The Emperor, although ill, and though a local pain made riding uncomfortable, had never been so good-tempered as on this day. From the morning his impenetrability had been smiling, and on June 18, 1815, this profound soul, coated with granite, was radiant. The man who had been sombre at Austerlitz was gay at Waterloo. The greatest predestined men offer these contradictions, for our joys are a shadow, and the supreme smile belongs to God. Ridet Cæsar, Pompeius flebit, the legionaries of the Fulminatrix legion used to say. On this occasion Pompey was not destined to weep, but it is certain that Cæsar laughed. At one o'clock in the morning, amid the rain and storm, he had explored with Bertrand the hills near Rossomme, and was pleased to see the long lines of English fires illumining the horizon from Frischemont to Braine l'Alleud. It seemed to him as if destiny had made an appointment with him on a fixed day and was punctual. He stopped his horse, and remained for some time motionless, looking at the lightning and listening to the thunder. The fatalist was heard to cast into the night the mysterious words,—"We are agreed." Napoleon was mistaken; they were no longer agreed.
He had not slept for a moment: all the instants of the past night had been marked with joy for him. He rode through the entire line of main guards, stopping every now and then to speak to the videttes. At half-past two he heard the sound of a marching column near Hougomont, and believed for a moment in a retreat on the side of Wellington. He said to Bertrand,—"The English rear-guard is preparing to decamp. I shall take prisoners the six thousand English who have just landed at Ostend." He talked cheerfully, and had regained the spirits he had displayed during the landing of March 1st, when he showed the Grand Marshal the enthusiastic peasant of the Juan Gulf, and said,—"Well, Bertrand, here is a reinforcement already." On the night between June 17 and 18 he made fun of Wellington. "This little Englishman requires a lesson," said Napoleon. The rain became twice as violent, and it thundered while the Emperor was speaking. At half-past three A.M. he lost one illusion: officers sent to reconnoitre informed him that the enemy was making no movement. Nothing was stirring, not a single bivouac fire was extinguished, and the English army was sleeping. The silence was profound on earth, and there was only noise in the heavens. At four o'clock a peasant was brought to him by the scouts: this peasant had served as guide to a brigade of English cavalry, probably Vivian's, which had taken up a position on the extreme left in the village of Ohain. At five o'clock two Belgian deserters informed him that they had just left their regiments, and the English army meant fighting. "All the better," cried Napoleon; "I would sooner crush them than drive them back."
At daybreak he dismounted on the slope which forms the angle of the Plancenoit road, had a kitchen table and a peasant chair brought from the farm of Rossomme, sat down with a truss of straw for a carpet, and laid on the table the map of the battlefield, saying to Soult,—"It is a pretty chess-board." Owing to the night rain, the commissariat wagons, which stuck in the muddy roads, did not arrive by daybreak. The troops had not slept, were wet through and fasting; but this did not prevent Napoleon from exclaiming cheerfully to Soult,—"We have ninety chances out of a hundred in our favor." At eight o'clock the Emperor's breakfast was brought, and he invited several generals to share it with him. While breakfasting, somebody said that Wellington had been the last evening but one at a ball in Brussels, and Soult, the rough soldier with his archbishop's face, remarked, "The ball will be to-day." The Emperor teased Ney for saying,—"Wellington will not be so simple as to wait for your Majesty." This was his usual manner. "He was fond of a joke," says Fleury de Chaboulon; "The basis of his character was a pleasant humor," says Gourgaud; "He abounded with jests, more peculiar than witty," says Benjamin Constant. This gayety of the giant is worth dwelling on: it was he who called his Grenadiers "Growlers;" he pinched their ears and pulled their moustachios. "The Emperor was always playing tricks with us," was a remark made by one of them. During the mysterious passage from Elba to France, on February 27, the French brig of war, the Zephyr, met the Inconstant, on board which Napoleon was concealed, and inquiring after Napoleon, the Emperor, who still had in his hat the white and violet cockade studded with bees which he had adopted at Elba, himself laughingly took up the speaking-trumpet, and answered,—"The Emperor is quite well." A man who jests in this way is on familiar terms with events. Napoleon had several outbursts of this laughter during the breakfast of Waterloo: after breakfast he reflected for a quarter of an hour; then two generals sat down on the truss of straw with a pen in their hand and a sheet of paper on their knee, and the Emperor dictated to them the plan of the battle.
At nine o'clock, the moment when the French army, échelonned and moving in five columns, began to deploy, the divisions in two lines, the artillery between, the bands in front, drums rattling and bugles braying,—a powerful, mighty, joyous army, a sea of bayonets and helmets on the horizon, the Emperor, much affected, twice exclaimed,—"Magnificent! magnificent!"
Between nine and half-past ten, although it seems incredible, the whole army took up position, and was drawn up in six lines, forming, to repeat the Emperor's expression, "the figure of six V's." A few minutes after the formation of the line, and in the midst of that profound silence which precedes the storm of a battle, the Emperor, seeing three 12-pounder batteries defile, which had been detached by his orders from Erlon, Reille, and Lobau's brigades, and which were intended to begin the action at the spot where the Nivelles and Genappe roads crossed, tapped Haxo on the shoulder, and said, "There are twenty-four pretty girls, General." Sure of the result, he encouraged with a smile the company of sappers of the first corps as it passed him, which he had selected to barricade itself in Mont St. Jean, so soon as the village was carried. All this security was only crossed by one word of human pity: on seeing at his left, at the spot where there is now a large tomb, the admirable Scotch Grays massed with their superb horses, he said, "It is a pity." Then he mounted his horse, rode toward Rossomme, and selected as his observatory a narrow strip of grass on the right of the road running from Genappe to Brussels, and this was his second station. The third station, the one he took at seven in the evening, is formidable,—it is a rather lofty mound which still exists, and behind which the guard was massed in a hollow. Around this mound the balls ricochetted on the pavement of the road and reached Napoleon. As at Brienne, he had round his head the whistle of bullets and canister. Almost at the spot where his horse's hoofs stood, cannon-balls, old sabre-blades, and shapeless rust-eaten projectiles, have been picked up; a few years ago a live shell was dug up, the fusee of which had broken off. It was at this station that the Emperor said to his guide, Lacoste, a hostile timid peasant, who was fastened to a hussar's saddle, and tried at each volley of canister to hide himself behind Napoleon, "You ass! it is shameful; you will be killed in the back." The person who is writing these lines himself found, while digging up the sand in the friable slope of this mound, the remains of a shell rotted by the oxide of forty-six years, and pieces of iron which broke like sticks of barley-sugar between his fingers.
Everybody is aware that the undulations of the plains on which the encounter between Napoleon and Wellington took place, are no longer as they were on June 18, 1815. On taking from this mournful plain the material to make a monument, it was deprived of its real relics, and history, disconcerted, no longer recognizes itself; in order to glorify, they disfigured. Wellington, on seeing Waterloo two years after, exclaimed, "My battle-field has been altered." Where the huge pyramid of earth surmounted by a lion how stands, there was a crest which on the side of the Nivelles road had a practicable ascent, but which on the side of the Genappe road was almost an escarpment. The elevation of this escarpment may still be imagined by the height of the two great tombs which skirt the road from Genappe to Brussels: the English tomb on the left, the German tomb on the right. There is no French tomb,—for France the whole plain is a sepulchre. Through the thousands of cart-loads of earth employed in erecting the mound, which is one hundred and fifty feet high and half a mile in circumference, the plateau of Mont St. Jean is now accessible by a gentle incline; but on the day of the battle, and especially on the side of La Haye Sainte, it was steep and abrupt. The incline was so sharp that the English gunners could not see beneath them the farm situated in the bottom of the valley, which was the centre of the fight. On June 18, 1815, the rain had rendered the steep road more difficult, and the troops not only had to climb up but slipped in the mud. Along the centre of the crest of the plateau ran a species of ditch, which it was impossible for a distant observer to guess. We will state what this ditch was. Braine l'Alleud is a Belgian village and Ohain is another; these villages, both concealed in hollows, are connected by a road about a league and a half in length, which traverses an undulating plain, and frequently buries itself between hills, so as to become at certain spots a ravine. In 1815, as to-day, this road crossed the crest of the plateau of Mont St. Jean: but at the present day it is level with the ground, while at that time it was a hollow way. The two slopes have been carried away to form the monumental mound. This road was, and still is, a trench for the greater part of the distance,—a hollow trench, in some places twelve feet deep, whose scarped sides were washed down here and there by the winter rains. Accidents occurred there: the road was so narrow where it entered Braine l'Alleud, that a wayfarer was crushed there by a wagon, as is proved by a stone cross standing near the grave-yard, which gives the name of the dead man as "Monsieur Bernard Debrye, trader, of Brussels," and the date, "February, 1637." It was so deep on the plateau of Mont St. Jean, that a peasant, one Mathieu Nicaise, was crushed there in 1783 by a fall of earth, as is proved by another stone cross, the top of which disappeared in the excavations, but whose overthrown pedestal is still visible on the grass slope to the left of the road between La Haye Sainte and the farm of Mont St. Jean. On the day of the battle, this hollow way, whose existence nothing revealed, a trench on the top of the escarpment, a rut hidden in the earth, was invisible, that is to say, terrible.
Cosette, as we stated, was not frightened. The man spoke to her in a serious, almost low voice,—
"My child, what you are carrying is very heavy."
Cosette raised her head and replied, "Yes, sir."
"Give it to me," the man continued; "I will carry it."
Cosette let go the bucket, and the man walked on by her side.
"It is really very heavy," he muttered; then added, "What is your age, little one?"
"Eight years, sir."
"And have you come far with this?"
"From the spring in the wood."
"And how far have you to go?"
"About a quarter of an hour's walk."
The man stopped for a moment, and then suddenly said,—
"Then you have not a mother?"
"I do not know," the child answered.
Before the man had time to speak, she continued,—
"I do not think so; other girls have one, but I have not."
And after a silence, she added,—
"I believe that I never had one."
The man stopped, put the bucket on the ground, and laid his two hands on her shoulders, making an effort to see her face in the darkness. Cosette's thin sallow countenance was vaguely designed in the vivid gleam of the sky.
"What is your name?" the man asked her.
"Cosette."
The man seemed to have an electric shock; he looked at her again, then removed his hands, took the bucket up again, and continued his walk. A moment after he asked,—
"Where do you live, little one?"
"At Montfermeil, if you know the place."
"Are we going there?"
"Yes, sir."
There was another pause, and then he began again.
"Who was it that sent you to fetch water from the wood at this hour?"
"Madame Thénardier."
The man continued with an accent which he strove to render careless, but in which there was, for all that, a singular tremor:—
"What is this Madame Thénardier?"
"She is my mistress," the child said, "and keeps the inn."
"The inn?" remarked the man; "well, I am going to lodge there to-night. Show me the way."
"We are going to it."
Though the man walked rather quickly, Cosette had no difficulty in keeping up with him; she no longer felt fatigue, and from time to time raised her eyes to this man with a sort of indescribable calmness and confidence. She had never been taught to turn her eyes toward Providence, and yet she felt within her something that resembled hope and joy, and which rose to heaven. After the lapse of a few minutes the man continued,—
"Does Madame Thénardier keep no servant?"
"No, sir."
"Is there no one but you?"
"No, sir."
There was another interruption, and then Cosette raised her voice,—
"That is to say, there are two little girls."
"What little girls?"
"Ponine and Zelma."
The child simplified in this way the romantic names dear to Madame Thénardier.
"Who are they?"
"They are Madame Thénardier's young ladies, as you may say,—her daughters."
"And what do they do?"
"Oh!" said the child, "they have handsome dolls, and things all covered with gold. They play about and amuse themselves."
"All day?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you?"
"Oh, I work."
"All day?"
The child raised her large eyes, in which stood a tear, invisible in the darkness, and replied softly,—
"Yes, sir." After a silence she continued: "Sometimes, when I have finished my work and they allow me, I amuse myself."
"In what way?"
"As I can; they let me be, but I have not many toys. Ponine and Zelma do not like me to play with their dolls, and I have only a little leaden sword, no longer than that."
The child held out her little finger.
"And which does not cut?"
"Oh yes, sir," said the child; "it cuts salad and chops flies' heads off."
They reached the village, and Cosette guided the stranger through the streets. When they passed the baker's, Cosette did not think of the loaf which she was to bring in. The man had ceased questioning her, and preserved a gloomy silence; but when they had left the church behind them, on seeing all the open-air shops, he asked Cosette,—
"Is it the fair-time?"
"No, sir, it is Christmas."
When they approached the inn, Cosette touched his arm timidly.
"Sir."
"What is it, my child?"
"We are close to the house."
"Well?"
"Will you let me carry my bucket now?"
"Why?"
"Because Madame will be at me if she sees that it has been carried for me."
The man gave her the bucket, and a moment later they were at the door of the pot-house.
The night breeze had risen, which proved that it must be between one and two in the morning. Cosette said nothing, and as she was leaning her head against him, Jean Valjean fancied that she was asleep. He bent down and looked at her: her eyes were wide open, and she had a pensive look which hurt Jean Valjean. She was still trembling.
"Do you feel inclined to sleep?" he asked her.
"I am very cold," she answered; a moment after she continued,—
"Is she still there?"
"Who?" Jean Valjean asked.
"Madame Thénardier."
Jean had forgotten the way he had employed to keep Cosette silent.
"Ah," he said, "she is gone, and you have nothing to fear."
The child sighed, as if a weight had been taken off her chest.
The ground was damp, the shed open on all sides, and the wind grew more cutting every moment. He took off his coat and wrapped Cosette up in it.
"Are you less cold now?" he said.
"Oh yes, father."
"Well, wait for me a minute."
He left the ruin and began walking along the large building in search of some better shelter. He came to doors, but they were closed, and there were bars on all the ground-floor windows. After passing the inner angle of the edifice he noticed that he had come to some arched windows, and perceived a faint light. He raised himself on tip-toe and looked through one of the windows; they all belonged to a large hall paved with stones, in which nothing could be distinguished but a little light and great shadows. The light came from a night-lamp burning in the corner. This hall was deserted and nothing was stirring in it; and yet, after a long look, he fancied that he could see on the ground something that seemed to be covered with a pall and resembled a human form. It was stretched out flat, with its face against the stones, its arms forming a cross, and motionless as death. From a species of snake which dragged along the pavement, it looked as if this sinister form had the rope round its neck. The whole hall was bathed in that mist of badly-lighted places which intensifies the horror.
Jean Valjean often said afterwards that, although he had witnessed many mournful sights in his life, he had never seen one more chilling or terrifying than this enigmatical figure performing some strange mystery at this gloomy spot, and thus caught sight of through the darkness. It was frightful to suppose that it might be dead, and more frightful still to think that it might possibly be still alive. He had the courage to place his face to the pane, and watch whether the figure would stir; but though he remained for a time which appeared to him very long, the outstretched form made no movement. All at once he felt himself assailed by an indescribable horror, and he ran off toward the shed without daring to look back; he fancied that if he turned his head he should see the figure walking after him and waving its arms. When he reached the ruin he was panting, his knees gave way, and the perspiration was running down his back. Where was he? Who could have imagined anything like this species of sepulchre in the heart of Paris? What was the strange house? An edifice full of nocturnal mystery, calling souls in the darkness, the voice of angels, and when they arrive, suddenly offering them this frightful vision; promising to open the bright gate of heaven, and, instead, opening the horrible gate of the tomb! And it was really a mansion, a house which had its number in a street. It was not a dream; but he was obliged to touch the stones in order to believe it. Cold, anxiety, apprehension, and the emotion of the night brought on him a real fever, and all his ideas were confused in his brain. He approached Cosette. She slept.
During the six years between 1819 and 1825 the prioress of Little Picpus was Mademoiselle de Blémeur, called in religion Mother Innocent. She belonged to the family of that Marguerite de Blémeur who was authoress of the "Lives of the Saints of the Order of Saint Benedict." She was a lady of about sixty years, short, stout, and with a voice "like a cracked pot," says the letter from which we have already quoted; but she was an excellent creature, the only merry soul in the convent, and on that account adored. She followed in the footsteps of her ancestress Marguerite, the Dacier of the order; she was lettered, learned, competent, versed in the curiosities of history, stuffed with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and more a monk than a nun. The sub-prioress was an old Spanish nun, almost blind, Mother Cineres. The most estimated among the "vocals" were—Mother Saint Honorine, the treasurer; Mother Saint Gertrude, first mistress of the novices; Mother Saint Ange, second mistress; Mother Annunciation, sacristan; Mother Saint Augustine, head of the infirmary, the only unkind person in the convent; then Mother Saint Mechtilde (Mlle. Gauvain), who was young, and had an admirable voice; Mother des Auges (Mlle. Drouet), who had been in the convent of the Filles Dieu, and that of the Treasury near Gisors; Mother Saint Joseph (Mlle. de Cogolludo); Mother Saint Adelaide (Mlle. D'Auverney); Mother Miséricorde (Mlle. de Cifuentes, who could not endure the privations); Mother Compassion (Mlle. de La Miltière, received at the age of sixty, contrary to the rule, but very rich); Mother Providence (Mlle. de Laudinière); Mother Presentation (Mlle. de Siguenza), who was prioress in 1847; and lastly, Mother Saint Céligne (sister of Cerachhi the sculptor), who went mad; and Mother Saint Chantal (Mlle. de Suzon), who also went mad. Among the prettiest was a charming girl of three-and-twenty, who belonged to the Bourbonnais, and was descended from the Chevalier Roze, who was called in the world Mlle. Roze, and in religion Mother Assumption.
Mother Saint Mechtilde, who had charge of the singing arrangements, was glad to make use of the boarders for this purpose; she generally selected a complete musical scale, that is to say, seven assorted voices, from ten to sixteen years inclusive, whom she drew up in a line, ranging from the shortest to the tallest. In this way she produced a species of living Pandean pipes, composed of angels. The lay sisters whom the boarders liked most were Sister Saint Euphrasie, Sister Saint Marguerite, Sister Saint Marthe, who was childish, and Sister Saint Michel, at whose long nose they laughed. All these nuns were kind to the children, and only stern to themselves; there were no fires lit except in the schoolhouse, and the food there was luxurious when compared with that of the convent. The only thing was that when a child passed a nun and spoke to her, the latter did not answer. This rule of silence produced the result that in the whole convent language was withdrawn from human creatures and given to inanimate objects. At one moment it was the church bell that spoke, at another the gardener's; and a very sonorous gong, placed by the side of the sister porter, and which could be heard all through the house, indicated by various raps, which were a sort of acoustic telegraphy, all the actions of natural life which had to be accomplished, and summoned a nun, if required, to the parlor. Each person and each thing had its raps: the prioress had one and one, the sub-prioress one and two; six-five announced school hour, so that the pupils talked of going to six-five; four-four was Madame Genlis' signal, and as it was heard very often, uncharitable persons said she was the "diable à quatre." Nineteen strokes announced a great event; it was the opening of the cloister door, a terrible iron plate all bristling with bolts, which only turned on its hinges before the archbishop. With the exception of that dignitary and the gardener, no other man entered the convent; but the boarders saw two others,—one was the chaplain, Abbé Banès, an old ugly man, whom they were allowed to contemplate through a grating; while the other was M. Ansiaux, the drawing-master, whom the letter which we have already quoted calls "M. Anciot," and describes as an odious old hunchback. So we see that all the men were picked.
Such was this curious house.
History and philosophy have eternal duties which are at the same time simple duties. To oppose Caiaphas as a high priest, Draco as a judge, Trimalcion as a law-giver, Tiberius as an emperor,—that is a duty simple, direct, and clear, and gives no room for doubt. But the right to live apart, even with its objections and its abuse, must be demonstrated and handled carefully; monasticism is a human problem.
In speaking of convents, these homes of error but of innocence, of wanderings from the true path but of good intentions, of ignorance but of devotion, of torture but of martyrdom, we must almost always say yes and no.
A convent is a contradiction: its aim, salvation; its means, sacrifice. The convent is supreme selfishness having as its result supreme abnegation.
To abdicate in order to reign seems to be the motto of monasticism.
In the convent, they suffer in order to enjoy. They take out a letter of credit on death. They discount in earthly night the light of heaven. In the convent hell is endured in advance of the heirship to paradise.
The taking of the veil or the frock is a suicide recompensed by eternity.
Mockery on such a subject does not seem to us to be in place. Everything there is serious, the good as well as the bad.
The just man frowns, but never sneers at it We can sympathize with indignation, but not with malignity.
This is what took place above the coffin which contained Jean Valjean. When the hearse had gone away, when the priest and the chorister had driven off in the coach, Fauchelevent, who did not once take his eyes off the grave-digger, saw him stoop down and seize his spade, which was standing upright in the heap of earth. Fauchelevent formed a supreme resolution; he placed himself between the grave and the digger, folded his arms, and said,—
"I'll pay."
The grave-digger looked at him in amazement, and replied,—
"What, peasant?"
Fauchelevent repeated, "I'll pay for the wine."
"What wine?"
"The Argenteuil."
"Where is it?"
"At the 'Bon Coing.'"
"Go to the devil!" said the grave-digger.
And he threw a spadeful of earth on the coffin, which produced a hollow sound. Fauchelevent tottered, and was himself ready to fall into the grave. He cried, in a voice with which a death-rattle was beginning to be mingled,—
"Come along, mate, before the 'Bon Coing' closes."
The grave-digger filled his spade again, and Fauchelevent continued, "I'll pay."
And he seized the grave-digger's arm.
"Listen to me, mate; I am the convent grave-digger, and have come to help you. It is a job which can be done by night, so let us begin by having a drink."
And while speaking, while clinging to this desperate pressing, he made the melancholy reflection, "And suppose he does drink, will he get drunk?"
"Provincial," said the grave-digger, "since you are so pressing, I consent. We will drink, but after work, not before."
And he raised his spade, but Fauchelevent restrained him.
"It is Argenteuil wine."
"Why," said the grave-digger, "you must be a bell-ringer; ding, dong, ding, dong. You can only say that. Go and have yourself pulled."
And he threw the second spadeful. Fauchelevent had reached that moment when a man is no longer aware of what he says.
"But come and drink," he cried, "since I offer to pay."
"When we have put the child to bed," said Gribier.
He threw the third spadeful; and then added as he dug the spade into the ground,—
"It will be very cold to-night, and the dead woman would halloo after us if we were to leave her here without a blanket."
At this moment the grave-digger stooped to fill his spade and his jacket-pocket gaped. Fauchelevent's wandering glance fell mechanically into his pocket and remained there. The sun was not yet hidden by the horizon, and there was still sufficient light to distinguish something white at the bottom of this gaping pocket.
All the brightness of which a Picard peasant's eye is capable glistened in Fauchelevent's,—an idea had struck him. Unnoticed by the grave-digger, he thrust his hand into his pocket from behind, and drew out the white thing at the bottom. The grave-digger threw the fourth spadeful into the grave: and as he hurried to raise a fifth, Fauchelevent looked at him with profound calmness, and said,—
"By the way, my novice, have you your card?"
The grave-digger stopped.
"What card?"
"The sun is just going to set."
"Very good, it can put on its nightcap."
"The cemetery gates will be shut."
"Well, and what then?"
"Have you your card?"
"Ah, my card!" the grave-digger said; and he felt in one pocket and then in another, he passed to his fobs and turned them inside out.
"No," he said; "I have not got my card, I must have forgotten it."
"Fifteen francs' fine," said Fauchelevent.
The grave-digger turned green, for the pallor of livid men is green.
"Oh, Lord, have mercy upon me!" he exclaimed; "fifteen francs' fine!"
"Three one hundred sous pieces," said Fauchelevent.
The grave-digger let his shovel fall, and Fauchelevent's turn had arrived.
"Come, conscript," said the old gardener, "no despair; you need not take advantage of the grave to commit suicide. Fifteen francs are fifteen francs, and besides, you can avoid paying them. I am old and you a new-comer, and I am up to all the tricks and dodges. I will give you a piece of friendly advice. One thing is clear,—the sun is setting; it is touching the dome, and the cemetery will shut in five minutes."
"That is true."—
"Five minutes will not be enough for you to fill up this grave, which is deuced deep, and reach the gates in time to get out before they close."
"Perfectly correct."
"In that case, fifteen francs' fine. But you have time,—where do you live?"
"Hardly a quarter of an hour's walk from here, at No. 87, Rue de Vaugirard."
"You have just time enough to get out, if you look sharp."
"So I have."
"Once outside the gates, you will gallop home and fetch your card; and when you return the porter will open the gate for you gratis. And you will bury your dead woman, whom I will stop from running away during your absence."
"I owe you my life, peasant."
"Be off at once," said Fauchelevent.
The grave-digger, who was beside himself with gratitude, shook his hand and ran off.
When he had disappeared behind a clump of trees, Fauchelevent listened till his footsteps died away, then bent over the grave, and said in a low voice, "Father Madeleine!"
There was no reply. Fauchelevent trembled; he tumbled all of a heap into the grave, threw himself on the coffin lid, and cried,—
"Are you there?"
There was silence in the coffin, and Fauchelevent, who could not breathe for trembling, took out his cold-chisel and hammer and pried off the coffin lid. He could see Jean Valjean's face in the gloom, pale, and with the eyes closed. The gardener's hair stood on end; he got up, and then fell against the side of the grave. He gazed at Jean Valjean, who lay livid and motionless. Fauchelevent murmured in a voice faint as a breath, "He is dead!"
And drawing himself up, he folded his arms so violently that his clenched fists struck his shoulders, and cried, "That is the way in which I save him!"
Then the poor old man began sobbing and soliloquizing; for it is a mistake to suppose that there is no soliloquy in nature. Powerful agitations often talk aloud.
"It is Father Mestienne's fault. Why did that ass die? Had he any occasion to go off the hooks so unexpectedly? It is he who has killed M. Madeleine. Father Madeleine! he is in his coffin, and it is all over with him. Has such a thing as this any common-sense? Oh, my goodness, he is dead! Well, and what shall I do with his little girl? What will the green-grocer say? Is it possible that such a man can die in such a way? When I think how he got under my cart! Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine! By Heaven, he is suffocated, as I said he would be, and he would not believe me. Well I this is a pretty trick of my performance. The worthy man is dead, the best man among all God's good people; and his little one! Well, I sha'n't go back to the convent, but stop here. To have done such a thing as this! it is not worth while being two old men to be two old fools. But how did he manage to get into the convent? That was the beginning, and a man ought not to do things like that. Father Madeleine, Madeleine, Monsieur Madeleine, Monsieur le Maire! He does not hear me. Get out of it now as best you can."
And he tore his hair. A shrill grating sound was audible at a distance through the trees; it was the closing of the cemetery gate. Fauchelevent bent over Jean Valjean, and all at once bounded back to the further end of the grave,—Jean Valjean's eyes were open and staring at him.
If seeing a death is fearful, seeing a resurrection is nearly as frightful. Fauchelevent became like stone. He was pale, haggard, confounded by such excessive emotion, not knowing if he had to do with a dead man or a living man, and looking at Jean Valjean, who looked at him.
"I was falling asleep," said Valjean.
And he sat up. Fauchelevent fell on his knees.
"Holy Virgin! how you frightened me!"
Then he rose and cried,—"Thank you, Father Madeleine!"
Jean Valjean had only fainted, and the fresh air aroused him again. Joy is the reflux of terror; and Fauchelevent had almost as much difficulty in recovering himself as had Jean Valjean.
"Then you are not dead! Oh, what a clever fellow you are! I called to you so repeatedly that you came back. When I saw your eyes closed, I said, 'There, he is suffocated!' I should have gone stark mad, fit for a strait waistcoat, and they would have put me in Bicêtre. What would you have me do if you were dead; and your little girl? The green-grocer's wife would not have understood it at all. A child is left upon her hands, and the grandfather is dead! What a story! Oh, my good saints in Paradise, what a story! Well, you are alive, that's the great thing."
"I am cold," said Valjean.
This remark completely recalled Fauchelevent to the reality, which was urgent. These two men, who had scarce recovered, had a troubled mind, they knew not why, which emanated from the gloomy place where they were.
"Let us get out of this at once," said Fauchelevent.
He felt in his pocket and produced a flask.
"But a dram first," he said.
The flask completed what the fresh air had begun. Valjean drank a mouthful of spirits and regained perfect possession of himself. He got out of the coffin, and helped Fauchelevent to nail on the lid again; three minutes later they were out of the grave.
Fauchelevent was calm, and took his time. The cemetery was closed, and there was no fear of Gribier returning. That "conscript" was at home, busily seeking his card, and prevented from finding it because it was in Fauchelevent's pocket. Without it he could not return to the cemetery. Fauchelevent took the spade, and Valjean the pick, and they together buried the empty coffin. When the grave was filled op, Fauchelevent said,—
"Come along; you carry the pick and I will carry the spade."
The night was falling.
Jean Valjean felt some difficulty in moving and walking; for in the coffin he had grown stiff, and become to some extent a corpse. The rigidity of death had seized upon him between these four planks, and he must, so to speak, become thawed.
"You are stiff," said Fauchelevent; "it is a pity that I am a cripple, or we would have a run."
"Nonsense," said Valjean, "half a dozen strides will make my legs all right again."
They went along the avenues by which the hearse had passed, and on reaching the gate, Fauchelevent threw the grave-digger's card into the box; the porter pulled the string, and they went out.
"How famously it has all gone," said Fauchelevent; "it was an excellent idea you had, Father Madeleine!"
They passed through the Vaugirard barrier in the simplest way in the world, for in the vicinity of a cemetery, a spade and a pick are two passports. The Rue de Vaugirard was deserted.
"Father Madeleine," Fauchelevent said, as they walked along, "you have better eyes than I have, so show me No. 87."
"Here it is," said Valjean.
"There is no one in the street," Fauchelevent continued; "give me the pick, and wait for me a couple of minutes."
Fauchelevent entered No. 87, went right to the top, guided by that instinct which ever leads the poor man to the garret, and rapped at a door in the darkness. A voice replied, "Come in." It was Gribier's voice.
Fauchelevent pushed the door. The grave-digger's room was like all these wretched abodes, an impoverished and crowded garret. A packing-case—possibly a coffin—occupied the place of a chest of drawers, a butter-jar was the water-cistern, a paillasse represented the bed, while the floor filled the place of chairs and table. In one corner, on an old ragged piece of carpet, were a thin woman and a heap of children. The whole of this poor interior displayed signs of a convulsion, and it seemed as if an earthquake "for one" had taken place there. The blankets were torn away, the rags scattered about, the jug was broken, the mother had been crying, and the children probably beaten,—there were evident signs of an obstinate and savage search. It was plain that the grave-digger had been wildly looking for his card, and made everything in the garret responsible for it, from his jug to his wife. He looked desperate, but Fauchelevent was too eager to notice this sad side of his success; he went in, and said, "I have brought you your spade and pick."
Gribier looked at him in stupefaction.
"Is it you, peasant?"
"And to-morrow morning you will find your card with the porter of the cemetery."
And he placed the shovel and pick on the floor.
"What does this mean?" Gribier asked.
"It means that you let your card fall out of your pocket, that I found it on the ground when you had left, that I have buried the dead woman, filled up the grave, done your work, the porter will give you your card, and you will not pay fifteen francs. That's what it is, conscript!"
"Thanks, villager," said Gribier, quits dazzled, "next time I will pay for a bottle."