete.

At the moment when the procession entered the avenue leading to the cemetery, Fauchelevent looked at the hearse with delight, and rubbed his huge hands as he said in a low voice, "What a lark!"

All at once the hearse stopped; it had reached the gates, and the permission for burying must be shown. The undertaker conversed with the porter, and during this colloquy, which occupied two or three minutes, a stranger stationed himself behind the hearse by Fauchelevent's side. He was a sort of workman, wearing a jacket with wide pockets, and holding a spade under his arm. Fauchelevent looked at the stranger, and asked him, —

"Who are you?"

The man replied, "The grave-digger."

If any man could survive a cannon-ball right in the middle of his chest, he would cut such a face as Fauchelevent did.

"Why, Father Mestienne is the grave-digger."

"Was."

"How, was?"

"He is dead."

Fauchelevent was prepared for anything except this, that a grave-digger could die; and yet, it is true that grave-diggers themselves die; while digging holes for others, they prepare one for themselves. Fauchelevent stood with widely-opened mouth, and had scarce strength to stammer, —

"Why, it is impossible."

"It is the case."

"But the grave-digger," he went on feebly, "is Father Mestienne."

"After Napoleon, Louis XVIII. After Mestienne, Gribier. Rustic, my name is Gribier."

Fauchelevent, who was very pale, stared at Gribier; he was a tall, thin, livid, thoroughly funereal man. He looked like a broken-down doctor who had turned grave-digger. Fauchelevent burst into a laugh.

"Ah, what funny things do happen! Father Mestienne is dead, but long live little Father Lenoir! Do you know who he is? A bottle of Surêne, morbigou! real Paris Surêne. And so Father Mestienne is dead; I feel sorry for him, as he was a jolly fellow. But you are a jolly fellow too, are you not, comrade? We will drink a glass together, eh?"

The man answered, "I have finished my education, and I never drink."

The hearse had set out again, and was now going along the main avenue. Fauchelevent had decreased his pace, and limped more through anxiety than infirmity. The grave-digger walked in front of him, and Fauchelevent once again surveyed this unknown Gribier. He was one of those men who when young look old, and who, though thin, are very strong.

"Comrade!" Fauchelevent cried.

The man turned round.

"I am the convent grave-digger."

"My colleague," the man said.

Fauchelevent, uneducated though very sharp, understood that he had to deal with a formidable species, a fine speaker; he growled, —

"So, then, Father Mestienne is dead."

The man answered, "Completely. Le bon Dieu consulted his bill-book. Father Mestienne was due, and so Father Mestienne is dead."

Fauchelevent repeated mechanically, "Le bon Dieu."

"Le bon Dieu," the man said authoritatively, – "with philosophers the Eternal Father; with Jacobins, the Supreme Being."

"Are we not going to form an acquaintance?" Fauchelevent stammered.

"It is formed. You are a rustic, I am a Parisian."

"People never know one another thoroughly till they have drunk together; for when a man empties his glass, he empties his heart. You will come and drink with me; such an offer cannot be refused."

"Work first."

Fauchelevent thought, "It's all over with me."

They had only a few more yards to go before reaching the nuns' corner. The grave-digger added, —

"Peasant, I have seven children to feed, and as they must eat I must not drink."

And he added with the satisfaction of a serious man who is laying down an axiom, —

"Their hunger is the enemy of my thirst."

The hearse left the main avenue, and turned down a smaller one, which indicated the immediate proximity of the grave. Fauchelevent reduced his pace, but could not reduce that of the hearse. Fortunately, the ground was satur