Page 940 - les-miserables

Fauchelevent thought: ‘I am lost.’
They were only a few turns of the wheel distant from the
small alley leading to the nuns’ corner.
The grave-digger resumed:—
‘Peasant, I have seven small children who must be fed. As
they must eat, I cannot drink.’
And he added, with the satisfaction of a serious man who
is turning a phrase well:—
‘Their hunger is the enemy of my thirst.’
The hearse skirted a clump of cypress-trees, quitted the
grand alley, turned into a narrow one, entered the waste
land, and plunged into a thicket. This indicated the im-
mediate proximity of the place of sepulture. Fauchelevent
slackened his pace, but he could not detain the hearse. For-
tunately, the soil, which was light and wet with the winter
rains, clogged the wheels and retarded its speed.
He approached the grave-digger.
‘They have such a nice little Argenteuil wine,’ murmured
Fauchelevent.
‘Villager,’ retorted the man, ‘I ought not be a grave-dig-
ger. My father was a porter at the Prytaneum [Town-Hall].
He destined me for literature. But he had reverses. He had
losses on ‘change. I was obliged to renounce the profession
of author. But I am still a public writer.’
‘So you are not a grave-digger, then?’ returned Fauchelev-
ent, clutching at this branch, feeble as it was.
‘The one does not hinder the other. I cumulate.’
Fauchelevent did not understand this last word.
‘Come have a drink,’ said he.

940 Les Miserables