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book ninth.chapter i. delirium. claude frollo was no longer in notre-damewhen his adopted son so abruptly cut the fatal web in which the archdeacon and thegypsy were entangled. on returning to the sacristy he had tornoff his alb, cope, and stole, had flung all
alan faneca weight loss, into the hands of the stupefied beadle, hadmade his escape through the private door of the cloister, had ordered a boatman of the terrain to transport him to the left bankof the seine, and had plunged into the hilly streets of the university, notknowing whither he was going, encountering
at every step groups of men and women who were hurrying joyously towards the pontsaint-michel, in the hope of still arriving in time to see the witch hung there,--pale,wild, more troubled, more blind and more fierce than a night bird let loose and pursued by a troop of children in broaddaylight. he no longer knew where he was, what hethought, or whether he were dreaming. he went forward, walking, running, takingany street at haphazard, making no choice, only urged ever onward away from the greve,the horrible greve, which he felt confusedly, to be behind him.
in this manner he skirted mount sainte-genevieve, and finally emerged from the town by the porte saint-victor. he continued his flight as long as he couldsee, when he turned round, the turreted enclosure of the university, and the rarehouses of the suburb; but, when, at length, a rise of ground had completely concealed from him that odious paris, when he couldbelieve himself to be a hundred leagues distant from it, in the fields, in thedesert, he halted, and it seemed to him that he breathed more freely. then frightful ideas thronged his mind.once more he could see clearly into his
soul, and he shuddered.he thought of that unhappy girl who had destroyed him, and whom he had destroyed. he cast a haggard eye over the double,tortuous way which fate had caused their two destinies to pursue up to their pointof intersection, where it had dashed them against each other without mercy. he meditated on the folly of eternal vows,on the vanity of chastity, of science, of religion, of virtue, on the uselessness ofgod. he plunged to his heart's content in evilthoughts, and in proportion as he sank deeper, he felt a satanic laugh burst forthwithin him.
and as he thus sifted his soul to thebottom, when he perceived how large a space nature had prepared there for the passions,he sneered still more bitterly. he stirred up in the depths of his heartall his hatred, all his malevolence; and, with the cold glance of a physician whoexamines a patient, he recognized the fact that this malevolence was nothing but vitiated love; that love, that source ofevery virtue in man, turned to horrible things in the heart of a priest, and that aman constituted like himself, in making himself a priest, made himself a demon. then he laughed frightfully, and suddenlybecame pale again, when he considered the
most sinister side of his fatal passion, ofthat corrosive, venomous malignant, implacable love, which had ended only in the gibbet for one of them and in hell forthe other; condemnation for her, damnation for him. and then his laughter came again, when hereflected that phoebus was alive; that after all, the captain lived, was gay andhappy, had handsomer doublets than ever, and a new mistress whom he was conductingto see the old one hanged. his sneer redoubled its bitterness when hereflected that out of the living beings whose death he had desired, the gypsy, theonly creature whom he did not hate, was the
only one who had not escaped him. then from the captain, his thought passedto the people, and there came to him a jealousy of an unprecedented sort. he reflected that the people also, theentire populace, had had before their eyes the woman whom he loved exposed almostnaked. he writhed his arms with agony as hethought that the woman whose form, caught by him alone in the darkness would havebeen supreme happiness, had been delivered up in broad daylight at full noonday, to a whole people, clad as for a night ofvoluptuousness.
he wept with rage over all these mysteriesof love, profaned, soiled, laid bare, withered forever. he wept with rage as he pictured to himselfhow many impure looks had been gratified at the sight of that badly fastened shift, andthat this beautiful girl, this virgin lily, this cup of modesty and delight, to which he would have dared to place his lips onlytrembling, had just been transformed into a sort of public bowl, whereat the vilestpopulace of paris, thieves, beggars, lackeys, had come to quaff in common anaudacious, impure, and depraved pleasure. and when he sought to picture to himselfthe happiness which he might have found
upon earth, if she had not been a gypsy,and if he had not been a priest, if phoebus had not existed and if she had loved him; when he pictured to himself that a life ofserenity and love would have been possible to him also, even to him; that there wereat that very moment, here and there upon the earth, happy couples spending the hours in sweet converse beneath orange trees, onthe banks of brooks, in the presence of a setting sun, of a starry night; and that ifgod had so willed, he might have formed with her one of those blessed couples,--hisheart melted in tenderness and despair. oh! she! still she!
it was this fixed idea which returnedincessantly, which tortured him, which ate into his brain, and rent his vitals. he did not regret, he did not repent; allthat he had done he was ready to do again; he preferred to behold her in the hands ofthe executioner rather than in the arms of the captain. but he suffered; he suffered so that atintervals he tore out handfuls of his hair to see whether it were not turning white. among other moments there came one, when itoccurred to him that it was perhaps the very minute when the hideous chain which hehad seen that morning, was pressing its
iron noose closer about that frail andgraceful neck. this thought caused the perspiration tostart from every pore. there was another moment when, whilelaughing diabolically at himself, he represented to himself la esmeralda as hehad seen her on that first day, lively, careless, joyous, gayly attired, dancing, winged, harmonious, and la esmeralda of thelast day, in her scanty shift, with a rope about her neck, mounting slowly with herbare feet, the angular ladder of the gallows; he figured to himself this double picture in such a manner that he gave ventto a terrible cry.
while this hurricane of despair overturned,broke, tore up, bent, uprooted everything in his soul, he gazed at nature around him. at his feet, some chickens were searchingthe thickets and pecking, enamelled beetles ran about in the sun; overhead, some groupsof dappled gray clouds were floating across the blue sky; on the horizon, the spire of the abbey saint-victor pierced the ridge ofthe hill with its slate obelisk; and the miller of the copeaue hillock was whistlingas he watched the laborious wings of his mill turning. all this active, organized, tranquil life,recurring around him under a thousand
forms, hurt him.he resumed his flight. he sped thus across the fields untilevening. this flight from nature, life, himself,man, god, everything, lasted all day long. sometimes he flung himself face downward onthe earth, and tore up the young blades of wheat with his nails. sometimes he halted in the deserted streetof a village, and his thoughts were so intolerable that he grasped his head inboth hands and tried to tear it from his shoulders in order to dash it upon thepavement. towards the hour of sunset, he examinedhimself again, and found himself nearly
mad. the tempest which had raged within him eversince the instant when he had lost the hope and the will to save the gypsy,--thattempest had not left in his conscience a single healthy idea, a single thought whichmaintained its upright position. his reason lay there almost entirelydestroyed. there remained but two distinct images inhis mind, la esmeralda and the gallows; all the rest was blank. those two images united, presented to him afrightful group; and the more he concentrated what attention and thought wasleft to him, the more he beheld them grow,
in accordance with a fantastic progression, the one in grace, in charm, in beauty, inlight, the other in deformity and horror; so that at last la esmeralda appeared tohim like a star, the gibbet like an enormous, fleshless arm. one remarkable fact is, that during thewhole of this torture, the idea of dying did not seriously occur to him.the wretch was made so. he clung to life. perhaps he really saw hell beyond it.meanwhile, the day continued to decline. the living being which still existed in himreflected vaguely on retracing its steps.
he believed himself to be far away fromparis; on taking his bearings, he perceived that he had only circled the enclosure ofthe university. the spire of saint-sulpice, and the threelofty needles of saint germain-des-pres, rose above the horizon on his right.he turned his steps in that direction. when he heard the brisk challenge of themen-at-arms of the abbey, around the crenelated, circumscribing wall of saint-germain, he turned aside, took a path which presented itself between the abbey and the lazar-house of the bourg, and at theexpiration of a few minutes found himself on the verge of the pre-aux-clercs.
this meadow was celebrated by reason of thebrawls which went on there night and day; it was the hydra of the poor monks ofsaint-germain: quod mouachis sancti- germaini pratensis hydra fuit, clericis nova semper dissidiorum capitasuscitantibus. the archdeacon was afraid of meeting someone there; he feared every human countenance; he had just avoided theuniversity and the bourg saint-germain; he wished to re-enter the streets as late aspossible. he skirted the pre-aux-clercs, took thedeserted path which separated it from the dieu-neuf, and at last reached the water'sedge.
there dom claude found a boatman, who, fora few farthings in parisian coinage, rowed him up the seine as far as the point of thecity, and landed him on that tongue of abandoned land where the reader has already beheld gringoire dreaming, and which wasprolonged beyond the king's gardens, parallel to the ile du passeur-aux-vaches. the monotonous rocking of the boat and theripple of the water had, in some sort, quieted the unhappy claude. when the boatman had taken his departure,he remained standing stupidly on the strand, staring straight before him andperceiving objects only through magnifying
oscillations which rendered everything asort of phantasmagoria to him. the fatigue of a great grief notinfrequently produces this effect on the mind. the sun had set behind the lofty tour-de-nesle. it was the twilight hour.the sky was white, the water of the river was white. between these two white expanses, the leftbank of the seine, on which his eyes were fixed, projected its gloomy mass and,rendered ever thinner and thinner by perspective, it plunged into the gloom ofthe horizon like a black spire.
it was loaded with houses, of which onlythe obscure outline could be distinguished, sharply brought out in shadows against thelight background of the sky and the water. here and there windows began to gleam, likethe holes in a brazier. that immense black obelisk thus isolatedbetween the two white expanses of the sky and the river, which was very broad at thispoint, produced upon dom claude a singular effect, comparable to that which would be experienced by a man who, reclining on hisback at the foot of the tower of strasburg, should gaze at the enormous spire plunginginto the shadows of the twilight above his head.
only, in this case, it was claude who waserect and the obelisk which was lying down; but, as the river, reflecting the sky,prolonged the abyss below him, the immense promontory seemed to be as boldly launched into space as any cathedral spire; and theimpression was the same. this impression had even one stronger andmore profound point about it, that it was indeed the tower of strasbourg, but thetower of strasbourg two leagues in height; something unheard of, gigantic, immeasurable; an edifice such as no humaneye has ever seen; a tower of babel. the chimneys of the houses, the battlementsof the walls, the faceted gables of the
roofs, the spire of the augustines, thetower of nesle, all these projections which broke the profile of the colossal obelisk added to the illusion by displaying ineccentric fashion to the eye the indentations of a luxuriant and fantasticsculpture. claude, in the state of hallucination inwhich he found himself, believed that he saw, that he saw with his actual eyes, thebell tower of hell; the thousand lights scattered over the whole height of the terrible tower seemed to him so manyporches of the immense interior furnace; the voices and noises which escaped from itseemed so many shrieks, so many death
groans. then he became alarmed, he put his hands onhis ears that he might no longer hear, turned his back that he might no longersee, and fled from the frightful vision with hasty strides. but the vision was in himself. when he re-entered the streets, thepassers-by elbowing each other by the light of the shop-fronts, produced upon him theeffect of a constant going and coming of spectres about him. there were strange noises in his ears;extraordinary fancies disturbed his brain.
he saw neither houses, nor pavements, norchariots, nor men and women, but a chaos of indeterminate objects whose edges meltedinto each other. at the corner of the rue de la barillerie,there was a grocer's shop whose porch was garnished all about, according toimmemorial custom, with hoops of tin from which hung a circle of wooden candles, which came in contact with each other inthe wind, and rattled like castanets. he thought he heard a cluster of skeletonsat montfaucon clashing together in the gloom. "oh!" he muttered, "the night breeze dashesthem against each other, and mingles the
noise of their chains with the rattle oftheir bones! perhaps she is there among them!" in his state of frenzy, he knew not whitherhe was going. after a few strides he found himself on thepont saint-michel. there was a light in the window of aground-floor room; he approached. through a cracked window he beheld a meanchamber which recalled some confused memory to his mind. in that room, badly lighted by a meagrelamp, there was a fresh, light-haired young man, with a merry face, who amid loudbursts of laughter was embracing a very
audaciously attired young girl; and near the lamp sat an old crone spinning andsinging in a quavering voice. as the young man did not laugh constantly,fragments of the old woman's ditty reached the priest; it was something unintelligibleyet frightful,-- "greve, aboie, greve, grouille!file, file, ma quenouille, file sa corde au bourreau,qui siffle dans le pre au, greve, aboie, greve, grouille! "la belle corde de chanvre!semez d'issy jusqu'a vanvre du chanvre et non pas du bleu.le voleur n'a pas vole
la belle corde de chanvre. "greve, grouille, greve, aboie!pour voir la fille de joie, prendre au gibet chassieux,les fenetres sont des yeux. greve, grouille, greve, aboie!"* * bark, greve, grumble, greve!spin, spin, my distaff, spin her rope for the hangman, who is whistling in themeadow. what a beautiful hempen rope!sow hemp, not wheat, from issy to vanvre. the thief hath not stolen the beautifulhempen rope. grumble, greve, bark, greve!to see the dissolute wench hang on the
blear-eyed gibbet, windows are eyes. thereupon the young man laughed andcaressed the wench. the crone was la falourdel; the girl was acourtesan; the young man was his brother jehan. he continued to gaze.that spectacle was as good as any other. he saw jehan go to a window at the end ofthe room, open it, cast a glance on the quay, where in the distance blazed athousand lighted casements, and he heard him say as he closed the sash,-- "'pon my soul!how dark it is; the people are lighting
their candles, and the good god his stars."then jehan came back to the hag, smashed a bottle standing on the table, exclaiming,-- "already empty, cor-boeuf! and i have nomore money! isabeau, my dear, i shall not be satisfiedwith jupiter until he has changed your two white nipples into two black bottles, wherei may suck wine of beaune day and night." this fine pleasantry made the courtesanlaugh, and jehan left the room. dom claude had barely time to fling himselfon the ground in order that he might not be met, stared in the face and recognized byhis brother. luckily, the street was dark, and thescholar was tipsy.
nevertheless, he caught sight of thearchdeacon prone upon the earth in the mud. "oh! oh!" said he; "here's a fellow who hasbeen leading a jolly life, to-day." he stirred up dom claude with his foot, andthe latter held his breath. "dead drunk," resumed jehan. "come, he's full.a regular leech detached from a hogshead. he's bald," he added, bending down, "'tisan old man! fortunate senex!" then dom claude heard him retreat, saying,-- "'tis all the same, reason is a fine thing,and my brother the archdeacon is very happy
in that he is wise and has money." then the archdeacon rose to his feet, andran without halting, towards notre-dame, whose enormous towers he beheld risingabove the houses through the gloom. at the instant when he arrived, panting, onthe place du parvis, he shrank back and dared not raise his eyes to the fataledifice. "oh!" he said, in a low voice, "is itreally true that such a thing took place here, to-day, this very morning?"still, he ventured to glance at the church. the front was sombre; the sky behind wasglittering with stars. the crescent of the moon, in her flightupward from the horizon, had paused at the
moment, on the summit of the light handtower, and seemed to have perched itself, like a luminous bird, on the edge of thebalustrade, cut out in black trefoils. the cloister door was shut; but thearchdeacon always carried with him the key of the tower in which his laboratory wassituated. he made use of it to enter the church. in the church he found the gloom andsilence of a cavern. by the deep shadows which fell in broadsheets from all directions, he recognized the fact that the hangings for the ceremonyof the morning had not yet been removed. the great silver cross shone from thedepths of the gloom, powdered with some
sparkling points, like the milky way ofthat sepulchral night. the long windows of the choir showed theupper extremities of their arches above the black draperies, and their painted panes,traversed by a ray of moonlight had no longer any hues but the doubtful colors of night, a sort of violet, white and blue,whose tint is found only on the faces of the dead. the archdeacon, on perceiving these wanspots all around the choir, thought he beheld the mitres of damned bishops. he shut his eyes, and when he opened themagain, he thought they were a circle of
pale visages gazing at him.he started to flee across the church. then it seemed to him that the church alsowas shaking, moving, becoming endued with animation, that it was alive; that each ofthe great columns was turning into an enormous paw, which was beating the earth with its big stone spatula, and that thegigantic cathedral was no longer anything but a sort of prodigious elephant, whichwas breathing and marching with its pillars for feet, its two towers for trunks and theimmense black cloth for its housings. this fever or madness had reached such adegree of intensity that the external world was no longer anything more for the unhappyman than a sort of apocalypse,--visible,
palpable, terrible. for one moment, he was relieved.as he plunged into the side aisles, he perceived a reddish light behind a clusterof pillars. he ran towards it as to a star. it was the poor lamp which lighted thepublic breviary of notre-dame night and day, beneath its iron grating. he flung himself eagerly upon the holy bookin the hope of finding some consolation, or some encouragement there.the hook lay open at this passage of job, over which his staring eye glanced,--
"and a spirit passed before my face, and iheard a small voice, and the hair of my flesh stood up." on reading these gloomy words, he felt thatwhich a blind man feels when he feels himself pricked by the staff which he haspicked up. his knees gave way beneath him, and he sankupon the pavement, thinking of her who had died that day. he felt so many monstrous vapors pass anddischarge themselves in his brain, that it seemed to him that his head had become oneof the chimneys of hell. it would appear that he remained a longtime in this attitude, no longer thinking,
overwhelmed and passive beneath the hand ofthe demon. at length some strength returned to him; itoccurred to him to take refuge in his tower beside his faithful quasimodo.he rose; and, as he was afraid, he took the lamp from the breviary to light his way. it was a sacrilege; but he had got beyondheeding such a trifle now. he slowly climbed the stairs of the towers,filled with a secret fright which must have been communicated to the rare passers-by inthe place du parvis by the mysterious light of his lamp, mounting so late from loopholeto loophole of the bell tower. all at once, he felt a freshness on hisface, and found himself at the door of the
highest gallery. the air was cold; the sky was filled withhurrying clouds, whose large, white flakes drifted one upon another like the breakingup of river ice after the winter. the crescent of the moon, stranded in themidst of the clouds, seemed a celestial vessel caught in the ice-cakes of the air. he lowered his gaze, and contemplated for amoment, through the railing of slender columns which unites the two towers, faraway, through a gauze of mists and smoke, the silent throng of the roofs of paris, pointed, innumerable, crowded and smalllike the waves of a tranquil sea on a sum-
mer night.the moon cast a feeble ray, which imparted to earth and heaven an ashy hue. at that moment the clock raised its shrill,cracked voice. midnight rang out.the priest thought of midday; twelve o'clock had come back again. "oh!" he said in a very low tone, "she mustbe cold now." all at once, a gust of wind extinguishedhis lamp, and almost at the same instant, he beheld a shade, a whiteness, a form, awoman, appear from the opposite angle of the tower.
he started.beside this woman was a little goat, which mingled its bleat with the last bleat ofthe clock. he had strength enough to look. it was she.she was pale, she was gloomy. her hair fell over her shoulders as in themorning; but there was no longer a rope on her neck, her hands were no longer bound;she was free, she was dead. she was dressed in white and had a whiteveil on her head. she came towards him, slowly, with her gazefixed on the sky. the supernatural goat followed her.
he felt as though made of stone and tooheavy to flee. at every step which she took in advance, hetook one backwards, and that was all. in this way he retreated once more beneaththe gloomy arch of the stairway. he was chilled by the thought that shemight enter there also; had she done so, he would have died of terror. she did arrive, in fact, in front of thedoor to the stairway, and paused there for several minutes, stared intently into thedarkness, but without appearing to see the priest, and passed on. she seemed taller to him than when she hadbeen alive; he saw the moon through her
white robe; he heard her breath. when she had passed on, he began to descendthe staircase again, with the slowness which he had observed in the spectre,believing himself to be a spectre too, haggard, with hair on end, his extinguished lamp still in his hand; and as he descendedthe spiral steps, he distinctly heard in his ear a voice laughing and repeating,-- "a spirit passed before my face, and iheard a small voice, and the hair of my -book ninth.chapter ii. hunchbacked, one eyed, lame.
every city during the middle ages, andevery city in france down to the time of louis xii. had its places of asylum. these sanctuaries, in the midst of thedeluge of penal and barbarous jurisdictions which inundated the city, were a species ofislands which rose above the level of human justice. every criminal who landed there was safe.there were in every suburb almost as many places of asylum as gallows. it was the abuse of impunity by the side ofthe abuse of punishment; two bad things which strove to correct each other.
the palaces of the king, the hotels of theprinces, and especially churches, possessed the right of asylum. sometimes a whole city which stood in needof being repeopled was temporarily created a place of refuge.louis xi. made all paris a refuge in 1467. his foot once within the asylum, thecriminal was sacred; but he must beware of leaving it; one step outside the sanctuary,and he fell back into the flood. the wheel, the gibbet, the strappado, keptgood guard around the place of refuge, and lay in watch incessantly for their prey,like sharks around a vessel. hence, condemned men were to be seen whosehair had grown white in a cloister, on the
steps of a palace, in the enclosure of anabbey, beneath the porch of a church; in this manner the asylum was a prison as muchas any other. it sometimes happened that a solemn decreeof parliament violated the asylum and restored the condemned man to theexecutioner; but this was of rare occurrence. parliaments were afraid of the bishops, andwhen there was friction between these two robes, the gown had but a poor chanceagainst the cassock. sometimes, however, as in the affair of theassassins of petit-jean, the headsman of paris, and in that of emery rousseau, themurderer of jean valleret, justice
overleaped the church and passed on to the execution of its sentences; but unless byvirtue of a decree of parliament, woe to him who violated a place of asylum witharmed force! the reader knows the manner of death ofrobert de clermont, marshal of france, and of jean de chalons, marshal of champagne;and yet the question was only of a certain perrin marc, the clerk of a money-changer, a miserable assassin; but the two marshalshad broken the doors of st. mery. therein lay the enormity. such respect was cherished for places ofrefuge that, according to tradition,
animals even felt it at times. aymoire relates that a stag, being chasedby dagobert, having taken refuge near the tomb of saint-denis, the pack of houndsstopped short and barked. churches generally had a small apartmentprepared for the reception of supplicants. in 1407, nicolas flamel caused to be builton the vaults of saint-jacques de la boucherie, a chamber which cost him fourlivres six sous, sixteen farthings, parisis. at notre-dame it was a tiny cell situatedon the roof of the side aisle, beneath the flying buttresses, precisely at the spotwhere the wife of the present janitor of
the towers has made for herself a garden, which is to the hanging gardens of babylonwhat a lettuce is to a palm-tree, what a porter's wife is to a semiramis. it was here that quasimodo had deposited laesmeralda, after his wild and triumphant course. as long as that course lasted, the younggirl had been unable to recover her senses, half unconscious, half awake, no longerfeeling anything, except that she was mounting through the air, floating in it, flying in it, that something was raisingher above the earth.
from time to time she heard the loudlaughter, the noisy voice of quasimodo in her ear; she half opened her eyes; thenbelow her she confusedly beheld paris checkered with its thousand roofs of slate and tiles, like a red and blue mosaic,above her head the frightful and joyous face of quasimodo. then her eyelids drooped again; she thoughtthat all was over, that they had executed her during her swoon, and that themisshapen spirit which had presided over her destiny, had laid hold of her and wasbearing her away. she dared not look at him, and shesurrendered herself to her fate.
but when the bellringer, dishevelled andpanting, had deposited her in the cell of refuge, when she felt his huge hands gentlydetaching the cord which bruised her arms, she felt that sort of shock which awakens with a start the passengers of a vesselwhich runs aground in the middle of a dark night.her thoughts awoke also, and returned to her one by one. she saw that she was in notre-dame; sheremembered having been torn from the hands of the executioner; that phoebus was alive,that phoebus loved her no longer; and as these two ideas, one of which shed so much
bitterness over the other, presentedthemselves simultaneously to the poor condemned girl; she turned to quasimodo,who was standing in front of her, and who terrified her; she said to him,--"why haveyou saved me?" he gazed at her with anxiety, as thoughseeking to divine what she was saying to him. she repeated her question.then he gave her a profoundly sorrowful glance and fled.she was astonished. a few moments later he returned, bearing apackage which he cast at her feet. it was clothing which some charitable womenhad left on the threshold of the church for
her. then she dropped her eyes upon herself andsaw that she was almost naked, and blushed. life had returned.quasimodo appeared to experience something of this modesty. he covered his eyes with his large hand andretired once more, but slowly. she made haste to dress herself. the robe was a white one with a whiteveil,--the garb of a novice of the hotel- dien.she had barely finished when she beheld quasimodo returning.
he carried a basket under one arm and amattress under the other. in the basket there was a bottle, bread,and some provisions. he set the basket on the floor and said,"eat!" he spread the mattress on the flagging andsaid, "sleep." it was his own repast, it was his own bed,which the bellringer had gone in search of. the gypsy raised her eyes to thank him, butshe could not articulate a word. she dropped her head with a quiver ofterror. then he said to her.--"i frighten you. i am very ugly, am i not?
do not look at me; only listen to me.during the day you will remain here; at night you can walk all over the church.but do not leave the church either by day or by night. you would be lost.they would kill you, and i should die." she was touched and raised her head toanswer him. he had disappeared. she found herself alone once more,meditating upon the singular words of this almost monstrous being, and struck by thesound of his voice, which was so hoarse yet so gentle.
then she examined her cell.it was a chamber about six feet square, with a small window and a door on theslightly sloping plane of the roof formed of flat stones. many gutters with the figures of animalsseemed to be bending down around her, and stretching their necks in order to stare ather through the window. over the edge of her roof she perceived thetops of thousands of chimneys which caused the smoke of all the fires in paris to risebeneath her eyes. a sad sight for the poor gypsy, afoundling, condemned to death, an unhappy creature, without country, without family,without a hearthstone.
at the moment when the thought of herisolation thus appeared to her more poignant than ever, she felt a bearded andhairy head glide between her hands, upon her knees. she started (everything alarmed her now)and looked. it was the poor goat, the agile djali,which had made its escape after her, at the moment when quasimodo had put to flightcharmolue's brigade, and which had been lavishing caresses on her feet for nearly an hour past, without being able to win aglance. the gypsy covered him with kisses."oh! djali!" she said, "how i have
forgotten thee! and so thou still thinkest of me!oh! thou art not an ingrate!" at the same time, as though an invisiblehand had lifted the weight which had repressed her tears in her heart for solong, she began to weep, and, in proportion as her tears flowed, she felt all that was most acrid and bitter in her grief departwith them. evening came, she thought the night sobeautiful that she made the circuit of the elevated gallery which surrounds thechurch. it afforded her some relief, so calm didthe earth appear when viewed from that
height. -book ninth.chapter iii. deaf. on the following morning, she perceived onawaking, that she had been asleep. this singular thing astonished her.she had been so long unaccustomed to sleep! a joyous ray of the rising sun enteredthrough her window and touched her face. at the same time with the sun, she beheldat that window an object which frightened her, the unfortunate face of quasimodo. she involuntarily closed her eyes again,but in vain; she fancied that she still saw
through the rosy lids that gnome's mask,one-eyed and gap-toothed. then, while she still kept her eyes closed,she heard a rough voice saying, very gently,--"be not afraid. i am your friend. i came to watch you sleep.it does not hurt you if i come to see you sleep, does it?what difference does it make to you if i am here when your eyes are closed! now i am going.stay, i have placed myself behind the wall. you can open your eyes again."
there was something more plaintive thanthese words, and that was the accent in which they were uttered.the gypsy, much touched, opened her eyes. he was, in fact, no longer at the window. she approached the opening, and beheld thepoor hunchback crouching in an angle of the wall, in a sad and resigned attitude.she made an effort to surmount the repugnance with which he inspired her. "come," she said to him gently. from the movement of the gypsy's lips,quasimodo thought that she was driving him away; then he rose and retired limping,slowly, with drooping head, without even
daring to raise to the young girl his gazefull of despair. "do come," she cried, but he continued toretreat. then she darted from her cell, ran to him,and grasped his arm. on feeling her touch him, quasimodotrembled in every limb. he raised his suppliant eye, and seeingthat she was leading him back to her quarters, his whole face beamed with joyand tenderness. she tried to make him enter the cell; buthe persisted in remaining on the threshold. "no, no," said he; "the owl enters not thenest of the lark." then she crouched down gracefully on hercouch, with her goat asleep at her feet.
both remained motionless for severalmoments, considering in silence, she so much grace, he so much ugliness. every moment she discovered some freshdeformity in quasimodo. her glance travelled from his knock kneesto his humped back, from his humped back to his only eye. she could not comprehend the existence of abeing so awkwardly fashioned. yet there was so much sadness and so muchgentleness spread over all this, that she began to become reconciled to it. he was the first to break the silence."so you were telling me to return?"
she made an affirmative sign of the head,and said, "yes." he understood the motion of the head. "alas!" he said, as though hesitatingwhether to finish, "i am--i am deaf." "poor man!" exclaimed the bohemian, with anexpression of kindly pity. he began to smile sadly. "you think that that was all that i lacked,do you not? yes, i am deaf, that is the way i am made.'tis horrible, is it not? you are so beautiful!" there lay in the accents of the wretchedman so profound a consciousness of his
misery, that she had not the strength tosay a word. besides, he would not have heard her. he went on,--"never have i seen my ugliness as at the present moment. when i compare myself to you, i feel a verygreat pity for myself, poor unhappy monster that i am!tell me, i must look to you like a beast. you, you are a ray of sunshine, a drop ofdew, the song of a bird! i am something frightful, neither man noranimal, i know not what, harder, more trampled under foot, and more unshapelythan a pebble stone!"
then he began to laugh, and that laugh wasthe most heartbreaking thing in the world. he continued,--"yes, i am deaf; but you shall talk to me by gestures, by signs. i have a master who talks with me in thatway. and then, i shall very soon know your wishfrom the movement of your lips, from your look." "well!" she interposed with a smile, "tellme why you saved me." he watched her attentively while she wasspeaking. "i understand," he replied.
"you ask me why i saved you.you have forgotten a wretch who tried to abduct you one night, a wretch to whom yourendered succor on the following day on their infamous pillory. a drop of water and a little pity,--that ismore than i can repay with my life. you have forgotten that wretch; but heremembers it." she listened to him with profoundtenderness. a tear swam in the eye of the bellringer,but did not fall. he seemed to make it a sort of point ofhonor to retain it. "listen," he resumed, when he was no longerafraid that the tear would escape; "our
towers here are very high, a man who shouldfall from them would be dead before touching the pavement; when it shall please you to have me fall, you will not have toutter even a word, a glance will suffice." then he rose.unhappy as was the bohemian, this eccentric being still aroused some compassion in her. she made him a sign to remain."no, no," said he; "i must not remain too long.i am not at my ease. it is out of pity that you do not turn awayyour eyes. i shall go to some place where i can seeyou without your seeing me: it will be
better so." he drew from his pocket a little metalwhistle. "here," said he, "when you have need of me,when you wish me to come, when you will not feel too ranch horror at the sight of me,use this whistle. i can hear this sound." he laid the whistle on the floor and fled. -book ninth.chapter iv. earthenware and crystal. day followed day.calm gradually returned to the soul of la
esmeralda.excess of grief, like excess of joy is a violent thing which lasts but a short time. the heart of man cannot remain long in oneextremity. the gypsy had suffered so much, thatnothing was left her but astonishment. with security, hope had returned to her. she was outside the pale of society,outside the pale of life, but she had a vague feeling that it might not beimpossible to return to it. she was like a dead person, who should holdin reserve the key to her tomb. she felt the terrible images which had solong persecuted her, gradually departing.
all the hideous phantoms, pierrat torterue,jacques charmolue, were effaced from her mind, all, even the priest.and then, phoebus was alive; she was sure of it, she had seen him. to her the fact of phoebus being alive waseverything. after the series of fatal shocks which hadoverturned everything within her, she had found but one thing intact in her soul, onesentiment,--her love for the captain. love is like a tree; it sprouts forth ofitself, sends its roots out deeply through our whole being, and often continues toflourish greenly over a heart in ruins. and the inexplicable point about it is thatthe more blind is this passion, the more
tenacious it is.it is never more solid than when it has no reason in it. la esmeralda did not think of the captainwithout bitterness, no doubt. no doubt it was terrible that he alsoshould have been deceived; that he should have believed that impossible thing, thathe could have conceived of a stab dealt by her who would have given a thousand livesfor him. but, after all, she must not be too angrywith him for it; had she not confessed her crime? had she not yielded, weak woman thatshe was, to torture? the fault was entirely hers.
she should have allowed her finger nails tobe torn out rather than such a word to be wrenched from her. in short, if she could but see phoebus oncemore, for a single minute, only one word would be required, one look, in order toundeceive him, to bring him back. she did not doubt it. she was astonished also at many singularthings, at the accident of phoebus's presence on the day of the penance, at theyoung girl with whom he had been. she was his sister, no doubt. an unreasonable explanation, but shecontented herself with it, because she
needed to believe that phoebus still lovedher, and loved her alone. had he not sworn it to her? what more was needed, simple and credulousas she was? and then, in this matter, were notappearances much more against her than against him? accordingly, she waited.she hoped. let us add that the church, that vastchurch, which surrounded her on every side, which guarded her, which saved her, wasitself a sovereign tranquillizer. the solemn lines of that architecture, thereligious attitude of all the objects which
surrounded the young girl, the serene andpious thoughts which emanated, so to speak, from all the pores of that stone, actedupon her without her being aware of it. the edifice had also sounds fraught withsuch benediction and such majesty, that they soothed this ailing soul. the monotonous chanting of the celebrants,the responses of the people to the priest, sometimes inarticulate, sometimesthunderous, the harmonious trembling of the painted windows, the organ, bursting forth like a hundred trumpets, the threebelfries, humming like hives of huge bees, that whole orchestra on which bounded agigantic scale, ascending, descending
incessantly from the voice of a throng to that of one bell, dulled her memory, herimagination, her grief. the bells, in particular, lulled her. it was something like a powerful magnetismwhich those vast instruments shed over her in great waves.thus every sunrise found her more calm, breathing better, less pale. in proportion as her inward wounds closed,her grace and beauty blossomed once more on her countenance, but more thoughtful, morereposeful. her former character also returned to her,somewhat even of her gayety, her pretty
pout, her love for her goat, her love forsinging, her modesty. she took care to dress herself in themorning in the corner of her cell for fear some inhabitants of the neighboring atticsmight see her through the window. when the thought of phoebus left her time,the gypsy sometimes thought of quasimodo. he was the sole bond, the sole connection,the sole communication which remained to her with men, with the living. unfortunate girl! she was more outside theworld than quasimodo. she understood not in the least the strangefriend whom chance had given her. she often reproached herself for notfeeling a gratitude which should close her
eyes, but decidedly, she could not accustomherself to the poor bellringer. he was too ugly. she had left the whistle which he had givenher lying on the ground. this did not prevent quasimodo from makinghis appearance from time to time during the first few days. she did her best not to turn aside with toomuch repugnance when he came to bring her her basket of provisions or her jug ofwater, but he always perceived the slightest movement of this sort, and thenhe withdrew sadly. once he came at the moment when she wascaressing djali.
he stood pensively for several minutesbefore this graceful group of the goat and the gypsy; at last he said, shaking hisheavy and ill-formed head,-- "my misfortune is that i still resemble aman too much. i should like to be wholly a beast likethat goat." she gazed at him in amazement. he replied to the glance,--"oh! i well know why," and he went away. on another occasion he presented himself atthe door of the cell (which he never entered) at the moment when la esmeraldawas singing an old spanish ballad, the words of which she did not understand, but
which had lingered in her ear because thegypsy women had lulled her to sleep with it when she was a little child. at the sight of that villanous form whichmade its appearance so abruptly in the middle of her song, the young girl pausedwith an involuntary gesture of alarm. the unhappy bellringer fell upon his kneeson the threshold, and clasped his large, misshapen hands with a suppliant air."oh!" he said, sorrowfully, "continue, i implore you, and do not drive me away." she did not wish to pain him, and resumedher lay, trembling all over. by degrees, however, her terrordisappeared, and she yielded herself wholly
to the slow and melancholy air which shewas singing. he remained on his knees with handsclasped, as in prayer, attentive, hardly breathing, his gaze riveted upon thegypsy's brilliant eyes. on another occasion, he came to her with anawkward and timid air. "listen," he said, with an effort; "i havesomething to say to you." she made him a sign that she was listening. then he began to sigh, half opened hislips, appeared for a moment to be on the point of speaking, then he looked at heragain, shook his head, and withdrew slowly, with his brow in his hand, leaving thegypsy stupefied.
among the grotesque personages sculpturedon the wall, there was one to whom he was particularly attached, and with which heoften seemed to exchange fraternal glances. once the gypsy heard him saying to it,-- "oh! why am not i of stone, like you!"at last, one morning, la esmeralda had advanced to the edge of the roof, and waslooking into the place over the pointed roof of saint-jean le rond. quasimodo was standing behind her.he had placed himself in that position in order to spare the young girl, as far aspossible, the displeasure of seeing him. all at once the gypsy started, a tear and aflash of joy gleamed simultaneously in her
eyes, she knelt on the brink of the roofand extended her arms towards the place with anguish, exclaiming: "phoebus! come! come! a word, a single word in the name ofheaven! phoebus!phoebus!" her voice, her face, her gesture, her wholeperson bore the heartrending expression of a shipwrecked man who is making a signal ofdistress to the joyous vessel which is passing afar off in a ray of sunlight onthe horizon. quasimodo leaned over the place, and sawthat the object of this tender and agonizing prayer was a young man, acaptain, a handsome cavalier all glittering
with arms and decorations, prancing across the end of the place, and saluting with hisplume a beautiful lady who was smiling at him from her balcony. however, the officer did not hear theunhappy girl calling him; he was too far away.but the poor deaf man heard. a profound sigh heaved his breast; heturned round; his heart was swollen with all the tears which he was swallowing; hisconvulsively-clenched fists struck against his head, and when he withdrew them therewas a bunch of red hair in each hand. the gypsy paid no heed to him.he said in a low voice as he gnashed his
teeth,-- "damnation!that is what one should be like! 'tis only necessary to be handsome on theoutside!" meanwhile, she remained kneeling, and criedwith extraor-dinary agitation,--"oh! there he is alighting from his horse!he is about to enter that house!--phoebus!- -he does not hear me! phoebus!--how wicked that woman is to speakto him at the same time with me! the deaf man gazed at her. he understood this pantomime.the poor bellringer's eye filled with
tears, but he let none fall.all at once he pulled her gently by the border of her sleeve. she turned round.he had assumed a tranquil air; he said to her,--"would you like to have me bring him to you?" she uttered a cry of joy."oh! go! hasten! run! quick! that captain! that captain! bring him to me!i will love you for it!" she clasped his knees. he could not refrain from shaking his headsadly.
"i will bring him to you," he said, in aweak voice. then he turned his head and plunged downthe staircase with great strides, stifling with sobs. when he reached the place, he no longer sawanything except the handsome horse hitched at the door of the gondelaurier house; thecaptain had just entered there. he raised his eyes to the roof of thechurch. la esmeralda was there in the same spot, inthe same attitude. he made her a sad sign with his head; thenhe planted his back against one of the stone posts of the gondelaurier porch,determined to wait until the captain should
come forth. in the gondelaurier house it was one ofthose gala days which precede a wedding. quasimodo beheld many people enter, but noone come out. he cast a glance towards the roof from timeto time; the gypsy did not stir any more than himself.a groom came and unhitched the horse and led it to the stable of the house. the entire day passed thus, quasimodo athis post, la esmeralda on the roof, phoebus, no doubt, at the feet of fleur-de-lys. at length night came, a moonless night, adark night.
quasimodo fixed his gaze in vain upon laesmeralda; soon she was no more than a whiteness amid the twilight; then nothing. all was effaced, all was black. quasimodo beheld the front windows from topto bottom of the gondelaurier mansion illuminated; he saw the other casements inthe place lighted one by one, he also saw them extinguished to the very last, for heremained the whole evening at his post. the officer did not come forth. when the last passers-by had returned home,when the windows of all the other houses were extinguished, quasimodo was leftentirely alone, entirely in the dark.
there were at that time no lamps in thesquare before notre-dame. meanwhile, the windows of the gondelauriermansion remained lighted, even after midnight. quasimodo, motionless and attentive, behelda throng of lively, dancing shadows pass athwart the many-colored painted panes. had he not been deaf, he would have heardmore and more distinctly, in proportion as the noise of sleeping paris died away, asound of feasting, laughter, and music in the gondelaurier mansion. towards one o'clock in the morning, theguests began to take their leave.
quasimodo, shrouded in darkness watchedthem all pass out through the porch illuminated with torches. none of them was the captain.he was filled with sad thoughts; at times he looked upwards into the air, like aperson who is weary of waiting. great black clouds, heavy, torn, split,hung like crape hammocks beneath the starry dome of night.one would have pronounced them spiders' webs of the vault of heaven. in one of these moments he suddenly beheldthe long window on the balcony, whose stone balustrade projected above his head, openmysteriously.
the frail glass door gave passage to twopersons, and closed noiselessly behind them; it was a man and a woman. it was not without difficulty thatquasimodo succeeded in recognizing in the man the handsome captain, in the woman theyoung lady whom he had seen welcome the officer in the morning from that verybalcony. the place was perfectly dark, and a doublecrimson curtain which had fallen across the door the very moment it closed again,allowed no light to reach the balcony from the apartment. the young man and the young girl, so far asour deaf man could judge, without hearing a
single one of their words, appeared toabandon themselves to a very tender tete-a- tete. the young girl seemed to have allowed theofficer to make a girdle for her of his arm, and gently repulsed a kiss. quasimodo looked on from below at thisscene which was all the more pleasing to witness because it was not meant to beseen. he contemplated with bitterness thatbeauty, that happiness. after all, nature was not dumb in the poorfellow, and his human sensibility, all maliciously contorted as it was, quiveredno less than any other.
he thought of the miserable portion whichprovidence had allotted to him; that woman and the pleasure of love, would passforever before his eyes, and that he should never do anything but behold the felicityof others. but that which rent his heart most in thissight, that which mingled indignation with his anger, was the thought of what thegypsy would suffer could she behold it. it is true that the night was very dark,that la esmeralda, if she had remained at her post (and he had no doubt of this), wasvery far away, and that it was all that he himself could do to distinguish the loverson the balcony. this consoled him.meanwhile, their conversation grew more and
more animated. the young lady appeared to be entreatingthe officer to ask nothing more of her. of all this quasimodo could distinguishonly the beautiful clasped hands, the smiles mingled with tears, the young girl'sglances directed to the stars, the eyes of the captain lowered ardently upon her. fortunately, for the young girl wasbeginning to resist but feebly, the door of the balcony suddenly opened once more andan old dame appeared; the beauty seemed confused, the officer assumed an air ofdispleasure, and all three withdrew. a moment later, a horse was champing hisbit under the porch, and the brilliant
officer, enveloped in his night cloak,passed rapidly before quasimodo. the bellringer allowed him to turn thecorner of the street, then he ran after him with his ape-like agility, shouting: "heythere! captain!" the captain halted. "what wants this knave with me?" he said,catching sight through the gloom of that hipshot form which ran limping after him. meanwhile, quasimodo had caught up withhim, and had boldly grasped his horse's bridle: "follow me, captain; there is onehere who desires to speak with you! "cornemahom!" grumbled phoebus, "here's avillanous; ruffled bird which i fancy i
have seen somewhere.hola master, will you let my horse's bridle alone?" "captain," replied the deaf man, "do younot ask me who it is?" "i tell you to release my horse," retortedphoebus, impatiently. "what means the knave by clinging to thebridle of my steed? do you take my horse for a gallows?"quasimodo, far from releasing the bridle, prepared to force him to retrace his steps. unable to comprehend the captain'sresistance, he hastened to say to him,-- "come, captain, 'tis a woman who is waitingfor you."
he added with an effort: "a woman who lovesyou." "a rare rascal!" said the captain, "whothinks me obliged to go to all the women who love me! or who say they do. and what if, by chance, she should resembleyou, you face of a screech-owl? tell the woman who has sent you that i amabout to marry, and that she may go to the devil!" "listen," exclaimed quasimodo, thinking toovercome his hesitation with a word, "come, monseigneur!'tis the gypsy whom you know!" this word did, indeed, produce a greateffect on phoebus, but not of the kind
which the deaf man expected. it will be remembered that our gallantofficer had retired with fleur-de-lys several moments before quasimodo hadrescued the condemned girl from the hands of charmolue. afterwards, in all his visits to thegondelaurier mansion he had taken care not to mention that woman, the memory of whomwas, after all, painful to him; and on her side, fleur-de-lys had not deemed it politic to tell him that the gypsy wasalive. hence phoebus believed poor "similar" to bedead, and that a month or two had elapsed
since her death. let us add that for the last few momentsthe captain had been reflecting on the profound darkness of the night, thesupernatural ugliness, the sepulchral voice of the strange messenger; that it was past midnight; that the street was deserted, ason the evening when the surly monk had accosted him; and that his horse snorted asit looked at quasimodo. "the gypsy!" he exclaimed, almostfrightened. "look here, do you come from the otherworld?" and he laid his hand on the hilt of hisdagger.
"quick, quick," said the deaf man,endeavoring to drag the horse along; "this way!" phoebus dealt him a vigorous kick in thebreast. quasimodo's eye flashed.he made a motion to fling himself on the captain. then he drew himself up stiffly and said,--"oh! how happy you are to have some one who loves you!"he emphasized the words "some one," and loosing the horse's bridle,-- "begone!"phoebus spurred on in all haste, swearing.
quasimodo watched him disappear in theshades of the street. "oh!" said the poor deaf man, in a very lowvoice; "to refuse that!" he re-entered notre-dame, lighted his lampand climbed to the tower again. the gypsy was still in the same place, ashe had supposed. she flew to meet him as far off as shecould see him. "alone!" she cried, clasping her beautifulhands sorrowfully. "i could not find him," said quasimodocoldly. "you should have waited all night," shesaid angrily. he saw her gesture of wrath, and understoodthe reproach.
"i will lie in wait for him better anothertime," he said, dropping his head. "begone!" she said to him.he left her. she was displeased with him. he preferred to have her abuse him ratherthan to have afflicted her. he had kept all the pain to himself.from that day forth, the gypsy no longer saw him. he ceased to come to her cell.at the most she occasionally caught a glimpse at the summit of the towers, of thebellringer's face turned sadly to her. but as soon as she perceived him, hedisappeared.
we must admit that she was not much grievedby this voluntary absence on the part of the poor hunchback. at the bottom of her heart she was gratefulto him for it. moreover, quasimodo did not deceive himselfon this point. she no longer saw him, but she felt thepresence of a good genius about her. her provisions were replenished by aninvisible hand during her slumbers. one morning she found a cage of birds onher window. there was a piece of sculpture above herwindow which frightened her. she had shown this more than once inquasimodo's presence.
one morning, for all these things happenedat night, she no longer saw it, it had been broken. the person who had climbed up to thatcarving must have risked his life. sometimes, in the evening, she heard avoice, concealed beneath the wind screen of the bell tower, singing a sad, strangesong, as though to lull her to sleep. the lines were unrhymed, such as a deafperson can make. ne regarde pas la figure,jeune fille, regarde le coeur. le coeur d'un beau jeune homme est souventdifforme. il y a des coeurs ou l'amour ne seconserve pas.
jeune fille, le sapin n'est pas beau,n'est pas beau comme le peuplier, mais il garde son feuillage l'hiver. helas! a quoi bon dire cela?ce qui n'est pas beau a tort d'etre; la beaute n'aime que la beaute,avril tourne le dos a janvier. la beaute est parfaite,la beaute peut tout, la beaute est la seule chose qui n'existepas a demi. le corbeau ne vole que le jour,le hibou ne vole que la nuit, le cygne vole la nuit et le jour.* * look not at the face, young girl, lookat the heart.
the heart of a handsome young man is oftendeformed. there are hearts in which love does notkeep. young girl, the pine is not beautiful; itis not beautiful like the poplar, but it keeps its foliage in winter. alas!what is the use of saying that? that which is not beautiful has no right toexist; beauty loves only beauty; april turns her back on january. beauty is perfect, beauty can do allthings, beauty is the only thing which does not exist by halves.
the raven flies only by day, the owl fliesonly by night, the swan flies by day and by night.one morning, on awaking, she saw on her window two vases filled with flowers. one was a very beautiful and very brilliantbut cracked vase of glass. it had allowed the water with which it hadbeen filled to escape, and the flowers which it contained were withered. the other was an earthenware pot, coarseand common, but which had preserved all its water, and its flowers remained fresh andcrimson. i know not whether it was doneintentionally, but la esmeralda took the
faded nosegay and wore it all day long uponher breast. that day she did not hear the voice singingin the tower. she troubled herself very little about it. she passed her days in caressing djali, inwatching the door of the gondelaurier house, in talking to herself about phoebus,and in crumbling up her bread for the swallows. she had entirely ceased to see or hearquasimodo. the poor bellringer seemed to havedisappeared from the church. one night, nevertheless, when she was notasleep, but was thinking of her handsome
captain, she heard something breathing nearher cell. she rose in alarm, and saw by the light ofthe moon, a shapeless mass lying across her door on the outside.it was quasimodo asleep there upon the stones. -book ninth.chapter v. the key to the red door. in the meantime, public minor had informedthe archdeacon of the miraculous manner in which the gypsy had been saved.when he learned it, he knew not what his sensations were.
he had reconciled himself to la esmeralda'sdeath. in that matter he was tranquil; he hadreached the bottom of personal suffering. the human heart (dora claude had meditatedupon these matters) can contain only a certain quantity of despair. when the sponge is saturated, the sea maypass over it without causing a single drop more to enter it. now, with la esmeralda dead, the sponge wassoaked, all was at an end on this earth for dom claude. but to feel that she was alive, and phoebusalso, meant that tortures, shocks,
alternatives, life, were beginning again.and claude was weary of all this. when he heard this news, he shut himself inhis cell in the cloister. he appeared neither at the meetings of thechapter nor at the services. he closed his door against all, evenagainst the bishop. he remained thus immured for several weeks.he was believed to be ill. and so he was, in fact. what did he do while thus shut up?with what thoughts was the unfortunate man contending?was he giving final battle to his formidable passion?
was he concocting a final plan of death forher and of perdition for himself? his jehan, his cherished brother, hisspoiled child, came once to his door, knocked, swore, entreated, gave his namehalf a score of times. claude did not open. he passed whole days with his face close tothe panes of his window. from that window, situated in the cloister,he could see la esmeralda's chamber. he often saw herself with her goat,sometimes with quasimodo. he remarked the little attentions of theugly deaf man, his obedience, his delicate and submissive ways with the gypsy.
he recalled, for he had a good memory, andmemory is the tormentor of the jealous, he recalled the singular look of thebellringer, bent on the dancer upon a certain evening. he asked himself what motive could haveimpelled quasimodo to save her. he was the witness of a thousand littlescenes between the gypsy and the deaf man, the pantomime of which, viewed from afarand commented on by his passion, appeared very tender to him. he distrusted the capriciousness of women. then he felt a jealousy which he couldnever have believed possible awakening
within him, a jealousy which made himredden with shame and indignation: "one might condone the captain, but this one!" this thought upset him.his nights were frightful. as soon as he learned that the gypsy wasalive, the cold ideas of spectre and tomb which had persecuted him for a whole dayvanished, and the flesh returned to goad he turned and twisted on his couch at thethought that the dark-skinned maiden was so near him. every night his delirious imaginationrepresented la esmeralda to him in all the attitudes which had caused his blood toboil most.
he beheld her outstretched upon theponiarded captain, her eyes closed, her beautiful bare throat covered withphoebus's blood, at that moment of bliss when the archdeacon had imprinted on her pale lips that kiss whose burn the unhappygirl, though half dead, had felt. he beheld her, again, stripped by thesavage hands of the torturers, allowing them to bare and to enclose in the bootwith its iron screw, her tiny foot, her delicate rounded leg, her white and suppleknee. again he beheld that ivory knee which aloneremained outside of torterue's horrible apparatus.
lastly, he pictured the young girl in hershift, with the rope about her neck, shoulders bare, feet bare, almost nude, ashe had seen her on that last day. these images of voluptuousness made himclench his fists, and a shiver run along his spine. one night, among others, they heated socruelly 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 aflame. he knew where to find the key to the reddoor, which connected the cloister with the church, and he always had about him, as thereader knows, the key of the staircase
leading to the towers. -book ninth.chapter vi. continuation of the key to the red door. that night, la esmeralda had fallen asleepin 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 nearher. she slept lightly and uneasily, the sleepof a bird; a mere nothing waked her. she opened her eyes.the night was very dark.
nevertheless, she saw a figure gazing ather through the window; a lamp lighted up this apparition. the moment that the figure saw that laesmeralda had perceived it, it blew out the lamp. but the young girl had had time to catch aglimpse of it; her eyes closed again with terror."oh!" she said in a faint voice, "the priest!" all her past unhappiness came back to herlike a flash of lightning. she fell back on her bed, chilled.
a moment later she felt a touch along herbody which made her shudder so that she straightened herself up in a sittingposture, 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!" shesaid, 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 ofhair 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 daggersin my heart." she stopped his two arms with superhumanforce. "let me go," she said, "or i will spit inyour 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 tobruise his face.
"begone, demon!""love me! love mepity!" cried the poor priest returning her blows with caresses. all at once she felt him stronger thanherself. "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. "hush!" said the panting priest.all at once, as she struggled and crawled on the floor, the gypsy's hand came incontact 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 himselfraised by a vigorous arm. the cell was dark; he could not distinguishclearly who it was that held him thus; but
he heard teeth chattering with rage, andthere was just sufficient light scattered among the gloom to allow him to see abovehis head the blade of a large knife. the priest fancied that he perceived theform of quasimodo. he assumed that it could be no one but he. he remembered to have stumbled, as heentered, 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 theknife, crying: "quasimodo!" he forgot, at that moment of distress, thatquasimodo was deaf.
in a twinkling, the priest was overthrownand a leaden knee rested on his breast. from the angular imprint of that knee herecognized quasimodo; but what was to be done? how could he make the other recognizehim? 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 strickenwith 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 dragginghim 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 ofthe cell, its pale rays fell upon the priest's countenance. quasimodo looked him full in the face, atrembling seized him, and he released the priest and shrank back. the gypsy, who had advanced to thethreshold 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 deafman with gestures of wrath and reproach, made the latter a violent sign to retire. the deaf man dropped his head, then he cameand knelt at the gypsy's door,-- "monseigneur," he said, in a grave andresigned voice, "you shall do all that you please afterwards, but kill me first." so saying, he presented his knife to thepriest. the priest, beside himself, was about toseize it. but the young girl was quicker than be; shewrenched 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. then she added with a pitiless expression,well aware that she was about to pierce the priest's heart with thousands of red-hotirons,-- "ah! i know that phoebus is not dead!" the priest overturned quasimodo on thefloor with a kick, and, quivering with rage, darted back under the vault of thestaircase. when he was gone, quasimodo picked up thewhistle which had just saved the gypsy.
"it was getting rusty," he said, as hehanded it back to her; then he left her alone. the young girl, deeply agitated by thisviolent 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 hiscell. it was settled.dom claude was jealous of quasimodo! he repeated with a thoughtful air his fatalwords: "no one shall have her."
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