“I will put earth in the coffin, reverend Mother. That will produce the effect of a corpse.”

“You are right. Earth, that is the same thing as man. So you will manage the empty coffin?”

“I will make that my special business.”

The prioress’s face, up to that moment troubled and clouded, grew serene once more. She made the sign of a superior dismissing an inferior to him. Fauchelevent went towards the door. As he was on the point of passing out, the prioress raised her voice gently:⁠—

“I am pleased with you, Father Fauvent; bring your brother to me tomorrow, after the burial, and tell him to fetch his daughter.”

In Which Jean Valjean Has Quite the Air of Having Read Austin Castillejo