Les Miserables (Movie Tie-in) (9781101612774)

by Hugo, Victor; Donougher, Christine (TRN)

  ‘Comrade,’ he said, and Gribier turned to look at him. ‘I’m the grave-digger from the convent.’

  ‘We are colleagues,’ said Gribier.

  Fauchelevent, untutored but very shrewd, had realized by now that he had a formidable character to deal with, a man of eloquence.

  ‘So Père Mestienne is dead,’ he murmured.

  ‘Precisely. The good God consulted his files and found that it was the turn of Père Mestienne. He is quite dead.’

  ‘The good God …’ Fauchelevent repeated mechanically.

  ‘The good God,’ Gribier said with authority. ‘To philosophers the Eternal Father, and to the Jacobins the Supreme Being.’

  ‘But aren’t we to get acquainted?’ stammered Fauchelevent.

  ‘We already know each other. You are a countryman and I am a Parisian.’

  ‘You don’t get to know a man until you’ve drunk with him. In emptying your glass you empty your heart. We must have a drink together. You can’t refuse.’

  ‘We must first attend to our business.’

  Fauchelevent thought: ‘I’m done for.’

  They were now near the narrower pathway leading to the plot reserved for the nuns. Gribier said:

  ‘Countryman, I have seven kids to feed. If they’re to eat, I can’t afford to drink.’ He added with the impressiveness of a man who enjoys turning a phrase. ‘Their hunger is the enemy of my thirst.’

  The procession, rounding a clump of cypresses, was now on the narrower path. Its muddy state, following the winter rains, obliged the hearse to move more slowly. Fauchelevent drew closer to Gribier.

  ‘There’s a very good little Argenteuil wine …’ he murmured.

  ‘You must understand, villager,’ said Gribier, ‘that I should not by rights be a grave-digger. My father, who was a clerk, destined me for literature. But he had misfortunes. He lost money on the Bourse. I had to give up authorship. But I am still a public writer.’

  ‘In fact, not really a grave-digger,’ said Fauchevelent, grasping at this straw.

  ‘The one does not interfere with the other. I’m a pluralist.’

  This last word was beyond Fauchelevent. ‘We must have a drink,’ he repeated.

  And here an observation is necessary. Fauchelevent had proposed a drink, but despite his anguished state he had failed to specify one particular, namely, who was to pay for it. In his dealings with Père Mestienne it was he who had proposed and the latter who had paid. Clearly in the changed circumstances an explicit offer should have been made, but the old peasant had instinctively left this matter – the proverbial moment of darkness, as Rabelais has called it – in suspense, the truth being that regardless of his terrors he did not at all wish to pay.

  Gribier continued with a lofty smile:

  ‘One has to eat. I agreed to take over the duties of Père Mestienne. When one has nearly completed one’s studies one is a philosopher. I supplement the labour of the pen with the labour of the hand. I have my writer’s stall in the market on the Rue de Sèvres – do you know it, the Marché aux Parapluies? All the kitchen-maids in the Croix-Rouge quarter come to me and I run up effusions for their sweethearts. In the morning I write love-letters and in the afternoon I dig graves. Such is life, countryman.’

  The hearse ploughed on and Fauchelevent gazed distractedly about him with beads of sweat gathering on his forehead.

  ‘However,’ said Gribier, ‘one cannot serve two mistresses. I shall have to choose between the pen and the shovel. The shovel blisters my hands.’

  The procession came to a halt. The choir-boy got out of the carriage followed by the priest. One of the small front wheels of the hearse had risen slightly on a mound of earth beyond which was an open grave.

  ‘What a lark!’ repeated Fauchelevent in consternation.

  VI

  The narrow walls

  Jean Valjean had so arranged himself in the coffin that he could breathe just enough. It is wonderful how far ease of mind may promote a sense of security. His plan was going well and had done so from the start. Like Fauchelevent he counted on Père Mestienne and he had no doubt of the outcome. Never had a more critical situation been met with more perfect calm.

  The four walls of the coffin exuded a kind of terrible peace, as though Valjean’s tranquillity partook in some sort of the repose of the dead. From within his confinement he could follow every stage of the tense drama in which his adversary was Death.

  Shortly after Fauchelevent had nailed down the coffin-lid he had felt himself lifted up and then borne on wheels. The diminished jolting had told him when they had left the cobbles of the back streets and were on the smoother surface of the boulevards, and from the echo he had known when they were crossing the Pont d’Austerlitz. He had realized when they stopped for the first time that they were entering the cemetery, and when they stopped again he said to himself, ‘We’ve reached the graveside.’ The coffin jerked abruptly and there were scraping sounds which he guessed were made by ropes being passed round it. Suddenly he felt that he was standing on his head. The bearers and the grave-digger had failed to keep the coffin level and were lowering it head foremost into the grave. His momentary dizziness passed when he was motionless and again horizontal and knew that he was lying on the bottom.

  He had a sensation of chill. A cool and solemn voice was raised above him intoning words of Latin which he could not understand, but uttering them so slowly and meticulously that he could distinguish every one.

  ‘Qui dormiunt in terrae pulvere, evigilabunt; alii in vitam aeternam, et alii in opprobrium, ut videant semper.’

  A boy’s voice chanted:

  ‘De profundis.’

  The first voice said:

  ‘Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine e. ’

  The boy replied:

  ‘Et lux perpetua luceat ei.’

  He heard what was like the sound of rain pattering on the lid of the coffin and knew that it was holy water. He thought: ‘This will soon be over. A little patience. The priest will leave and Fauchelevent will take Mestienne off for a drink. Then he’ll come back and let me out. An hour at the outside.’

  The voice intoned, ‘Requiescat in pace’, and the boy replied, ‘Amen.’

  Jean Valjean, intently listening, presently heard the sound of departing footsteps. ‘They’re going away,’ he thought. ‘I’m alone.’

  But then there was a sound above his head that was like the thunder of an avalanche. It was made by a spadeful of earth falling on the coffin-lid.

  A second followed it and a third. The holes through which he breathed were being covered over.

  A fourth spadeful fell.

  There are things too strong for even the strongest man. Jean Valjean fainted.

  VII

  The missing card

  The following scene had been enacted at the graveside.

  When the hearse had left, followed by the priest and the choirboy in the carriage, Fauchelevent, who had never taken his eyes off Gribier, saw him reach for his shovel, which was standing upright in the mound of earth. Fauchelevent then made the supreme sacrifice. Thrusting himself between the grave and the grave-digger, he folded his arms and said:

  ‘I’ll pay.’

  Gribier looked at him in astonishment.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘I said, I’ll pay.’

  ‘Pay what?’

  ‘The wine.’

  ‘What wine?’

  ‘The Argenteuil.’

  ‘Where is it, this Argenteuil?’

  ‘At the Bon Coing.’

  ‘Oh, go to the devil!’ said Gribier, and tossed a spadeful of earth on the coffin.

  The coffin gave back a hollow sound. Fauchelevent was now tottering on his feet, ready to fall into the grave himself. He cried in a strangled voice that was half a groan:

  ‘But, comrade, before the Bon Coing closes!’

  Ignoring this, Gribier drove his shovel into the mound of earth. Fauchelevent said again, ‘I’m paying,’ and cl
utched him by the arm. ‘Listen, comrade, I’m the convent grave-digger and I’ve come to help you. But this is a job that can be done after dark. We should start by having a drink.’ He clung to him despairingly, tormented by the thought, ‘But even if we do have a drink, can I get him drunk?’

  ‘Well, countryman,’ said Gribier, ‘all right, I’ll have a drink with you, if you insist. But after the work is done, not before.’

  He bent over his spade while Fauchelevent still sought to restrain him.

  ‘But it’s real Argenteuil, at six sous the carafe.’

  ‘You’re like a bell-ringer,’ said Gribier. ‘Ding-dong, ding-dong – always the same tune. Go away and leave me alone.’

  He shovelled in the second spadeful of earth. Fauchelevent had now reached a state where he no longer knew what he was saying.

  ‘But a drink – a drink! I’ve said I’ll pay.’

  ‘When we’ve put the baby to bed,’ said Gribier, and down went the third spadeful. ‘It’s going to be cold tonight. We’d have the dead woman after us if we didn’t cover her up properly.’

  At this moment, as he was about to throw in the fourth spadeful, Fauchelevent’s distracted gaze noted something. Gribier’s side-pocket had gaped open as he was bending forward, and the old man had a glimpse of something white inside. As much light of inspiration as a Picardy peasant is capable of gleamed in Fauchelevent’s eye. While Gribier was still bowed over his shovel he slipped a hand into the open pocket and deftly removed the contents.

  The fourth spadeful went in, and Fauchelevent then said in a voice of the utmost calm:

  ‘By the way, newcomer, have you got your card?’

  Gribier turned to look at him.

  ‘What card?’

  ‘It’s nearly sunset.’

  ‘So the sun will have to put on his night-cap.’

  ‘The gates will be shut.’

  ‘And so?’

  ‘So have you got your card?’

  ‘Oh, that card.’ Gribier felt in his pocket. He then felt in his other pocket, in every part of his garments. ‘It seems I must have forgotten it.’

  ‘Fifteen francs fine,’ said Fauchelevent.

  Gribier turned green, green being the pallor of sallow-faced men.

  ‘May all the saints preserve us! Fifteen francs!’

  ‘Three hundred-sou pieces.’

  Gribier dropped his shovel.

  This was Fauchelevent’s moment.

  ‘Come, come,’ he said soothingly. ‘No need to despair. No need to commit suicide and fill another grave. Fifteen francs is fifteen francs and I don’t suppose you can afford it. But I’m an old hand. I know all the ins and outs. I’ll tell you what you can do. One thing is certain, the sun’s nearly set, it’s touching the Invalides. The gates will be shut in five minutes.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘This is a good deep grave. You haven’t time to fill it in and get out before they close.’

  ‘True enough.’

  ‘In which case, fifteen francs fine.’

  ‘Fifteen francs.’

  ‘But you’ve still got time to get out – where do you live?’

  ‘Near the barrier, 87 Rue de Vaugirard. Fifteen minutes walk.’

  ‘Well, you’ve still got time to get out if you go at once and hurry. You run along home and get your card, and the keeper will let you back in again and nothing to pay. So then you fill in the grave. Meanwhile I’ll stay here and keep watch over the dead to make sure they don’t get away.’

  ‘That’s very good of you, countryman.’

  ‘Then off you go,’ said Fauchelevent.

  Gribier departed at a run and vanished behind the cypresses. Fauchelevent waited until the sound of his footsteps had died away, then bent over the grave and called:

  ‘Père Madeleine!’

  There was no reply.

  Fauchelevent shivered. Tumbling rather than climbing down into the grave, he cried with his lips close to the head of the coffin:

  ‘Are you there?’

  Silence.

  Trembling so much that he could scarcely breathe, Fauchelevent used his chisel and hammer to lever up the lid. The face of Jean Valjean shone whitely in the dusk, the eyes were closed.

  Fauchelevent’s hair rose on his head. He straightened himself and sagged weakly against the side of the grave, almost collapsing over the coffin. Jean Valjean lay motionless. He gazed down at him and murmured, ‘He’s dead!’ Then he beat his breast with his clenched fists and cried, ‘So this is how I save him!’

  The poor old man burst into tears, talking aloud as he wept. It is a mistake to suppose that the monologue is unnatural. Strong emotion needs to find a voice.

  ‘All because of Père Mestienne! Why did the old fool have to die just when no one expected it? He’s responsible for this, and here’s Père Madeleine in his grave and nothing to be done. Where’s the sense in that? He’s dead, he’s dead, and what about the little girl, what am I to do with her and what’s the woman in the fruit-shop going to say? That a man like him should die like this – how can one believe in God? When I think of how he got me out from under my cart! Père Madeleine! He must have suffocated. I was afraid of it but he wouldn’t believe me. A dirty trick for fate to play! He’s dead, the best man that ever walked this earth. And there’s die child. Well, I’m not going back to the convent, that’s for sure, not after this. I’ll stay with him. Two old men together, two crazy old men. But how did he get in in the first place? How did it all start? One shouldn’t do these things. Père Madeleine! Monsieur le maire! But he can’t hear. He can’t get us out of this one!’ And Fauchelevent tore his hair.

  A distant sound of squeaking from beyond the trees told him that the cemetery gates were being closed.

  He bent down again over Jean Valjean, and suddenly he started back, recoiling as far as the narrow walls of the grave would allow. Valjean’s eyes were open and he was looking up at him.

  The sight of death is terrible, but the sight of resurrection is scarcely less so. Fauchelevent was for a moment turned to stone, his face pale and drawn, not knowing whether he had to do with the living or the dead.

  ‘I fell asleep,’ said Jean Valjean and sat up.

  ‘Holy Mother of Heaven!’ cried Fauchelevent. ‘How you frightened me!’

  Rapture is the reflex of terror. He had nearly as much difficulty in recovering his wits as had Valjean.

  ‘You’re not dead after all! The strength there is in your spirit! I called and called to you and you came back. When I saw you there with your eyes shut I thought, that’s it! He’s suffocated! I was ready to go raving mad, fit for a strait-jacket. What would I have done if you’d been dead? What would that woman have thought of the little girl, a child dropped in her lap and the grandfather dead? Saints preserve us, what a story! And all the time you were alive!’

  ‘I’m cold,’ said Jean Valjean.

  The words brought Fauchelevent back to earth and to the urgency of their situation. Although they were now in their right mind, both men were troubled by the desolate atmosphere of that place.

  ‘Let’s get out of here quickly,’ Fauchelevent said. ‘But first a drop of something.’ And he got out the flask he had brought with him.

  The flask completed what the fresh air had begun. After a gulp of eau-de-vie Valjean was himself again. He got out of the coffin and helped Fauchelevent to re-nail the lid; a minute later both men were standing beside the grave.

  Fauchelevent’s calm was now restored. They could take their time. The cemetery was closed and there was nothing to fear from Gribier, who must now be at home searching vainly for the card in Fauchelevent’s pocket, without which he could not get in again. The old man took the spade and Valjean took the pick, and together they buried the empty coffin. When the grave was filled in he said:

  ‘Now let’s be off. I’ll keep the shovel and you carry the pick.’

  It was nearly dark.

  Valjean had a slight difficulty in walking, conf
inement in the coffin having made him something near to a corpse. The rigidity of death had assailed him within those narrow walls; he had to shake off the chill of the grave.

  ‘You’re stiff,’ said Fauchelevent. ‘It’s a pity I’m bow-legged. Otherwise we’d run.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll soon be in working order.’

  They went back by the way the hearse had come. When they reached the gates and the keeper’s lodge Fauchelevent dropped the grave-digger’s card through the letter-box, the keeper pulled the cord, the foot-gate opened and they went out.

  ‘How well it has all gone off,’ said Fauchelevent. ‘That was an excellent idea of yours, Père Madeleine.’

  They passed through the Vaugirard barrier without the least trouble. In the neighbourhood of a cemetery a pick and shovel are a passport in themselves. The Rue de Vaugirard was deserted.

  ‘Père Madeleine,’ said Fauchelevent, studying the housefronts, ‘your eyes are better than mine. Tell me when we get to No. 87.’

  ‘We’ve just come to it,’ said Valjean.

  ‘There’s no one about,’ said Fauchelevent ‘Give me the pick and wait here a couple of minutes.’

  He went into No. 87 and, guided by the instinct which takes a poor man to the attics, climbed to the top floor, where he knocked on a door. Gribier’s voice called to him to come in.

  Fauchelevent entered. The grave-digger’s home was like all dwellings of the needy, a place of sparse and congested squalor. A packing-case, or it may have been a coffin, was used as a cupboard, a pail held the water-supply, a straw mattress served as a bed, and the floor took the place of table and chairs. Seated in a corner on a worn strip of carpet was a thin-faced woman surrounded by a huddle of children. The wretched place bore signs of a recent upheaval, as though it had been visited by its own private earthquake. Coverings had been stripped off, tattered garments scattered, a jug had been broken, the woman had been crying and the children had probably been beaten. It was evident that the grave-digger had been searching frantically for his card and blaming everyone for its loss. He had a look of desperation.