Page 927 - les-miserables

nun has died.’ The government sends a coffin. The next day
it sends a hearse and undertaker’s men to get the coffin and
carry it to the cemetery. The undertaker’s men will come
and lift the coffin; there will be nothing in it.’
‘Put something in it.’
‘A corpse? I have none.’
‘No.’
‘What then?’
‘A living person.’
‘What person?’
‘Me!’ said Jean Valjean.
Fauchelevent, who was seated, sprang up as though a
bomb had burst under his chair.
‘You!’
‘Why not?’
Jean Valjean gave way to one of those rare smiles which
lighted up his face like a flash from heaven in the winter.
‘You know, Fauchelevent, what you have said: ‘Mother
Crucifixion is dead.’ and I add: ‘and Father Madeleine is
buried.’’
‘Ah! good, you can laugh, you are not speaking serious-
ly.’
‘Very seriously, I must get out of this place.’
‘Certainly.’
‘l have told you to find a basket, and a cover for me also,’
‘Well?’
‘The basket will be of pine, and the cover a black cloth.’
‘In the first place, it will be a white cloth. Nuns are bur-
ied in white.’

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