Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [201]
Without the gravedigger, who was occupied with his spadeful of earth, perceiving him, he slipped his hand from behind into the pocket, and took from him the white object it contained.
The gravedigger flung into the grave the fourth spadeful.
Just as he was turning to take the fifth, Fauchelevent, looking at him with imperturbable calmness, asked:
“By the way, my new friend, have you your card?”
The gravedigger stopped.
“What card?”
“The sun is setting.”
“Well, let him put on his night-cap.”
“The cemetery-gate will be closed.”
“Well, what then?”
“Have you your card?”
“Oh! my card!” said the gravedigger, and he felt in his pocket.
Having rummaged one pocket, he tried another. From these, he proceeded to try his watch-fobs, exploring the first, and turning the second inside out.
“No!” said he, “no! I haven’t got my card. I must have forgotten it.” “Fifteen francs fine!” said Fauchelevent.
The gravedigger turned green. Green is the paleness of people naturally livid.
“Oh, good-gracious God, what a fool I am!” he exclaimed. “Fifteen francs fine!”
“Three hundred-sou coins,” said Fauchelevent.
The gravedigger dropped his spade.
Fauchelevent’s turn had come.
“Come! come, recruit,” said Fauchelevent, “never despair; there’s nothing to kill oneself about, and feed the worms. Fifteen francs are fifteen francs, and besides, you may not have them to pay. I am an old hand, and you a new one. I know all the tricks and traps and turns and twists of the business. I’ll give you a friend’s advice. One thing is clear—the sun is setting—and the graveyard will be closed in five minutes.”
“That’s true,” replied the gravedigger.
“Five minutes is not time enough for you to fill the grave—it’s as deep as the very devil—and get out of this before the gate is shut.”
“You’re right.”
“In that case, there is fifteen francs fine.”
“Fifteen francs!”
“But you have time.... Where do you live?”
“Just by the barrière. Fifteen minutes’ walk. Number 87 Rue de Vaugirard.”
“You have time, if you make it snappy, to get out at once.”
“That’s true.”
“Once outside of the gate, you scamper home, get your card, come back, and the gatekeeper will let you in again. Having your card, there’s nothing to pay. Then you can bury your dead man. I’ll stay here, and watch him while you’re gone, to see that he doesn’t run away.”
“I owe you my life, peasant!”
“Be off, then, quick!” said Fauchelevent.
The gravedigger, overcome with gratitude, shook his hands, and started at a run.
When the gravedigger had disappeared through the bushes, Fauchelevent listened until his footsteps died away, and then, bending over the grave, called out in a low voice:
“Father Madeleine!”
No answer.
Fauchelevent shuddered. He dropped rather than clambered down into the grave, threw himself upon the head of the coffin, and cried out:
“Are you there?”
Silence in the coffin.
Fauchelevent, no longer able to breathe for the shiver that was on him, took his cold chisel and hammer, and wrenched off the top board. The face of Jean Valjean could be seen in the twilight, his eyes closed and his cheeks colourless.
Fauchelevent’s hair stood erect with alarm; he rose to his feet, and then tottered with his back against the side of the grave, ready to sink down upon the coffin. He looked upon Jean Valjean.
Jean Valjean lay there pallid and motionless.
Fauchelevent murmured in a voice low as a whisper:
“He is dead!”
Then straightening himself, and crossing his arms so violently that his clenched fists sounded against his shoulders, he exclaimed:
“This is the way I have saved him!”
Then the poor old man began to sob, talking aloud to himself the while, for it is a mistake to think that talking to one’s self is not natural. Powerful emotions often speak aloud.
“It’s Father Mestienne’s fault. What did he die for, the fool? What was the use of going off in that way, just when no one expected it? It was he who killed poor M. Madeleine. Father Madeleine! He is in the coffin.