en and the mattock.
The mattock is ruining my hand."
The hearse halted.
The choir boy alighted from the mourning-coach, then the priest.
One of the small front wheels of the hearse had run up a little on a pile of earth, beyond which an open grave was visible.
"What a farce this is!" repeated Fauchelevent in consternation.
BOOK EIGHTH.--CEMETERIES TAKE THAT WHICH IS COMMITTED THEM
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 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.