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He approached the gravedigger.

“They have such a good little Argenteuil wine,” suggested Fauchelevent.

“Villager,” continued the man, “I ought not to be a gravedigger. My father was porter at the Prytanée.bs He intended me for literature. But he was unfortunate. He lost his money on stocks. I was obliged to renounce the condition of an author. However, I am still a public scribe.”

“But then you are not the gravedigger?” replied Fauchelevent, catching at a straw, feeble as it was.

“One does not prevent the other. I cumulate.”

Fauchelevent did not understand this last word.

“Let us go and drink,” said he.

Here an observation is necessary. Fauchelevent, whatever was his anguish, proposed to drink, but did not explain himself on one point; who should pay? Ordinarily Fauchelevent proposed, and Father Mestienne paid. A proposal to drink resulted evidently from the new situation produced by the fact of the new gravedigger, and this proposal he must make; but the old gardener left, not unintentionally, the proverbial quarter of an hour of Rabelais unclear.bt As for himself, Fauchelevent, however excited he was, did not care to pay.

The gravedigger went on, with a smile of superiority:

“We must live. I accepted the succession of Father Mestienne. When one has almost finished his classes, he is a philosopher. To the labour of my hand, I have added the labour of my arm. I have my little writer’s shop at the Market in the Rue de Sèvre. You know? the umbrella market. All the cooks of the Croix Rouge come to me; I patch up their declarations to their true loves. In the morning I write love letters; in the evening I dig graves. Such is life, peasant.”

The hearse advanced; Fauchelevent, full of anxiety, looked about him on all sides. Great drops of sweat were falling from his forehead.

“However,” continued the gravedigger, “one cannot serve two mistresses; I must choose between the pen and the pick. The pick hurts my hand.”

The hearse stopped.

The choir-boy got out of the hearse, then the priest.

One of the forward wheels of the hearse was lifted a little by a heap of earth, beyond which was seen an open grave.

“This is a laugh!” repeated Fauchelevent in consternation.

6

DEAD AND BURIEDbu

WHO WAS in the coffin? We know. Jean Valjean.

Jean Valjean had arranged it so that he could live in it, and could breathe, if only barely.

It is a strange thing to what extent an easy conscience gives calmness in other respects. The entire strategem pre-arranged by Jean Valjean had been working, and working well, since the night before. He counted, as did Fauchelevent, upon Father Mestienne. He had no doubt of the result. Never was a situation more critical, never calmness more complete.

The four boards of the coffin exhaled a kind of terrible peace. It seemed as if something of the repose of the dead had entered into the tranquillity of Jean Valjean.

From within that coffin he had been able to follow, and he had followed, all the phases of the fearful drama which he was playing with Death.

Soon after Fauchelevent had finished nailing down the upper board, Jean Valjean had felt himself carried out, then wheeled along. By the diminished jolting, he had felt that he was passing from the pavement to the hard ground; that is to say, that he was leaving the streets and entering upon the boulevards. By a dull sound, he had divined that they were crossing the bridge of Austerlitz. At the first stop he had comprehended that they were entering the cemetery; at the second stop he had said: here is the grave.

He felt that hands hastily seized the coffin, then a harsh scraping upon the boards; he concluded that that was a rope which they were tying around the coffin to let it down into the excavation.

Then he felt a kind of dizziness.

Probably the bearer and the gravedigger had tipped the coffin and let the head down before the feet. He returned fully to himself on feeling that he was horizontal and motionless. He had touched the bottom.

He felt a certain chill.

A voice arose above him, icy and solemn. He heard pass away, some