Page 943 - les-miserables
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CHAPTER VI
BETWEEN FOUR PLANKS
Who was in the coffin? The reader knows. Jean Valjean.
Jean Valjean had arranged things so that he could exist
there, and he could almost breathe.
It is a strange thing to what a degree security of con-
science confers security of the rest. Every combination
thought out by Jean Valjean had been progressing, and
progressing favorably, since the preceding day. He, like Fau-
chelevent, counted on Father Mestienne. He had no doubt
as to the end. Never was there a more critical situation, nev-
er more complete composure.
The four planks of the coffin breathe out a kind of ter-
rible peace. It seemed as though something of the repose of
the dead entered into Jean Valjean’s tranquillity.
From the depths of that coffin he had been able to follow,
and he had followed, all the phases of the terrible drama
which he was playing with death.
Shortly after Fauchelevent had finished nailing on the
upper plank, Jean Valjean had felt himself carried out, then
driven off. He knew, from the diminution in the jolting,
when they left the pavements and reached the earth road.
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