Page 926 - les-miserables

done by to-morrow morning. It is to-morrow that I am to
bring you in. The prioress expects you.’
Then he explained to Jean Valjean that this was his rec-
ompense for a service which he, Fauchelevent, was to render
to the community. That it fell among his duties to take part
in their burials, that he nailed up the coffins and helped the
grave-digger at the cemetery. That the nun who had died
that morning had requested to be buried in the coffin which
had served her for a bed, and interred in the vault under the
altar of the chapel. That the police regulations forbade this,
but that she was one of those dead to whom nothing is re-
fused. That the prioress and the vocal mothers intended to
fulfil the wish of the deceased. That it was so much the worse
for the government. That he, Fauchelevent, was to nail up
the coffin in the cell, raise the stone in the chapel, and lower
the corpse into the vault. And that, by way of thanks, the
prioress was to admit his brother to the house as a gardener,
and his niece as a pupil. That his brother was M. Madeleine,
and that his niece was Cosette. That the prioress had told
him to bring his brother on the following evening, after the
counterfeit interment in the cemetery. But that he could not
bring M. Madeleine in from the outside if M. Madeleine was
not outside. That that was the first problem. And then, that
there was another: the empty coffin.
‘What is that empty coffin?’ asked Jean Valjean.
Fauchelevent replied:—
‘The coffin of the administration.’
‘What coffin? What administration?’
‘A nun dies. The municipal doctor comes and says, ‘A

926 Les Miserables