A voice replied: “Come in.”

It was Gribier’s voice.

Fauchelevent opened the door. The gravedigger’s dwelling was, like all such wretched habitations, an unfurnished and encumbered garret. A packing-case⁠—a coffin, perhaps⁠—took the place of a commode, a butter-pot served for a drinking-fountain, a straw mattress served for a bed, the floor served instead of tables and chairs. In a corner, on a tattered fragment which had been a piece of an old carpet, a thin woman and a number of children were piled in a heap. The whole of this poverty-stricken interior bore traces of having been overturned. One would have said that there had been an earthquake “for one.” The covers were displaced, the rags scattered about, the jug broken, the mother had been crying, the children had probably been beaten; traces of a vigorous and ill-tempered search. It was plain that the gravedigger had made a desperate search for his card, and had made everybody in the garret, from the jug to his wife, responsible for its loss. He wore an air of desperation.