Page 952 - les-miserables

‘It is Father Mestienne’s fault. Why did that fool die?
What need was there for him to give up the ghost at the
very moment when no one was expecting it? It is he who has
killed M. Madeleine. Father Madeleine! He is in the coffin.
It is quite handy. All is over. Now, is there any sense in these
things? Ah! my God! he is dead! Well! and his little girl,
what am I to do with her? What will the fruit-seller say? The
idea of its being possible for a man like that to die like this!
When I think how he put himself under that cart! Father
Madeleine! Father Madeleine! Pardine! He was suffocated,
I said so. He wouldn’t believe me. Well! Here’s a pretty trick
to play! He is dead, that good man, the very best man out
of all the good God’s good folks! And his little girl! Ah! In
the first place, I won’t go back there myself. I shall stay here.
After having done such a thing as that! What’s the use of
being two old men, if we are two old fools! But, in the first
place, how did he manage to enter the convent? That was the
beginning of it all. One should not do such things. Father
Madeleine! Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine! Made-
leine! Monsieur Madeleine! Monsieur le Maire! He does not
hear me. Now get out of this scrape if you can!’
And he tore his hair.
A grating sound became audible through the trees in the
distance. It was the cemetery gate closing.
Fauchelevent bent over Jean Valjean, and all at once he
bounded back and recoiled so far as the limits of a grave
permit.
Jean Valjean’s eyes were open and gazing at him.
To see a corpse is alarming, to behold a resurrection is

952 Les Miserables