And after an anxious silence Fauchelevent cried,—
"Why, go out in the same way as you came in."
Jean Valjean, as on the first occasion, confined himself to saying "Impossible!"
Fauchelevent, speaking to himself rather than to Jean Valjean, growled,—
"There is another thing that troubles me. I said that I would put earth in it, but now I come to think of it, earth instead of a body will not do, for it will move about and the men will notice it. You understand, Father Madeleine, the Government will perceive the trick?"
Jean Valjean looked at him, and fancied that he must be raving; Fauchelevent continued,—
"How the deuce are you going to get out? For everything must be settled to-morrow, as the prioress expects you then."
Then he explained to Valjean that it was a reward for a service which he, Fauchelevent, was rendering the community. It was part of his duty to attend to the funerals, nail up the coffin, and assist the grave-digger at the cemetery. The nun who had died that morning requested to be buried in the coffin which served her as bed in the vault under the altar of the chapel. This was forbidden by the police regulations, but she was one of those women to whom nothing could be refused. The prioress and the vocal mothers intended to carry out the wishes of the deceased, and so all the worse for the Government. He, Fauchelevent, would nail up the coffin in the cell, lift the stone in the chapel, and let down the body into the vault. As a reward for this the prioress would admit into the house his brother as gardener, and his niece as boarder. The prioress had told him to bring his brother the next day after the pretended funeral; but he could not bring M. Madeleine in from outside if he were not there. This was his first embarrassment, and then he had a second in the empty coffin.
"What do you mean by the empty coffin?" Valjean asked.
"Why, the Government coffin."