“About three-quarters of an hour before midnight; do not forget.”
“Reverend Mother?”
“What?”
“If you were ever to have any other jobs of this sort, my brother is the strong man for you. A perfect Turk!”
“You will do it as speedily as possible.”
“I cannot work very fast. I am infirm; that is why I require an assistant. I limp.”
“To limp is no sin, and perhaps it is a blessing. The Emperor Henry II., who combated Antipope Gregory and re-established Benoît 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?”