6
WHO WAS in the coffin? We know. Jean Valjean.
Jean Valjean had arranged it so that he could live in it, and could breathe, if only barely.
It is a strange thing to what extent an easy conscience gives calmness in other respects. The entire strategem pre-arranged by Jean Valjean had been working, and working well, since the night before. He counted, as did Fauchelevent, upon Father Mestienne. He had no doubt of the result. Never was a situation more critical, never calmness more complete.
The four boards of the coffin exhaled a kind of terrible peace. It seemed as if something of the repose of the dead had entered into the tranquillity of Jean Valjean.
From within that coffin he had been able to follow, and he had followed, all the phases of the fearful drama which he was playing with Death.
Soon after Fauchelevent had finished nailing down the upper board, Jean Valjean had felt himself carried out, then wheeled along. By the diminished jolting, he had felt that he was passing from the pavement to the hard ground; that is to say, that he was leaving the streets and entering upon the boulevards. By a dull sound, he had divined that they were crossing the bridge of Austerlitz. At the first stop he had comprehended that they were entering the cemetery; at the second stop he had said: here is the grave.
He felt that hands hastily seized the coffin, then a harsh scraping upon the boards; he concluded that that was a rope which they were tying around the coffin to let it down into the excavation.
Then he felt a kind of dizziness.
Probably the bearer and the gravedigger had tipped the coffin and let the head down before the feet. He returned fully to himself on feeling that he was horizontal and motionless. He had touched the bottom.
He felt a certain chill.
A voice arose above him, icy and solemn. He heard pass away, some Latin words which he did not understand, pronounced so slowly that he could catch them one after another:
“Qui dormiunt in terræ pulvere, evigilabunt; alii in vitam æternam, et alii in opprobrium, ut videant semper.”bv
A child’s voice said:
“De profundis.”
The deep voice recommenced:
“Requiem æternam dona ei, Domine.”
The child’s voice responded:
“Et lux perpetua luceat ei. ”
He heard upon the board which covered him something like the gentle patter of a few drops of rain. It was probably the holy water.
He thought: “This will soon be finished. A little more patience. The priest is going away. Fauchelevent will take Mestienne away to drink. They will leave me. Then Fauchelevent will come back alone, and I shall get out. That will take a good hour.”
The deep voice resumed.
“Requiescat in pace. ”
And the child’s voice said:
“Amen.”
Jean Valjean, intently listening, perceived something like receding steps.
“Now there they go,” thought he. “I am alone.”
All at once he heard a sound above his head which seemed to him like a clap of thunder.
It was a spadeful of earth falling upon the coffin.
A second spadeful of earth fell.
One of the holes by which he breathed was stopped up.
A third spadeful of earth fell.
Then a fourth.
There are things stronger than the strongest man. Jean Valjean lost consciousness.