“In the first place, it will be a white cloth. Nuns are buried in white.”
“Let it be a white cloth, then.”
“You are not like other men, Father Madeleine.”
To behold such devices, which are nothing else than the savage and daring inventions of the galleys, spring forth from the peaceable things which surrounded him, and mingle with what he called the “petty course of life in the convent,” caused Fauchelevent as much amazement as a gull fishing in the gutter of the Rue Saint-Denis would inspire in a passer-by.
Jean Valjean went on:—
“The problem is to get out of here without being seen. This offers the means. But give me some information, in the first place. How is it managed? Where is this coffin?”
“The empty one?”
“Yes.”
“Downstairs, in what is called the dead-room. It stands on two trestles, under the pall.”
“How long is the coffin?”