“What! He was?”
“He is dead.”
Fauchelevent had expected anything but this, that a grave-digger could die. It is true, nevertheless, that grave-diggers do die themselves. By dint of excavating graves for other people, one hollows out one’s own.
Fauchelevent stood there with his mouth wide open. He had hardly the strength to stammer:—
“But it is not possible!”
“It is so.”
“But,” he persisted feebly, “Father Mestienne is the grave-digger.”
“After Napoleon, Louis XVIII. After Mestienne, Gribier. Peasant, my name is Gribier.”
Fauchelevent, who was deadly pale, stared at this Gribier.
He was a tall, thin, livid, utterly funereal man. He had the air of an unsuccessful doctor who had turned grave-digger.