Page 931 - les-miserables

plank on loosely.’
‘Good! And what if you should happen to cough or to
sneeze?’
‘A man who is making his escape does not cough or
sneeze.’
And Jean Valjean added:—
‘Father Fauchelevent, we must come to a decision: I must
either be caught here, or accept this escape through the
hearse.’
Every one has noticed the taste which cats have for paus-
ing and lounging between the two leaves of a half-shut door.
Who is there who has not said to a cat, ‘Do come in!’ There
are men who, when an incident stands half-open before
them, have the same tendency to halt in indecision between
two resolutions, at the risk of getting crushed through the
abrupt closing of the adventure by fate. The over-prudent,
cats as they are, and because they are cats, sometimes incur
more danger than the audacious. Fauchelevent was of this
hesitating nature. But Jean Valjean’s coolness prevailed over
him in spite of himself. He grumbled:—
‘Well, since there is no other means.’
Jean Valjean resumed:—
‘The only thing which troubles me is what will take place
at the cemetery.’
‘That is the very point that is not troublesome,’ exclaimed
Fauchelevent. ‘If you are sure of coming out of the coffin all
right, I am sure of getting you out of the grave. The grave-
digger is a drunkard, and a friend of mine. He is Father
Mestienne. An old fellow of the old school. The grave-dig-

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