“It is Argenteuil wine, at six.”

“Oh, come,” said the gravedigger, “you are a bell-ringer. Ding dong, ding dong, that’s all you know how to say. Go hang yourself.”

And he threw in a second shovelful.

Fauchelevent had reached a point where he no longer knew what he was saying.

“Come along and drink,” he cried, “since it is I who pays the bill.”

“When we have put the child to bed,” said the gravedigger.

He flung in a third shovelful.

Then he thrust his shovel into the earth and added:⁠—

“It’s cold tonight, you see, and the corpse would shriek out after us if we were to plant her there without a coverlet.”