Les Misérables, page 151
CHAPTER VI--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 hecould almost breathe.
It is a strange thing to what a degree security of conscience conferssecurity of the rest. Every combination thought out by Jean Valjean hadbeen progressing, and progressing favorably, since the preceding day.He, like Fauchelevent, counted on Father Mestienne. He had no doubtas to the end. Never was there a more critical situation, never morecomplete composure.
The four planks of the coffin breathe out a kind of terrible peace. Itseemed as though something of the repose of the dead entered into JeanValjean's tranquillity.
From the depths of that coffin he had been able to follow, and he hadfollowed, all the phases of the terrible drama which he was playing withdeath.
Shortly after Fauchelevent had finished nailing on the upper plank, JeanValjean had felt himself carried out, then driven off. He knew, from thediminution in the jolting, when they left the pavements and reached theearth road. He had divined, from a dull noise, that they were crossingthe bridge of Austerlitz. At the first halt, he had understood that theywere 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 againstthe planks; he explained it to himself as the rope which was beingfastened 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 thecoffin to lose its balance, and had lowered the head before the foot. Herecovered 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, whichhe did not understand, pass over him, so slowly that he was able tocatch them one by one:--
_"Qui dormiunt in terræ pulvere, evigilabunt; alii in vitam æternam, etalii in approbrium, ut videant semper." _
A child's voice said:--
_"De profundis." _
The grave voice began again:--
_"Requiem æternam 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 onthe plank which covered him. It was probably the holy water.
He thought: "This will be over soon now. Patience for a little whilelonger. The priest will take his departure. Fauchelevent will takeMestienne off to drink. I shall be left. Then Fauchelevent will returnalone, 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 retreatingfootsteps.
"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 aclap 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. JeanValjean lost consciousness.
