1.C.8.6. BETWEEN FOUR PLANKS
Who was in the coffin? The reader knows. Jean Valjean.
Jean Valjean had arranged things so that he could exist
there, and he could almost breathe.
It is a strange thing to what a degree security of conscience
confers security of the rest. Every combination thought out
by Jean Valjean had been progressing, and progressing favorably,
since the preceding day. He, like Fauchelevent, counted
on Father Mestienne. He had no doubt as to the end. Never
was there a more critical situation, never more complete composure.
The
four planks of the coffin breathe out a kind of terrible
peace. It seemed as though something of the repose of the
dead entered into Jean Valjean's tranquillity.
From the depths of that coffin he had been able to follow,
and he had followed, all the phases of the terrible drama
which he was playing with death.
Shortly after Fauchelevent had finished nailing on the
upper plank, Jean Valjean had felt himself carried out, then
driven off. He knew, from the diminution in the jolting,
when they left the pavements and reached the earth road.
He had divined, from a dull noise, that they were crossing the
bridge of Austerlitz. At the first halt, he had understood
that they were entering the cemetery; at the second halt, he
said to himself:—
"Here is the grave."
Suddenly, he felt hands seize the coffin, then a harsh grating
against the planks; he explained it to himself as the rope
which was being fastened round the casket in order to lower
it into the cavity.
Then he experienced a giddiness.
The undertaker's man and the grave-digger had probably
allowed the coffin to lose its balance, and had lowered the head
before the foot. He recovered himself fully when he felt himself
horizontal and motionless. He had just touched the
bottom.
He had a certain sensation of cold.
A voice rose above him, glacial and solemn. He heard
Latin words, which he did not understand, pass over him, so
slowly that he was able to catch them one by one:—
"Qui dormiunt in terrae pulvere, evigilabunt; alii in vitam
aeternam, et alii in approbrium, ut videant semper."
A child's voice said:—
"De profundis."
The grave voice began again:—
"Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine."
The child's voice responded:—
"Et lux perpetua luceat ei."
He heard something like the gentle patter of several drops
of rain on the plank which covered him. It was probably the
holy water.
He thought: "This will be over soon now. Patience for a
little while longer. The priest will take his departure.
Fauchelevent will take Mestienne off to drink. I shall be left.
Then Fauchelevent will return alone, and I shall get out.
That will be the work of a good hour."
The grave voice resumed
"Requiescat in pace."
And the child's voice said:—
"Amen."
Jean Valjean strained his ears, and heard something like
retreating footsteps.
"There, they are going now," thought he. "I am alone."
All at once, he heard over his head a sound which seemed
to him to be a clap of thunder.
It was a shovelful of earth falling on the coffin.
A second shovelful fell.
One of the holes through which he breathed had just been
stopped up.
A third shovelful of earth fell.
Then a fourth.
There are things which are too strong for the strongest man.
Jean Valjean lost consciousness.