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By Root 1190 0

He’s settled. There’s an end of it. Now, what’s the sense of such things? Good God! he’s dead! Yes, and his little girl—what am I to do with her? What will the fruit-woman say? That such a man could die in that way. Good Heaven, is it possible! When I think that he put himself under my care! ... Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine! Mercy, he’s suffocated, I said so—but, he wouldn’t believe me. Now, here’s a pretty piece of business! He’s dead—one of the very best men God ever made; aye, the best, the very best! And his little girl! I’m not going back there again. I’m going to stay here. To have done such a thing as this! It’s well worth while to be two old greybeards, in order to be two old fools. But, to begin with, how did he manage to get into the convent—that’s where it started. Such things shouldn’t be done. Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine! Madeleine! Monsieur Madeleine! Monsieur Mayor! He doesn’t hear me. Get yourself out of this now, if you please.”

And he tore his hair.

At a distance, through the trees, a harsh grating sound was heard. It was the gate of the cemetery closing.

Fauchelevent again bent over Jean Valjean, but suddenly jumped back as far as one can in a grave. Jean Valjean’s eyes were open, and gazing at him.

To behold death is terrifying, and to see a sudden resurrection is nearly as much so. Fauchelevent became cold and white as a stone, wild-eyed and utterly disconcerted by all these powerful emotions, and not knowing whether he had the dead or the living to deal with, stared at Jean Valjean, who in turn stared at him.

“I was falling asleep,” said Jean Valjean.

And he rose to a sitting posture.

Fauchelevent dropped on his knees.

“Oh, blessed Virgin! How you frightened me!”

Then, springing again to his feet, he cried:

“Thank you, Father Madeleine!”

Jean Valjean had merely swooned. The open air had revived him.

Joy is the reflex of terror. Fauchelevent had nearly as much difficulty as Jean Valjean in coming to himself.

“Then you’re not dead! Oh, what good sense you have! I called you so loudly that you got over it. When I saw you with your eyes shut, I said, ‘Well, there now! he’s suffocated!’ I would have gone raving mad—mad enough for a strait-jacket. They’d have put me in the Bicêtre. What would you have had me do, if you had been dead? And your little girl! the fruit-woman would have understood nothing about it! A child dropped into her lap, and its grandfather dead! What a story to tell! By all the saints in heaven, what a story! Ah! but you’re alive—that’s the best of it.”

“I am cold,” said Jean Valjean.

These words recalled Fauchelevent completely to the real state of affairs, which were urgent. These two men, even when restored, felt without knowing it, a peculiar agitation and a strange inward trouble, which was but the sinister bewilderment of the place.

“Let us get away from here at once,” said Fauchelevent.

He thrust his hand into his pocket, and drew from it a flask with which he was provided.

“But a drop of this first!” said he.

The flask completed what the open air had begun. Jean Valjean took a swallow of brandy, and felt thoroughly restored.

He got out of the coffin, and assisted Fauchelevent to nail down the lid again. Three minutes afterwards, they were out of the grave.

After this, Fauchelevent was calm enough. He took his time. The cemetery was closed. There was no fear of the return of Gribier the gravedigger. That recruit was at home, hunting up his “card,” and rather unlikely to find it, as it was in Fauchelevent’s pocket. Without his card, he could not get back into the cemetery.

Fauchelevent took the spade and Jean Valjean the pick, and together they buried the empty coffin.

When the grave was filled, Fauchelevent said to Jean Valjean:

“Come, let us go; I’ll keep the spade, and you take the pick.”

Night was coming on rapidly.

Jean Valjean found it hard to move and walk. In the coffin he had stiffened considerably, somewhat in reality like a corpse. The anchylosis of death had seized him in that narrow wooden box. He had, in some