Fauchelevent took the shovel, and Jean Valjean the pickaxe, and together they buried the empty coffin.
When the grave was full, Fauchelevent said to Jean Valjean:—
“Let us go. I will keep the shovel; do you carry off the mattock.”
Night was falling.
Jean Valjean experienced some difficulty in moving and in walking. He had stiffened himself in that coffin, and had become a little like a corpse. The rigidity of death had seized upon him between those four planks. He had, in a manner, to thaw out, from the tomb.
“You are benumbed,” said Fauchelevent. “It is a pity that I have a game leg, for otherwise we might step out briskly.”
“Bah!” replied Jean Valjean, “four paces will put life into my legs once more.”
They set off by the alleys through which the hearse had passed. On arriving before the closed gate and the porter’s pavilion Fauchelevent, who held the gravedigger’s card in his hand, dropped it into the box, the porter pulled the rope, the gate opened, and they went out.
“How well everything is going!” said Fauchelevent; “what a capital idea that was of yours, Father Madeleine!”
They passed the Vaugirard barrier in the simplest manner in the world. In the neighborhood of the cemetery, a shovel and pick are equal to two passports.
The Rue Vaugirard was deserted.