• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The prioress drew breath, then turning towards Fauchelevent:

“Father Fauvent, is it settled?”

“It is settled, reverend mother.”

“Can we count upon you?”

“I shall obey.”

“It is well.”

“I am entirely devoted to the convent.”

“Agreed, you will close the coffin. The sisters will carry it into the chapel. The office for the dead will be said. Then they will return to the cloister. Between eleven o‘clock and midnight, you will come with your iron bar. All will be done with the greatest secrecy. There will be in the chapel only the four mother choristers, Mother Ascension, and you.”

“And the sister who will be on watch.”

“She will not turn around.”

“But she will hear.”

“She will not listen; moreover, what the cloister knows the world does not know.”

There was a pause again. The prioress continued:

“You will take off your bell. It is unnecessary for the sister on watch to notice that you are there.”

“Reverend mother?”

“What, Father Fauvent?”

“Has the coroner made his visit?”

“He is going to make it at four o‘clock to-day. The bell has been sounded which summons the coroner. But you do not hear any ring then?”

“I only pay attention to my own.”

“That is right, Father Fauvent.”

“Reverend mother, I shall need a lever at least six feet long.”

“Where will you get it?”

“Where there are gratings there are always iron bars. I have my heap of old iron at the back of the garden.”

“About three-quarters of an hour before midnight; do not forget.”

“Reverend mother?”

“What?”

“If you should ever have any other work like this, my brother is very strong. A Turk.”

“You will do it as quickly as possible.”

“I cannot go very fast. I am infirm; it is on that account I need help. I limp.”

“To limp is not a crime, and it may be a blessing. The Emperor Henry II, who fought the Antipope Gregory, and re-established Benedict VIII, has two surnames: the Saint and the Lame.”

“Two overcoats are very good,” murmured Fauchelevent, who, in reality, was a little hard of hearing.bo

“Father Fauvent, now I think of it, we will take a whole hour. It is not too much. Be at the high altar with the iron bar at eleven o‘clock. The office commences at midnight. It must all be finished a good quarter of an hour before.”

“I will do everything to prove my zeal for the community. This is the arrangement. I shall nail up the coffin. At eleven o‘clock precisely I will be in the chapel. The mother choristers will be there. Mother Ascension will be there. Two men would be better. But no matter! I shall have my lever. We shall open the vault, let down the coffin, and close the vault again. After which, there will be no trace of anything. The government will suspect nothing. Reverend mother, is everything arranged then?”

“No.”

“What more is there?”

“There is still the empty coffin.”

This brought them to a stand. Fauchelevent pondered. The prioress pondered.

“Father Fauvent, what shall be done with the coffin?”

“It will be put in the ground.”

“Empty?”

Another silence. Fauchelevent made with his left hand that peculiar gesture, which dismisses an unpleasant question.

“Reverend mother, I nail up the coffin in the lower room in the church, and nobody can come in there except me, and I will cover the coffin with the pall.”

“Yes, but the bearers, in putting it into the hearse and in letting it down into the grave, will surely perceive that there is nothing inside.”

“Ah! the de—!” exclaimed Fauchelevent.

The prioress began to cross herself, and looked fixedly at the gardener. Vil stuck in his throat.

He made haste to think of an expedient to make her forget the oath.

“Reverend mother, I will put some earth into the coffin. That will have the effect of a body.”

“You are right. Earth is the same thing as man. So you will prepare the empty coffin?”

“I will attend to that.”

The face of the prioress, till then dark and anxious, became again serene. She made him the sign of a superior dismissing an inferior. Fauchelevent moved towards the door. As he was going out, the prioress gently raised her