Document Outline 30 страница

His nights were frightful. As soon as he learned that the gypsy was alive, the cold ideas of spectre and tomb which had persecuted him for a whole day vanished, and the flesh returned to goad him. He turned and twisted on his couch at the thought that the dark-skinned maiden was so near him.

Every night his delirious imagination represented la Esmeralda to him in all the attitudes which had caused his blood to boil most. He beheld her outstretched upon the poniarded captain, her eyes closed, her beautiful bare throat covered with Phoebus's blood, at that moment of bliss when the archdeacon had imprinted on her pale lips that kiss whose burn the unhappy girl, though half dead, had felt. He beheld her, again, stripped by the savage hands of the torturers, allowing them to bare and to enclose in the boot with its iron screw, her tiny foot, her delicate rounded leg, her white and supple knee. Again he beheld that ivory knee which alone remained outside of Torterue's horrible apparatus. Lastly, he pictured the young girl in her shift, with the rope about her neck, shoulders bare, feet bare, almost nude, as he had seen her on that last day. These images of voluptuousness made him clench his fists, and a shiver run along his spine.

One night, among others, they heated so cruelly his virgin and priestly blood, that he bit his pillow, leaped from his bed, flung on a surplice over his shirt, and left his cell, lamp in hand, half naked, wild, his eyes CHAPTER V.

253

aflame.

He knew where to find the key to the red door, which connected the cloister with the church, and he always had about him, as the reader knows, the key of the staircase leading to the towers.

CHAPTER VI.

254

CHAPTER VI.

CONTINUATION OF THE KEY TO THE RED DOOR.

That night, la Esmeralda had fallen asleep in her cell, full of oblivion, of hope, and of sweet thoughts. She had already been asleep for some time, dreaming as always, of Phoebus, when it seemed to her that she heard a noise near her. She slept lightly and uneasily, the sleep of a bird; a mere nothing waked her. She opened her eyes. The night was very dark. Nevertheless, she saw a figure gazing at her through the window; a lamp lighted up this apparition. The moment that the figure saw that la Esmeralda had perceived it, it blew out the lamp. But the young girl had had time to catch a glimpse of it; her eyes closed again with terror.

" Oh! " she said in a faint voice, " the priest! "

All her past unhappiness came back to her like a flash of lightning. She fell back on her bed, chilled.

A moment later she felt a touch along her body which made her shudder so that she straightened herself up in a sitting posture, wide awake and furious.

The priest had just slipped in beside her. He encircled her with both arms.

She tried to scream and could not.

" Begone, monster! begone assassin! " she said, in a voice which was low and trembling with wrath and terror.

" Mercy! mercy! " murmured the priest, pressing his lips to her shoulder.

She seized his bald head by its remnant of hair and tried to thrust aside his kisses as though they had been bites.

" Mercy! " repeated the unfortunate man. " If you but knew what my love for you is! 'Tis fire, melted lead, a thousand daggers in my heart. "

She stopped his two arms with superhuman force.

" Let me go, " she said, " or I will spit in your face! "

He released her. " Vilify me, strike me, be malicious! Do what you will! But have mercy! love me! "

Then she struck him with the fury of a child. She made her beautiful hands stiff to bruise his face. " Begone, demon! "

" Love me! love mepity! " cried the poor priest returning her blows with caresses.

All at once she felt him stronger than herself.

" There must be an end to this! " he said, gnashing his teeth.

She was conquered, palpitating in his arms, and in his power. She felt a wanton hand straying over her. She made a last effort, and began to cry: " Help! Help! A vampire! a vampire! "

Nothing came. Djali alone was awake and bleating with anguish.

CHAPTER VI.

255

" Hush! " said the panting priest.

All at once, as she struggled and crawled on the floor, the gypsy's hand came in contact with something cold and metal- lic-it was Quasimodo's whistle. She seized it with a convulsive hope, raised it to her lips and blew with all the strength that she had left. The whistle gave a clear, piercing sound.

" What is that? " said the priest.

Almost at the same instant he felt himself raised by a vigorous arm. The cell was dark; he could not distinguish clearly who it was that held him thus; but he heard teeth chattering with rage, and there was just sufficient light scattered among the gloom to allow him to see above his head the blade of a large knife.

The priest fancied that he perceived the form of Quasimodo. He assumed that it could be no one but he. He remembered to have stumbled, as he entered, over a bundle which was stretched across the door on the outside. But, as the newcomer did not utter a word, he knew not what to think. He flung himself on the arm which held the knife, crying: " Quasimodo! " He forgot, at that moment of distress, that Quasimodo was deaf.

In a twinkling, the priest was overthrown and a leaden knee rested on his breast.

From the angular imprint of that knee he recognized Quasimodo; but what was to be done? how could he make the other recognize him? the darkness rendered the deaf man blind.

He was lost. The young girl, pitiless as an enraged tigress, did not intervene to save him. The knife was approaching his head; the moment was critical. All at once, his adversary seemed stricken with hesitation.

" No blood on her! " he said in a dull voice.

It was, in fact, Quasimodo's voice.

Then the priest felt a large hand dragging him feet first out of the cell; it was there that he was to die.

Fortunately for him, the moon had risen a few moments before.

When they had passed through the door of the cell, its pale rays fell upon the priest's countenance. Quasimodo looked him full in the face, a trembling seized him, and he released the priest and shrank back.

The gypsy, who had advanced to the threshold of her cell, beheld with surprise their roles abruptly changed. It was now the priest who menaced, Quasimodo who was the suppliant.

The priest, who was overwhelming the deaf man with gestures of wrath and reproach, made the latter a violent sign to retire.

The deaf man dropped his head, then he came and knelt at the gypsy's door, --" Monseigneur, " he said, in a grave and resigned voice, " you shall do all that you please afterwards, but kill me first. "

So saying, he presented his knife to the priest. The priest, beside himself, was about to seize it. But the young girl was quicker than be; she wrenched the knife from Quasimodo's hands and burst into a frantic laugh, --" Approach, " she said to the priest.

She held the blade high. The priest remained undecided.

She would certainly have struck him.

CHAPTER VI.

256

Then she added with a pitiless expression, well aware that she was about to pierce the priest's heart with thousands of red-hot irons, --

" Ah! I know that Phoebus is not dead!

The priest overturned Quasimodo on the floor with a kick, and, quivering with rage, darted back under the vault of the staircase.

When he was gone, Quasimodo picked up the whistle which had just saved the gypsy.

" It was getting rusty, " he said, as he handed it back to her; then he left her alone.

The young girl, deeply agitated by this violent scene, fell back exhausted on her bed, and began to sob and weep. Her horizon was becoming gloomy once more.

The priest had groped his way back to his cell.

It was settled. Dom Claude was jealous of Quasimodo!

He repeated with a thoughtful air his fatal words: " No one shall have her. "

BOOK TENTH.

CHAPTER I.

257

CHAPTER I.

GRINGOIRE HAS MANY GOOD IDEAS IN SUCCESSION. --RUE DES BERNARDINS.

As soon as Pierre Gringoire had seen how this whole affair was turning, and that there would decidedly be the rope, hanging, and other disagreeable things for the principal personages in this comedy, he had not cared to identify himself with the matter further. The outcasts with whom he had remained, reflecting that, after all, it was the best company in Paris, --the outcasts had continued to interest themselves in behalf of the gypsy. He had thought it very simple on the part of people who had, like herself, nothing else in prospect but Charmolue and Torterue, and who, unlike himself, did not gallop through the regions of imagination between the wings of Pegasus. From their remarks, he had learned that his wife of the broken crock had taken refuge in Notre-Dame, and he was very glad of it. But he felt no temptation to go and see her there. He meditated occasionally on the little goat, and that was all. Moreover, he was busy executing feats of strength during the day for his living, and at night he was engaged in composing a memorial against the Bishop of Paris, for he remembered having been drenched by the wheels of his mills, and he cherished a grudge against him for it. He also occupied himself with annotating the fine work of Baudry-le- Rouge, Bishop of Noyon and Tournay, De Cupa Petrarum , which had given him a violent passion for architecture, an inclination which had replaced in his heart his passion for hermeticism, of which it was, moreover, only a natural corollary, since there is an intimate relation between hermeticism and masonry. Gringoire had passed from the love of an idea to the love of the form of that idea.

One day he had halted near Saint Germain-l'Auxerrois, at the corner of a mansion called " For-l'Evê que " (the Bishop's Tribunal), which stood opposite another called " For-le-Roi" (the King's Tribunal). At this For-l'Evê que, there was a charming chapel of the fourteenth century, whose apse was on the street. Gringoire was devoutly examining its exterior sculptures. He was in one of those moments of egotistical, exclusive, supreme, enjoyment when the artist beholds nothing in the world but art, and the world in art. All at once he feels a hand laid gravely on his shoulder. He turns round. It was his old friend, his former master, monsieur the archdeacon.

He was stupefied. It was a long time since he had seen the archdeacon, and Dom Claude was one of those solemn and impassioned men, a meeting with whom always upsets the equilibrium of a sceptical philosopher.

The archdeacon maintained silence for several minutes, during which Gringoire had time to observe him. He found Dom Claude greatly changed; pale as a winter's morning, with hollow eyes, and hair almost white. The priest broke the silence at length, by saying, in a tranquil but glacial tone, --

" How do you do, Master Pierre? "

" My health? " replied Gringoire. " Eh! eh! one can say both one thing and another on that score. Still, it is good, on the whole. I take not too much of anything. You know, master, that the secret of keeping well, according to Hippocrates; ~id est: cibi, potus, somni, venus, omnia moderata sint~. "

" So you have no care, Master Pierre? " resumed the archdeacon, gazing intently at Gringoire.

" None, i' faith! "

" And what are you doing now? "

" You see, master. I am examining the chiselling of these stones, and the manner in which yonder bas-relief is thrown out. "

The priest began to smile with that bitter smile which raises only one corner of the mouth.

CHAPTER I.

258

" And that amuses you? "

" 'Tis paradise! " exclaimed Gringoire. And leaning over the sculptures with the fascinated air of a demonstrator of living phenomena: " Do you not think, for instance, that yon metamorphosis in bas-relief is executed with much adroitness, delicacy and patience? Observe that slender column. Around what capital have you seen foliage more tender and better caressed by the chisel. Here are three raised bosses of Jean Maillevin. They are not the finest works of this great master. Nevertheless, the naivete, the sweetness of the faces, the gayety of the attitudes and draperies, and that inexplicable charm which is mingled with all the defects, render the little figures very diverting and delicate, perchance, even too much so. You think that it is not diverting? "

" Yes, certainly! " said the priest.

" And if you were to see the interior of the chapel! " resumed the poet, with his garrulous enthusiasm.

" Carvings everywhere. 'Tis as thickly clustered as the head of a cabbage! The apse is of a very devout, and so peculiar a fashion that I have never beheld anything like it elsewhere! "

Dom Claude interrupted him, --

" You are happy, then? "

Gringoire replied warmly; --

" On my honor, yes! First I loved women, then animals. Now I love stones. They are quite as amusing as women and animals, and less treacherous. "

The priest laid his hand on his brow. It was his habitual gesture.

" Really? "

" Stay! " said Gringoire, " one has one's pleasures! " He took the arm of the priest, who let him have his way, and made him enter the staircase turret of For-l'Evê que. " Here is a staircase! every time that I see it I am happy. It is of the simplest and rarest manner of steps in Paris. All the steps are bevelled underneath. Its beauty and simplicity consist in the interspacing of both, being a foot or more wide, which are interlaced, interlocked, fitted together, enchained enchased, interlined one upon another, and bite into each other in a manner that is truly firm and graceful. "

" And you desire nothing? "

" No. "

" And you regret nothing? "

" Neither regret nor desire. I have arranged my mode of life. "

" What men arrange, " said Claude, " things disarrange. "

" I am a Pyrrhonian philosopher, " replied Gringoire, " and I hold all things in equilibrium. "

" And how do you earn your living? "

" I still make epics and tragedies now and then; but that which brings me in most is the industry with which CHAPTER I.

259

you are acquainted, master; carrying pyramids of chairs in my teeth. "

" The trade is but a rough one for a philosopher. "

" 'Tis still equilibrium, " said Gringoire. " When one has an idea, one encounters it in everything. "

" I know that, " replied the archdeacon.

After a silence, the priest resumed, --

" You are, nevertheless, tolerably poor? "

" Poor, yes; unhappy, no. "

At that moment, a trampling of horses was heard, and our two interlocutors beheld defiling at the end of the street, a company of the king's unattached archers, their lances borne high, an officer at their head. The cavalcade was brilliant, and its march resounded on the pavement.

" How you gaze at that officer! " said Gringoire, to the archdeacon.

" Because I think I recognize him. "

" What do you call him? "

" I think, " said Claude, " that his name is Phoebus de Châ teaupers. "

" Phoebus! A curious name! There is also a Phoebus, Comte de Foix. I remember having known a wench who swore only by the name of Phoebus. "

" Come away from here, " said the priest. " I have something to say to you. "

From the moment of that troop's passing, some agitation had pierced through the archdeacon's glacial envelope. He walked on. Gringoire followed him, being accustomed to obey him, like all who had once approached that man so full of ascendency. They reached in silence the Rue des Bernardins, which was nearly deserted. Here Dom Claude paused.

" What have you to say to me, master? " Gringoire asked him.

" Do you not think that the dress of those cavaliers whom we have just seen is far handsomer than yours and mine? "

Gringoire tossed his head.

" I' faith! I love better my red and yellow jerkin, than those scales of iron and steel. A fine pleasure to produce, when you walk, the same noise as the Quay of Old Iron, in an earthquake! "

" So, Gringoire, you have never cherished envy for those handsome fellows in their military doublets? "

" Envy for what, monsieur the archdeacon? their strength, their armor, their discipline? Better philosophy and independence in rags. I prefer to be the head of a fly rather than the tail of a lion. "

" That is singular, " said the priest dreamily. " Yet a handsome uniform is a beautiful thing. "

CHAPTER I.

260

Gringoire, perceiving that he was in a pensive mood, quitted him to go and admire the porch of a neighboring house. He came back clapping his hands.

" If you were less engrossed with the fine clothes of men of war, monsieur the archdeacon, I would entreat you to come and see this door. I have always said that the house of the Sieur Aubry had the most superb entrance in the world. "

" Pierre Gringoire, " said the archdeacon, " What have you done with that little gypsy dancer? "

" La Esmeralda? You change the conversation very abruptly. "

" Was she not your wife? "

" Yes, by virtue of a broken crock. We were to have four years of it. By the way, " added Gringoire, looking at the archdeacon in a half bantering way, " are you still thinking of her? "

" And you think of her no longer? "

" Very little. I have so many things. Good heavens, how pretty that little goat was! "

" Had she not saved your life? "

" 'Tis true, pardieu! "

" Well, what has become of her? What have you done with her? "

" I cannot tell you. I believe that they have hanged her. "

" You believe so? "

" I am not sure. When I saw that they wanted to hang people, I retired from the game. "

" That is all you know of it? "

" Wait a bit. I was told that she had taken refuge in Notre-Dame, and that she was safe there, and I am delighted to hear it, and I have not been able to discover whether the goat was saved with her, and that is all I know. "

" I will tell you more, " cried Dom Claude; and his voice, hitherto low, slow, and almost indistinct, turned to thunder. " She has in fact, taken refuge in Notre-Dame. But in three days justice will reclaim her, and she will be hanged on the Grè ve. There is a decree of parliament. "

" That's annoying, " said Gringoire.

The priest, in an instant, became cold and calm again.

" And who the devil, " resumed the poet, " has amused himself with soliciting a decree of reintegration? Why couldn't they leave parliament in peace? What harm does it do if a poor girl takes shelter under the flying buttresses of Notre- Dame, beside the swallows' nests? "

" There are satans in this world, " remarked the archdeacon.

CHAPTER I.

261

" 'Tis devilish badly done, " observed Gringoire.

The archdeacon resumed after a silence, --

" So, she saved your life? "

" Among my good friends the outcasts. A little more or a little less and I should have been hanged. They would have been sorry for it to-day. "

" Would not you like to do something for her? "

" I ask nothing better, Dom Claude; but what if I entangle myself in some villanous affair? "

" What matters it? "

" Bah! what matters it? You are good, master, that you are! I have two great works already begun. "

The priest smote his brow. In spite of the calm which he affected, a violent gesture betrayed his internal convulsions from time to time.

" How is she to be saved? "

Gringoire said to him; " Master, I will reply to you; ~Il padelt~, which means in Turkish, 'God is our hope. '"

" How is she to be saved? " repeated Claude dreamily.

Gringoire smote his brow in his turn.

" Listen, master. I have imagination; I will devise expedients for you. What if one were to ask her pardon from the king? "

" Of Louis XI.! A pardon! "

" Why not? "

" To take the tiger's bone from him! "

Gringoire began to seek fresh expedients.

" Well, stay! Shall I address to the midwives a request accompanied by the declaration that the girl is with child! "

This made the priest's hollow eye flash.

" With child! knave! do you know anything of this? "

Gringoire was alarmed by his air. He hastened to say, " Oh, no, not I! Our marriage was a real

~forismaritagium~. I stayed outside. But one might obtain a respite, all the same. "

" Madness! Infamy! Hold your tongue! "

" You do wrong to get angry, " muttered Gringoire. " One obtains a respite; that does no harm to any one, and CHAPTER I.

262

allows the midwives, who are poor women, to earn forty deniers parisis. "

The priest was not listening to him!

" But she must leave that place, nevertheless! " he murmured, " the decree is to be executed within three days.

Moreover, there will be no decree; that Quasimodo! Women have very depraved tastes! " He raised his voice:

" Master Pierre, I have reflected well; there is but one means of safety for her. "

" What? I see none myself. "

" Listen, Master Pierre, remember that you owe your life to her. I will tell you my idea frankly. The church is watched night and day; only those are allowed to come out, who have been seen to enter. Hence you can enter. You will come. I will lead you to her. You will change clothes with her. She will take your doublet; you will take her petticoat. "

" So far, it goes well, " remarked the philosopher, " and then? "

" And then? she will go forth in your garments; you will remain with hers. You will be hanged, perhaps, but she will be saved. "

Gringoire scratched his ear, with a very serious air. " Stay! " said he, " that is an idea which would never have occurred to me unaided. "

At Dom Claude's proposition, the open and benign face of the poet had abruptly clouded over, like a smiling Italian landscape, when an unlucky squall comes up and dashes a cloud across the sun.

" Well! Gringoire, what say you to the means? "

" I say, master, that I shall not be hanged, perchance, but that I shall be hanged indubitably.

" That concerns us not. "

" The deuce! " said Gringoire.

" She has saved your life. 'Tis a debt that you are discharging. "

" There are a great many others which I do not discharge. "

" Master Pierre, it is absolutely necessary. "

The archdeacon spoke imperiously. "

" Listen, Dom Claude, " replied the poet in utter consternation. You cling to that idea, and you are wrong. I do not see why I should get myself hanged in some one else's place. "

" What have you, then, which attaches you so strongly to life? "

" Oh! a thousand reasons! "

" What reasons, if you please? "

" What? The air, the sky, the morning, the evening, the moonlight, my good friends the thieves, our jeers with CHAPTER I.

263

the old hags of go-betweens, the fine architecture of Paris to study, three great books to make, one of them being against the bishops and his mills; and how can I tell all? Anaxagoras said that he was in the world to admire the sun. And then, from morning till night, I have the happiness of passing all my days with a man of genius, who is myself, which is very agreeable. "

" A head fit for a mule bell! " muttered the archdeacon. " Oh! tell me who preserved for you that life which you render so charming to yourself? To whom do you owe it that you breathe that air, behold that sky, and can still amuse your lark's mind with your whimsical nonsense and madness? Where would you be, had it not been for her? Do you then desire that she through whom you are alive, should die? that she should die, that beautiful, sweet, adorable creature, who is necessary to the light of the world and more divine than God, while you, half wise, and half fool, a vain sketch of something, a sort of vegetable, which thinks that it walks, and thinks that it thinks, you will continue to live with the life which you have stolen from her, as useless as a candle in broad daylight? Come, have a little pity, Gringoire; be generous in your turn; it was she who set the example. "

The priest was vehement. Gringoire listened to him at first with an undecided air, then he became touched, and wound up with a grimace which made his pallid face resemble that of a new-born infant with an attack of the colic.

" You are pathetic! " said he, wiping away a tear. " Well! I will think about it. That's a queer idea of yours. --After all, " he continued after a pause, " who knows? perhaps they will not hang me. He who becomes betrothed does not always marry. When they find me in that little lodging so grotesquely muffled in petticoat and coif, perchance they will burst with laughter. And then, if they do hang me, --well! the halter is as good a death as any. 'Tis a death worthy of a sage who has wavered all his life; a death which is neither flesh nor fish, like the mind of a veritable sceptic; a death all stamped with Pyrrhonism and hesitation, which holds the middle station betwixt heaven and earth, which leaves you in suspense. 'Tis a philosopher's death, and I was destined thereto, perchance. It is magnificent to die as one has lived. "

The priest interrupted him: " Is it agreed. "

" What is death, after all? " pursued Gringoire with exaltation. " A disagreeable moment, a toll-gate, the passage of little to nothingness. Some one having asked Cercidas, the Megalopolitan, if he were willing to die: 'Why not? ' he replied; 'for after my death I shall see those great men, Pythagoras among the philosophers, Hecataeus among historians, Homer among poets, Olympus among musicians. '"