Les Misérables, v. 5

Cosette and Marius fell on their knees, heartbroken and choked with sobs, each under one of Jean Valjean's hands. These august hands did not move again. He had fallen back, and the light from the two candles illumined him: his white face looked up to heaven, and he let Cosette and Marius cover his hands with kisses.

He was dead.

The night was starless and intensely dark; doubtless some immense angel was standing in the gloom, with outstretched wings, waiting for the soul.

CHAPTER VI

THE GRASS HIDES, AND THE RAIN EFFACES

There is at the cemetery of Père-Lachaise, in the vicinity of the poor side, far from the elegant quarter of this city of sepulchres, far from those fantastic tombs which display in the presence of eternity the hideous fashions of death, in a deserted corner near an old wall, under a yew up which bind-weed climbs, and amid couch-grass and moss, a tombstone. This stone is no more exempt than the others from the results of time, from mildew, lichen, and the deposits of birds. Water turns it green and the atmosphere blackens it. It is not in the vicinity of any path, and people do not care to visit that part because the grass is tall and they get their feet wet. When there is a little sunshine the lizards disport on it; there is all around a rustling of wild oats, and in spring linnets sing on the trees. This tombstone is quite bare. In cutting it, only the necessities of the tomb were taken into consideration; no further care was taken than to make the stone long enough and narrow enough to cover a man.

No name can be read on it.

Many, many years ago, however, a hand wrote on it in pencil these lines, which became almost illegible through rain and dust, and which are probably effaced at the present day: —

"Il dort. Quoique le sort fût pour lui bien étrange,Il vivait. Il mourut quand il n'eut pas son ange;La chose simplement d'elle-même arriva,Comme la nuit se fait lorsque le jour s'en va."THE END