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第208章 PART TWO(93)

The Emperor Henry II.,who combated Antipope Gregory and re-established Benoit VIII.,has two surnames,the Saint and the Lame.'

'Two surtouts are a good thing,'murmured Fauchelevent,who really was a little hard of hearing.

'Now that I think of it,Father Fauvent,let us give a whole hour to it.

That is not too much.

Be near the principal altar,with your iron bar,at eleven o'clock.The office begins at midnight.Everything must have been completed a good quarter of an hour before that.'

'I will do anything to prove my zeal towards the community.These are my orders.

I am to nail up the coffin.

At eleven o'clock exactly,I am to be in the chapel.

The Mother Precentors will be there.

Mother Ascension will be there.

Two men would be better.

However,never mind!

I shall have my lever.We will open the vault,we will lower the coffin,and we will close the vault again.

After which,there will be no trace of anything.The government will have no suspicion.

Thus all has been arranged,reverend Mother?'

'No!'

'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.'

BOOK EIGHTH.——CEMETERIES TAKE THAT WHICH IS COMMITTED THEM

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?'

And,after a silence,fraught with anxiety,Fauchelevent exclaimed:——

'Why,get out as you came in!'

Jean Valjean,as in the first instance,contented himself with saying,'Impossible.'

Fauchelevent grumbled,more to himself than to Jean Valjean:——

'There is another thing which bothers me.

I have said that I would put earth in it.

When I come to think it over,the earth instead of the corpse will not seem like the real thing,it won't do,it will get displaced,it will move about.

The men will bear it.You understand,Father Madeleine,the government will notice it.'

Jean Valjean stared him straight in the eye and thought that he was raving.

Fauchelevent went on:——

'How the de——uce are you going to get out?

It must all be done by to-morrow morning.

It is to-morrow that I am to bring you in.The prioress expects you.'

Then he explained to Jean Valjean that this was his recompense for a service which he,Fauchelevent,was to render to the community.That it fell among his duties to take part in their burials,that he nailed up the coffins and helped the grave-digger at the cemetery.That the nun who had died that morning had requested to be buried in the coffin which had served her for a bed,and interred in the vault under the altar of the chapel.

That the police regulations forbade this,but that she was one of those dead to whom nothing is refused.That the prioress and the vocal mothers intended to fulfil the wish of the deceased.

That it was so much the worse for the government.That he,Fauchelevent,was to nail up the coffin in the cell,raise the stone in the chapel,and lower the corpse into the vault.And that,by way of thanks,the prioress was to admit his brother to the house as a gardener,and his niece as a pupil.

That his brother was M.Madeleine,and that his niece was Cosette.

That the prioress had told him to bring his brother on the following evening,after the counterfeit interment in the cemetery.

But that he could not bring M.Madeleine in from the outside if M.Madeleine was not outside.That that was the first problem.

And then,that there was another:the empty coffin.'

'What is that empty coffin?'asked Jean Valjean.

Fauchelevent replied:——

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