A PLAN OF ESCAPE.
The strides of halting men are like the glances of squinters, they do not reach their point very rapidly. Fauchelevent was perplexed, and he spent upwards of a quarter of an hour in returning to the garden cottage. Cosette was awake, and Jean Valjean had seated her by the fireside. At the moment when Fauchelevent entered, Jean Valjean was pointing to the gardener's basket leaning in a corner, and saying to her,—
"Listen to me carefully, little Cosette. We are obliged to leave this house, but shall return to it, and be very happy. The good man will carry you out in that thing upon his back, and you will wait for me with a lady till I come to fetch you. If you do not wish Madame Thénardier to catch you again, obey, and say not a word."
Cosette nodded her head gravely; at the sound Fauchelevent made in opening the door Jean Valjean turned round.
"Well?"
"All is arranged, and nothing is so," said Fauchelevent. "I have leave to bring you in, but to bring you in you must go out. That is the difficulty; it is easy enough with the little one."
"You will carry her out?"
"Will she be quiet?"
"I answer for that."
"But you, Father Madeleine?"
And after an anxious silence Fauchelevent cried,—
"Why, go out in the same way as you came in."
Jean Valjean, as on the first occasion, confined himself to saying "Impossible!"
Fauchelevent, speaking to himself rather than to Jean Valjean, growled,—
"There is another thing that troubles me. I said that I would put earth in it, but now I come to think of it, earth instead of a body will not do, for it will move about and the men will notice it. You understand, Father Madeleine, the Government will perceive the trick?"
Jean Valjean looked at him, and fancied that he must be raving; Fauchelevent continued,—
"How the deuce are you going to get out? For everything must be settled to-morrow, as the prioress expects you then."
Then he explained to Valjean that it was a reward for a service which he, Fauchelevent, was rendering the community. It was part of his duty to attend to the funerals, nail up the coffin, and assist the grave-digger at the cemetery. The nun who had died that morning requested to be buried in the coffin which served her as bed in the vault under the altar of the chapel. This was forbidden by the police regulations, but she was one of those women to whom nothing could be refused. The prioress and the vocal mothers intended to carry out the wishes of the deceased, and so all the worse for the Government. He, Fauchelevent, would nail up the coffin in the cell, lift the stone in the chapel, and let down the body into the vault. As a reward for this the prioress would admit into the house his brother as gardener, and his niece as boarder. The prioress had told him to bring his brother the next day after the pretended funeral; but he could not bring M. Madeleine in from outside if he were not there. This was his first embarrassment, and then he had a second in the empty coffin.
"What do you mean by the empty coffin?" Valjean asked.
"Why, the Government coffin."
"I do not understand you."
"A nun dies, and the physician of the municipality comes and says: 'There is a nun dead.' Government sends a coffin; the next day it sends a hearse and undertaker's men to fetch the coffin and carry it to the cemetery. They will come and lift the coffin, and there's nothing in it."
"Put something in it."
"A dead person? I have n't such a thing."
"Well, then, a living one."
"Who?"
"Myself," said Jean Valjean.
Fauchelevent, who was seated, sprang up as if a shell had exploded under his chair.
"You?"
"Why not?"
Jean Valjean had one of those rare smiles which resembled a sunbeam in a wintry sky.
"You know that you said, Fauchelevent, 'Mother Crucifixion is dead,' and I added, 'And Father Madeleine is buried,' It will be so."
"Oh, you are joking, not speaking seriously."
"Most seriously. Must I not get out of here?"
"Of course."
"I have told you to find for me also a basket and a tilt."
"Well?"
"The basket will be of deal, and the tilt of black cloth."
"No, white cloth. Nuns are buried in white."
"All right, then, white cloth."
"You are not like other men, Father Madeleine."
To see such ideas, which are nought but the wild and daring inventions of the hulks, issue from his peaceful surrounding, and mingled with what he called "the slow pace of the convent," produced in Fauchelevent a stupor comparable to that which a passer-by would feel on seeing a whaler fishing in the gutter of the Rue St. Denis. Jean Valjean went on.
"The point is to get out of here unseen, and that is a way. But just tell me, how does it all take place? Where is the coffin?"
"The empty one?"
"Yes."
"In what is called the dead-house. It is upon two trestles, and covered with the pall."
"What is the length of the coffin?"
"Six feet."
"What is this dead-house?"
"A ground-floor room with a grated window looking on the garden, and two doors, one leading to the church, the other to the convent."
"What church?"
"The street church, the one open to everybody."
"Have you the keys of these doors?"
"No, I have the key of the one communicating with the convent; but the porter has the other."
"When does he open it?"
"Only to let the men pass who come to fetch the body. When the coffin has gone out the door is locked again."
"Who nails up the coffin?"
"I do."
"Who places the pall over it?"
"I do."
"Are you alone?"
"No other man, excepting the doctor, is allowed to enter the dead-house. It is written on the wall."
"Could you hide me in that house to-night, when all are asleep in the convent?"
"No; but I can hide you in a dark hole opening out of the dead-house, in which I put the burial tools, of which I have the key."
"At what hour to-morrow will the hearse come to fetch the body?"
"At three in the afternoon. The interment takes place at the Vaugirard cemetery a little before nightfall, for the ground is not very near here."
"I will remain concealed in your tool-house during the night and morning. How about food? For I shall be hungry."
"I will bring you some."
"You can nail me up in the coffin at two o'clock." Fauchelevent recoiled and cracked his finger-bones.
"Oh, it is impossible!"
"Nonsense! To take a hammer and drive nails into a board?"
What seemed to Fauchelevent extraordinary was, we repeat, quite simple to Jean Valjean, for he had gone through worse straits; and any man who has been a prisoner knows how to reduce himself to the diameter of the mode of escape. A prisoner is affected by flight just as a sick man is by the crisis which saves or destroys him, and an escape is a cure. What will not a man undergo for the sake of being cured? To be nailed up and carried in a box, to live for a long time in a packing-case, to find air where there is none, to economize one's breath for hours, to manage to choke without dying, was one of Jean Valjean's melancholy talents.
Besides, a coffin in which there is a living body, this convict's expedient, is also an imperial expedient. If we may believe the monk Austin Castillejo, it was the way employed by Charles V., who, wishing to see La Plombes for the last time after his abdication, contrived to get her in and out of the monastery of St. Yuste. Fauchelevent, when he had slightly recovered, exclaimed,—
"But how will you manage to breathe?"
"I will manage it."
"In that box? Why, the mere idea of it chokes me.
"You have a gimlet. You will make a few holes round the mouth, and nail down the lid, without closing it tightly."
"Good! and suppose you cough or sneeze?"
"A man who is escaping does not do such a thing."
And Jean Valjean added,—
"Father Fauchelevent, we must make up our minds. I must either be captured here or go out in the hearse."
Everybody must have noticed the fancy which cats have of stopping and sniffing in a half-opened door. Who has not said to a cat, "Come in, then"? There are men who, when an incident stands half opened before them, have also a tendency to remain undecided between two resolutions, at the risk of being crushed by destiny as it hurriedly closes the adventure. The more prudent, cats though they are, and because they are cats, often incur greater danger than the more daring. Fauchelevent was of this hesitating nature; still, Jean Valjean's coolness involuntarily mastered him, and he growled,—
"After all, there is no other way."
Jean Valjean continued,—
"The only thing I am anxious about is what will take place at the cemetery."
"There is the very thing I am not anxious about," said Fauchelevent; "if you feel sure of getting out of the coffin, I feel sure of getting you out of the grave. The grave-digger is a friend of mine and a drunkard of the name of Father Mestienne; he puts the dead in the grave, and I put the grave-digger in my pocket. I will tell you what will occur. We shall arrive a little before twilight, three quarters of an hour before the cemetery gates are closed The hearse will drive up to the grave; and I shall follow, for that is my business. I shall have a hammer, a chisel, and pincers in my pocket; the hearse stops, the undertaker knots a cord round your coffin and lets you down; the priest says the prayers, makes the sign of the cross, sprinkles the holy water, and bolts. I remain alone with Father Mestienne; and he is a friend of mine, I tell you. One of two things is certain; he will either be drunk or not be drunk. If he is not drunk, I shall say to him, 'Come, and have a drink before the "Bon Coing" closes.' I take him away, make him drunk, which does not take long, as he has always made a beginning. I lay him under the table, take his card, and return to the cemetery without him. You will have only to deal with me. If he is drunk I shall say to him, 'Be off; I will do your work for you.' He will go, and I get you out of the hole."
Jean Valjean held out his hand, which Father Fauchelevent seized with a touching peasant devotion.
"It is settled, Father Fauchelevent. All will go well."
"Providing that nothing is deranged," Fauchelevent thought; "suppose the affair was to have a terrible ending!"