Les Miserables (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (57 page)

When he had finished, the prioress stopped the sliding of her rosary through her fingers, and said:

“Can you, between now and nightfall, procure a strong iron bar?”

“For what work?”

“To be used as a lever.”

“Yes, reverend mother,” answered Fauchelevent.

The prioress, without adding a word, arose, and went into the next room, which was the hall of the chapter, where the voting mothers were probably assembled: Fauchelevent remained alone.

ABOUT a quarter of an hour elapsed. The prioress returned and resumed her seat.

Both parties seemed preoccupied. We are transcribing as well as we can the dialogue that followed.

“Father Fauvent?”

“Reverend mother?”

“You are familiar with the chapel?”

“I have a little box there to go to mass, and the offices.”

“And you have been in the choir about your work?”

“Two or three times.”

“A stone is to be raised.”

“Heavy?”

“The slab of the pavement at the side of the altar.”

“The stone that covers the vault?”

“Yes.”

“That is a piece of work where it would be well to have two men.”

“Mother Ascension, who is as strong as a man, will help you.”

“A woman is never a man.”

“And then you will have a lever.”

“That is the only kind of key that fits that kind of door.”

“There is a ring in the stone.”

“I will pass the lever through it.”

“And the stone is arranged to turn on a pivot.”

“Very well, reverend mother, I will open the vault.”

“And the four mother choristers will assist you.”

“And when the vault is opened?”

“It must be shut again.”

“Is that all?”

“No.”

“Give me your orders, most reverend mother.”

“Fauvent, we have confidence in you.”

“I am here to do everything.”

“And to keep silent about everything.”

“Yes, reverend mother.”

“When the vault is opened—”

“I will shut it again.”

“But before—”

“What, reverend mother?”

“Something must be let down.”

There was silence. The prioress, after a quivering of the underlip which resembled hesitation, spoke:

“Father Fauvent?”

“Reverend mother?”

“You know that a mother died this morning.”

“No.”

“You have not heard the bell then?”

“Nothing is heard at the further end of the garden.”

“Really?”

“I can hardly distinguish my ring.”

“She died at daybreak.”

“And then, this morning, the wind didn’t blow my way.”

“It is Mother Crucifixion. One of the blest.”

The prioress was silent, moved her lips a moment as in a mental orison, and resumed:

“Father Fauvent, the community has been blessed in Mother Crucifixion. Doubtless, it is not given to everybody to die like Cardinal de Bérulle, saying the holy mass, and to breathe out his soul to God, pronouncing these words:
Hanc igitur oblationem.
But without attaining such great happiness, Mother Crucifixion had a very precious death. She had her consciousness to the last. She spoke to us, then she spoke to the angels. She gave us her last commands. If you had a little more faith, and if you could have been in her cell, she would have cured your leg by touching it. She smiled. We felt that she was returning to life in God. There was something of Paradise in that death.”

Fauchelevent thought that he had been listening to a prayer.

“Amen!” said he.

“Father Fauvent, we must do what the dead wish.”

The prioress counted a few beads on her chaplet. Fauchelevent was silent. She continued:

“I have consulted upon this question several ecclesiastics labouring in Our Lord, who are engaged in the exercise of clerical functions, and with admirable results.

“We must obey the dead. To be buried in the vault under the altar of the chapel, not to go into profane ground, to remain in death where she prayed in life; this was the last request of Mother Crucifixion. She has asked it, that is to say, commanded it.”

“But it is forbidden.”

“Forbidden by men, enjoined by God.”

“If it should come to be known?”

“We have confidence in you.”

“Oh! as for me, I am like a stone in your wall.”

“The chapter has assembled. The vocal mothers, whom I have just consulted again and who are now deliberating, have decided that Mother Crucifixion should be, according to her desire, buried in her coffin under our altar. Think, Father Fauvent, if there should be miracles performed here! what glory under God for the community! Miracles spring from tombs.”

“But, reverend Mother, if the agent of the Health Commission—”

“St. Benedict II, in the matter of burial, resisted Constantine Pogonatus.”

“However, the Commissary of Police—”

“Chonodemaire, one of the seven German kings who entered Gaul in the reign of Constantius, expressly recognised the right of conventuals to be inhumed in religion, that is to say, under the altar.”

“But the Inspector of the Prefecture—”

“The world is nothing before the cross. Martin, eleventh general of the Carthusians, gave to his order this device:
Stat crux dum volvitur orbis.”

“Amen,” said Fauchelevent, imperturbable in this method of extricating himself whenever he heard any Latin.

The prioress drew breath, then turning towards Fauchelevent:

“Father Fauvent, is it settled?”

“It is settled, reverend mother.”

“Can we count upon you?”

“I shall obey.”

“It is well.”

“I am entirely devoted to the convent.”

“Agreed, you will close the coffin. The sisters will carry it into the chapel. The office for the dead will be said. Then they will return to the cloister. Between eleven o‘clock and midnight, you will come with your iron bar. All will be done with the greatest secrecy. There will be in the chapel only the four mother choristers, Mother Ascension, and you.”

“And the sister who will be on watch.”

“She will not turn around.”

“But she will hear.”

“She will not listen; moreover, what the cloister knows the world does not know.”

There was a pause again. The prioress continued:

“You will take off your bell. It is unnecessary for the sister on watch to notice that you are there.”

“Reverend mother?”

“What, Father Fauvent?”

“Has the coroner made his visit?”

“He is going to make it at four o‘clock to-day. The bell has been sounded which summons the coroner. But you do not hear any ring then?”

“I only pay attention to my own.”

“That is right, Father Fauvent.”

“Reverend mother, I shall need a lever at least six feet long.”

“Where will you get it?”

“Where there are gratings there are always iron bars. I have my heap of old iron at the back of the garden.”

“About three-quarters of an hour before midnight; do not forget.”

“Reverend mother?”

“What?”

“If you should ever have any other work like this, my brother is very strong. A Turk.”

“You will do it as quickly as possible.”

“I cannot go very fast. I am infirm; it is on that account I need help. I limp.”

“To limp is not a crime, and it may be a blessing. The Emperor Henry II, who fought the Antipope Gregory, and re-established Benedict VIII, has two surnames: the Saint and the Lame.”

“Two overcoats are very good,” murmured Fauchelevent, who, in reality, was a little hard of hearing.
^bo

“Father Fauvent, now I think of it, we will take a whole hour. It is not too much. Be at the high altar with the iron bar at eleven o‘clock. The office commences at midnight. It must all be finished a good quarter of an hour before.”

“I will do everything to prove my zeal for the community. This is the arrangement. I shall nail up the coffin. At eleven o‘clock precisely I will be in the chapel. The mother choristers will be there. Mother Ascension will be there. Two men would be better. But no matter! I shall have my lever. We shall open the vault, let down the coffin, and close the vault again. After which, there will be no trace of anything. The government will suspect nothing. Reverend mother, is everything arranged then?”

“No.”

“What more is there?”

“There is still the empty coffin.”

This brought them to a stand. Fauchelevent pondered. The prioress pondered.

“Father Fauvent, what shall be done with the coffin?”

“It will be put in the ground.”

“Empty?”

Another silence. Fauchelevent made with his left hand that peculiar gesture, which dismisses an unpleasant question.

“Reverend mother, I nail up the coffin in the lower room in the church, and nobody can come in there except me, and I will cover the coffin with the pall.”

“Yes, but the bearers, in putting it into the hearse and in letting it down into the grave, will surely perceive that there is nothing inside.”

“Ah! the de—!” exclaimed Fauchelevent.

The prioress began to cross herself, and looked fixedly at the gardener.
Vil
stuck in his throat.

He made haste to think of an expedient to make her forget the oath.

“Reverend mother, I will put some earth into the coffin. That will have the effect of a body.”

“You are right. Earth is the same thing as man. So you will prepare the empty coffin?”

“I will attend to that.”

The face of the prioress, till then dark and anxious, became again serene. She made him the sign of a superior dismissing an inferior. Fauchelevent moved towards the door. As he was going out, the prioress gently raised her voice.

“Father Fauvent, I am satisfied with you; to-morrow after the burial, bring your brother to me, and tell him to bring his daughter.”

IN WHICH JEAN VALJEAN HAS QUITE THE APPEARANCE OF HAVING READ AUSTIN CASTILLEJO
THE STRIDES of the lame are like the glances of the one-eyed: they do not speedily reach their aim. Furthermore, Fauchelevent was perplexed. It took him nearly a quarter of an hour to get back to the shanty in the garden. Cosette was awake. Jean Valjean had seated her near the fire. At the moment when Fauchelevent entered, Jean Valjean was showing her the gardener’s basket hanging on the wall and saying to her:

“Listen attentively to me, my little Cosette. We must go away from this house, but we shall come back, and we shall be very well off here. The good man here will carry you out on his back inside there. You will wait for me at a lady’s. I shall come and find you. Above all, if you do not want the Thénardiess to take you back, obey and say nothing.”

Cosette nodded her head with a serious look.

At the sound of Fauchelevent opening the door, Jean Valjean turned.

“Well?”

“All is arranged, and nothing is,” said Fauchelevent. “I have permission to bring you in; but before bringing you in, it is necessary to get you out. That is where the cart is blocked! For the little girl, it is easy enough.”

“You will carry her out?”

“And she will keep quiet?”

“I will answer for it.”

“But you, Father Madeleine?”

And, after an anxious silence, Fauchelevent exclaimed:

“But why not go out the way you came in?”

Jean Valjean, as before, merely answered: “Impossible.”

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

“There is another thing that torments me. I said I would put in some earth. But I think that earth inside, instead of a body, will not be like it; that will not do, it will shake about; it will move. The men will feel it. You understand, Father Madeleine, the government will find it out.”

Jean Valjean stared at him, and thought that he was raving.

Fauchelevent resumed:

“How the d—ickens are you going to get out? For all this must be done to-morrow. To-morrow I am to bring you in. The prioress expects you.”

Then he explained to Jean Valjean that this was a reward for a service that he, Fauchelevent, was rendering to the community. That it was a part of his duties to assist in burials, that he nailed up the coffins, and attended the grave-digger at the cemetery. That the nun who died that morning had requested to be buried in the coffin which she had used as a bed, and interred in the vault under the altar of the chapel. That this was forbidden by the regulations of the police, but that she was one of those departed ones to whom nothing is refused. That the prioress and the vocal mothers intended to carry out the will of the deceased. So much the worse for the government. That he, Fauchelevent, would nail up the coffin in the cell, raise the stone in the chapel, and let down the body into the vault. And that, in return for this, the prioress would admit his brother into the house as gardener and his niece as boarder. That his brother was M. Madeleine, and that his niece was Cosette. That the prioress had told him to bring his brother the next evening, after the fictitious burial at the cemetery. But that he could not bring M. Madeleine from the outside, if M. Madeleine were not outside. That that was the first difficulty. And then that he had another difficulty; the empty coffin.

“What is the empty coffin?” asked Jean Valjean.

Fauchelevent responded:

“The coffin from the administration.”

“What coffin? and what administration?”

“A nun dies. The municipality physician comes and says: there is a nun dead. The government sends a coffin. The next day it sends a hearse and some bearers to take the coffin and carry it to the cemetery. The bearers will come and take up the coffin; there will be nothing in it.”