“Fifteen francs fine!”
“Three pieces of a hundred sous,” said Fauchelevent.
The grave-digger dropped his shovel.
Fauchelevent’s turn had come.
“Ah, come now, conscript,” said Fauchelevent, “none of this despair.
There is no question of committing suicide and benefiting the grave.
Fifteen francs is fifteen francs, and besides, you may not be able to pay it.
I am an old hand, you are a new one.
I know all the ropes and the devices.
I will give you some friendly advice.
One thing is clear, the sun is on the point of setting, it is touching the dome now, the cemetery will be closed in five minutes more.”
“That is true,” replied the man.
“Five minutes more and you will not have time to fill the grave, it is as hollow as the devil, this grave, and to reach the gate in season to pass it before it is shut.”
“That is true.”
“In that case, a fine of fifteen francs.”
“Fifteen francs.”
“But you have time.
Where do you live?”
“A couple of steps from the barrier, a quarter of an hour from here.
No. 87 Rue de Vaugirard.”
“You have just time to get out by taking to your heels at your best speed.”
“That is exactly so.”
“Once outside the gate, you gallop home, you get your card, you return, the cemetery porter admits you.
As you have your card, there will be nothing to pay.
And you will bury your corpse.
I’ll watch it for you in the meantime, so that it shall not run away.”
“I am indebted to you for my life, peasant.”
“Decamp!” said Fauchelevent.
The grave-digger, overwhelmed with gratitude, shook his hand and set off on a run.
When the man had disappeared in the thicket, Fauchelevent listened until he heard his footsteps die away in the distance, then he leaned over the grave, and said in a low tone:—
“Father Madeleine!”
There was no reply.
Fauchelevent was seized with a shudder.
He tumbled rather than climbed into the grave, flung himself on the head of the coffin and cried:—
“Are you there?”
Silence in the coffin.
Fauchelevent, hardly able to draw his breath for trembling, seized his cold chisel and his hammer, and pried up the coffin lid.
Jean Valjean’s face appeared in the twilight; it was pale and his eyes were closed.
Fauchelevent’s hair rose upright on his head, he sprang to his feet, then fell back against the side of the grave, ready to swoon on the coffin.
He stared at Jean Valjean.
Jean Valjean lay there pallid and motionless.
Fauchelevent murmured in a voice as faint as a sigh:—
“He is dead!”
And, drawing himself up, and folding his arms with such violence that his clenched fists came in contact with his shoulders, he cried:—
“And this is the way I save his life!”
Then the poor man fell to sobbing.
He soliloquized the while, for it is an error to suppose that the soliloquy is unnatural.
Powerful emotion often talks aloud.
“It is Father Mestienne’s fault.
Why did that fool die?