It is a business which can be performed at night. Let us begin, then, by going for a drink."
And as he spoke, and clung to this desperate insistence, this melancholy reflection occurred to him:
"And if he drinks, will he get drunk?"
"Provincial," said the man, "if you positively insist upon it, I consent.
We will drink.
After work, never before."
And he flourished his shovel briskly.
Fauchelevent held him back.
"It is Argenteuil wine, at six."
"Oh, come," said the grave-digger, "you are a bell-ringer. Ding dong, ding dong, that''s all you know how to say.
Go hang yourself."
And he threw in a second shovelful.
Fauchelevent had reached a point where he no longer knew what he was saying.
"Come along and drink," he cried, "since it is I who pays the bill."
"When we have put the child to bed," said the grave-digger.
He flung in a third shovelful.
Then he thrust his shovel into the earth and added:--
"It''s cold to-night, you see, and the corpse would shriek out after us if we were to plant her there without a coverlet."
At that moment, as he loaded his shovel, the grave-digger bent over, and the pocket of his waistcoat gaped.
Fauchelevent''s wild gaze fell mechanically into that pocket, and there it stopped.
The sun was not yet hidden behind the horizon; there was still light enough to enable him to distinguish something white at the bottom of that yawning pocket.