“What else remains?”
“The empty coffin remains.”
This produced a pause.
Fauchelevent meditated.
The prioress meditated.
“What is to be done with that coffin, Father Fauvent?”
“It will be given to the earth.”
“Empty?”
Another silence.
Fauchelevent made, with his left hand, that sort of a gesture which dismisses a troublesome subject.
“Reverend Mother, I am the one who is to nail up the coffin in the basement of the church, and no one can enter there but myself, and I will cover the coffin with the pall.”
“Yes, but the bearers, when they place it in the hearse and lower it into the grave, will be sure to feel that there is nothing in it.”
“Ah! the de—!” exclaimed Fauchelevent.
The prioress began to make the sign of the cross, and looked fixedly at the gardener.
The vil stuck fast in his throat. He made haste to improvise an expedient to make her forget the oath.
“I will put earth in the coffin, reverend Mother.
That will produce the effect of a corpse.”
“You are right.
Earth, that is the same thing as man.
So you will manage the empty coffin?”
“I will make that my special business.”
The prioress’s face, up to that moment troubled and clouded, grew serene once more.
She made the sign of a superior dismissing an inferior to him.
Fauchelevent went towards the door.
As he was on the point of passing out, the prioress raised her voice gently:—
“I am pleased with you, Father Fauvent; bring your brother to me to-morrow, after the burial, and tell him to fetch his daughter.”
CHAPTER IV—IN WHICH JEAN VALJEAN HAS QUITE THE AIR OF HAVING READ AUSTIN CASTILLEJO
The strides of a lame man are like the ogling glances of a one-eyed man; they do not reach their goal very promptly.
Moreover, Fauchelevent was in a dilemma.
He took nearly a quarter of an hour to return to his cottage in the garden.
Cosette had waked up.
Jean Valjean had placed her near the fire.
At the moment when Fauchelevent entered, Jean Valjean was pointing out to her the vintner’s basket on the wall, and saying to her,
“Listen attentively to me, my little Cosette.
We must go away from this house, but we shall return to it, and we shall be very happy here.
The good man who lives here is going to carry you off on his back in that.
You will wait for me at a lady’s house.
I shall come to fetch you.
Obey, and say nothing, above all things, unless you want Madame Thenardier to get you again!”
Cosette nodded gravely.
Jean Valjean turned round at the noise made by Fauchelevent opening the door.
“Well?”
“Everything is arranged, and nothing is,” said Fauchelevent.
“I have permission to bring you in; but before bringing you in you must be got out.
That’s where the difficulty lies.
It is easy enough with the child.”
“You will carry her out?”
“And she will hold her tongue?”
“I answer for that.”
“But you, Father Madeleine?”