He took his time. The cemetery was closed.
The arrival of the grave-digger Gribier was not to be apprehended.
That "conscript" was at home busily engaged in looking for his card, and at some difficulty in finding it in his lodgings, since it was in Fauchelevent's pocket. Without a card, he could not get back into the cemetery.
Fauchelevent took the shovel, and Jean Valjean the pick-axe, 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 rome 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 grave-digger'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.
"Father Madeleine," said Fauchelevent as they went along, and raising his eyes to the houses, "Your eyes are better than mine. Show me No. 87."
"Here it is," said Jean Valjean.