Fauchelevent’s confidence was perfect.
At the moment when the convoy entered the avenue leading to the cemetery, Fauchelevent glanced cheerfully at the hearse, and said half aloud, as he rubbed his big hands:—
“Here’s a fine farce!”
All at once the hearse halted; it had reached the gate.
The permission for interment must be exhibited.
The undertaker’s man addressed himself to the porter of the cemetery.
During this colloquy, which always is productive of a delay of from one to two minutes, some one, a stranger, came and placed himself behind the hearse, beside Fauchelevent.
He was a sort of laboring man, who wore a waistcoat with large pockets and carried a mattock under his arm.
Fauchelevent surveyed this stranger.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“The man replied:— “The grave-digger.”
If a man could survive the blow of a cannon-ball full in the breast, he would make the same face that Fauchelevent made.
“The grave-digger?”
“Yes.”
“You?”
“I.”
“Father Mestienne is the grave-digger.”
“He was.”
“What! He was?”
“He is dead.”
Fauchelevent had expected anything but this, that a grave-digger could die.
It is true, nevertheless, that grave-diggers do die themselves.
By dint of excavating graves for other people, one hollows out one’s own.
Fauchelevent stood there with his mouth wide open.
He had hardly the strength to stammer:— “But it is not possible!”
“It is so.”
“But,” he persisted feebly, “Father Mestienne is the grave-digger.”
“After Napoleon, Louis XVIII.
After Mestienne, Gribier.
Peasant, my name is Gribier.”
Fauchelevent, who was deadly pale, stared at this Gribier.
He was a tall, thin, livid, utterly funereal man.
He had the air of an unsuccessful doctor who had turned grave-digger.
Fauchelevent burst out laughing.
“Ah!” said he, “what queer things do happen!
Father Mestienne is dead, but long live little Father Lenoir!
Do you know who little Father Lenoir is?
He is a jug of red wine.
It is a jug of Surene, morbigou! of real Paris Surene?
Ah! So old Mestienne is dead!
I am sorry for it; he was a jolly fellow.
But you are a jolly fellow, too.
Are you not, comrade?
We’ll go and have a drink together presently.”
The man replied:— “I have been a student.
I passed my fourth examination.
I never drink.”
The hearse had set out again, and was rolling up the grand alley of the cemetery.
Fauchelevent had slackened his pace.
He limped more out of anxiety than from infirmity.