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“Qui dormiunt in terræ pulvere, evigilabunt; alii in vitam æternam, et alii in opprobrium, ut videant semper.”bv

A child’s voice said:

“De profundis.”

The deep voice recommenced:

“Requiem æternam dona ei, Domine.”

The child’s voice responded:

“Et lux perpetua luceat ei. ”

He heard upon the board which covered him something like the gentle patter of a few drops of rain. It was probably the holy water.

He thought: “This will soon be finished. A little more patience. The priest is going away. Fauchelevent will take Mestienne away to drink. They will leave me. Then Fauchelevent will come back alone, and I shall get out. That will take a good hour.”

The deep voice resumed.

“Requiescat in pace. ”

And the child’s voice said:

“Amen.”

Jean Valjean, intently listening, perceived something like receding steps.

“Now there they go,” thought he. “I am alone.”

All at once he heard a sound above his head which seemed to him like a clap of thunder.

It was a spadeful of earth falling upon the coffin.

A second spadeful of earth fell.

One of the holes by which he breathed was stopped up.

A third spadeful of earth fell.

Then a fourth.

There are things stronger than the strongest man. Jean Valjean lost consciousness.

7

THE MISSING CARD

LET US SEE what occurred over the coffin in which Jean Valjean lay.

When the hearse had departed and the priest and the choir-boy had got into the carriage, and were gone, Fauchelevent, who had never taken his eyes off the gravedigger, saw him stoop, and grasp his spade, which was standing upright in the heap of earth.

Hereupon, Fauchelevent formed a supreme resolve.

Placing himself between the grave and the gravedigger, and folding his arms, he said:

“I’ll pay for it!”

The gravedigger eyed him with amazement, and replied:

“What, peasant?”

Fauchelevent repeated:

“I’ll pay for it!”

“For what?”

“For the wine.”

“What wine?”

“The Argenteuil.”

“Where’s the Argenteuil?”

“At the Good Quince.”

“Go to the devil!” said the gravedigger.

And he threw a spadeful of earth upon the coffin.

The coffin gave back a hollow sound. Fauchelevent felt himself stagger, and nearly fell into the grave. In a voice in which the strangling sound of the death-rattle began to be heard he cried:

“Come, comrade, before the Good Quince closes!”

The gravedigger took up another spadeful of earth. Fauchelevent continued:

“I’ll pay,” and he seized the gravedigger by the arm.

“Hark ye, comrade,” he said, “I am the gravedigger of the convent, and have come to help you. It’s a job we can do at night. Let us take a drink first.”

And as he spoke, even while clinging desperately to this urgent effort, he asked himself, with some misgiving: “And even should he drink—will he get tipsy?”

“Good rustic,” said the gravedigger, “if you insist, I consent. We’ll have a drink but after my work, never before it.”

And he tossed his spade again. Fauchelevent held him.

“It is Argenteuil at six sous the pint!”

“Ah, bah!” said the gravedigger, “you’re a bore. Ding-dong, ding-dong, the same thing over and over again; that’s all you can say. Be off, about your business.”

And he threw in the second spadeful.

Fauchelevent had reached that point where a man knows no longer what he is saying. “Oh! come on, and take a glass, since I’m the one to pay,” he again repeated.

“When we’ve put the child to bed,” said the gravedigger.

He tossed in the third spadeful: then, plunging his spade into the earth, he added:

“You see, now, it’s going to be cold to-night, and the dead one would cry out after us, if we were to plant her there without good covering.”

At this moment, in the act of filling his spade, the gravedigger stooped low and the pocket of his vest gaped open.

The bewildered eye of Fauchelevent rested mechanically on this pocket, and remained fixed.

The sun was not yet hidden behind the horizon, and there was still light enough to distinguish something white in the gaping pocket.

All the lightning which the eye