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“Here’s a farce!”

Suddenly the hearse stopped; they were at the gate. It was necessary to exhibit the burial permit. The undertaker whispered with the porter of the cemetery. During this colloquy, which always causes a delay of a minute or two, somebody, an unknown man, came and placed himself behind the hearse at Fauchelevent’s side. He was a working-man, who wore a vest with large pockets, and had a pick under his arm.

Fauchelevent looked at this unknown man.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The man answered:

“The gravedigger.”

Should a man survive a cannon-shot through his breast, he would present the appearance that Fauchelevent did.

“The gravedigger?”

“Yes.”

“You!”

“Me.”

“The gravedigger is Father Mestienne.”

“He was.”

“What! he was?”

“He is dead.”

Fauchelevent was ready for anything but this, that a gravedigger could die. It is, however, true; gravediggers themselves die. By dint of digging graves for others, they open their own.

Fauchelevent remained speechless. He had hardly the strength to stammer out:

“But it’s not possible!”

“It is so.”

“But,” repeated he, feebly, “the gravedigger is Father Mestienne.”

“After Napoleon, Louis XVIII. After Mestienne, Gribier. Peasant, my name is Gribier.”

Fauchelevent grew pale; he stared at Gribier.

He was a long, thin, livid man, perfectly funereal. He had the appearance of a broken-down doctor turned gravedigger.

Fauchelevent burst out laughing.

“Ah! what droll things happen! Old Mestienne is dead. Little old Mestienne is dead, but hurrah for little old Lenoir! You know what little old Lenoir is? It is the mug of red wine on the counter for a six spot. It is the mug of Surene, zounds! real Paris Surene. So he is dead, old Mestienne! I am sorry for it; he was a jolly fellow. But you too, you are a jolly fellow. Isn’t that so, comrade? we will go and take a drink together, right away.”

The man answered: “I have studied, I have graduated. I never drink.”

The hearse had started moving again, and was rolling along the main avenue of the cemetery.

Fauchelevent had slackened his pace. He limped still more from anxiety than from infirmity.

The gravedigger walked before him.

Fauchelevent again scrutinised the unexpected Gribier.

He was one of those men who, though young, have an old appearance, and who, though thin, are very strong.

“Comrade!” cried Fauchelevent.

The man turned.

“I am the gravedigger of the convent.”

“My colleague,” said the man.

Fauchelevent, illiterate, but very keen, understood that he had to do with a very formidable species, a good talker.

He mumbled out:

“Is it so, Father Mestienne is dead?”

The man answered:

“Perfectly. The good God consulted his list of bills payable. It was Father Mestienne’s turn. Father Mestienne is dead.”

Fauchelevent repeated mechanically.

“The good God.”

“The good God,” said the man authoritatively. “What the philosophers call the Eternal Father; the Jacobins, the Supreme Being.”

“Are we not going to make each other’s acquaintance?” stammered Fauchelevent.

“It is made. You are a peasant, I am a Parisian.”

“We are not acquainted as long as we have not drunk together. He who empties his glass empties his heart. Come and drink with me. You can’t refuse.”

“Business first.”

Fauchelevent said to himself: I am lost.

They were now only a few turns of the wheel from the path that led to the nuns’ corner.

The gravedigger continued:

“Peasant, I have seven youngsters that I must feed. As they must eat, I must not drink.”

And he added with the satisfaction of a serious being who is making a sententious phrase:

“Their hunger is the enemy of my thirst.”

The hearse turned a huge cypress, left the main path, took a little one, entered upon the grounds, and was lost in a thicket. This indicated the immediate proximity of the grave. Fauchelevent slackened his pace, but could not slacken that of the hearse. Luckily the mellow soil, wet by the winter rains, stuck to the wheels, and made the track