Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • BOOK ELEVENTH. CHAPTER I - PART 1.

  • THE LITTLE SHOE.

  • La Esmeralda was sleeping at the moment when the outcasts assailed the church.

  • Soon the ever-increasing uproar around the edifice, and the uneasy bleating of her

  • goat which had been awakened, had roused her from her slumbers.

  • She had sat up, she had listened, she had looked; then, terrified by the light and

  • noise, she had rushed from her cell to see.

  • The aspect of the Place, the vision which was moving in it, the disorder of that

  • nocturnal assault, that hideous crowd, leaping like a cloud of frogs, half seen in

  • the gloom, the croaking of that hoarse

  • multitude, those few red torches running and crossing each other in the darkness

  • like the meteors which streak the misty surfaces of marshes, this whole scene

  • produced upon her the effect of a

  • mysterious battle between the phantoms of the witches' sabbath and the stone monsters

  • of the church.

  • Imbued from her very infancy with the superstitions of the Bohemian tribe, her

  • first thought was that she had caught the strange beings peculiar to the night, in

  • their deeds of witchcraft.

  • Then she ran in terror to cower in her cell, asking of her pallet some less

  • terrible nightmare.

  • But little by little the first vapors of terror had been dissipated; from the

  • constantly increasing noise, and from many other signs of reality, she felt herself

  • besieged not by spectres, but by human beings.

  • Then her fear, though it did not increase, changed its character.

  • She had dreamed of the possibility of a popular mutiny to tear her from her asylum.

  • The idea of once more recovering life, hope, Phoebus, who was ever present in her

  • future, the extreme helplessness of her condition, flight cut off, no support, her

  • abandonment, her isolation,--these thoughts and a thousand others overwhelmed her.

  • She fell upon her knees, with her head on her bed, her hands clasped over her head,

  • full of anxiety and tremors, and, although a gypsy, an idolater, and a pagan, she

  • began to entreat with sobs, mercy from the

  • good Christian God, and to pray to our Lady, her hostess.

  • For even if one believes in nothing, there are moments in life when one is always of

  • the religion of the temple which is nearest at hand.

  • She remained thus prostrate for a very long time, trembling in truth, more than

  • praying, chilled by the ever-closer breath of that furious multitude, understanding

  • nothing of this outburst, ignorant of what

  • was being plotted, what was being done, what they wanted, but foreseeing a terrible

  • issue. In the midst of this anguish, she heard

  • some one walking near her.

  • She turned round. Two men, one of whom carried a lantern, had

  • just entered her cell. She uttered a feeble cry.

  • "Fear nothing," said a voice which was not unknown to her, "it is I."

  • "Who are you?" she asked. "Pierre Gringoire."

  • This name reassured her.

  • She raised her eyes once more, and recognized the poet in very fact.

  • But there stood beside him a black figure veiled from head to foot, which struck her

  • by its silence.

  • "Oh!" continued Gringoire in a tone of reproach, "Djali recognized me before you!"

  • The little goat had not, in fact, waited for Gringoire to announce his name.

  • No sooner had he entered than it rubbed itself gently against his knees, covering

  • the poet with caresses and with white hairs, for it was shedding its hair.

  • Gringoire returned the caresses.

  • "Who is this with you?" said the gypsy, in a low voice.

  • "Be at ease," replied Gringoire. "'Tis one of my friends."

  • Then the philosopher setting his lantern on the ground, crouched upon the stones, and

  • exclaimed enthusiastically, as he pressed Djali in his arms,--

  • "Oh! 'tis a graceful beast, more considerable no doubt, for it's neatness

  • than for its size, but ingenious, subtle, and lettered as a grammarian!

  • Let us see, my Djali, hast thou forgotten any of thy pretty tricks?

  • How does Master Jacques Charmolue?..." The man in black did not allow him to

  • finish.

  • He approached Gringoire and shook him roughly by the shoulder.

  • Gringoire rose. "'Tis true," said he: "I forgot that we are

  • in haste.

  • But that is no reason master, for getting furious with people in this manner.

  • My dear and lovely child, your life is in danger, and Djali's also.

  • They want to hang you again.

  • We are your friends, and we have come to save you.

  • Follow us." "Is it true?" she exclaimed in dismay.

  • "Yes, perfectly true.

  • Come quickly!" "I am willing," she stammered.

  • "But why does not your friend speak?"

  • "Ah!" said Gringoire, "'tis because his father and mother were fantastic people who

  • made him of a taciturn temperament." She was obliged to content herself with

  • this explanation.

  • Gringoire took her by the hand; his companion picked up the lantern and walked

  • on in front. Fear stunned the young girl.

  • She allowed herself to be led away.

  • The goat followed them, frisking, so joyous at seeing Gringoire again that it made him

  • stumble every moment by thrusting its horns between his legs.

  • "Such is life," said the philosopher, every time that he came near falling down; "'tis

  • often our best friends who cause us to be overthrown."

  • They rapidly descended the staircase of the towers, crossed the church, full of shadows

  • and solitude, and all reverberating with uproar, which formed a frightful contrast,

  • and emerged into the courtyard of the cloister by the red door.

  • The cloister was deserted; the canons had fled to the bishop's palace in order to

  • pray together; the courtyard was empty, a few frightened lackeys were crouching in

  • dark corners.

  • They directed their steps towards the door which opened from this court upon the

  • Terrain. The man in black opened it with a key which

  • he had about him.

  • Our readers are aware that the Terrain was a tongue of land enclosed by walls on the

  • side of the City and belonging to the chapter of Notre-Dame, which terminated the

  • island on the east, behind the church.

  • They found this enclosure perfectly deserted.

  • There was here less tumult in the air. The roar of the outcasts' assault reached

  • them more confusedly and less clamorously.

  • The fresh breeze which follows the current of a stream, rustled the leaves of the only

  • tree planted on the point of the Terrain, with a noise that was already perceptible.

  • But they were still very close to danger.

  • The nearest edifices to them were the bishop's palace and the church.

  • It was plainly evident that there was great internal commotion in the bishop's palace.

  • Its shadowy mass was all furrowed with lights which flitted from window to window;

  • as, when one has just burned paper, there remains a sombre edifice of ashes in which

  • bright sparks run a thousand eccentric courses.

  • Beside them, the enormous towers of Notre- Dame, thus viewed from behind, with the

  • long nave above which they rise cut out in black against the red and vast light which

  • filled the Parvis, resembled two gigantic andirons of some cyclopean fire-grate.

  • What was to be seen of Paris on all sides wavered before the eye in a gloom mingled

  • with light.

  • Rembrandt has such backgrounds to his pictures.

  • The man with the lantern walked straight to the point of the Terrain.

  • There, at the very brink of the water, stood the wormeaten remains of a fence of

  • posts latticed with laths, whereon a low vine spread out a few thin branches like

  • the fingers of an outspread hand.

  • Behind, in the shadow cast by this trellis, a little boat lay concealed.

  • The man made a sign to Gringoire and his companion to enter.

  • The goat followed them.

  • The man was the last to step in.

  • Then he cut the boat's moorings, pushed it from the shore with a long boat-hook, and,

  • seizing two oars, seated himself in the bow, rowing with all his might towards

  • midstream.

  • The Seine is very rapid at this point, and he had a good deal of trouble in leaving

  • the point of the island. Gringoire's first care on entering the boat

  • was to place the goat on his knees.

  • He took a position in the stern; and the young girl, whom the stranger inspired with

  • an indefinable uneasiness, seated herself close to the poet.

  • When our philosopher felt the boat sway, he clapped his hands and kissed Djali between

  • the horns. "Oh!" said he, "now we are safe, all four

  • of us."

  • He added with the air of a profound thinker, "One is indebted sometimes to

  • fortune, sometimes to ruse, for the happy issue of great enterprises."

  • The boat made its way slowly towards the right shore.

  • The young girl watched the unknown man with secret terror.

  • He had carefully turned off the light of his dark lantern.

  • A glimpse could be caught of him in the obscurity, in the bow of the boat, like a

  • spectre.

  • His cowl, which was still lowered, formed a sort of mask; and every time that he spread

  • his arms, upon which hung large black sleeves, as he rowed, one would have said

  • they were two huge bat's wings.

  • Moreover, he had not yet uttered a word or breathed a syllable.

  • No other noise was heard in the boat than the splashing of the oars, mingled with the

  • rippling of the water along her sides.

  • "On my soul!" exclaimed Gringoire suddenly, "we are as cheerful and joyous as young

  • owls! We preserve the silence of Pythagoreans or

  • fishes!

  • Pasque-Dieu! my friends, I should greatly like to have some one speak to me.

  • The human voice is music to the human ear. 'Tis not I who say that, but Didymus of

  • Alexandria, and they are illustrious words.

  • Assuredly, Didymus of Alexandria is no mediocre philosopher.--One word, my lovely

  • child! say but one word to me, I entreat you.

  • By the way, you had a droll and peculiar little pout; do you still make it?

  • Do you know, my dear, that parliament hath full jurisdiction over all places of

  • asylum, and that you were running a great risk in your little chamber at Notre-Dame?

  • Alas! the little bird trochylus maketh its nest in the jaws of the crocodile.--Master,

  • here is the moon re-appearing. If only they do not perceive us.

  • We are doing a laudable thing in saving mademoiselle, and yet we should be hung by

  • order of the king if we were caught. Alas! human actions are taken by two

  • handles.

  • That is branded with disgrace in one which is crowned in another.

  • He admires Cicero who blames Catiline. Is it not so, master?

  • What say you to this philosophy?

  • I possess philosophy by instinct, by nature, ut apes geometriam.--Come! no one

  • answers me. What unpleasant moods you two are in!

  • I must do all the talking alone.

  • That is what we call a monologue in tragedy.--Pasque-Dieu!

  • I must inform you that I have just seen the king, Louis XI., and that I have caught

  • this oath from him,--Pasque-Dieu!

  • They are still making a hearty howl in the city.--'Tis a villanous, malicious old

  • king. He is all swathed in furs.

  • He still owes me the money for my epithalamium, and he came within a nick of

  • hanging me this evening, which would have been very inconvenient to me.--He is

  • niggardly towards men of merit.

  • He ought to read the four books of Salvien of Cologne, Adversits Avaritiam.

  • In truth!

  • 'Tis a paltry king in his ways with men of letters, and one who commits very barbarous

  • cruelties. He is a sponge, to soak money raised from

  • the people.

  • His saving is like the spleen which swelleth with the leanness of all the other

  • members.

  • Hence complaints against the hardness of the times become murmurs against the

  • prince.

  • Under this gentle and pious sire, the gallows crack with the hung, the blocks rot

  • with blood, the prisons burst like over full bellies.

  • This king hath one hand which grasps, and one which hangs.

  • He is the procurator of Dame Tax and Monsieur Gibbet.

  • The great are despoiled of their dignities, and the little incessantly overwhelmed with

  • fresh oppressions. He is an exorbitant prince.

  • I love not this monarch.

  • And you, master?" The man in black let the garrulous poet

  • chatter on.

  • He continued to struggle against the violent and narrow current, which separates

  • the prow of the City and the stem of the island of Notre-Dame, which we call to-day

  • the Isle St. Louis.

  • "By the way, master!" continued Gringoire suddenly.

  • "At the moment when we arrived on the Parvis, through the enraged outcasts, did

  • your reverence observe that poor little devil whose skull your deaf man was just

  • cracking on the railing of the gallery of the kings?

  • I am near sighted and I could not recognize him.

  • Do you know who he could be?"

  • The stranger answered not a word. But he suddenly ceased rowing, his arms

  • fell as though broken, his head sank on his breast, and la Esmeralda heard him sigh

  • convulsively.

  • She shuddered. She had heard such sighs before.

  • The boat, abandoned to itself, floated for several minutes with the stream.

  • But the man in black finally recovered himself, seized the oars once more and

  • began to row against the current.

  • He doubled the point of the Isle of Notre Dame, and made for the landing-place of the

  • Port an Foin.

  • "Ah!" said Gringoire, "yonder is the Barbeau mansion.--Stay, master, look: that

  • group of black roofs which make such singular angles yonder, above that heap of

  • black, fibrous grimy, dirty clouds, where

  • the moon is completely crushed and spread out like the yolk of an egg whose shell is

  • broken.--'Tis a fine mansion. There is a chapel crowned with a small

  • vault full of very well carved enrichments.

  • Above, you can see the bell tower, very delicately pierced.

  • There is also a pleasant garden, which consists of a pond, an aviary, an echo, a

  • mall, a labyrinth, a house for wild beasts, and a quantity of leafy alleys very

  • agreeable to Venus.

  • There is also a rascal of a tree which is called 'the lewd,' because it favored the

  • pleasures of a famous princess and a constable of France, who was a gallant and

  • a wit.--Alas! we poor philosophers are to a

  • constable as a plot of cabbages or a radish bed to the garden of the Louvre.

  • What matters it, after all? human life, for the great as well as for us, is a mixture

  • of good and evil.

  • Pain is always by the side of joy, the spondee by the dactyl.--Master, I must

  • relate to you the history of the Barbeau mansion.

  • It ends in tragic fashion.

  • It was in 1319, in the reign of Philippe V., the longest reign of the kings of

  • France.

  • The moral of the story is that the temptations of the flesh are pernicious and

  • malignant.

  • Let us not rest our glance too long on our neighbor's wife, however gratified our

  • senses may be by her beauty. Fornication is a very libertine thought.

  • Adultery is a prying into the pleasures of others--Ohe! the noise yonder is

  • redoubling!" The tumult around Notre-Dame was, in fact,

  • increasing.

  • They listened. Cries of victory were heard with tolerable

  • distinctness.

  • All at once, a hundred torches, the light of which glittered upon the helmets of men

  • at arms, spread over the church at all heights, on the towers, on the galleries,

  • on the flying buttresses.

  • These torches seemed to be in search of something; and soon distant clamors reached

  • the fugitives distinctly:--"The gypsy! the sorceress! death to the gypsy!"

  • The unhappy girl dropped her head upon her hands, and the unknown began to row

  • furiously towards the shore. Meanwhile our philosopher reflected.

  • He clasped the goat in his arms, and gently drew away from the gypsy, who pressed

  • closer and closer to him, as though to the only asylum which remained to her.

  • It is certain that Gringoire was enduring cruel perplexity.

  • He was thinking that the goat also, "according to existing law," would be hung

  • if recaptured; which would be a great pity, poor Djali! that he had thus two condemned

  • creatures attached to him; that his

  • companion asked no better than to take charge of the gypsy.

  • A violent combat began between his thoughts, in which, like the Jupiter of the

  • Iliad, he weighed in turn the gypsy and the goat; and he looked at them alternately

  • with eyes moist with tears, saying between his teeth:

  • "But I cannot save you both!" A shock informed them that the boat had

  • reached the land at last.

  • The uproar still filled the city. The unknown rose, approached the gypsy, and

  • endeavored to take her arm to assist her to alight.

  • She repulsed him and clung to the sleeve of Gringoire, who, in his turn, absorbed in

  • the goat, almost repulsed her. Then she sprang alone from the boat.

  • She was so troubled that she did not know what she did or whither she was going.

  • Thus she remained for a moment, stunned, watching the water flow past; when she

  • gradually returned to her senses, she found herself alone on the wharf with the

  • unknown.

  • It appears that Gringoire had taken advantage of the moment of debarcation to

  • slip away with the goat into the block of houses of the Rue Grenier-sur-l'Eau.

  • The poor gypsy shivered when she beheld herself alone with this man.

  • She tried to speak, to cry out, to call Gringoire; her tongue was dumb in her

  • mouth, and no sound left her lips.

  • All at once she felt the stranger's hand on hers.

  • It was a strong, cold hand. Her teeth chattered, she turned paler than

  • the ray of moonlight which illuminated her.

  • The man spoke not a word. He began to ascend towards the Place de

  • Greve, holding her by the hand. At that moment, she had a vague feeling

  • that destiny is an irresistible force.

  • She had no more resistance left in her, she allowed herself to be dragged along,

  • running while he walked. At this spot the quay ascended.

  • But it seemed to her as though she were descending a slope.

  • She gazed about her on all sides. Not a single passer-by.

  • The quay was absolutely deserted.

  • She heard no sound, she felt no people moving save in the tumultuous and glowing

  • city, from which she was separated only by an arm of the Seine, and whence her name

  • reached her, mingled with cries of "Death!"

  • The rest of Paris was spread around her in great blocks of shadows.

  • Meanwhile, the stranger continued to drag her along with the same silence and the

  • same rapidity.

  • She had no recollection of any of the places where she was walking.

  • As she passed before a lighted window, she made an effort, drew up suddenly, and cried

  • out, "Help!"

  • The bourgeois who was standing at the window opened it, appeared there in his

  • shirt with his lamp, stared at the quay with a stupid air, uttered some words which

  • she did not understand, and closed his shutter again.

  • It was her last gleam of hope extinguished.

  • The man in black did not utter a syllable; he held her firmly, and set out again at a

  • quicker pace. She no longer resisted, but followed him,

  • completely broken.

  • From time to time she called together a little strength, and said, in a voice

  • broken by the unevenness of the pavement and the breathlessness of their flight,

  • "Who are you?

  • Who are you?" He made no reply.

  • They arrived thus, still keeping along the quay, at a tolerably spacious square.

  • It was the Greve.

  • In the middle, a sort of black, erect cross was visible; it was the gallows.

  • She recognized all this, and saw where she was.

  • The man halted, turned towards her and raised his cowl.

  • "Oh!" she stammered, almost petrified, "I knew well that it was he again!"

  • It was the priest.

  • He looked like the ghost of himself; that is an effect of the moonlight, it seems as

  • though one beheld only the spectres of things in that light.

  • "Listen!" he said to her; and she shuddered at the sound of that fatal voice which she

  • had not heard for a long time.

  • He continued speaking with those brief and panting jerks, which betoken deep internal

  • convulsions. "Listen! we are here.

  • I am going to speak to you.

  • This is the Greve. This is an extreme point.

  • Destiny gives us to one another. I am going to decide as to your life; you

  • will decide as to my soul.

  • Here is a place, here is a night beyond which one sees nothing.

  • Then listen to me. I am going to tell you...In the first

  • place, speak not to me of your Phoebus.

  • (As he spoke thus he paced to and fro, like a man who cannot remain in one place, and

  • dragged her after him.) Do not speak to me of him.

  • Do you see?

  • If you utter that name, I know not what I shall do, but it will be terrible."

  • Then, like a body which recovers its centre of gravity, he became motionless once more,

  • but his words betrayed no less agitation.

  • His voice grew lower and lower. "Do not turn your head aside thus.

  • Listen to me. It is a serious matter.

  • In the first place, here is what has happened.--All this will not be laughed at.

  • I swear it to you.--What was I saying? Remind me!

  • Oh!--There is a decree of Parliament which gives you back to the scaffold.

  • I have just rescued you from their hands. But they are pursuing you.

  • Look!"

  • He extended his arm toward the City. The search seemed, in fact, to be still in

  • progress there.

  • The uproar drew nearer; the tower of the lieutenant's house, situated opposite the

  • Greve, was full of clamors and light, and soldiers could be seen running on the

  • opposite quay with torches and these cries, "The gypsy!

  • Where is the gypsy! Death!

  • Death!"

  • "You see that they are in pursuit of you, and that I am not lying to you.

  • I love you.--Do not open your mouth; refrain from speaking to me rather, if it

  • be only to tell me that you hate me.

  • I have made up my mind not to hear that again.--I have just saved you.--Let me

  • finish first. I can save you wholly.

  • I have prepared everything.

  • It is yours at will. If you wish, I can do it."

  • He broke off violently. "No, that is not what I should say!"

  • As he went with hurried step and made her hurry also, for he did not release her, he

  • walked straight to the gallows, and pointed to it with his finger,--

  • "Choose between us two," he said, coldly.

  • She tore herself from his hands and fell at the foot of the gibbet, embracing that

  • funereal support, then she half turned her beautiful head, and looked at the priest

  • over her shoulder.

  • One would have said that she was a Holy Virgin at the foot of the cross.

  • The priest remained motionless, his finger still raised toward the gibbet, preserving

  • his attitude like a statue.

  • At length the gypsy said to him,-- "It causes me less horror than you do."

  • Then he allowed his arm to sink slowly, and gazed at the pavement in profound

  • dejection.

  • "If these stones could speak," he murmured, "yes, they would say that a very unhappy

  • man stands here." He went on.

  • The young girl, kneeling before the gallows, enveloped in her long flowing

  • hair, let him speak on without interruption.

  • He now had a gentle and plaintive accent which contrasted sadly with the haughty

  • harshness of his features. "I love you.

  • Oh! how true that is!

  • So nothing comes of that fire which burns my heart!

  • Alas! young girl, night and day--yes, night and day I tell you,--it is torture.

  • Oh! I suffer too much, my poor child.

  • 'Tis a thing deserving of compassion, I assure you.

  • You see that I speak gently to you.

  • I really wish that you should no longer cherish this horror of me.--After all, if a

  • man loves a woman, 'tis not his fault!--Oh, my God!--What!

  • So you will never pardon me?

  • You will always hate me? All is over then.

  • It is that which renders me evil, do you see? and horrible to myself.--You will not

  • even look at me!

  • You are thinking of something else, perchance, while I stand here and talk to

  • you, shuddering on the brink of eternity for both of us!

  • Above all things, do not speak to me of the officer!--I would cast myself at your

  • knees, I would kiss not your feet, but the earth which is under your feet; I would sob

  • like a child, I would tear from my breast

  • not words, but my very heart and vitals, to tell you that I love you;--all would be

  • useless, all!--And yet you have nothing in your heart but what is tender and merciful.

  • You are radiant with the most beautiful mildness; you are wholly sweet, good,

  • pitiful, and charming. Alas!

  • You cherish no ill will for any one but me alone!

  • Oh! what a fatality!" He hid his face in his hands.

  • The young girl heard him weeping.

  • It was for the first time. Thus erect and shaken by sobs, he was more

  • miserable and more suppliant than when on his knees.

  • He wept thus for a considerable time.

  • "Come!" he said, these first tears passed, "I have no more words.

  • I had, however, thought well as to what you would say.

  • Now I tremble and shiver and break down at the decisive moment, I feel conscious of

  • something supreme enveloping us, and I stammer.

  • Oh! I shall fall upon the pavement if you do not take pity on me, pity on yourself.

  • Do not condemn us both. If you only knew how much I love you!

  • What a heart is mine!

  • Oh! what desertion of all virtue! What desperate abandonment of myself!

  • A doctor, I mock at science; a gentleman, I tarnish my own name; a priest, I make of

  • the missal a pillow of sensuality, I spit in the face of my God! all this for thee,

  • enchantress! to be more worthy of thy hell!

  • And you will not have the apostate! Oh! let me tell you all! more still,

  • something more horrible, oh! Yet more horrible!...."

  • As he uttered these last words, his air became utterly distracted.

  • He was silent for a moment, and resumed, as though speaking to himself, and in a strong

  • voice,--

  • "Cain, what hast thou done with thy brother?"

  • There was another silence, and he went on-- "What have I done with him, Lord?

  • I received him, I reared him, I nourished him, I loved him, I idolized him, and I

  • have slain him!

  • Yes, Lord, they have just dashed his head before my eyes on the stone of thine house,

  • and it is because of me, because of this woman, because of her."

  • His eye was wild.

  • His voice grew ever weaker; he repeated many times, yet, mechanically, at tolerably

  • long intervals, like a bell prolonging its last vibration: "Because of her.--Because

  • of her."

  • Then his tongue no longer articulated any perceptible sound; but his lips still

  • moved.

  • All at once he sank together, like something crumbling, and lay motionless on

  • the earth, with his head on his knees.

  • A touch from the young girl, as she drew her foot from under him, brought him to

  • himself.

  • He passed his hand slowly over his hollow cheeks, and gazed for several moments at

  • his fingers, which were wet, "What!" he murmured, "I have wept!"

  • And turning suddenly to the gypsy with unspeakable anguish,--

  • "Alas! you have looked coldly on at my tears!

  • Child, do you know that those tears are of lava?

  • Is it indeed true? Nothing touches when it comes from the man

  • whom one does not love.

  • If you were to see me die, you would laugh. Oh! I do not wish to see you die!

  • One word! A single word of pardon!

  • Say not that you love me, say only that you will do it; that will suffice; I will save

  • you. If not--oh! the hour is passing.

  • I entreat you by all that is sacred, do not wait until I shall have turned to stone

  • again, like that gibbet which also claims you!

  • Reflect that I hold the destinies of both of us in my hand, that I am mad,--it is

  • terrible,--that I may let all go to destruction, and that there is beneath us a

  • bottomless abyss, unhappy girl, whither my fall will follow yours to all eternity!

  • One word of kindness! Say one word! only one word!"

  • She opened her mouth to answer him.

  • He flung himself on his knees to receive with adoration the word, possibly a tender

  • one, which was on the point of issuing from her lips.

  • She said to him, "You are an assassin!"

  • The priest clasped her in his arms with fury, and began to laugh with an abominable

  • laugh. "Well, yes, an assassin!" he said, "and I

  • will have you.

  • You will not have me for your slave, you shall have me for your master.

  • I will have you! I have a den, whither I will drag you.

  • You will follow me, you will be obliged to follow me, or I will deliver you up!

  • You must die, my beauty, or be mine! belong to the priest! belong to the apostate!

  • belong to the assassin! this very night, do you hear?

  • Come! joy; kiss me, mad girl!

  • The tomb or my bed!" His eyes sparkled with impurity and rage.

  • His lewd lips reddened the young girl's neck.

  • She struggled in his arms.

  • He covered her with furious kisses. "Do not bite me, monster!" she cried.

  • "Oh! the foul, odious monk! leave me! I will tear out thy ugly gray hair and

  • fling it in thy face by the handful!"

  • He reddened, turned pale, then released her and gazed at her with a gloomy air.

  • She thought herself victorious, and continued,--

  • "I tell you that I belong to my Phoebus, that 'tis Phoebus whom I love, that 'tis

  • Phoebus who is handsome! you are old, priest! you are ugly!

  • Begone!"

  • He gave vent to a horrible cry, like the wretch to whom a hot iron is applied.

  • "Die, then!" he said, gnashing his teeth. She saw his terrible look and tried to fly.

  • He caught her once more, he shook her, he flung her on the ground, and walked with

  • rapid strides towards the corner of the Tour-Roland, dragging her after him along

  • the pavement by her beautiful hands.

  • On arriving there, he turned to her,-- "For the last time, will you be mine?"

  • She replied with emphasis,-- "No!"

  • Then he cried in a loud voice,--

  • "Gudule! Gudule! here is the gypsy! take your

  • vengeance!" The young girl felt herself seized suddenly

  • by the elbow.

  • She looked. A fleshless arm was stretched from an

  • opening in the wall, and held her like a hand of iron.

  • "Hold her well," said the priest; "'tis the gypsy escaped.

  • Release her not. I will go in search of the sergeants.

  • You shall see her hanged."

  • -BOOK ELEVENTH. CHAPTER I - PART 2.

  • THE LITTLE SHOE.

  • A guttural laugh replied from the interior of the wall to these bloody words--"Hah!

  • hah! hah!"--The gypsy watched the priest retire in the direction of the Pont Notre-

  • Dame.

  • A cavalcade was heard in that direction. The young girl had recognized the spiteful

  • recluse. Panting with terror, she tried to disengage

  • herself.

  • She writhed, she made many starts of agony and despair, but the other held her with

  • incredible strength.

  • The lean and bony fingers which bruised her, clenched on her flesh and met around

  • it. One would have said that this hand was

  • riveted to her arm.

  • It was more than a chain, more than a fetter, more than a ring of iron, it was a

  • living pair of pincers endowed with intelligence, which emerged from the wall.

  • She fell back against the wall exhausted, and then the fear of death took possession

  • of her.

  • She thought of the beauty of life, of youth, of the view of heaven, the aspects

  • of nature, of her love for Phoebus, of all that was vanishing and all that was

  • approaching, of the priest who was

  • denouncing her, of the headsman who was to come, of the gallows which was there.

  • Then she felt terror mount to the very roots of her hair and she heard the mocking

  • laugh of the recluse, saying to her in a very low tone: "Hah! hah! hah! you are

  • going to be hanged!"

  • She turned a dying look towards the window, and she beheld the fierce face of the

  • sacked nun through the bars. "What have I done to you?" she said, almost

  • lifeless.

  • The recluse did not reply, but began to mumble with a singsong irritated, mocking

  • intonation: "Daughter of Egypt! daughter of Egypt! daughter of Egypt!"

  • The unhappy Esmeralda dropped her head beneath her flowing hair, comprehending

  • that it was no human being she had to deal with.

  • All at once the recluse exclaimed, as though the gypsy's question had taken all

  • this time to reach her brain,--"'What have you done to me?' you say!

  • Ah! what have you done to me, gypsy!

  • Well! listen.--I had a child! you see!

  • I had a child! a child, I tell you!--a pretty little girl!--my Agnes!" she went on

  • wildly, kissing something in the dark.-- "Well! do you see, daughter of Egypt? they

  • took my child from me; they stole my child; they ate my child.

  • That is what you have done to me." The young girl replied like a lamb,--

  • "Alas! perchance I was not born then!"

  • "Oh! yes!" returned the recluse, "you must have been born.

  • You were among them.

  • She would be the same age as you! so!--I have been here fifteen years; fifteen years

  • have I suffered; fifteen years have I prayed; fifteen years have I beat my head

  • against these four walls--I tell you that

  • 'twas the gypsies who stole her from me, do you hear that? and who ate her with their

  • teeth.--Have you a heart? imagine a child playing, a child sucking; a child sleeping.

  • It is so innocent a thing!--Well! that, that is what they took from me, what they

  • killed. The good God knows it well!

  • To-day, it is my turn; I am going to eat the gypsy.--Oh!

  • I would bite you well, if the bars did not prevent me!

  • My head is too large!--Poor little one! while she was asleep!

  • And if they woke her up when they took her, in vain she might cry; I was not there!--

  • Ah! gypsy mothers, you devoured my child! come see your own."

  • Then she began to laugh or to gnash her teeth, for the two things resembled each

  • other in that furious face. The day was beginning to dawn.

  • An ashy gleam dimly lighted this scene, and the gallows grew more and more distinct in

  • the square.

  • On the other side, in the direction of the bridge of Notre-Dame, the poor condemned

  • girl fancied that she heard the sound of cavalry approaching.

  • "Madam," she cried, clasping her hands and falling on her knees, dishevelled,

  • distracted, mad with fright; "madam! have pity!

  • They are coming.

  • I have done nothing to you. Would you wish to see me die in this

  • horrible fashion before your very eyes? You are pitiful, I am sure.

  • It is too frightful.

  • Let me make my escape. Release me!

  • Mercy. I do not wish to die like that!"

  • "Give me back my child!" said the recluse.

  • "Mercy! Mercy!"

  • "Give me back my child!" "Release me, in the name of heaven!"

  • "Give me back my child!"

  • Again the young girl fell; exhausted, broken, and having already the glassy eye

  • of a person in the grave. "Alas!" she faltered, "you seek your child,

  • I seek my parents."

  • "Give me back my little Agnes!" pursued Gudule.

  • "You do not know where she is? Then die!--I will tell you.

  • I was a woman of the town, I had a child, they took my child.

  • It was the gypsies. You see plainly that you must die.

  • When your mother, the gypsy, comes to reclaim you, I shall say to her: 'Mother,

  • look at that gibbet!--Or, give me back my child.

  • Do you know where she is, my little daughter?

  • Stay! I will show you.

  • Here is her shoe, all that is left me of her.

  • Do you know where its mate is?

  • If you know, tell me, and if it is only at the other end of the world, I will crawl to

  • it on my knees."

  • As she spoke thus, with her other arm extended through the window, she showed the

  • gypsy the little embroidered shoe. It was already light enough to distinguish

  • its shape and its colors.

  • "Let me see that shoe," said the gypsy, quivering.

  • "God! God!"

  • And at the same time, with her hand which was at liberty, she quickly opened the

  • little bag ornamented with green glass, which she wore about her neck.

  • "Go on, go on!" grumbled Gudule, "search your demon's amulet!"

  • All at once, she stopped short, trembled in every limb, and cried in a voice which

  • proceeded from the very depths of her being: "My daughter!"

  • The gypsy had just drawn from the bag a little shoe absolutely similar to the

  • other.

  • To this little shoe was attached a parchment on which was inscribed this

  • charm,-- Quand le parell retrouveras Ta mere te

  • tendras les bras.*

  • * When thou shalt find its mate, thy mother will stretch out her arms to thee.

  • Quicker than a flash of lightning, the recluse had laid the two shoes together,

  • had read the parchment and had put close to the bars of the window her face beaming

  • with celestial joy as she cried,--

  • "My daughter! my daughter!" "My mother!" said the gypsy.

  • Here we are unequal to the task of depicting the scene.

  • The wall and the iron bars were between them.

  • "Oh! the wall!" cried the recluse. "Oh! to see her and not to embrace her!

  • Your hand! your hand!"

  • The young girl passed her arm through the opening; the recluse threw herself on that

  • hand, pressed her lips to it and there remained, buried in that kiss, giving no

  • other sign of life than a sob which heaved her breast from time to time.

  • In the meanwhile, she wept in torrents, in silence, in the dark, like a rain at night.

  • The poor mother poured out in floods upon that adored hand the dark and deep well of

  • tears, which lay within her, and into which her grief had filtered, drop by drop, for

  • fifteen years.

  • All at once she rose, flung aside her long gray hair from her brow, and without

  • uttering a word, began to shake the bars of her cage cell, with both hands, more

  • furiously than a lioness.

  • The bars held firm.

  • Then she went to seek in the corner of her cell a huge paving stone, which served her

  • as a pillow, and launched it against them with such violence that one of the bars

  • broke, emitting thousands of sparks.

  • A second blow completely shattered the old iron cross which barricaded the window.

  • Then with her two hands, she finished breaking and removing the rusted stumps of

  • the bars.

  • There are moments when woman's hands possess superhuman strength.

  • A passage broken, less than a minute was required for her to seize her daughter by

  • the middle of her body, and draw her into her cell.

  • "Come let me draw you out of the abyss," she murmured.

  • When her daughter was inside the cell, she laid her gently on the ground, then raised

  • her up again, and bearing her in her arms as though she were still only her little

  • Agnes, she walked to and fro in her little

  • room, intoxicated, frantic, joyous, crying out, singing, kissing her daughter, talking

  • to her, bursting into laughter, melting into tears, all at once and with vehemence.

  • "My daughter! my daughter!" she said.

  • "I have my daughter! here she is! The good God has given her back to me!

  • Ha you! come all of you! Is there any one there to see that I have

  • my daughter?

  • Lord Jesus, how beautiful she is! You have made me wait fifteen years, my

  • good God, but it was in order to give her back to me beautiful.--Then the gypsies did

  • not eat her!

  • Who said so? My little daughter! my little daughter!

  • Kiss me. Those good gypsies!

  • I love the gypsies!--It is really you!

  • That was what made my heart leap every time that you passed by.

  • And I took that for hatred! Forgive me, my Agnes, forgive me.

  • You thought me very malicious, did you not?

  • I love you. Have you still the little mark on your

  • neck? Let us see.

  • She still has it.

  • Oh! you are beautiful! It was I who gave you those big eyes,

  • mademoiselle. Kiss me.

  • I love you.

  • It is nothing to me that other mothers have children; I scorn them now.

  • They have only to come and see. Here is mine.

  • See her neck, her eyes, her hair, her hands.

  • Find me anything as beautiful as that! Oh! I promise you she will have lovers,

  • that she will!

  • I have wept for fifteen years. All my beauty has departed and has fallen

  • to her. Kiss me."

  • She addressed to her a thousand other extravagant remarks, whose accent

  • constituted their sole beauty, disarranged the poor girl's garments even to the point

  • of making her blush, smoothed her silky

  • hair with her hand, kissed her foot, her knee, her brow, her eyes, was in raptures

  • over everything.

  • The young girl let her have her way, repeating at intervals and very low and

  • with infinite tenderness, "My mother!"

  • "Do you see, my little girl," resumed the recluse, interspersing her words with

  • kisses, "I shall love you dearly? We will go away from here.

  • We are going to be very happy.

  • I have inherited something in Reims, in our country.

  • You know Reims? Ah! no, you do not know it; you were too

  • small!

  • If you only knew how pretty you were at the age of four months!

  • Tiny feet that people came even from Epernay, which is seven leagues away, to

  • see!

  • We shall have a field, a house. I will put you to sleep in my bed.

  • My God! my God! who would believe this? I have my daughter!"

  • "Oh, my mother!" said the young girl, at length finding strength to speak in her

  • emotion, "the gypsy woman told me so.

  • There was a good gypsy of our band who died last year, and who always cared for me like

  • a nurse. It was she who placed this little bag about

  • my neck.

  • She always said to me: 'Little one, guard this jewel well!

  • 'Tis a treasure. It will cause thee to find thy mother once

  • again.

  • Thou wearest thy mother about thy neck.'-- The gypsy predicted it!"

  • The sacked nun again pressed her daughter in her arms.

  • "Come, let me kiss you!

  • You say that prettily. When we are in the country, we will place

  • these little shoes on an infant Jesus in the church.

  • We certainly owe that to the good, holy Virgin.

  • What a pretty voice you have! When you spoke to me just now, it was

  • music!

  • Ah! my Lord God! I have found my child again!

  • But is this story credible? Nothing will kill one--or I should have

  • died of joy."

  • And then she began to clap her hands again and to laugh and to cry out: "We are going

  • to be so happy!"

  • At that moment, the cell resounded with the clang of arms and a galloping of horses

  • which seemed to be coming from the Pont Notre-Dame, amid advancing farther and

  • farther along the quay.

  • The gypsy threw herself with anguish into the arms of the sacked nun.

  • "Save me! save me! mother! they are coming!"

  • "Oh, heaven! what are you saying?

  • I had forgotten! They are in pursuit of you!

  • What have you done?" "I know not," replied the unhappy child;

  • "but I am condemned to die."

  • "To die!" said Gudule, staggering as though struck by lightning; "to die!" she repeated

  • slowly, gazing at her daughter with staring eyes.

  • "Yes, mother," replied the frightened young girl, "they want to kill me.

  • They are coming to seize me. That gallows is for me!

  • Save me! save me!

  • They are coming! Save me!"

  • The recluse remained for several moments motionless and petrified, then she moved

  • her head in sign of doubt, and suddenly giving vent to a burst of laughter, but

  • with that terrible laugh which had come back to her,--

  • "Ho! ho! no! 'tis a dream of which you are telling me.

  • Ah, yes!

  • I lost her, that lasted fifteen years, and then I found her again, and that lasted a

  • minute! And they would take her from me again!

  • And now, when she is beautiful, when she is grown up, when she speaks to me, when she

  • loves me; it is now that they would come to devour her, before my very eyes, and I her

  • mother!

  • Oh! no! these things are not possible. The good God does not permit such things as

  • that." Here the cavalcade appeared to halt, and a

  • voice was heard to say in the distance,--

  • "This way, Messire Tristan! The priest says that we shall find her at

  • the Rat-Hole." The noise of the horses began again.

  • The recluse sprang to her feet with a shriek of despair.

  • "Fly! fly! my child! All comes back to me.

  • You are right.

  • It is your death! Horror!

  • Maledictions! Fly!"

  • She thrust her head through the window, and withdrew it again hastily.

  • "Remain," she said, in a low, curt, and lugubrious tone, as she pressed the hand of

  • the gypsy, who was more dead than alive.

  • "Remain! Do not breathe!

  • There are soldiers everywhere. You cannot get out.

  • It is too light."

  • Her eyes were dry and burning.

  • She remained silent for a moment; but she paced the cell hurriedly, and halted now

  • and then to pluck out handfuls of her gray hairs, which she afterwards tore with her

  • teeth.

  • Suddenly she said: "They draw near. I will speak with them.

  • Hide yourself in this corner. They will not see you.

  • I will tell them that you have made your escape.

  • That I released you, i' faith!"

  • She set her daughter (down for she was still carrying her), in one corner of the

  • cell which was not visible from without.

  • She made her crouch down, arranged her carefully so that neither foot nor hand

  • projected from the shadow, untied her black hair which she spread over her white robe

  • to conceal it, placed in front of her her

  • jug and her paving stone, the only articles of furniture which she possessed, imagining

  • that this jug and stone would hide her. And when this was finished she became more

  • tranquil, and knelt down to pray.

  • The day, which was only dawning, still left many shadows in the Rat-Hole.

  • At that moment, the voice of the priest, that infernal voice, passed very close to

  • the cell, crying,--

  • "This way, Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers." At that name, at that voice, la Esmeralda,

  • crouching in her corner, made a movement. "Do not stir!" said Gudule.

  • She had barely finished when a tumult of men, swords, and horses halted around the

  • cell.

  • The mother rose quickly and went to post herself before her window, in order to stop

  • it up. She beheld a large troop of armed men, both

  • horse and foot, drawn up on the Greve.

  • The commander dismounted, and came toward her.

  • "Old woman!" said this man, who had an atrocious face, "we are in search of a

  • witch to hang her; we were told that you had her."

  • The poor mother assumed as indifferent an air as she could, and replied,--

  • "I know not what you mean." The other resumed, "Tete Dieu!

  • What was it that frightened archdeacon said?

  • Where is he?" "Monseigneur," said a soldier, "he has

  • disappeared."

  • "Come, now, old madwoman," began the commander again, "do not lie.

  • A sorceress was given in charge to you. What have you done with her?"

  • The recluse did not wish to deny all, for fear of awakening suspicion, and replied in

  • a sincere and surly tone,--

  • "If you are speaking of a big young girl who was put into my hands a while ago, I

  • will tell you that she bit me, and that I released her.

  • There!

  • Leave me in peace." The commander made a grimace of

  • disappointment. "Don't lie to me, old spectre!" said he.

  • "My name is Tristan l'Hermite, and I am the king's gossip.

  • Tristan the Hermit, do you hear?"

  • He added, as he glanced at the Place de Greve around him, "'Tis a name which has an

  • echo here."

  • "You might be Satan the Hermit," replied Gudule, who was regaining hope, "but I

  • should have nothing else to say to you, and I should never be afraid of you."

  • "Tete-Dieu," said Tristan, "here is a crone!

  • Ah! So the witch girl hath fled! And in which direction did she go?"

  • Gudule replied in a careless tone,--

  • "Through the Rue du Mouton, I believe." Tristan turned his head and made a sign to

  • his troop to prepare to set out on the march again.

  • The recluse breathed freely once more.

  • "Monseigneur," suddenly said an archer, "ask the old elf why the bars of her window

  • are broken in this manner." This question brought anguish again to the

  • heart of the miserable mother.

  • Nevertheless, she did not lose all presence of mind.

  • "They have always been thus," she stammered.

  • "Bah!" retorted the archer, "only yesterday they still formed a fine black cross, which

  • inspired devotion." Tristan east a sidelong glance at the

  • recluse.

  • "I think the old dame is getting confused!" The unfortunate woman felt that all

  • depended on her self-possession, and, although with death in her soul, she began

  • to grin.

  • Mothers possess such strength. "Bah!" said she, "the man is drunk.

  • 'Tis more than a year since the tail of a stone cart dashed against my window and

  • broke in the grating.

  • And how I cursed the carter, too." "'Tis true," said another archer, "I was

  • there." Always and everywhere people are to be

  • found who have seen everything.

  • This unexpected testimony from the archer re-encouraged the recluse, whom this

  • interrogatory was forcing to cross an abyss on the edge of a knife.

  • But she was condemned to a perpetual alternative of hope and alarm.

  • "If it was a cart which did it," retorted the first soldier, "the stumps of the bars

  • should be thrust inwards, while they actually are pushed outwards."

  • "Ho! ho!" said Tristan to the soldier, "you have the nose of an inquisitor of the

  • Chatelet. Reply to what he says, old woman."

  • "Good heavens!" she exclaimed, driven to bay, and in a voice that was full of tears

  • in despite of her efforts, "I swear to you, monseigneur, that 'twas a cart which broke

  • those bars.

  • You hear the man who saw it. And then, what has that to do with your

  • gypsy?" "Hum!" growled Tristan.

  • "The devil!" went on the soldier, flattered by the provost's praise, "these fractures

  • of the iron are perfectly fresh." Tristan tossed his head.

  • She turned pale.

  • "How long ago, say you, did the cart do it?"

  • "A month, a fortnight, perhaps, monseigheur, I know not."

  • "She first said more than a year," observed the soldier.

  • "That is suspicious," said the provost.

  • "Monseigneur!" she cried, still pressed against the opening, and trembling lest

  • suspicion should lead them to thrust their heads through and look into her cell;

  • "monseigneur, I swear to you that 'twas a cart which broke this grating.

  • I swear it to you by the angels of paradise.

  • If it was not a cart, may I be eternally damned, and I reject God!"

  • "You put a great deal of heat into that oath;" said Tristan, with his inquisitorial

  • glance.

  • The poor woman felt her assurance vanishing more and more.

  • She had reached the point of blundering, and she comprehended with terror that she

  • was saying what she ought not to have said.

  • Here another soldier came up, crying,-- "Monsieur, the old hag lies.

  • The sorceress did not flee through the Rue de Mouton.

  • The street chain has remained stretched all night, and the chain guard has seen no one

  • pass." Tristan, whose face became more sinister

  • with every moment, addressed the recluse,--

  • "What have you to say to that?" She tried to make head against this new

  • incident, "That I do not know, monseigneur; that I

  • may have been mistaken.

  • I believe, in fact, that she crossed the water."

  • "That is in the opposite direction," said the provost, "and it is not very likely

  • that she would wish to re-enter the city, where she was being pursued.

  • You are lying, old woman."

  • "And then," added the first soldier, "there is no boat either on this side of the

  • stream or on the other." "She swam across," replied the recluse,

  • defending her ground foot by foot.

  • "Do women swim?" said the soldier. "Tete Dieu! old woman!

  • You are lying!" repeated Tristan angrily. "I have a good mind to abandon that

  • sorceress and take you.

  • A quarter of an hour of torture will, perchance, draw the truth from your throat.

  • Come! You are to follow us."

  • She seized on these words with avidity.

  • "As you please, monseigneur. Do it.

  • Do it. Torture.

  • I am willing.

  • Take me away. Quick, quick! let us set out at once!--

  • During that time," she said to herself, "my daughter will make her escape."

  • "'S death!" said the provost, "what an appetite for the rack!

  • I understand not this madwoman at all."

  • An old, gray-haired sergeant of the guard stepped out of the ranks, and addressing

  • the provost,-- "Mad in sooth, monseigneur.

  • If she released the gypsy, it was not her fault, for she loves not the gypsies.

  • I have been of the watch these fifteen years, and I hear her every evening cursing

  • the Bohemian women with endless imprecations.

  • If the one of whom we are in pursuit is, as I suppose, the little dancer with the goat,

  • she detests that one above all the rest." Gudule made an effort and said,--

  • "That one above all."

  • The unanimous testimony of the men of the watch confirmed the old sergeant's words to

  • the provost.

  • Tristan l'Hermite, in despair at extracting anything from the recluse, turned his back

  • on her, and with unspeakable anxiety she beheld him direct his course slowly towards

  • his horse.

  • "Come!" he said, between his teeth, "March on! let us set out again on the quest.

  • I shall not sleep until that gypsy is hanged."

  • But he still hesitated for some time before mounting his horse.

  • Gudule palpitated between life and death, as she beheld him cast about the Place that

  • uneasy look of a hunting dog which instinctively feels that the lair of the

  • beast is close to him, and is loath to go away.

  • At length he shook his head and leaped into his saddle.

  • Gudule's horribly compressed heart now dilated, and she said in a low voice, as

  • she cast a glance at her daughter, whom she had not ventured to look at while they were

  • there, "Saved!"

  • The poor child had remained all this time in her corner, without breathing, without

  • moving, with the idea of death before her.

  • She had lost nothing of the scene between Gudule and Tristan, and the anguish of her

  • mother had found its echo in her heart.

  • She had heard all the successive snappings of the thread by which she hung suspended

  • over the gulf; twenty times she had fancied that she saw it break, and at last she

  • began to breathe again and to feel her foot on firm ground.

  • At that moment she heard a voice saying to the provost: "Corboeuf!

  • Monsieur le Prevot, 'tis no affair of mine, a man of arms, to hang witches.

  • The rabble of the populace is suppressed. I leave you to attend to the matter alone.

  • You will allow me to rejoin my company, who are waiting for their captain."

  • The voice was that of Phoebus de Chateaupers; that which took place within

  • her was ineffable.

  • He was there, her friend, her protector, her support, her refuge, her Phoebus.

  • She rose, and before her mother could prevent her, she had rushed to the window,

  • crying,--

  • "Phoebus! aid me, my Phoebus!" Phoebus was no longer there.

  • He had just turned the corner of the Rue de la Coutellerie at a gallop.

  • But Tristan had not yet taken his departure.

  • The recluse rushed upon her daughter with a roar of agony.

  • She dragged her violently back, digging her nails into her neck.

  • A tigress mother does not stand on trifles. But it was too late.

  • Tristan had seen.

  • "He! he!" he exclaimed with a laugh which laid bare all his teeth and made his face

  • resemble the muzzle of a wolf, "two mice in the trap!"

  • "I suspected as much," said the soldier.

  • Tristan clapped him on the shoulder,-- "You are a good cat!

  • Come!" he added, "where is Henriet Cousin?" A man who had neither the garments nor the

  • air of a soldier, stepped from the ranks.

  • He wore a costume half gray, half brown, flat hair, leather sleeves, and carried a

  • bundle of ropes in his huge hand. This man always attended Tristan, who

  • always attended Louis XI.

  • "Friend," said Tristan l'Hermite, "I presume that this is the sorceress of whom

  • we are in search. You will hang me this one.

  • Have you your ladder?"

  • "There is one yonder, under the shed of the Pillar-House," replied the man.

  • "Is it on this justice that the thing is to be done?" he added, pointing to the stone

  • gibbet.

  • "Yes." "Ho, he!" continued the man with a huge

  • laugh, which was still more brutal than that of the provost, "we shall not have far

  • to go."

  • "Make haste!" said Tristan, "you shall laugh afterwards."

  • In the meantime, the recluse had not uttered another word since Tristan had seen

  • her daughter and all hope was lost.

  • She had flung the poor gypsy, half dead, into the corner of the cellar, and had

  • placed herself once more at the window with both hands resting on the angle of the sill

  • like two claws.

  • In this attitude she was seen to cast upon all those soldiers her glance which had

  • become wild and frantic once more.

  • At the moment when Rennet Cousin approached her cell, she showed him so savage a face

  • that he shrank back. "Monseigneur," he said, returning to the

  • provost, "which am I to take?"

  • "The young one." "So much the better, for the old one

  • seemeth difficult." "Poor little dancer with the goat!" said

  • the old sergeant of the watch.

  • Rennet Cousin approached the window again. The mother's eyes made his own droop.

  • He said with a good deal of timidity,-- "Madam"--

  • She interrupted him in a very low but furious voice,--

  • "What do you ask?" "It is not you," he said, "it is the

  • other."

  • "What other?" "The young one."

  • She began to shake her head, crying,-- "There is no one! there is no one! there is

  • no one!"

  • "Yes, there is!" retorted the hangman, "and you know it well.

  • Let me take the young one. I have no wish to harm you."

  • She said, with a strange sneer,--

  • "Ah! so you have no wish to harm me!" "Let me have the other, madam; 'tis

  • monsieur the provost who wills it." She repeated with a look of madness,--

  • "There is no one here."

  • "I tell you that there is!" replied the executioner.

  • "We have all seen that there are two of you."

  • "Look then!" said the recluse, with a sneer.

  • "Thrust your head through the window." The executioner observed the mother's

  • finger-nails and dared not.

  • "Make haste!" shouted Tristan, who had just ranged his troops in a circle round the

  • Rat-Hole, and who sat on his horse beside the gallows.

  • Rennet returned once more to the provost in great embarrassment.

  • He had flung his rope on the ground, and was twisting his hat between his hands with

  • an awkward air.

  • "Monseigneur," he asked, "where am I to enter?"

  • "By the door." "There is none."

  • "By the window."

  • "'Tis too small." "Make it larger," said Tristan angrily.

  • "Have you not pickaxes?" The mother still looked on steadfastly from

  • the depths of her cavern.

  • She no longer hoped for anything, she no longer knew what she wished, except that

  • she did not wish them to take her daughter.

  • Rennet Cousin went in search of the chest of tools for the night man, under the shed

  • of the Pillar-House.

  • He drew from it also the double ladder, which he immediately set up against the

  • gallows.

  • Five or six of the provost's men armed themselves with picks and crowbars, and

  • Tristan betook himself, in company with them, towards the window.

  • "Old woman," said the provost, in a severe tone, "deliver up to us that girl quietly."

  • She looked at him like one who does not understand.

  • "Tete Dieu!" continued Tristan, "why do you try to prevent this sorceress being hung as

  • it pleases the king?" The wretched woman began to laugh in her

  • wild way.

  • "Why? She is my daughter." The tone in which she pronounced these

  • words made even Henriet Cousin shudder. "I am sorry for that," said the provost,

  • "but it is the king's good pleasure."

  • She cried, redoubling her terrible laugh,-- "What is your king to me?

  • I tell you that she is my daughter!" "Pierce the wall," said Tristan.

  • In order to make a sufficiently wide opening, it sufficed to dislodge one course

  • of stone below the window.

  • When the mother heard the picks and crowbars mining her fortress, she uttered a

  • terrible cry; then she began to stride about her cell with frightful swiftness, a

  • wild beasts' habit which her cage had imparted to her.

  • She no longer said anything, but her eyes flamed.

  • The soldiers were chilled to the very soul.

  • All at once she seized her paving stone, laughed, and hurled it with both fists upon

  • the workmen.

  • The stone, badly flung (for her hands trembled), touched no one, and fell short

  • under the feet of Tristan's horse. She gnashed her teeth.

  • In the meantime, although the sun had not yet risen, it was broad daylight; a

  • beautiful rose color enlivened the ancient, decayed chimneys of the Pillar-House.

  • It was the hour when the earliest windows of the great city open joyously on the

  • roofs.

  • Some workmen, a few fruit-sellers on their way to the markets on their asses, began to

  • traverse the Greve; they halted for a moment before this group of soldiers

  • clustered round the Rat-Hole, stared at it with an air of astonishment and passed on.

  • The recluse had gone and seated herself by her daughter, covering her with her body,

  • in front of her, with staring eyes, listening to the poor child, who did not

  • stir, but who kept murmuring in a low voice, these words only, "Phoebus!

  • Phoebus!"

  • In proportion as the work of the demolishers seemed to advance, the mother

  • mechanically retreated, and pressed the young girl closer and closer to the wall.

  • All at once, the recluse beheld the stone (for she was standing guard and never took

  • her eyes from it), move, and she heard Tristan's voice encouraging the workers.

  • Then she aroused from the depression into which she had fallen during the last few

  • moments, cried out, and as she spoke, her voice now rent the ear like a saw, then

  • stammered as though all kind of

  • maledictions were pressing to her lips to burst forth at once.

  • "Ho! ho! ho! Why this is terrible!

  • You are ruffians!

  • Are you really going to take my daughter? Oh! the cowards!

  • Oh! the hangman lackeys! the wretched, blackguard assassins!

  • Help! help! fire!

  • Will they take my child from me like this? Who is it then who is called the good God?"

  • Then, addressing Tristan, foaming at the mouth, with wild eyes, all bristling and on

  • all fours like a female panther,--

  • "Draw near and take my daughter! Do not you understand that this woman tells

  • you that she is my daughter? Do you know what it is to have a child?

  • Eh! lynx, have you never lain with your female? have you never had a cub? and if

  • you have little ones, when they howl have you nothing in your vitals that moves?"

  • "Throw down the stone," said Tristan; "it no longer holds."

  • The crowbars raised the heavy course. It was, as we have said, the mother's last

  • bulwark.

  • She threw herself upon it, she tried to hold it back; she scratched the stone with

  • her nails, but the massive block, set in movement by six men, escaped her and glided

  • gently to the ground along the iron levers.

  • The mother, perceiving an entrance effected, fell down in front of the

  • opening, barricading the breach with her body, beating the pavement with her head,

  • and shrieking with a voice rendered so

  • hoarse by fatigue that it was hardly audible,--

  • "Help! fire! fire!" "Now take the wench," said Tristan, still

  • impassive.

  • The mother gazed at the soldiers in such formidable fashion that they were more

  • inclined to retreat than to advance. "Come, now," repeated the provost.

  • "Here you, Rennet Cousin!"

  • No one took a step. The provost swore,--

  • "Tete de Christ! my men of war! afraid of a woman!"

  • "Monseigneur," said Rennet, "do you call that a woman?"

  • "She has the mane of a lion," said another. "Come!" repeated the provost, "the gap is

  • wide enough.

  • Enter three abreast, as at the breach of Pontoise.

  • Let us make an end of it, death of Mahom! I will make two pieces of the first man who

  • draws back!"

  • Placed between the provost and the mother, both threatening, the soldiers hesitated

  • for a moment, then took their resolution, and advanced towards the Rat-Hole.

  • When the recluse saw this, she rose abruptly on her knees, flung aside her hair

  • from her face, then let her thin flayed hands fall by her side.

  • Then great tears fell, one by one, from her eyes; they flowed down her cheeks through a

  • furrow, like a torrent through a bed which it has hollowed for itself.

  • At the same time she began to speak, but in a voice so supplicating, so gentle, so

  • submissive, so heartrending, that more than one old convict-warder around Tristan who

  • must have devoured human flesh wiped his eyes.

  • "Messeigneurs! messieurs the sergeants, one word.

  • There is one thing which I must say to you.

  • She is my daughter, do you see? my dear little daughter whom I had lost!

  • Listen. It is quite a history.

  • Consider that I knew the sergeants very well.

  • They were always good to me in the days when the little boys threw stones at me,

  • because I led a life of pleasure.

  • Do you see? You will leave me my child when you know!

  • I was a poor woman of the town. It was the Bohemians who stole her from me.

  • And I kept her shoe for fifteen years.

  • Stay, here it is. That was the kind of foot which she had.

  • At Reims! La Chantefleurie!

  • Rue Folle-Peine!

  • Perchance, you knew about that. It was I.

  • In your youth, then, there was a merry time, when one passed good hours.

  • You will take pity on me, will you not, gentlemen?

  • The gypsies stole her from me; they hid her from me for fifteen years.

  • I thought her dead.

  • Fancy, my good friends, believed her to be dead.

  • I have passed fifteen years here in this cellar, without a fire in winter.

  • It is hard.

  • The poor, dear little shoe! I have cried so much that the good God has

  • heard me. This night he has given my daughter back to

  • me.

  • It is a miracle of the good God. She was not dead.

  • You will not take her from me, I am sure. If it were myself, I would say nothing; but

  • she, a child of sixteen!

  • Leave her time to see the sun! What has she done to you? nothing at all.

  • Nor have I.

  • If you did but know that she is all I have, that I am old, that she is a blessing which

  • the Holy Virgin has sent to me! And then, you are all so good!

  • You did not know that she was my daughter; but now you do know it.

  • Oh! I love her! Monsieur, the grand provost.

  • I would prefer a stab in my own vitals to a scratch on her finger!

  • You have the air of such a good lord! What I have told you explains the matter,

  • does it not?

  • Oh! if you have had a mother, monsiegneur! you are the captain, leave me my child!

  • Consider that I pray you on my knees, as one prays to Jesus Christ!

  • I ask nothing of any one; I am from Reims, gentlemen; I own a little field inherited

  • from my uncle, Mahiet Pradon. I am no beggar.

  • I wish nothing, but I do want my child! oh!

  • I want to keep my child! The good God, who is the master, has not

  • given her back to me for nothing! The king! you say the king!

  • It would not cause him much pleasure to have my little daughter killed!

  • And then, the king is good! she is my daughter! she is my own daughter!

  • She belongs not to the king! she is not yours!

  • I want to go away! we want to go away! and when two women pass, one a mother and the

  • other a daughter, one lets them go!

  • Let us pass! we belong in Reims. Oh! you are very good, messieurs the

  • sergeants, I love you all. You will not take my dear little one, it is

  • impossible!

  • It is utterly impossible, is it not? My child, my child!"

  • We will not try to give an idea of her gestures, her tone, of the tears which she

  • swallowed as she spoke, of the hands which she clasped and then wrung, of the heart-

  • breaking smiles, of the swimming glances,

  • of the groans, the sighs, the miserable and affecting cries which she mingled with her

  • disordered, wild, and incoherent words.

  • When she became silent Tristan l'Hermite frowned, but it was to conceal a tear which

  • welled up in his tiger's eye. He conquered this weakness, however, and

  • said in a curt tone,--

  • "The king wills it." Then he bent down to the ear of Rennet

  • Cousin, and said to him in a very low tone,--

  • "Make an end of it quickly!"

  • Possibly, the redoubtable provost felt his heart also failing him.

  • The executioner and the sergeants entered the cell.

  • The mother offered no resistance, only she dragged herself towards her daughter and

  • threw herself bodily upon her. The gypsy beheld the soldiers approach.

  • The horror of death reanimated her,--

  • "Mother!" she shrieked, in a tone of indescribable distress, "Mother! they are

  • coming! defend me!"

  • "Yes, my love, I am defending you!" replied the mother, in a dying voice; and clasping

  • her closely in her arms, she covered her with kisses.

  • The two lying thus on the earth, the mother upon the daughter, presented a spectacle

  • worthy of pity.

  • Rennet Cousin grasped the young girl by the middle of her body, beneath her beautiful

  • shoulders. When she felt that hand, she cried, "Heuh!"

  • and fainted.

  • The executioner who was shedding large tears upon her, drop by drop, was about to

  • bear her away in his arms.

  • He tried to detach the mother, who had, so to speak, knotted her hands around her

  • daughter's waist; but she clung so strongly to her child, that it was impossible to

  • separate them.

  • Then Rennet Cousin dragged the young girl outside the cell, and the mother after her.

  • The mother's eyes were also closed.

  • At that moment, the sun rose, and there was already on the Place a fairly numerous

  • assembly of people who looked on from a distance at what was being thus dragged

  • along the pavement to the gibbet.

  • For that was Provost Tristan's way at executions.

  • He had a passion for preventing the approach of the curious.

  • There was no one at the windows.

  • Only at a distance, at the summit of that one of the towers of Notre-Dame which

  • commands the Greve, two men outlined in black against the light morning sky, and

  • who seemed to be looking on, were visible.

  • Rennet Cousin paused at the foot of the fatal ladder, with that which he was

  • dragging, and, barely breathing, with so much pity did the thing inspire him, he

  • passed the rope around the lovely neck of the young girl.

  • The unfortunate child felt the horrible touch of the hemp.

  • She raised her eyelids, and saw the fleshless arm of the stone gallows extended

  • above her head. Then she shook herself and shrieked in a

  • loud and heartrending voice: "No! no!

  • I will not!"

  • Her mother, whose head was buried and concealed in her daughter's garments, said

  • not a word; only her whole body could be seen to quiver, and she was heard to

  • redouble her kisses on her child.

  • The executioner took advantage of this moment to hastily loose the arms with which

  • she clasped the condemned girl. Either through exhaustion or despair, she

  • let him have his way.

  • Then he took the young girl on his shoulder, from which the charming creature

  • hung, gracefully bent over his large head. Then he set his foot on the ladder in order

  • to ascend.

  • At that moment, the mother who was crouching on the pavement, opened her eyes

  • wide.

  • Without uttering a cry, she raised herself erect with a terrible expression; then she

  • flung herself upon the hand of the executioner, like a beast on its prey, and

  • bit it.

  • It was done like a flash of lightning. The headsman howled with pain.

  • Those near by rushed up. With difficulty they withdrew his bleeding

  • hand from the mother's teeth.

  • She preserved a profound silence. They thrust her back with much brutality,

  • and noticed that her head fell heavily on the pavement.

  • They raised her, she fell back again.

  • She was dead. The executioner, who had not loosed his

  • hold on the young girl, began to ascend the ladder once more.

  • -BOOK ELEVENTH. CHAPTER II.

  • THE BEAUTIFUL CREATURE CLAD IN WHITE. (Dante.)

  • When Quasimodo saw that the cell was empty, that the gypsy was no longer there, that

  • while he had been defending her she had been abducted, he grasped his hair with

  • both hands and stamped with surprise and

  • pain; then he set out to run through the entire church seeking his Bohemian, howling

  • strange cries to all the corners of the walls, strewing his red hair on the

  • pavement.

  • It was just at the moment when the king's archers were making their victorious

  • entrance into Notre-Dame, also in search of the gypsy.

  • Quasimodo, poor, deaf fellow, aided them in their fatal intentions, without suspecting

  • it; he thought that the outcasts were the gypsy's enemies.

  • He himself conducted Tristan l'Hermite to all possible hiding-places, opened to him

  • the secret doors, the double bottoms of the altars, the rear sacristries.

  • If the unfortunate girl had still been there, it would have been he himself who

  • would have delivered her up.

  • When the fatigue of finding nothing had disheartened Tristan, who was not easily

  • discouraged, Quasimodo continued the search alone.

  • He made the tour of the church twenty times, length and breadth, up and down,

  • ascending and descending, running, calling, shouting, peeping, rummaging, ransacking,

  • thrusting his head into every hole, pushing a torch under every vault, despairing, mad.

  • A male who has lost his female is no more roaring nor more haggard.

  • At last when he was sure, perfectly sure that she was no longer there, that all was

  • at an end, that she had been snatched from him, he slowly mounted the staircase to the

  • towers, that staircase which he had

  • ascended with so much eagerness and triumph on the day when he had saved her.

  • He passed those same places once more with drooping head, voiceless, tearless, almost

  • breathless.

  • The church was again deserted, and had fallen back into its silence.

  • The archers had quitted it to track the sorceress in the city.

  • Quasimodo, left alone in that vast Notre- Dame, so besieged and tumultuous but a

  • short time before, once more betook himself to the cell where the gypsy had slept for

  • so many weeks under his guardianship.

  • As he approached it, he fancied that he might, perhaps, find her there.

  • When, at the turn of the gallery which opens on the roof of the side aisles, he

  • perceived the tiny cell with its little window and its little door crouching

  • beneath a great flying buttress like a

  • bird's nest under a branch, the poor man's heart failed him, and he leaned against a

  • pillar to keep from falling.

  • He imagined that she might have returned thither, that some good genius had, no

  • doubt, brought her back, that this chamber was too tranquil, too safe, too charming

  • for her not to be there, and he dared not

  • take another step for fear of destroying his illusion.

  • "Yes," he said to himself, "perchance she is sleeping, or praying.

  • I must not disturb her."

  • At length he summoned up courage, advanced on tiptoe, looked, entered.

  • Empty. The cell was still empty.

  • The unhappy deaf man walked slowly round it, lifted the bed and looked beneath it,

  • as though she might be concealed between the pavement and the mattress, then he

  • shook his head and remained stupefied.

  • All at once, he crushed his torch under his foot, and, without uttering a word, without

  • giving vent to a sigh, he flung himself at full speed, head foremost against the wall,

  • and fell fainting on the floor.

  • When he recovered his senses, he threw himself on the bed and rolling about, he

  • kissed frantically the place where the young girl had slept and which was still

  • warm; he remained there for several moments

  • as motionless as though he were about to expire; then he rose, dripping with

  • perspiration, panting, mad, and began to beat his head against the wall with the

  • frightful regularity of the clapper of his

  • bells, and the resolution of a man determined to kill himself.

  • At length he fell a second time, exhausted; he dragged himself on his knees outside the

  • cell, and crouched down facing the door, in an attitude of astonishment.

  • He remained thus for more than an hour without making a movement, with his eye

  • fixed on the deserted cell, more gloomy, and more pensive than a mother seated

  • between an empty cradle and a full coffin.

  • He uttered not a word; only at long intervals, a sob heaved his body violently,

  • but it was a tearless sob, like summer lightning which makes no noise.

  • It appears to have been then, that, seeking at the bottom of his lonely thoughts for

  • the unexpected abductor of the gypsy, he thought of the archdeacon.

  • He remembered that Dom Claude alone possessed a key to the staircase leading to

  • the cell; he recalled his nocturnal attempts on the young girl, in the first of

  • which he, Quasimodo, had assisted, the second of which he had prevented.

  • He recalled a thousand details, and soon he no longer doubted that the archdeacon had

  • taken the gypsy.

  • Nevertheless, such was his respect for the priest, such his gratitude, his devotion,

  • his love for this man had taken such deep root in his heart, that they resisted, even

  • at this moment, the talons of jealousy and despair.

  • He reflected that the archdeacon had done this thing, and the wrath of blood and

  • death which it would have evoked in him against any other person, turned in the

  • poor deaf man, from the moment when Claude

  • Frollo was in question, into an increase of grief and sorrow.

  • At the moment when his thought was thus fixed upon the priest, while the daybreak

  • was whitening the flying buttresses, he perceived on the highest story of Notre-

  • Dame, at the angle formed by the external

  • balustrade as it makes the turn of the chancel, a figure walking.

  • This figure was coming towards him. He recognized it.

  • It was the archdeacon.

  • Claude was walking with a slow, grave step.

  • He did not look before him as he walked, he was directing his course towards the

  • northern tower, but his face was turned aside towards the right bank of the Seine,

  • and he held his head high, as though trying to see something over the roofs.

  • The owl often assumes this oblique attitude.

  • It flies towards one point and looks towards another.

  • In this manner the priest passed above Quasimodo without seeing him.

  • The deaf man, who had been petrified by this sudden apparition, beheld him

  • disappear through the door of the staircase to the north tower.

  • The reader is aware that this is the tower from which the Hotel-de-Ville is visible.

  • Quasimodo rose and followed the archdeacon.

  • Quasimodo ascended the tower staircase for the sake of ascending it, for the sake of

  • seeing why the priest was ascending it.

  • Moreover, the poor bellringer did not know what he (Quasimodo) should do, what he

  • should say, what he wished. He was full of fury and full of fear.

  • The archdeacon and the gypsy had come into conflict in his heart.

  • When he reached the summit of the tower, before emerging from the shadow of the

  • staircase and stepping upon the platform, he cautiously examined the position of the

  • priest.

  • The priest's back was turned to him. There is an openwork balustrade which

  • surrounds the platform of the bell tower.

  • The priest, whose eyes looked down upon the town, was resting his breast on that one of

  • the four sides of the balustrades which looks upon the Pont Notre-Dame.

  • Quasimodo, advancing with the tread of a wolf behind him, went to see what he was

  • gazing at thus.

  • The priest's attention was so absorbed elsewhere that he did not hear the deaf man

  • walking behind him.

  • Paris is a magnificent and charming spectacle, and especially at that day,

  • viewed from the top of the towers of Notre- Dame, in the fresh light of a summer dawn.

  • The day might have been in July.

  • The sky was perfectly serene. Some tardy stars were fading away at

  • various points, and there was a very brilliant one in the east, in the brightest

  • part of the heavens.

  • The sun was about to appear; Paris was beginning to move.

  • A very white and very pure light brought out vividly to the eye all the outlines

  • that its thousands of houses present to the east.

  • The giant shadow of the towers leaped from roof to roof, from one end of the great

  • city to the other. There were several quarters from which were

  • already heard voices and noisy sounds.

  • Here the stroke of a bell, there the stroke of a hammer, beyond, the complicated

  • clatter of a cart in motion.

  • Already several columns of smoke were being belched forth from the chimneys scattered

  • over the whole surface of roofs, as through the fissures of an immense sulphurous

  • crater.

  • The river, which ruffles its waters against the arches of so many bridges, against the

  • points of so many islands, was wavering with silvery folds.

  • Around the city, outside the ramparts, sight was lost in a great circle of fleecy

  • vapors through which one confusedly distinguished the indefinite line of the

  • plains, and the graceful swell of the heights.

  • All sorts of floating sounds were dispersed over this half-awakened city.

  • Towards the east, the morning breeze chased a few soft white bits of wool torn from the

  • misty fleece of the hills.

  • In the Parvis, some good women, who had their milk jugs in their hands, were

  • pointing out to each other, with astonishment, the singular dilapidation of

  • the great door of Notre-Dame, and the two

  • solidified streams of lead in the crevices of the stone.

  • This was all that remained of the tempest of the night.

  • The bonfire lighted between the towers by Quasimodo had died out.

  • Tristan had already cleared up the Place, and had the dead thrown into the Seine.

  • Kings like Louis XI. are careful to clean the pavement quickly after a massacre.

  • Outside the balustrade of the tower, directly under the point where the priest

  • had paused, there was one of those fantastically carved stone gutters with

  • which Gothic edifices bristle, and, in a

  • crevice of that gutter, two pretty wallflowers in blossom, shaken out and

  • vivified, as it were, by the breath of air, made frolicsome salutations to each other.

  • Above the towers, on high, far away in the depths of the sky, the cries of little

  • birds were heard. But the priest was not listening to, was

  • not looking at, anything of all this.

  • He was one of the men for whom there are no mornings, no birds, no flowers.

  • In that immense horizon, which assumed so many aspects about him, his contemplation

  • was concentrated on a single point.

  • Quasimodo was burning to ask him what he had done with the gypsy; but the archdeacon

  • seemed to be out of the world at that moment.

  • He was evidently in one of those violent moments of life when one would not feel the

  • earth crumble.

  • He remained motionless and silent, with his eyes steadily fixed on a certain point; and

  • there was something so terrible about this silence and immobility that the savage

  • bellringer shuddered before it and dared not come in contact with it.

  • Only, and this was also one way of interrogating the archdeacon, he followed

  • the direction of his vision, and in this way the glance of the unhappy deaf man fell

  • upon the Place de Greve.

  • Thus he saw what the priest was looking at. The ladder was erected near the permanent

  • gallows. There were some people and many soldiers in

  • the Place.

  • A man was dragging a white thing, from which hung something black, along the

  • pavement. This man halted at the foot of the gallows.

  • Here something took place which Quasimodo could not see very clearly.

  • It was not because his only eye had not preserved its long range, but there was a

  • group of soldiers which prevented his seeing everything.

  • Moreover, at that moment the sun appeared, and such a flood of light overflowed the

  • horizon that one would have said that all the points in Paris, spires, chimneys,

  • gables, had simultaneously taken fire.

  • Meanwhile, the man began to mount the ladder.

  • Then Quasimodo saw him again distinctly.

  • He was carrying a woman on his shoulder, a young girl dressed in white; that young

  • girl had a noose about her neck. Quasimodo recognized her.

  • It was she.

  • The man reached the top of the ladder. There he arranged the noose.

  • Here the priest, in order to see the better, knelt upon the balustrade.

  • All at once the man kicked away the ladder abruptly, and Quasimodo, who had not

  • breathed for several moments, beheld the unhappy child dangling at the end of the

  • rope two fathoms above the pavement, with the man squatting on her shoulders.

  • The rope made several gyrations on itself, and Quasimodo beheld horrible convulsions

  • run along the gypsy's body.

  • The priest, on his side, with outstretched neck and eyes starting from his head,

  • contemplated this horrible group of the man and the young girl,--the spider and the

  • fly.

  • At the moment when it was most horrible, the laugh of a demon, a laugh which one can

  • only give vent to when one is no longer human, burst forth on the priest's livid

  • face.

  • Quasimodo did not hear that laugh, but he saw it.

  • The bellringer retreated several paces behind the archdeacon, and suddenly hurling

  • himself upon him with fury, with his huge hands he pushed him by the back over into

  • the abyss over which Dom Claude was leaning.

  • The priest shrieked: "Damnation!" and fell. The spout, above which he had stood,

  • arrested him in his fall.

  • He clung to it with desperate hands, and, at the moment when he opened his mouth to

  • utter a second cry, he beheld the formidable and avenging face of Quasimodo

  • thrust over the edge of the balustrade above his head.

  • Then he was silent. The abyss was there below him.

  • A fall of more than two hundred feet and the pavement.

  • In this terrible situation, the archdeacon said not a word, uttered not a groan.

  • He merely writhed upon the spout, with incredible efforts to climb up again; but

  • his hands had no hold on the granite, his feet slid along the blackened wall without

  • catching fast.

  • People who have ascended the towers of Notre-Dame know that there is a swell of

  • the stone immediately beneath the balustrade.

  • It was on this retreating angle that miserable archdeacon exhausted himself.

  • He had not to deal with a perpendicular wall, but with one which sloped away

  • beneath him.

  • Quasimodo had but to stretch out his hand in order to draw him from the gulf; but he

  • did not even look at him. He was looking at the Greve.

  • He was looking at the gallows.

  • He was looking at the gypsy.

  • The deaf man was leaning, with his elbows on the balustrade, at the spot where the

  • archdeacon had been a moment before, and there, never detaching his gaze from the

  • only object which existed for him in the

  • world at that moment, he remained motionless and mute, like a man struck by

  • lightning, and a long stream of tears flowed in silence from that eye which, up

  • to that time, had never shed but one tear.

  • Meanwhile, the archdeacon was panting. His bald brow was dripping with

  • perspiration, his nails were bleeding against the stones, his knees were flayed

  • by the wall.

  • He heard his cassock, which was caught on the spout, crack and rip at every jerk that

  • he gave it.

  • To complete his misfortune, this spout ended in a leaden pipe which bent under the

  • weight of his body. The archdeacon felt this pipe slowly giving

  • way.

  • The miserable man said to himself that, when his hands should be worn out with

  • fatigue, when his cassock should tear asunder, when the lead should give way, he

  • would be obliged to fall, and terror seized upon his very vitals.

  • Now and then he glanced wildly at a sort of narrow shelf formed, ten feet lower down,

  • by projections of the sculpture, and he prayed heaven, from the depths of his

  • distressed soul, that he might be allowed

  • to finish his life, were it to last two centuries, on that space two feet square.

  • Once, he glanced below him into the Place, into the abyss; the head which he raised

  • again had its eyes closed and its hair standing erect.

  • There was something frightful in the silence of these two men.

  • While the archdeacon agonized in this terrible fashion a few feet below him,

  • Quasimodo wept and gazed at the Greve.

  • The archdeacon, seeing that all his exertions served only to weaken the fragile

  • support which remained to him, decided to remain quiet.

  • There he hung, embracing the gutter, hardly breathing, no longer stirring, making no

  • longer any other movements than that mechanical convulsion of the stomach, which

  • one experiences in dreams when one fancies himself falling.

  • His fixed eyes were wide open with a stare.

  • He lost ground little by little, nevertheless, his fingers slipped along the

  • spout; he became more and more conscious of the feebleness of his arms and the weight

  • of his body.

  • The curve of the lead which sustained him inclined more and more each instant towards

  • the abyss.

  • He beheld below him, a frightful thing, the roof of Saint-Jean le Rond, as small as a

  • card folded in two.

  • He gazed at the impressive carvings, one by one, of the tower, suspended like himself

  • over the precipice, but without terror for themselves or pity for him.

  • All was stone around him; before his eyes, gaping monsters; below, quite at the

  • bottom, in the Place, the pavement; above his head, Quasimodo weeping.

  • In the Parvis there were several groups of curious good people, who were tranquilly

  • seeking to divine who the madman could be who was amusing himself in so strange a

  • manner.

  • The priest heard them saying, for their voices reached him, clear and shrill: "Why,

  • he will break his neck!" Quasimodo wept.

  • At last the archdeacon, foaming with rage and despair, understood that all was in

  • vain. Nevertheless, he collected all the strength

  • which remained to him for a final effort.

  • He stiffened himself upon the spout, pushed against the wall with both his knees, clung

  • to a crevice in the stones with his hands, and succeeded in climbing back with one

  • foot, perhaps; but this effort made the

  • leaden beak on which he rested bend abruptly.

  • His cassock burst open at the same time.

  • Then, feeling everything give way beneath him, with nothing but his stiffened and

  • failing hands to support him, the unfortunate man closed his eyes and let go

  • of the spout.

  • He fell. Quasimodo watched him fall.

  • A fall from such a height is seldom perpendicular.

  • The archdeacon, launched into space, fell at first head foremost, with outspread

  • hands; then he whirled over and over many times; the wind blew him upon the roof of a

  • house, where the unfortunate man began to break up.

  • Nevertheless, he was not dead when he reached there.

  • The bellringer saw him still endeavor to cling to a gable with his nails; but the

  • surface sloped too much, and he had no more strength.

  • He slid rapidly along the roof like a loosened tile, and dashed upon the

  • pavement. There he no longer moved.

  • Then Quasimodo raised his eyes to the gypsy, whose body he beheld hanging from

  • the gibbet, quivering far away beneath her white robe with the last shudderings of

  • anguish, then he dropped them on the

  • archdeacon, stretched out at the base of the tower, and no longer retaining the

  • human form, and he said, with a sob which heaved his deep chest,--"Oh! all that I

  • have ever loved!"

  • -BOOK ELEVENTH. CHAPTER III.

  • THE MARRIAGE OF PHOEBUS.

  • Towards evening on that day, when the judiciary officers of the bishop came to

  • pick up from the pavement of the Parvis the dislocated corpse of the archdeacon,

  • Quasimodo had disappeared.

  • A great many rumors were in circulation with regard to this adventure.

  • No one doubted but that the day had come when, in accordance with their compact,

  • Quasimodo, that is to say, the devil, was to carry off Claude Frollo, that is to say,

  • the sorcerer.

  • It was presumed that he had broken the body when taking the soul, like monkeys who

  • break the shell to get at the nut. This is why the archdeacon was not interred

  • in consecrated earth.

  • Louis XI. died a year later, in the month of August, 1483.

  • As for Pierre Gringoire, he succeeded in saving the goat, and he won success in

  • tragedy.

  • It appears that, after having tasted astrology, philosophy, architecture,

  • hermetics,--all vanities, he returned to tragedy, vainest pursuit of all.

  • This is what he called "coming to a tragic end."

  • This is what is to be read, on the subject of his dramatic triumphs, in 1483, in the

  • accounts of the "Ordinary:" "To Jehan Marchand and Pierre Gringoire, carpenter

  • and composer, who have made and composed

  • the mystery made at the Chatelet of Paris, at the entry of Monsieur the Legate, and

  • have ordered the personages, clothed and dressed the same, as in the said mystery

  • was required; and likewise, for having made

  • the scaffoldings thereto necessary; and for this deed,--one hundred livres."

  • Phoebus de Chateaupers also came to a tragic end.

  • He married.

  • -BOOK ELEVENTH. CHAPTER IV.

  • THE MARRIAGE OF QUASIMODO.

  • We have just said that Quasimodo disappeared from Notre-Dame on the day of

  • the gypsy's and of the archdeacon's death. He was not seen again, in fact; no one knew

  • what had become of him.

  • During the night which followed the execution of la Esmeralda, the night men

  • had detached her body from the gibbet, and had carried it, according to custom, to the

  • cellar of Montfaucon.

  • Montfaucon was, as Sauval says, "the most ancient and the most superb gibbet in the

  • kingdom."

  • Between the faubourgs of the Temple and Saint Martin, about a hundred and sixty

  • toises from the walls of Paris, a few bow shots from La Courtille, there was to be

  • seen on the crest of a gentle, almost

  • imperceptible eminence, but sufficiently elevated to be seen for several leagues

  • round about, an edifice of strange form, bearing considerable resemblance to a

  • Celtic cromlech, and where also human sacrifices were offered.

  • Let the reader picture to himself, crowning a limestone hillock, an oblong mass of

  • masonry fifteen feet in height, thirty wide, forty long, with a gate, an external

  • railing and a platform; on this platform

  • sixteen enormous pillars of rough hewn stone, thirty feet in height, arranged in a

  • colonnade round three of the four sides of the mass which support them, bound together

  • at their summits by heavy beams, whence

  • hung chains at intervals; on all these chains, skeletons; in the vicinity, on the

  • plain, a stone cross and two gibbets of secondary importance, which seemed to have

  • sprung up as shoots around the central

  • gallows; above all this, in the sky, a perpetual flock of crows; that was

  • Montfaucon.

  • At the end of the fifteenth century, the formidable gibbet which dated from 1328,

  • was already very much dilapidated; the beams were wormeaten, the chains rusted,

  • the pillars green with mould; the layers of

  • hewn stone were all cracked at their joints, and grass was growing on that

  • platform which no feet touched.

  • The monument made a horrible profile against the sky; especially at night when

  • there was a little moonlight on those white skulls, or when the breeze of evening

  • brushed the chains and the skeletons, and swayed all these in the darkness.

  • The presence of this gibbet sufficed to render gloomy all the surrounding places.

  • The mass of masonry which served as foundation to the odious edifice was

  • hollow.

  • A huge cellar had been constructed there, closed by an old iron grating, which was

  • out of order, into which were cast not only the human remains, which were taken from

  • the chains of Montfaucon, but also the

  • bodies of all the unfortunates executed on the other permanent gibbets of Paris.

  • To that deep charnel-house, where so many human remains and so many crimes have

  • rotted in company, many great ones of this world, many innocent people, have

  • contributed their bones, from Enguerrand de

  • Marigni, the first victim, and a just man, to Admiral de Coligni, who was its last,

  • and who was also a just man.

  • As for the mysterious disappearance of Quasimodo, this is all that we have been

  • able to discover.

  • About eighteen months or two years after the events which terminate this story, when

  • search was made in that cavern for the body of Olivier le Daim, who had been hanged two

  • days previously, and to whom Charles VIII.

  • had granted the favor of being buried in Saint Laurent, in better company, they

  • found among all those hideous carcasses two skeletons, one of which held the other in

  • its embrace.

  • One of these skeletons, which was that of a woman, still had a few strips of a garment

  • which had once been white, and around her neck was to be seen a string of adrezarach

  • beads with a little silk bag ornamented

  • with green glass, which was open and empty. These objects were of so little value that

  • the executioner had probably not cared for them.

  • The other, which held this one in a close embrace, was the skeleton of a man.

  • It was noticed that his spinal column was crooked, his head seated on his shoulder

  • blades, and that one leg was shorter than the other.

  • Moreover, there was no fracture of the vertebrae at the nape of the neck, and it

  • was evident that he had not been hanged. Hence, the man to whom it had belonged had

  • come thither and had died there.

  • When they tried to detach the skeleton which he held in his embrace, he fell to

  • dust.

BOOK ELEVENTH. CHAPTER I - PART 1.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it