Part 110 (1/2)

Fauchelevent repeated mechanically: ”The good G.o.d--”

”The good G.o.d,” said the man authoritatively. ”According to the philosophers, the Eternal Father; according to the Jacobins, the Supreme Being.”

”Shall we not make each other's acquaintance?” stammered Fauchelevent.

”It is made. You are a peasant, I am a Parisian.”

”People do not know each other until they have drunk together. He who empties his gla.s.s empties his heart. You must come and have a drink with me. Such a thing cannot be refused.”

”Business first.”

Fauchelevent thought: ”I am lost.”

They were only a few turns of the wheel distant from the small alley leading to the nuns' corner.

The grave-digger resumed:--

”Peasant, I have seven small children who must be fed. As they must eat, I cannot drink.”

And he added, with the satisfaction of a serious man who is turning a phrase well:--

”Their hunger is the enemy of my thirst.”

The hea.r.s.e skirted a clump of cypress-trees, quitted the grand alley, turned into a narrow one, entered the waste land, and plunged into a thicket. This indicated the immediate proximity of the place of sepulture. Fauchelevent slackened his pace, but he could not detain the hea.r.s.e. Fortunately, the soil, which was light and wet with the winter rains, clogged the wheels and r.e.t.a.r.ded its speed.

He approached the grave-digger.

”They have such a nice little Argenteuil wine,” murmured Fauchelevent.

”Villager,” retorted the man, ”I ought not be a grave-digger. My father was a porter at the Prytaneum [Town-Hall]. He destined me for literature. But he had reverses. He had losses on 'change. I was obliged to renounce the profession of author. But I am still a public writer.”

”So you are not a grave-digger, then?” returned Fauchelevent, clutching at this branch, feeble as it was.

”The one does not hinder the other. I c.u.mulate.”

Fauchelevent did not understand this last word.

”Come have a drink,” said he.

Here a remark becomes necessary. Fauchelevent, whatever his anguish, offered a drink, but he did not explain himself on one point; who was to pay? Generally, Fauchelevent offered and Father Mestienne paid. An offer of a drink was the evident result of the novel situation created by the new grave-digger, and it was necessary to make this offer, but the old gardener left the proverbial quarter of an hour named after Rabelais in the dark, and that not unintentionally. As for himself, Fauchelevent did not wish to pay, troubled as he was.

The grave-digger went on with a superior smile:--

”One must eat. I have accepted Father Mestienne's reversion. One gets to be a philosopher when one has nearly completed his cla.s.ses. To the labor of the hand I join the labor of the arm. I have my scrivener's stall in the market of the Rue de Sevres. You know? the Umbrella Market. All the cooks of the Red Cross apply to me. I scribble their declarations of love to the raw soldiers. In the morning I write love letters; in the evening I dig graves. Such is life, rustic.”

The hea.r.s.e 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 grave-digger, ”a man cannot serve two mistresses.

I must choose between the pen and the mattock. The mattock is ruining my hand.”