ff he goes, and I drag you out of
the hole."

Jean Valjean held out his hand, and Fauchelevent precipitated himself
upon it with the touching effusion of a peasant.

"That is settled, Father Fauchelevent. All will go well."

"Provided nothing goes wrong," thought Fauchelevent. "In that case, it
would be terrible."

CHAPTER V--IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO BE DRUNK IN ORDER TO BE IMMORTAL

On the following day, as the sun was declining, the very rare passers-by
on the Boulevard du Maine pulled off their hats to an old-fashioned
hearse, ornamented with skulls, cross-bones, and tears. This hearse
contained a coffin covered with a white cloth over which spread a large
black cross, like a huge corpse with drooping arms. A mourning-coach, in
which could be seen a priest in his surplice, and a choir boy in his red
cap, followed. Two undertaker's men in gray uniforms trimmed with black
walked on the right and the left of the hearse. Behind it came an old
man in the garments of a laborer, who limped along. The procession was
going in the direction of the Vaugirard cemetery.

The handle of a hammer, the blade of a cold chisel, and the antennae of
a pair of pincers were visible, protruding from the man's pocket.

The Vaugirard cemetery formed an exception among the cemeteries of
Paris. It had its peculiar usages, just as it had its carriage
entrance and its house door, which old people in the quarter, who clung
tenaciously to ancient words, still called the porte cavaliere and the
porte pietonne.[16] The Bernardines-Benedictines of the Rue Petit-Picpus
had obtained permission, as we have already stated, to be buried there
in a corner apart, and at night, the plot of land having formerly
belonged to their community. The grave-diggers being thus bound to
service in the evening in summer and at night in winter, in this
cemetery, they were subjected to a special discipline. The gates of the
Paris cemeteries closed, at that epoch, at sundown, and this being a
municipal regulation, the Vaugirard cemetery was bound by it like the
rest. The carriage gate and the house door were two contiguous grated
gates, adjoining a pavilion built by the architect Perronet, and
inhabited by the door-keeper of the cemetery. These gates, therefore,
swung inexorably on their hinges at the instant when the sun disappeared
behind the dome of the Invalides. If any grave-digger were delayed
after that moment in the cemetery, there was but one way for him