The hearse was still advancing. Fauchelevent, uneasy to the last degree, was gazing about him on all sides. Great drops of perspiration trickled down from his brow.

“But,” continued the gravedigger, “a man cannot serve two mistresses. I must choose between the pen and the mattock. The mattock is ruining my hand.”

The hearse halted.

The choir boy alighted from the mourning-coach, then the priest.

One of the small front wheels of the hearse had run up a little on a pile of earth, beyond which an open grave was visible.

“What a farce this is!” repeated Fauchelevent in consternation.

Between Four Planks

Who was in the coffin? The reader knows. Jean Valjean.