book second.chapter i. from charybdis to scylla. night comes on early in january.the streets were already dark when gringoire issued forth from the courts. this gloom pleased him; he was in haste toreach some obscure and deserted alley, in order there to meditate at his ease, and inorder that the philosopher might place the first dressing upon the wound of the poet. philosophy, moreover, was his sole refuge,for he did not know where he was to lodge for the night.
after the brilliant failure of his firsttheatrical venture, he dared not return to the lodging which he occupied in the ruegrenier-sur-l'eau, opposite to the port-au- foin, having depended upon receiving from monsieur the provost for his epithalamium,the wherewithal to pay master guillaume doulx-sire, farmer of the taxes on cloven-footed animals in paris, the rent which he owed him, that is to say, twelve sols parisian; twelve times the value of allthat he possessed in the world, including his trunk-hose, his shirt, and his cap. after reflecting a moment, temporarilysheltered beneath the little wicket of the
prison of the treasurer of the sainte-chappelle, as to the shelter which he would select for the night, having all the pavements of paris to choose from, heremembered to have noticed the week previously in the rue de la savaterie, atthe door of a councillor of the parliament, a stepping stone for mounting a mule, and to have said to himself that that stonewould furnish, on occasion, a very excellent pillow for a mendicant or a poet. he thanked providence for having sent thishappy idea to him; but, as he was preparing to cross the place, in order to reach thetortuous labyrinth of the city, where
meander all those old sister streets, the rues de la barillerie, de la vielle-draperie, de la savaterie, de la juiverie, etc., still extant to-day, with their nine-story houses, he saw the procession of the pope of the fools, which was also emerging from the court house, and rushing acrossthe courtyard, with great cries, a great flashing of torches, and the music whichbelonged to him, gringoire. this sight revived the pain of his self-love; he fled. in the bitterness of his dramaticmisadventure, everything which reminded him of the festival of that day irritated hiswound and made it bleed.
he was on the point of turning to the pontsaint-michel; children were running about here and there with fire lances androckets. "pest on firework candles!" said gringoire;and he fell back on the pont au change. to the house at the head of the bridgethere had been affixed three small banners, representing the king, the dauphin, andmarguerite of flanders, and six little pennons on which were portrayed the duke of austria, the cardinal de bourbon, m. debeaujeu, and madame jeanne de france, and monsieur the bastard of bourbon, and i knownot whom else; all being illuminated with torches.
the rabble were admiring."happy painter, jehan fourbault!" said gringoire with a deep sigh; and he turnedhis back upon the bannerets and pennons. a street opened before him; he thought itso dark and deserted that he hoped to there escape from all the rumors as well as fromall the gleams of the festival. at the end of a few moments his foot camein contact with an obstacle; he stumbled and fell. it was the may truss, which the clerks ofthe clerks' law court had deposited that morning at the door of a president of theparliament, in honor of the solemnity of the day.
gringoire bore this new disasterheroically; he picked himself up, and reached the water's edge. after leaving behind him the civictournelle and the criminal tower, and skirted the great walls of the king'sgarden, on that unpaved strand where the mud reached to his ankles, he reached the western point of the city, and consideredfor some time the islet of the passeur-aux- vaches, which has disappeared beneath thebronze horse of the pont neuf. the islet appeared to him in the shadowlike a black mass, beyond the narrow strip of whitish water which separated him fromit.
one could divine by the ray of a tiny lightthe sort of hut in the form of a beehive where the ferryman of cows took refuge atnight. "happy ferryman!" thought gringoire; "youdo not dream of glory, and you do not make marriage songs!what matters it to you, if kings and duchesses of burgundy marry? you know no other daisies (marguerites)than those which your april greensward gives your cows to browse upon; while i, apoet, am hooted, and shiver, and owe twelve sous, and the soles of my shoes are so transparent, that they might serve asglasses for your lantern!
thanks, ferryman, your cabin rests my eyes,and makes me forget paris!" he was roused from his almost lyricecstacy, by a big double saint-jean cracker, which suddenly went off from thehappy cabin. it was the cow ferryman, who was taking hispart in the rejoicings of the day, and letting off fireworks.this cracker made gringoire's skin bristle up all over. "accursed festival!" he exclaimed, "wiltthou pursue me everywhere? oh! good god! even to the ferryman's!" then he looked at the seine at his feet,and a horrible temptation took possession
of him:"oh!" said he, "i would gladly drown myself, were the water not so cold!" then a desperate resolution occurred tohim. it was, since he could not escape from thepope of the fools, from jehan fourbault's bannerets, from may trusses, from squibsand crackers, to go to the place de greve. "at least," he said to himself, "i shallthere have a firebrand of joy wherewith to warm myself, and i can sup on some crumbsof the three great armorial bearings of royal sugar which have been erected on thepublic refreshment-stall of the city." -book second.chapter ii.
the place de greve. there remains to-day but a veryimperceptible vestige of the place de greve, such as it existed then; it consistsin the charming little turret, which occupies the angle north of the place, and which, already enshrouded in the ignobleplaster which fills with paste the delicate lines of its sculpture, would soon havedisappeared, perhaps submerged by that flood of new houses which so rapidlydevours all the ancient facades of paris. the persons who, like ourselves, nevercross the place de greve without casting a glance of pity and sympathy on that poorturret strangled between two hovels of the
time of louis xv., can easily reconstruct in their minds the aggregate of edifices towhich it belonged, and find again entire in it the ancient gothic place of thefifteenth century. it was then, as it is to-day, an irregulartrapezoid, bordered on one side by the quay, and on the other three by a series oflofty, narrow, and gloomy houses. by day, one could admire the variety of itsedifices, all sculptured in stone or wood, and already presenting complete specimensof the different domestic architectures of the middle ages, running back from the fifteenth to the eleventh century, from thecasement which had begun to dethrone the
arch, to the roman semicircle, which hadbeen supplanted by the ogive, and which still occupies, below it, the first story of that ancient house de la tour roland, atthe corner of the place upon the seine, on the side of the street with the tannerie. at night, one could distinguish nothing ofall that mass of buildings, except the black indentation of the roofs, unrollingtheir chain of acute angles round the place; for one of the radical differences between the cities of that time, and thecities of the present day, lay in the facades which looked upon the places andstreets, and which were then gables.
for the last two centuries the houses havebeen turned round. in the centre of the eastern side of theplace, rose a heavy and hybrid construction, formed of three buildingsplaced in juxtaposition. it was called by three names which explainits history, its destination, and its architecture: "the house of the dauphin,"because charles v., when dauphin, had inhabited it; "the marchandise," because it had served as town hall; and "the pillaredhouse" (domus ad piloria), because of a series of large pillars which sustained thethree stories. the city found there all that is requiredfor a city like paris; a chapel in which to
pray to god; a plaidoyer, or pleading room,in which to hold hearings, and to repel, at need, the king's people; and under theroof, an arsenac full of artillery. for the bourgeois of paris were aware thatit is not sufficient to pray in every conjuncture, and to plead for thefranchises of the city, and they had always in reserve, in the garret of the town hall,a few good rusty arquebuses. the greve had then that sinister aspectwhich it preserves to-day from the execrable ideas which it awakens, and fromthe sombre town hall of dominique bocador, which has replaced the pillared house. it must be admitted that a permanent gibbetand a pillory, "a justice and a ladder," as
they were called in that day, erected sideby side in the centre of the pavement, contributed not a little to cause eyes to be turned away from that fatal place, whereso many beings full of life and health have agonized; where, fifty years later, thatfever of saint vallier was destined to have its birth, that terror of the scaffold, the most monstrous of all maladies because itcomes not from god, but from man. it is a consoling idea (let us remark inpassing), to think that the death penalty, which three hundred years ago stillencumbered with its iron wheels, its stone gibbets, and all its paraphernalia of
torture, permanent and riveted to thepavement, the greve, the halles, the place dauphine, the cross du trahoir, the marcheaux pourceaux, that hideous montfaucon, the barrier des sergents, the place aux chats, the porte saint-denis, champeaux, the portebaudets, the porte saint jacques, without reckoning the innumerable ladders of theprovosts, the bishop of the chapters, of the abbots, of the priors, who had the decree of life and death,--withoutreckoning the judicial drownings in the river seine; it is consoling to-day, afterhaving lost successively all the pieces of its armor, its luxury of torment, its
penalty of imagination and fancy, itstorture for which it reconstructed every five years a leather bed at the grandchatelet, that ancient suzerain of feudal society almost expunged from our laws and our cities, hunted from code to code,chased from place to place, has no longer, in our immense paris, any more than adishonored corner of the greve,--than a miserable guillotine, furtive, uneasy, shameful, which seems always afraid ofbeing caught in the act, so quickly does it disappear after having dealt its blow. -book second.chapter iii.
kisses for blows. when pierre gringoire arrived on the placede greve, he was paralyzed. he had directed his course across the pontaux meuniers, in order to avoid the rabble on the pont au change, and the pennons ofjehan fourbault; but the wheels of all the bishop's mills had splashed him as he passed, and his doublet was drenched; itseemed to him besides, that the failure of his piece had rendered him still moresensible to cold than usual. hence he made haste to draw near thebonfire, which was burning magnificently in the middle of the place.but a considerable crowd formed a circle
around it. "accursed parisians!" he said to himself(for gringoire, like a true dramatic poet, was subject to monologues) "there they areobstructing my fire! nevertheless, i am greatly in need of achimney corner; my shoes drink in the water, and all those cursed mills wept uponme! that devil of a bishop of paris, with hismills! i'd just like to know what use a bishop canmake of a mill! does he expect to become a miller insteadof a bishop? if only my malediction is needed for that,i bestow it upon him! and his cathedral,
and his mills! just see if those boobies will putthemselves out! move aside!i'd like to know what they are doing there! they are warming themselves, much pleasuremay it give them! they are watching a hundred fagots burn; afine spectacle!" on looking more closely, he perceived thatthe circle was much larger than was required simply for the purpose of gettingwarm at the king's fire, and that this concourse of people had not been attracted solely by the beauty of the hundred fagotswhich were burning.
in a vast space left free between the crowdand the fire, a young girl was dancing. whether this young girl was a human being,a fairy, or an angel, is what gringoire, sceptical philosopher and ironical poetthat he was, could not decide at the first moment, so fascinated was he by thisdazzling vision. she was not tall, though she seemed so, soboldly did her slender form dart about. she was swarthy of complexion, but onedivined that, by day, her skin must possess that beautiful golden tone of theandalusians and the roman women. her little foot, too, was andalusian, forit was both pinched and at ease in its graceful shoe.
she danced, she turned, she whirled rapidlyabout on an old persian rug, spread negligently under her feet; and each timethat her radiant face passed before you, as she whirled, her great black eyes darted aflash of lightning at you. all around her, all glances were riveted,all mouths open; and, in fact, when she danced thus, to the humming of the basquetambourine, which her two pure, rounded arms raised above her head, slender, frail and vivacious as a wasp, with her corsageof gold without a fold, her variegated gown puffing out, her bare shoulders, herdelicate limbs, which her petticoat revealed at times, her black hair, her eyesof flame, she was a supernatural creature.
"in truth," said gringoire to himself, "sheis a salamander, she is a nymph, she is a goddess, she is a bacchante of the meneleanmount!" at that moment, one of the salamander'sbraids of hair became unfastened, and a piece of yellow copper which was attachedto it, rolled to the ground. "he, no!" said he, "she is a gypsy!" all illusions had disappeared. she began her dance once more; she tookfrom the ground two swords, whose points she rested against her brow, and which shemade to turn in one direction, while she turned in the other; it was a purely gypsyeffect.
but, disenchanted though gringoire was, thewhole effect of this picture was not without its charm and its magic; thebonfire illuminated, with a red flaring light, which trembled, all alive, over the circle of faces in the crowd, on the browof the young girl, and at the background of the place cast a pallid reflection, on oneside upon the ancient, black, and wrinkled facade of the house of pillars, on theother, upon the old stone gibbet. among the thousands of visages which thatlight tinged with scarlet, there was one which seemed, even more than all theothers, absorbed in contemplation of the dancer.
it was the face of a man, austere, calm,and sombre. this man, whose costume was concealed bythe crowd which surrounded him, did not appear to be more than five and thirtyyears of age; nevertheless, he was bald; he had merely a few tufts of thin, gray hair on his temples; his broad, high foreheadhad begun to be furrowed with wrinkles, but his deep-set eyes sparkled withextraordinary youthfulness, an ardent life, a profound passion. he kept them fixed incessantly on thegypsy, and, while the giddy young girl of sixteen danced and whirled, for thepleasure of all, his revery seemed to
become more and more sombre. from time to time, a smile and a sigh metupon his lips, but the smile was more melancholy than the sigh. the young girl, stopped at length,breathless, and the people applauded her lovingly."djali!" said the gypsy. then gringoire saw come up to her, a prettylittle white goat, alert, wide-awake, glossy, with gilded horns, gilded hoofs,and gilded collar, which he had not hitherto perceived, and which had remained lying curled up on one corner of the carpetwatching his mistress dance.
"djali!" said the dancer, "it is yourturn." and, seating herself, she gracefullypresented her tambourine to the goat. "djali," she continued, "what month isthis?" the goat lifted its fore foot, and struckone blow upon the tambourine. it was the first month in the year, infact. "djali," pursued the young girl, turningher tambourine round, "what day of the month is this?"djali raised his little gilt hoof, and struck six blows on the tambourine. "djali," pursued the egyptian, with stillanother movement of the tambourine, "what
hour of the day is it?"djali struck seven blows. at that moment, the clock of the pillarhouse rang out seven. the people were amazed."there's sorcery at the bottom of it," said a sinister voice in the crowd. it was that of the bald man, who neverremoved his eyes from the gypsy. she shuddered and turned round; butapplause broke forth and drowned the morose exclamation. it even effaced it so completely from hermind, that she continued to question her goat.
"djali, what does master guichard grand-remy, captain of the pistoliers of the town do, at the procession of candlemas?" djali reared himself on his hind legs, andbegan to bleat, marching along with so much dainty gravity, that the entire circle ofspectators burst into a laugh at this parody of the interested devoutness of thecaptain of pistoliers. "djali," resumed the young girl, emboldenedby her growing success, "how preaches master jacques charmolue, procurator to theking in the ecclesiastical court?" the goat seated himself on his hindquarters, and began to bleat, waving his fore feet in so strange a manner, that,with the exception of the bad french, and
worse latin, jacques charmolue was therecomplete,--gesture, accent, and attitude. and the crowd applauded louder than ever."sacrilege! profanation!" resumed the voice of the bald man. the gypsy turned round once more."ah!" said she, "'tis that villanous man!" then, thrusting her under lip out beyondthe upper, she made a little pout, which appeared to be familiar to her, executed apirouette on her heel, and set about collecting in her tambourine the gifts ofthe multitude. big blanks, little blanks, targes and eagleliards showered into it. all at once, she passed in front ofgringoire.
gringoire put his hand so recklessly intohis pocket that she halted. "the devil!" said the poet, finding at thebottom of his pocket the reality, that is, to say, a void. in the meantime, the pretty girl stoodthere, gazing at him with her big eyes, and holding out her tambourine to him andwaiting. gringoire broke into a violentperspiration. if he had all peru in his pocket, he wouldcertainly have given it to the dancer; but gringoire had not peru, and, moreover,america had not yet been discovered. happily, an unexpected incident came to hisrescue.
"will you take yourself off, you egyptiangrasshopper?" cried a sharp voice, which proceeded from the darkest corner of theplace. the young girl turned round in affright. it was no longer the voice of the bald man;it was the voice of a woman, bigoted and malicious. however, this cry, which alarmed the gypsy,delighted a troop of children who were prowling about there. "it is the recluse of the tour-roland,"they exclaimed, with wild laughter, "it is the sacked nun who is scolding!hasn't she supped?
let's carry her the remains of the cityrefreshments!" all rushed towards the pillar house. in the meanwhile, gringoire had takenadvantage of the dancer's embarrassment, to disappear. the children's shouts had reminded him thathe, also, had not supped, so he ran to the public buffet. but the little rascals had better legs thanhe; when he arrived, they had stripped the table.there remained not so much as a miserable camichon at five sous the pound.
nothing remained upon the wall but slenderfleurs-de-lis, mingled with rose bushes, painted in 1434 by mathieu biterne.it was a meagre supper. it is an unpleasant thing to go to bedwithout supper, it is a still less pleasant thing not to sup and not to know where oneis to sleep. that was gringoire's condition. no supper, no shelter; he saw himselfpressed on all sides by necessity, and he found necessity very crabbed. he had long ago discovered the truth, thatjupiter created men during a fit of misanthropy, and that during a wise man'swhole life, his destiny holds his
philosophy in a state of siege. as for himself, he had never seen theblockade so complete; he heard his stomach sounding a parley, and he considered itvery much out of place that evil destiny should capture his philosophy by famine. this melancholy revery was absorbing himmore and more, when a song, quaint but full of sweetness, suddenly tore him from it.it was the young gypsy who was singing. her voice was like her dancing, like herbeauty. it was indefinable and charming; somethingpure and sonorous, aerial, winged, so to speak.
there were continual outbursts, melodies,unexpected cadences, then simple phrases strewn with aerial and hissing notes; thenfloods of scales which would have put a nightingale to rout, but in which harmony was always present; then soft modulationsof octaves which rose and fell, like the bosom of the young singer. her beautiful face followed, with singularmobility, all the caprices of her song, from the wildest inspiration to thechastest dignity. one would have pronounced her now a madcreature, now a queen. the words which she sang were in a tongueunknown to gringoire, and which seemed to
him to be unknown to herself, so littlerelation did the expression which she imparted to her song bear to the sense ofthe words. thus, these four lines, in her mouth, weremadly gay,-- un cofre de gran riquezahallaron dentro un pilar, dentro del, nuevas banderascon figuras de espantar.* * a coffer of great richnessin a pillar's heart they found, within it lay new banners,with figures to astound. and an instant afterwards, at the accentswhich she imparted to this stanza,-- alarabes de cavallosin poderse menear,
con espadas, y los cuellos,ballestas de buen echar, gringoire felt the tears start to his eyes.nevertheless, her song breathed joy, most of all, and she seemed to sing like a bird,from serenity and heedlessness. the gypsy's song had disturbed gringoire'srevery as the swan disturbs the water. he listened in a sort of rapture, andforgetfulness of everything. it was the first moment in the course ofmany hours when he did not feel that he suffered.the moment was brief. the same woman's voice, which hadinterrupted the gypsy's dance, interrupted her song.
"will you hold your tongue, you cricket ofhell?" it cried, still from the same obscure corner of the place.the poor "cricket" stopped short. gringoire covered up his ears. "oh!" he exclaimed, "accursed saw withmissing teeth, which comes to break the lyre!" meanwhile, the other spectators murmuredlike himself; "to the devil with the sacked nun!" said some of them. and the old invisible kill-joy might havehad occasion to repent of her aggressions against the gypsy had their attention notbeen diverted at this moment by the
procession of the pope of the fools, which, after having traversed many streets andsquares, debouched on the place de greve, with all its torches and all its uproar. this procession, which our readers haveseen set out from the palais de justice, had organized on the way, and had beenrecruited by all the knaves, idle thieves, and unemployed vagabonds in paris; so that it presented a very respectable aspect whenit arrived at the greve. first came egypt. the duke of egypt headed it, on horseback,with his counts on foot holding his bridle
and stirrups for him; behind them, the maleand female egyptians, pell-mell, with their little children crying on their shoulders; all--duke, counts, and populace--in ragsand tatters. then came the kingdom of argot; that is tosay, all the thieves of france, arranged according to the order of their dignity;the minor people walking first. thus defiled by fours, with the diversinsignia of their grades, in that strange faculty, most of them lame, some cripples,others one-armed, shop clerks, pilgrim, hubins, bootblacks, thimble-riggers, street arabs, beggars, the blear-eyed beggars,thieves, the weakly, vagabonds, merchants,
sham soldiers, goldsmiths, passed mastersof pickpockets, isolated thieves. a catalogue that would weary homer. in the centre of the conclave of the passedmasters of pickpockets, one had some difficulty in distinguishing the king ofargot, the grand coesre, so called, crouching in a little cart drawn by two bigdogs. after the kingdom of the argotiers, camethe empire of galilee. guillaume rousseau, emperor of the empireof galilee, marched majestically in his robe of purple, spotted with wine, precededby buffoons wrestling and executing military dances; surrounded by his
macebearers, his pickpockets and clerks ofthe chamber of accounts. last of all came the corporation of lawclerks, with its maypoles crowned with flowers, its black robes, its music worthyof the orgy, and its large candles of yellow wax. in the centre of this crowd, the grandofficers of the brotherhood of fools bore on their shoulders a litter more loadeddown with candles than the reliquary of sainte-genevieve in time of pest; and on this litter shone resplendent, withcrosier, cope, and mitre, the new pope of the fools, the bellringer of notre-dame,quasimodo the hunchback.
each section of this grotesque processionhad its own music. the egyptians made their drums and africantambourines resound. the slang men, not a very musical race,still clung to the goat's horn trumpet and the gothic rubebbe of the twelfth century. the empire of galilee was not much moreadvanced; among its music one could hardly distinguish some miserable rebec, from theinfancy of the art, still imprisoned in the re-la-mi. but it was around the pope of the foolsthat all the musical riches of the epoch were displayed in a magnificent discord.
it was nothing but soprano rebecs, counter-tenor rebecs, and tenor rebecs, not to reckon the flutes and brass instruments.alas! our readers will remember that this was gringoire's orchestra. it is difficult to convey an idea of thedegree of proud and blissful expansion to which the sad and hideous visage ofquasimodo had attained during the transit from the palais de justice, to the place degreve. it was the first enjoyment of self-lovethat he had ever experienced. down to that day, he had known onlyhumiliation, disdain for his condition, disgust for his person.
hence, deaf though he was, he enjoyed, likea veritable pope, the acclamations of that throng, which he hated because he felt thathe was hated by it. what mattered it that his people consistedof a pack of fools, cripples, thieves, and beggars? it was still a people and he wasits sovereign. and he accepted seriously all this ironicalapplause, all this derisive respect, with which the crowd mingled, it must beadmitted, a good deal of very real fear. for the hunchback was robust; for thebandy-legged fellow was agile; for the deaf man was malicious: three qualities whichtemper ridicule. we are far from believing, however, thatthe new pope of the fools understood both
the sentiments which he felt and thesentiments which he inspired. the spirit which was lodged in this failureof a body had, necessarily, something incomplete and deaf about it. thus, what he felt at the moment was tohim, absolutely vague, indistinct, and confused.only joy made itself felt, only pride dominated. around that sombre and unhappy face, therehung a radiance. it was, then, not without surprise andalarm, that at the very moment when quasimodo was passing the pillar house, inthat semi-intoxicated state, a man was seen
to dart from the crowd, and to tear from his hands, with a gesture of anger, hiscrosier of gilded wood, the emblem of his mock popeship. this man, this rash individual, was the manwith the bald brow, who, a moment earlier, standing with the gypsy's group had chilledthe poor girl with his words of menace and of hatred. he was dressed in an ecclesiasticalcostume. at the moment when he stood forth from thecrowd, gringoire, who had not noticed him up to that time, recognized him: "hold!" hesaid, with an exclamation of astonishment.
"eh! 'tis my master in hermes, dom claudefrollo, the archdeacon! what the devil does he want of that oldone-eyed fellow? he'll get himself devoured!" a cry of terror arose, in fact.the formidable quasimodo had hurled himself from the litter, and the women turned asidetheir eyes in order not to see him tear the archdeacon asunder. he made one bound as far as the priest,looked at him, and fell upon his knees. the priest tore off his tiara, broke hiscrozier, and rent his tinsel cope. quasimodo remained on his knees, with headbent and hands clasped.
then there was established between them astrange dialogue of signs and gestures, for neither of them spoke. the priest, erect on his feet, irritated,threatening, imperious; quasimodo, prostrate, humble, suppliant. and, nevertheless, it is certain thatquasimodo could have crushed the priest with his thumb. at length the archdeacon, givingquasimodo's powerful shoulder a rough shake, made him a sign to rise and followhim. quasimodo rose.
then the brotherhood of fools, their firststupor having passed off, wished to defend their pope, so abruptly dethroned. the egyptians, the men of slang, and allthe fraternity of law clerks, gathered howling round the priest. quasimodo placed himself in front of thepriest, set in play the muscles of his athletic fists, and glared upon theassailants with the snarl of an angry tiger. the priest resumed his sombre gravity, madea sign to quasimodo, and retired in silence.quasimodo walked in front of him,
scattering the crowd as he passed. when they had traversed the populace andthe place, the cloud of curious and idle were minded to follow them. quasimodo then constituted himself therearguard, and followed the archdeacon, walking backwards, squat, surly, monstrous,bristling, gathering up his limbs, licking his boar's tusks, growling like a wild beast, and imparting to the crowd immensevibrations, with a look or a gesture. both were allowed to plunge into a dark andnarrow street, where no one dared to venture after them; so thoroughly did themere chimera of quasimodo gnashing his
teeth bar the entrance. "here's a marvellous thing," saidgringoire; "but where the deuce shall i find some supper?" -book second.chapter iv. the inconveniences of following a prettywoman through the streets in the evening. gringoire set out to follow the gypsy atall hazards. he had seen her, accompanied by her goat,take to the rue de la coutellerie; he took the rue de la coutellerie. "why not?" he said to himself.
gringoire, a practical philosopher of thestreets of paris, had noticed that nothing is more propitious to revery than followinga pretty woman without knowing whither she is going. there was in this voluntary abdication ofhis freewill, in this fancy submitting itself to another fancy, which suspects itnot, a mixture of fantastic independence and blind obedience, something indescribable, intermediate between slaveryand liberty, which pleased gringoire,--a spirit essentially compound, undecided, andcomplex, holding the extremities of all extremes, incessantly suspended between all
human propensities, and neutralizing one bythe other. he was fond of comparing himself tomahomet's coffin, attracted in two different directions by two loadstones, andhesitating eternally between the heights and the depths, between the vault and the pavement, between fall and ascent, betweenzenith and nadir. if gringoire had lived in our day, what afine middle course he would hold between classicism and romanticism! but he was not sufficiently primitive tolive three hundred years, and 'tis a pity. his absence is a void which is but toosensibly felt to-day.
moreover, for the purpose of thus followingpassers-by (and especially female passers- by) in the streets, which gringoire wasfond of doing, there is no better disposition than ignorance of where one isgoing to sleep. so he walked along, very thoughtfully,behind the young girl, who hastened her pace and made her goat trot as she saw thebourgeois returning home and the taverns-- the only shops which had been open thatday--closing. "after all," he half thought to himself,"she must lodge somewhere; gypsies have kindly hearts. who knows?--"and in the points of suspense which he
placed after this reticence in his mind,there lay i know not what flattering ideas. meanwhile, from time to time, as he passedthe last groups of bourgeois closing their doors, he caught some scraps of theirconversation, which broke the thread of his pleasant hypotheses. now it was two old men accosting eachother. "do you know that it is cold, masterthibaut fernicle?" (gringoire had been aware of this since thebeginning of the winter.) "yes, indeed, master boniface disome! are we going to have a winter such as wehad three years ago, in '80, when wood cost
eight sous the measure?" "bah! that's nothing, master thibaut,compared with the winter of 1407, when it froze from st. martin's day untilcandlemas! and so cold that the pen of the registrar of the parliament froze every three words, in the grand chamber! whichinterrupted the registration of justice." further on there were two female neighborsat their windows, holding candles, which the fog caused to sputter. "has your husband told you about themishap, mademoiselle la boudraque?" "no. what is it, mademoiselle turquant?"
"the horse of m. gilles godin, the notaryat the chatelet, took fright at the flemings and their procession, andoverturned master philippe avrillot, lay monk of the celestins." "really?""actually." "a bourgeois horse!'tis rather too much! if it had been a cavalry horse, well andgood!" and the windows were closed.but gringoire had lost the thread of his ideas, nevertheless. fortunately, he speedily found it again,and he knotted it together without
difficulty, thanks to the gypsy, thanks todjali, who still walked in front of him; two fine, delicate, and charming creatures, whose tiny feet, beautiful forms, andgraceful manners he was engaged in admiring, almost confusing them in hiscontemplation; believing them to be both young girls, from their intelligence and good friendship; regarding them both asgoats,--so far as the lightness, agility, and dexterity of their walk were concerned.but the streets were becoming blacker and more deserted every moment. the curfew had sounded long ago, and it wasonly at rare intervals now that they
encountered a passer-by in the street, or alight in the windows. gringoire had become involved, in hispursuit of the gypsy, in that inextricable labyrinth of alleys, squares, and closedcourts which surround the ancient sepulchre of the saints-innocents, and which resembles a ball of thread tangled by acat. "here are streets which possess but littlelogic!" said gringoire, lost in the thousands of circuits which returned uponthemselves incessantly, but where the young girl pursued a road which seemed familiar to her, without hesitation and with a stepwhich became ever more rapid.
as for him, he would have been utterlyignorant of his situation had he not espied, in passing, at the turn of astreet, the octagonal mass of the pillory of the fish markets, the open-work summit of which threw its black, fretted outlinesclearly upon a window which was still lighted in the rue verdelet. the young girl's attention had beenattracted to him for the last few moments; she had repeatedly turned her head towardshim with uneasiness; she had even once come to a standstill, and taking advantage of a ray of light which escaped from a half-openbakery to survey him intently, from head to
foot, then, having cast this glance,gringoire had seen her make that little pout which he had already noticed, afterwhich she passed on. this little pout had furnished gringoirewith food for thought. there was certainly both disdain andmockery in that graceful grimace. so he dropped his head, began to count thepaving-stones, and to follow the young girl at a little greater distance, when, at theturn of a street, which had caused him to lose sight of her, he heard her utter apiercing cry. he hastened his steps.the street was full of shadows. nevertheless, a twist of tow soaked in oil,which burned in a cage at the feet of the
holy virgin at the street corner, permittedgringoire to make out the gypsy struggling in the arms of two men, who wereendeavoring to stifle her cries. the poor little goat, in great alarm,lowered his horns and bleated. "help! gentlemen of the watch!" shoutedgringoire, and advanced bravely. one of the men who held the young girlturned towards him. it was the formidable visage of quasimodo. gringoire did not take to flight, butneither did he advance another step. quasimodo came up to him, tossed him fourpaces away on the pavement with a backward turn of the hand, and plunged rapidly intothe gloom, bearing the young girl folded
across one arm like a silken scarf. his companion followed him, and the poorgoat ran after them all, bleating plaintively."murder! murder!" shrieked the unhappy gypsy. "halt, rascals, and yield me that wench!"suddenly shouted in a voice of thunder, a cavalier who appeared suddenly from aneighboring square. it was a captain of the king's archers,armed from head to foot, with his sword in his hand. he tore the gypsy from the arms of thedazed quasimodo, threw her across his
saddle, and at the moment when the terriblehunchback, recovering from his surprise, rushed upon him to regain his prey, fifteen or sixteen archers, who followed theircaptain closely, made their appearance, with their two-edged swords in their fists. it was a squad of the king's police, whichwas making the rounds, by order of messire robert d'estouteville, guard of theprovostship of paris. quasimodo was surrounded, seized, garroted;he roared, he foamed at the mouth, he bit; and had it been broad daylight, there is nodoubt that his face alone, rendered more hideous by wrath, would have put the entiresquad to flight.
but by night he was deprived of his mostformidable weapon, his ugliness. his companion had disappeared during thestruggle. the gypsy gracefully raised herself uprightupon the officer's saddle, placed both hands upon the young man's shoulders, andgazed fixedly at him for several seconds, as though enchanted with his good looks and with the aid which he had just renderedher. then breaking silence first, she said tohim, making her sweet voice still sweeter than usual,--"what is your name, monsieur le gendarme?" "captain phoebus de chateaupers, at yourservice, my beauty!" replied the officer,
drawing himself up."thanks," said she. and while captain phoebus was turning uphis moustache in burgundian fashion, she slipped from the horse, like an arrowfalling to earth, and fled. a flash of lightning would have vanishedless quickly. "nombrill of the pope!" said the captain,causing quasimodo's straps to be drawn tighter, "i should have preferred to keepthe wench." "what would you have, captain?" said onegendarme. "the warbler has fled, and the batremains." -book second.chapter v.
result of the dangers. gringoire, thoroughly stunned by his fall,remained on the pavement in front of the holy virgin at the street corner. little by little, he regained his senses;at first, for several minutes, he was floating in a sort of half-somnolentrevery, which was not without its charm, in which aeriel figures of the gypsy and her goat were coupled with quasimodo's heavyfist. this state lasted but a short time. a decidedly vivid sensation of cold in thepart of his body which was in contact with
the pavement, suddenly aroused him andcaused his spirit to return to the surface. "whence comes this chill?" he saidabruptly, to himself. he then perceived that he was lying half inthe middle of the gutter. "that devil of a hunchbacked cyclops!" hemuttered between his teeth; and he tried to rise.but he was too much dazed and bruised; he was forced to remain where he was. moreover, his hand was tolerably free; hestopped up his nose and resigned himself. "the mud of paris," he said to himself--fordecidedly he thought that he was sure that the gutter would prove his refuge for thenight; and what can one do in a refuge,
except dream?--"the mud of paris is particularly stinking; it must contain agreat deal of volatile and nitric salts. that, moreover, is the opinion of masternicholas flamel, and of the alchemists--" the word "alchemists" suddenly suggested tohis mind the idea of archdeacon claude frollo. he recalled the violent scene which he hadjust witnessed in part; that the gypsy was struggling with two men, that quasimodo hada companion; and the morose and haughty face of the archdeacon passed confusedlythrough his memory. "that would be strange!" he said tohimself.
and on that fact and that basis he began toconstruct a fantastic edifice of hypothesis, that card-castle ofphilosophers; then, suddenly returning once more to reality, "come! i'm freezing!" he ejaculated.the place was, in fact, becoming less and less tenable. each molecule of the gutter bore away amolecule of heat radiating from gringoire's loins, and the equilibrium between thetemperature of his body and the temperature of the brook, began to be established inrough fashion. quite a different annoyance suddenlyassailed him.
a group of children, those little bare-footed savages who have always roamed the pavements of paris under the eternal nameof gamins, and who, when we were also children ourselves, threw stones at all of us in the afternoon, when we came out ofschool, because our trousers were not torn- -a swarm of these young scamps rushedtowards the square where gringoire lay, with shouts and laughter which seemed to pay but little heed to the sleep of theneighbors. they were dragging after them some sort ofhideous sack; and the noise of their wooden shoes alone would have roused the dead.
gringoire who was not quite dead yet, halfraised himself. "ohe, hennequin dandeche! ohe, jehan pincebourde!" they shouted indeafening tones, "old eustache moubon, the merchant at the corner, has just died.we've got his straw pallet, we're going to have a bonfire out of it. it's the turn of the flemish to-day!"and behold, they flung the pallet directly upon gringoire, beside whom they hadarrived, without espying him. at the same time, one of them took ahandful of straw and set off to light it at the wick of the good virgin."s'death!" growled gringoire, "am i going
to be too warm now?" it was a critical moment.he was caught between fire and water; he made a superhuman effort, the effort of acounterfeiter of money who is on the point of being boiled, and who seeks to escape. he rose to his feet, flung aside the strawpallet upon the street urchins, and fled. "holy virgin!" shrieked the children; "'tisthe merchant's ghost!" and they fled in their turn. the straw mattress remained master of thefield. belleforet, father le juge, and corrozetaffirm that it was picked up on the morrow,
with great pomp, by the clergy of thequarter, and borne to the treasury of the church of saint opportune, where the sacristan, even as late as 1789, earned atolerably handsome revenue out of the great miracle of the statue of the virgin at thecorner of the rue mauconseil, which had, by its mere presence, on the memorable night between the sixth and seventh of january,1482, exorcised the defunct eustache moubon, who, in order to play a trick onthe devil, had at his death maliciously concealed his soul in his straw pallet. -book second.chapter vi.
the broken jug. after having run for some time at the topof his speed, without knowing whither, knocking his head against many a streetcorner, leaping many a gutter, traversing many an alley, many a court, many a square, seeking flight and passage through all themeanderings of the ancient passages of the halles, exploring in his panic terror whatthe fine latin of the maps calls tota via, cheminum et viaria, our poet suddenly halted for lack of breath in the firstplace, and in the second, because he had been collared, after a fashion, by adilemma which had just occurred to his
mind. "it strikes me, master pierre gringoire,"he said to himself, placing his finger to his brow, "that you are running like amadman. the little scamps are no less afraid of youthan you are of them. it strikes me, i say, that you heard theclatter of their wooden shoes fleeing southward, while you were fleeingnorthward. now, one of two things, either they havetaken flight, and the pallet, which they must have forgotten in their terror, isprecisely that hospitable bed in search of which you have been running ever since
morning, and which madame the virginmiraculously sends you, in order to recompense you for having made a moralityin her honor, accompanied by triumphs and mummeries; or the children have not taken flight, and in that case they have put thebrand to the pallet, and that is precisely the good fire which you need to cheer, dry,and warm you. in either case, good fire or good bed, thatstraw pallet is a gift from heaven. the blessed virgin marie who stands at thecorner of the rue mauconseil, could only have made eustache moubon die for thatexpress purpose; and it is folly on your part to flee thus zigzag, like a picard
before a frenchman, leaving behind you whatyou seek before you; and you are a fool!" then he retraced his steps, and feeling hisway and searching, with his nose to the wind and his ears on the alert, he tried tofind the blessed pallet again, but in vain. there was nothing to be found butintersections of houses, closed courts, and crossings of streets, in the midst of whichhe hesitated and doubted incessantly, being more perplexed and entangled in this medley of streets than he would have been even inthe labyrinth of the hotel des tournelles. at length he lost patience, and exclaimedsolemnly: "cursed be cross roads! 'tis the devil who has made them in theshape of his pitchfork!"
this exclamation afforded him a littlesolace, and a sort of reddish reflection which he caught sight of at that moment, atthe extremity of a long and narrow lane, completed the elevation of his moral tone. "god be praised!" said he, "there it isyonder! there is my pallet burning." and comparing himself to the pilot whosuffers shipwreck by night, "salve," he added piously, "salve, maris stella!"did he address this fragment of litany to the holy virgin, or to the pallet? we are utterly unable to say.he had taken but a few steps in the long
street, which sloped downwards, wasunpaved, and more and more muddy and steep, when he noticed a very singular thing. it was not deserted; here and there alongits extent crawled certain vague and formless masses, all directing their coursetowards the light which flickered at the end of the street, like those heavy insects which drag along by night, from blade toblade of grass, towards the shepherd's fire. nothing renders one so adventurous as notbeing able to feel the place where one's pocket is situated.
gringoire continued to advance, and hadsoon joined that one of the forms which dragged along most indolently, behind theothers. on drawing near, he perceived that it wasnothing else than a wretched legless cripple in a bowl, who was hopping along onhis two hands like a wounded field-spider which has but two legs left. at the moment when he passed close to thisspecies of spider with a human countenance, it raised towards him a lamentable voice:"la buona mancia, signor! la buona mancia!" "deuce take you," said gringoire, "and mewith you, if i know what you mean!" and he passed on.he overtook another of these itinerant
masses, and examined it. it was an impotent man, both halt andcrippled, and halt and crippled to such a degree that the complicated system ofcrutches and wooden legs which sustained him, gave him the air of a mason'sscaffolding on the march. gringoire, who liked noble and classicalcomparisons, compared him in thought to the living tripod of vulcan. this living tripod saluted him as hepassed, but stopping his hat on a level with gringoire's chin, like a shaving dish,while he shouted in the latter's ears: "senor cabellero, para comprar un pedaso depan!"
"it appears," said gringoire, "that thisone can also talk; but 'tis a rude language, and he is more fortunate than iif he understands it." then, smiting his brow, in a suddentransition of ideas: "by the way, what the deuce did they mean this morning with theiresmeralda?" he was minded to augment his pace, but forthe third time something barred his way. this something or, rather, some one was ablind man, a little blind fellow with a bearded, jewish face, who, rowing away inthe space about him with a stick, and towed by a large dog, droned through his nose with a hungarian accent: "facitotecaritatem!"
"well, now," said gringoire, "here's one atlast who speaks a christian tongue. i must have a very charitable aspect, sincethey ask alms of me in the present lean condition of my purse. my friend," and he turned towards the blindman, "i sold my last shirt last week; that is to say, since you understand only thelanguage of cicero: vendidi hebdomade nuper transita meam ultimam chemisan." that said, he turned his back upon theblind man, and pursued his way. but the blind man began to increase hisstride at the same time; and, behold! the cripple and the legless man, in his bowl,came up on their side in great haste, and
with great clamor of bowl and crutches,upon the pavement. then all three, jostling each other at poorgringoire's heels, began to sing their song to him,-- "caritatem!" chanted the blind man."la buona mancia!" chanted the cripple in the bowl.and the lame man took up the musical phrase by repeating: "un pedaso de pan!" gringoire stopped up his ears."oh, tower of babel!" he exclaimed. he set out to run.the blind man ran! the lame man ran!
the cripple in the bowl ran! and then, in proportion as he plungeddeeper into the street, cripples in bowls, blind men and lame men, swarmed about him,and men with one arm, and with one eye, and the leprous with their sores, some emerging from little streets adjacent, some from theair-holes of cellars, howling, bellowing, yelping, all limping and halting, allflinging themselves towards the light, and humped up in the mire, like snails after ashower. gringoire, still followed by his threepersecutors, and not knowing very well what was to become of him, marched along interror among them, turning out for the
lame, stepping over the cripples in bowls, with his feet imbedded in that ant-hill oflame men, like the english captain who got caught in the quicksand of a swarm ofcrabs. the idea occurred to him of making aneffort to retrace his steps. but it was too late.this whole legion had closed in behind him, and his three beggars held him fast. so he proceeded, impelled both by thisirresistible flood, by fear, and by a vertigo which converted all this into asort of horrible dream. at last he reached the end of the street.
it opened upon an immense place, where athousand scattered lights flickered in the confused mists of night. gringoire flew thither, hoping to escape,by the swiftness of his legs, from the three infirm spectres who had clutched him."onde vas, hombre?" (where are you going, my man?) cried thecripple, flinging away his crutches, and running after him with the best legs thatever traced a geometrical step upon the pavements of paris. in the meantime the legless man, erect uponhis feet, crowned gringoire with his heavy iron bowl, and the blind man glared in hisface with flaming eyes!
"where am i?" said the terrified poet. "in the court of miracles," replied afourth spectre, who had accosted them. "upon my soul," resumed gringoire, "icertainly do behold the blind who see, and the lame who walk, but where is thesaviour?" they replied by a burst of sinisterlaughter. the poor poet cast his eyes about him. it was, in truth, that redoubtable cour desmiracles, whither an honest man had never penetrated at such an hour; the magiccircle where the officers of the chatelet and the sergeants of the provostship, who
ventured thither, disappeared in morsels;a city of thieves, a hideous wart on the face of paris; a sewer, from which escaped everymorning, and whither returned every night to crouch, that stream of vices, of mendicancy and vagabondage which alwaysoverflows in the streets of capitals; a monstrous hive, to which returned atnightfall, with their booty, all the drones of the social order; a lying hospital where the bohemian, the disfrocked monk, theruined scholar, the ne'er-do-wells of all nations, spaniards, italians, germans,--ofall religions, jews, christians, mahometans, idolaters, covered with painted
sores, beggars by day, were transformed bynight into brigands; an immense dressing- room, in a word, where, at that epoch, theactors of that eternal comedy, which theft, prostitution, and murder play upon thepavements of paris, dressed and undressed. it was a vast place, irregular and badlypaved, like all the squares of paris at that date. fires, around which swarmed strange groups,blazed here and there. every one was going, coming, and shouting.shrill laughter was to be heard, the wailing of children, the voices of women. the hands and heads of this throng, blackagainst the luminous background, outlined
against it a thousand eccentric gestures. at times, upon the ground, where trembledthe light of the fires, mingled with large, indefinite shadows, one could behold a dogpassing, which resembled a man, a man who resembled a dog. the limits of races and species seemedeffaced in this city, as in a pandemonium. men, women, beasts, age, sex, health,maladies, all seemed to be in common among these people; all went together, theymingled, confounded, superposed; each one there participated in all. the poor and flickering flames of the firepermitted gringoire to distinguish, amid
his trouble, all around the immense place,a hideous frame of ancient houses, whose wormeaten, shrivelled, stunted facades, each pierced with one or two lighted atticwindows, seemed to him, in the darkness, like enormous heads of old women, ranged ina circle, monstrous and crabbed, winking as they looked on at the witches' sabbath. it was like a new world, unknown, unheardof, misshapen, creeping, swarming, fantastic. gringoire, more and more terrified,clutched by the three beggars as by three pairs of tongs, dazed by a throng of otherfaces which frothed and yelped around him,
unhappy gringoire endeavored to summon his presence of mind, in order to recallwhether it was a saturday. but his efforts were vain; the thread ofhis memory and of his thought was broken; and, doubting everything, wavering betweenwhat he saw and what he felt, he put to himself this unanswerable question,-- "if i exist, does this exist? if thisexists, do i exist?" at that moment, a distinct cry arose in thebuzzing throng which surrounded him, "let's take him to the king! let's take him to theking!" "holy virgin!" murmured gringoire, "theking here must be a ram."
"to the king! to the king!" repeated allvoices. they dragged him off. each vied with the other in laying hisclaws upon him. but the three beggars did not loose theirhold and tore him from the rest, howling, "he belongs to us!" the poet's already sickly doublet yieldedits last sigh in this struggle. while traversing the horrible place, hisvertigo vanished. after taking a few steps, the sentiment ofreality returned to him. he began to become accustomed to theatmosphere of the place.
at the first moment there had arisen fromhis poet's head, or, simply and prosaically, from his empty stomach, amist, a vapor, so to speak, which, spreading between objects and himself, permitted him to catch a glimpse of themonly in the incoherent fog of nightmare,-- in those shadows of dreams which distortevery outline, agglomerating objects into unwieldy groups, dilating things intochimeras, and men into phantoms. little by little, this hallucination wassucceeded by a less bewildered and exaggerating view. reality made its way to the light aroundhim, struck his eyes, struck his feet, and
demolished, bit by bit, all that frightfulpoetry with which he had, at first, believed himself to be surrounded. he was forced to perceive that he was notwalking in the styx, but in mud, that he was elbowed not by demons, but by thieves;that it was not his soul which was in question, but his life (since he lacked that precious conciliator, which placesitself so effectually between the bandit and the honest man--a purse). in short, on examining the orgy moreclosely, and with more coolness, he fell from the witches' sabbath to the dram-shop.
the cour des miracles was, in fact, merelya dram-shop; but a brigand's dram-shop, reddened quite as much with blood as withwine. the spectacle which presented itself to hiseyes, when his ragged escort finally deposited him at the end of his trip, wasnot fitted to bear him back to poetry, even to the poetry of hell. it was more than ever the prosaic andbrutal reality of the tavern. were we not in the fifteenth century, wewould say that gringoire had descended from michael angelo to callot. around a great fire which burned on alarge, circular flagstone, the flames of
which had heated red-hot the legs of atripod, which was empty for the moment, some wormeaten tables were placed, here and there, haphazard, no lackey of ageometrical turn having deigned to adjust their parallelism, or to see to it thatthey did not make too unusual angles. upon these tables gleamed several drippingpots of wine and beer, and round these pots were grouped many bacchic visages, purplewith the fire and the wine. there was a man with a huge belly and ajovial face, noisily kissing a woman of the town, thickset and brawny. there was a sort of sham soldier, a"naquois," as the slang expression runs,
who was whistling as he undid the bandagesfrom his fictitious wound, and removing the numbness from his sound and vigorous knee, which had been swathed since morning in athousand ligatures. on the other hand, there was a wretchedfellow, preparing with celandine and beef's blood, his "leg of god," for the next day. two tables further on, a palmer, with hispilgrim's costume complete, was practising the lament of the holy queen, notforgetting the drone and the nasal drawl. further on, a young scamp was taking alesson in epilepsy from an old pretender, who was instructing him in the art offoaming at the mouth, by chewing a morsel
of soap. beside him, a man with the dropsy wasgetting rid of his swelling, and making four or five female thieves, who weredisputing at the same table, over a child who had been stolen that evening, holdtheir noses. all circumstances which, two centurieslater, "seemed so ridiculous to the court," as sauval says, "that they served as apastime to the king, and as an introduction to the royal ballet of night, divided into four parts and danced on the theatre of thepetit-bourbon." "never," adds an eye witness of 1653, "havethe sudden metamorphoses of the court of
miracles been more happily presented. benserade prepared us for it by some verygallant verses." loud laughter everywhere, and obscenesongs. each one held his own course, carping andswearing, without listening to his neighbor. pots clinked, and quarrels sprang up at theshock of the pots, and the broken pots made rents in the rags.a big dog, seated on his tail, gazed at the some children were mingled in this orgy.the stolen child wept and cried. another, a big boy four years of age,seated with legs dangling, upon a bench
that was too high for him, before a tablethat reached to his chin, and uttering not a word. a third, gravely spreading out upon thetable with his finger, the melted tallow which dripped from a candle. last of all, a little fellow crouching inthe mud, almost lost in a cauldron, which he was scraping with a tile, and from whichhe was evoking a sound that would have made stradivarius swoon. near the fire was a hogshead, and on thehogshead a beggar. this was the king on his throne.
the three who had gringoire in theirclutches led him in front of this hogshead, and the entire bacchanal rout fell silentfor a moment, with the exception of the cauldron inhabited by the child. gringoire dared neither breathe nor raisehis eyes. "hombre, quita tu sombrero!" said one ofthe three knaves, in whose grasp he was, and, before he had comprehended themeaning, the other had snatched his hat--a wretched headgear, it is true, but still good on a sunny day or when there was butlittle rain. gringoire sighed.meanwhile the king addressed him, from the
summit of his cask,-- "who is this rogue?"gringoire shuddered. that voice, although accentuated by menace,recalled to him another voice, which, that very morning, had dealt the deathblow tohis mystery, by drawling, nasally, in the midst of the audience, "charity, please!" he raised his head.it was indeed clopin trouillefou. clopin trouillefou, arrayed in his royalinsignia, wore neither one rag more nor one rag less. the sore upon his arm had alreadydisappeared.
he held in his hand one of those whips madeof thongs of white leather, which police sergeants then used to repress the crowd,and which were called boullayes. on his head he wore a sort of headgear,bound round and closed at the top. but it was difficult to make out whether itwas a child's cap or a king's crown, the two things bore so strong a resemblance toeach other. meanwhile gringoire, without knowing why,had regained some hope, on recognizing in the king of the cour des miracles hisaccursed mendicant of the grand hall. "master," stammered he; "monseigneur--sire--how ought i to address you?" he said at length, having reached the culminatingpoint of his crescendo, and knowing neither
how to mount higher, nor to descend again. "monseigneur, his majesty, or comrade, callme what you please. but make haste.what have you to say in your own defence?" "in your own defence?" thought gringoire,"that displeases me." he resumed, stuttering, "i am he, who thismorning--" "by the devil's claws!" interrupted clopin,"your name, knave, and nothing more. listen. you are in the presence of three powerfulsovereigns: myself, clopin trouillefou, king of thunes, successor to the grandcoesre, supreme suzerain of the realm of
argot; mathias hunyadi spicali, duke of egypt and of bohemia, the old yellow fellowwhom you see yonder, with a dish clout round his head; guillaume rousseau, emperorof galilee, that fat fellow who is not listening to us but caressing a wench. we are your judges.you have entered the kingdom of argot, without being an argotier; you haveviolated the privileges of our city. you must be punished unless you are acapon, a franc-mitou or a rifode; that is to say, in the slang of honest folks,--athief, a beggar, or a vagabond. are you anything of that sort?
justify yourself; announce your titles.""alas!" said gringoire, "i have not that honor.i am the author--" "that is sufficient," resumed trouillefou,without permitting him to finish. "you are going to be hanged. 'tis a very simple matter, gentlemen andhonest bourgeois! as you treat our people in your abode, so we treat you in ours!the law which you apply to vagabonds, vagabonds apply to you. 'tis your fault if it is harsh.one really must behold the grimace of an honest man above the hempen collar now andthen; that renders the thing honorable.
come, friend, divide your rags gayly amongthese damsels. i am going to have you hanged to amuse thevagabonds, and you are to give them your purse to drink your health. if you have any mummery to go through with,there's a very good god the father in that mortar yonder, in stone, which we stolefrom saint-pierre aux boeufs. you have four minutes in which to flingyour soul at his head." the harangue was formidable."well said, upon my soul! clopin trouillefou preaches like the holyfather the pope!" exclaimed the emperor of galilee, smashing his pot in order to propup his table.
"messeigneurs, emperors, and kings," saidgringoire coolly (for i know not how, firmness had returned to him, and he spokewith resolution), "don't think of such a thing; my name is pierre gringoire. i am the poet whose morality was presentedthis morning in the grand hall of the courts.""ah! so it was you, master!" said clopin. "i was there, xete dieu! well! comrade, is that any reason, becauseyou bored us to death this morning, that you should not be hung this evening?""i shall find difficulty in getting out of it," said gringoire to himself.
nevertheless, he made one more effort: "idon't see why poets are not classed with vagabonds," said he."vagabond, aesopus certainly was; homerus was a beggar; mercurius was a thief--" clopin interrupted him: "i believe that youare trying to blarney us with your jargon. zounds! let yourself be hung, and don'tkick up such a row over it!" "pardon me, monseigneur, the king ofthunes," replied gringoire, disputing the ground foot by foot. "it is worth trouble--one moment!--listento me--you are not going to condemn me without having heard me"--his unlucky voice was, in fact, drowned in
the uproar which rose around him. the little boy scraped away at his cauldronwith more spirit than ever; and, to crown all, an old woman had just placed on thetripod a frying-pan of grease, which hissed away on the fire with a noise similar to the cry of a troop of children in pursuitof a masker. in the meantime, clopin trouillefouappeared to hold a momentary conference with the duke of egypt, and the emperor ofgalilee, who was completely drunk. then he shouted shrilly: "silence!" and, asthe cauldron and the frying-pan did not heed him, and continued their duet, hejumped down from his hogshead, gave a kick
to the boiler, which rolled ten paces away bearing the child with it, a kick to thefrying-pan, which upset in the fire with all its grease, and gravely remounted histhrone, without troubling himself about the stifled tears of the child, or the grumbling of the old woman, whose supperwas wasting away in a fine white flame. trouillefou made a sign, and the duke, theemperor, and the passed masters of pickpockets, and the isolated robbers, cameand ranged themselves around him in a horseshoe, of which gringoire, still roughly held by the body, formed thecentre.
it was a semicircle of rags, tatters,tinsel, pitchforks, axes, legs staggering with intoxication, huge, bare arms, facessordid, dull, and stupid. in the midst of this round table ofbeggary, clopin trouillefou,--as the doge of this senate, as the king of thispeerage, as the pope of this conclave,-- dominated; first by virtue of the height of his hogshead, and next by virtue of anindescribable, haughty, fierce, and formidable air, which caused his eyes toflash, and corrected in his savage profile the bestial type of the race of vagabonds. one would have pronounced him a boar amid aherd of swine.
"listen," said he to gringoire, fondlinghis misshapen chin with his horny hand; "i don't see why you should not be hung. it is true that it appears to be repugnantto you; and it is very natural, for you bourgeois are not accustomed to it.you form for yourselves a great idea of the thing. after all, we don't wish you any harm.here is a means of extricating yourself from your predicament for the moment.will you become one of us?" the reader can judge of the effect whichthis proposition produced upon gringoire, who beheld life slipping away from him, andwho was beginning to lose his hold upon it.
he clutched at it again with energy. "certainly i will, and right heartily,"said he. "do you consent," resumed clopin, "toenroll yourself among the people of the knife?" "of the knife, precisely," respondedgringoire. "you recognize yourself as a member of thefree bourgeoisie?" added the king of thunes. "of the free bourgeoisie.""subject of the kingdom of argot?" "of the kingdom of argot.""a vagabond?"
"a vagabond." "in your soul?""in my soul." "i must call your attention to the fact,"continued the king, "that you will be hung all the same." "the devil!" said the poet. "only," continued clopin imperturbably,"you will be hung later on, with more ceremony, at the expense of the good cityof paris, on a handsome stone gibbet, and by honest men. that is a consolation.""just so," responded gringoire.
"there are other advantages. in your quality of a high-toned sharper,you will not have to pay the taxes on mud, or the poor, or lanterns, to which thebourgeois of paris are subject." "so be it," said the poet. "i agree. i am a vagabond, a thief, a sharper, a manof the knife, anything you please; and i am all that already, monsieur, king of thunes,for i am a philosopher; et omnia in philosophia, omnes in philosopho continentur,--all things are contained inphilosophy, all men in the philosopher, as
you know."the king of thunes scowled. "what do you take me for, my friend? what hungarian jew patter are you jabberingat us? i don't know hebrew.one isn't a jew because one is a bandit. i don't even steal any longer. i'm above that; i kill.cut-throat, yes; cutpurse, no." gringoire tried to slip in some excusebetween these curt words, which wrath rendered more and more jerky. "i ask your pardon, monseigneur.it is not hebrew; 'tis latin."
"i tell you," resumed clopin angrily, "thati'm not a jew, and that i'll have you hung, belly of the synagogue, like that littleshopkeeper of judea, who is by your side, and whom i entertain strong hopes of seeing nailed to a counter one of these days, likethe counterfeit coin that he is!" so saying, he pointed his finger at thelittle, bearded hungarian jew who had accosted gringoire with his facitotecaritatem, and who, understanding no other language beheld with surprise the king ofthunes's ill-humor overflow upon him. at length monsieur clopin calmed down."so you will be a vagabond, you knave?" he said to our poet.
"of course," replied the poet. "willing is not all," said the surlyclopin; "good will doesn't put one onion the more into the soup, and 'tis good fornothing except to go to paradise with; now, paradise and the thieves' band are twodifferent things. in order to be received among the thieves,you must prove that you are good for something, and for that purpose, you mustsearch the manikin." "i'll search anything you like," saidgringoire. clopin made a sign.several thieves detached themselves from the circle, and returned a moment later.
they brought two thick posts, terminated attheir lower extremities in spreading timber supports, which made them stand readilyupon the ground; to the upper extremity of the two posts they fitted a cross-beam, and the whole constituted a very prettyportable gibbet, which gringoire had the satisfaction of beholding rise before him,in a twinkling. nothing was lacking, not even the rope,which swung gracefully over the cross-beam. "what are they going to do?"gringoire asked himself with some uneasiness. a sound of bells, which he heard at thatmoment, put an end to his anxiety; it was a
stuffed manikin, which the vagabonds weresuspending by the neck from the rope, a sort of scarecrow dressed in red, and so hung with mule-bells and larger bells, thatone might have tricked out thirty castilian mules with them. these thousand tiny bells quivered for sometime with the vibration of the rope, then gradually died away, and finally becamesilent when the manikin had been brought into a state of immobility by that law of the pendulum which has dethroned the waterclock and the hour-glass. then clopin, pointing out to gringoire arickety old stool placed beneath the
manikin,--"climb up there." "death of the devil!" objected gringoire;"i shall break my neck. your stool limps like one of martial'sdistiches; it has one hexameter leg and one pentameter leg." "climb!" repeated clopin.gringoire mounted the stool, and succeeded, not without some oscillations of head andarms, in regaining his centre of gravity. "now," went on the king of thunes, "twistyour right foot round your left leg, and rise on the tip of your left foot." "monseigneur," said gringoire, "so youabsolutely insist on my breaking some one
of my limbs?"clopin tossed his head. "hark ye, my friend, you talk too much. here's the gist of the matter in two words:you are to rise on tiptoe, as i tell you; in that way you will be able to reach thepocket of the manikin, you will rummage it, you will pull out the purse that is there -,-and if you do all this without our hearingthe sound of a bell, all is well: you shall be a vagabond. all we shall then have to do, will be tothrash you soundly for the space of a week.""ventre-dieu!
i will be careful," said gringoire. "and suppose i do make the bells sound?""then you will be hanged. do you understand?""i don't understand at all," replied gringoire. "listen, once more.you are to search the manikin, and take away its purse; if a single bell stirsduring the operation, you will be hung. do you understand that?" "good," said gringoire; "i understand that.and then?" "if you succeed in removing the pursewithout our hearing the bells, you are a
vagabond, and you will be thrashed foreight consecutive days. you understand now, no doubt?" "no, monseigneur; i no longer understand.where is the advantage to me? hanged in one case, cudgelled in the other?""and a vagabond," resumed clopin, "and a vagabond; is that nothing? it is for your interest that we should beatyou, in order to harden you to blows." "many thanks," replied the poet. "come, make haste," said the king, stampingupon his cask, which resounded like a huge drum!"search the manikin, and let there be an
end to this! i warn you for the last time, that if ihear a single bell, you will take the place of the manikin." the band of thieves applauded clopin'swords, and arranged themselves in a circle round the gibbet, with a laugh so pitilessthat gringoire perceived that he amused them too much not to have everything tofear from them. no hope was left for him, accordingly,unless it were the slight chance of succeeding in the formidable operationwhich was imposed upon him; he decided to risk it, but it was not without first
having addressed a fervent prayer to themanikin he was about to plunder, and who would have been easier to move to pity thanthe vagabonds. these myriad bells, with their littlecopper tongues, seemed to him like the mouths of so many asps, open and ready tosting and to hiss. "oh!" he said, in a very low voice, "is itpossible that my life depends on the slightest vibration of the least of thesebells? oh!" he added, with clasped hands, "bells,do not ring, hand-bells do not clang, mule- bells do not quiver!"he made one more attempt upon trouillefou. "and if there should come a gust of wind?"
"you will be hanged," replied the other,without hesitation. perceiving that no respite, nor reprieve,nor subterfuge was possible, he bravely decided upon his course of action; he woundhis right foot round his left leg, raised himself on his left foot, and stretched out his arm: but at the moment when his handtouched the manikin, his body, which was now supported upon one leg only, wavered onthe stool which had but three; he made an involuntary effort to support himself by the manikin, lost his balance, and fellheavily to the ground, deafened by the fatal vibration of the thousand bells ofthe manikin, which, yielding to the impulse
imparted by his hand, described first a rotary motion, and then swayed majesticallybetween the two posts. "malediction!" he cried as he fell, andremained as though dead, with his face to the earth. meanwhile, he heard the dreadful peal abovehis head, the diabolical laughter of the vagabonds, and the voice of trouillefousaying,-- "pick me up that knave, and hang himwithout ceremony." he rose.they had already detached the manikin to make room for him.
the thieves made him mount the stool,clopin came to him, passed the rope about his neck, and, tapping him on theshoulder,-- "adieu, my friend. you can't escape now, even if you digestedwith the pope's guts." the word "mercy!" died away upongringoire's lips. he cast his eyes about him; but there wasno hope: all were laughing. "bellevigne de l'etoile," said the king ofthunes to an enormous vagabond, who stepped out from the ranks, "climb upon the crossbeam." bellevigne de l'etoile nimbly mounted thetransverse beam, and in another minute,
gringoire, on raising his eyes, beheld him,with terror, seated upon the beam above his head. "now," resumed clopin trouillefou, "as soonas i clap my hands, you, andry the red, will fling the stool to the ground with ablow of your knee; you, francois chante- prune, will cling to the feet of the rascal; and you, bellevigne, will flingyourself on his shoulders; and all three at once, do you hear?"gringoire shuddered. "are you ready?" said clopin trouillefou tothe three thieves, who held themselves in readiness to fall upon gringoire.
a moment of horrible suspense ensued forthe poor victim, during which clopin tranquilly thrust into the fire with thetip of his foot, some bits of vine shoots which the flame had not caught. "are you ready?" he repeated, and openedhis hands to clap. one second more and all would have beenover. but he paused, as though struck by a suddenthought. "one moment!" said he; "i forgot! it is our custom not to hang a man withoutinquiring whether there is any woman who wants him.comrade, this is your last resource.
you must wed either a female vagabond orthe noose." this law of the vagabonds, singular as itmay strike the reader, remains to-day written out at length, in ancient englishlegislation. (see burington's observations.) gringoire breathed again.this was the second time that he had returned to life within an hour.so he did not dare to trust to it too implicitly. "hola!" cried clopin, mounted once moreupon his cask, "hola! women, females, is there among you, from the sorceress to hercat, a wench who wants this rascal?
hola, colette la charonne! elisabeth trouvain!simone jodouyne! marie piedebou!thonne la longue! berarde fanouel! michelle genaille!claude ronge-oreille! mathurine girorou!--hola!isabeau-la-thierrye! come and see! a man for nothing!who wants him?" gringoire, no doubt, was not veryappetizing in this miserable condition.
the female vagabonds did not seem to bemuch affected by the proposition. the unhappy wretch heard them answer: "no!no! hang him; there'll be the more fun for us all!" nevertheless, three emerged from the throngand came to smell of him. the first was a big wench, with a squareface. she examined the philosopher's deplorabledoublet attentively. his garment was worn, and more full ofholes than a stove for roasting chestnuts. the girl made a wry face. "old rag!" she muttered, and addressinggringoire, "let's see your cloak!"
"i have lost it," replied gringoire."your hat?" "they took it away from me." "your shoes?""they have hardly any soles left." "your purse?""alas!" stammered gringoire, "i have not even a sou." "let them hang you, then, and say 'thankyou!'" retorted the vagabond wench, turning her back on him. the second,--old, black, wrinkled, hideous,with an ugliness conspicuous even in the cour des miracles, trotted round gringoire.he almost trembled lest she should want
him. but she mumbled between her teeth, "he'stoo thin," and went off. the third was a young girl, quite fresh,and not too ugly. "save me!" said the poor fellow to her, ina low tone. she gazed at him for a moment with an airof pity, then dropped her eyes, made a plait in her petticoat, and remained inindecision. he followed all these movements with hiseyes; it was the last gleam of hope. "no," said the young girl, at length, "no!guillaume longuejoue would beat me." she retreated into the crowd.
"you are unlucky, comrade," said clopin.then rising to his feet, upon his hogshead. "no one wants him," he exclaimed, imitatingthe accent of an auctioneer, to the great delight of all; "no one wants him? once,twice, three times!" and, turning towards the gibbet with a sign of his hand, "gone!" bellevigne de l'etoile, andry the red,francois chante-prune, stepped up to gringoire.at that moment a cry arose among the thieves: "la esmeralda! la esmeralda!"gringoire shuddered, and turned towards the side whence the clamor proceeded.the crowd opened, and gave passage to a
pure and dazzling form. it was the gypsy."la esmeralda!" said gringoire, stupefied in the midst of his emotions, by the abruptmanner in which that magic word knotted together all his reminiscences of the day. this rare creature seemed, even in the courdes miracles, to exercise her sway of charm and beauty. the vagabonds, male and female, rangedthemselves gently along her path, and their brutal faces beamed beneath her glance.she approached the victim with her light step.
her pretty djali followed her.gringoire was more dead than alive. she examined him for a moment in silence."you are going to hang this man?" she said gravely, to clopin. "yes, sister," replied the king of thunes,"unless you will take him for your husband."she made her pretty little pout with her under lip. "i'll take him," said she.gringoire firmly believed that he had been in a dream ever since morning, and thatthis was the continuation of it. the change was, in fact, violent, though agratifying one.
they undid the noose, and made the poetstep down from the stool. his emotion was so lively that he wasobliged to sit down. the duke of egypt brought an earthenwarecrock, without uttering a word. the gypsy offered it to gringoire: "flingit on the ground," said she. the crock broke into four pieces. "brother," then said the duke of egypt,laying his hands upon their foreheads, "she is your wife; sister, he is your husbandfor four years. go." -book second.chapter vii.
a bridal night. a few moments later our poet found himselfin a tiny arched chamber, very cosy, very warm, seated at a table which appeared toask nothing better than to make some loans from a larder hanging near by, having a good bed in prospect, and alone with apretty girl. the adventure smacked of enchantment. he began seriously to take himself for apersonage in a fairy tale; he cast his eyes about him from time to time to time, asthough to see if the chariot of fire, harnessed to two-winged chimeras, which
alone could have so rapidly transported himfrom tartarus to paradise, were still there. at times, also, he fixed his eyesobstinately upon the holes in his doublet, in order to cling to reality, and not losethe ground from under his feet completely. his reason, tossed about in imaginaryspace, now hung only by this thread. the young girl did not appear to pay anyattention to him; she went and came, displaced a stool, talked to her goat, andindulged in a pout now and then. at last she came and seated herself nearthe table, and gringoire was able to scrutinize her at his ease.
you have been a child, reader, and youwould, perhaps, be very happy to be one still. it is quite certain that you have not, morethan once (and for my part, i have passed whole days, the best employed of my life,at it) followed from thicket to thicket, by the side of running water, on a sunny day, a beautiful green or blue dragon-fly,breaking its flight in abrupt angles, and kissing the tips of all the branches. you recollect with what amorous curiosityyour thought and your gaze were riveted upon this little whirlwind, hissing andhumming with wings of purple and azure, in
the midst of which floated an imperceptible body, veiled by the very rapidity of itsmovement. the aerial being which was dimly outlinedamid this quivering of wings, appeared to you chimerical, imaginary, impossible totouch, impossible to see. but when, at length, the dragon-flyalighted on the tip of a reed, and, holding your breath the while, you were able toexamine the long, gauze wings, the long enamel robe, the two globes of crystal, what astonishment you felt, and what fearlest you should again behold the form disappear into a shade, and the creatureinto a chimera!
recall these impressions, and you willreadily appreciate what gringoire felt on contemplating, beneath her visible andpalpable form, that esmeralda of whom, up to that time, he had only caught a glimpse, amidst a whirlwind of dance, song, andtumult. sinking deeper and deeper into his revery:"so this," he said to himself, following her vaguely with his eyes, "is laesmeralda! a celestial creature! a street dancer! so much, and so little! 'twas she who dealt the death-blow to mymystery this morning, 'tis she who saves my life this evening!my evil genius!
my good angel! a pretty woman, on my word! and who mustneeds love me madly to have taken me in that fashion. by the way," said he, rising suddenly, withthat sentiment of the true which formed the foundation of his character and hisphilosophy, "i don't know very well how it happens, but i am her husband!" with this idea in his head and in his eyes,he stepped up to the young girl in a manner so military and so gallant that she drewback. "what do you want of me?" said she.
"can you ask me, adorable esmeralda?"replied gringoire, with so passionate an accent that he was himself astonished at iton hearing himself speak. the gypsy opened her great eyes. "i don't know what you mean." "what!" resumed gringoire, growing warmerand warmer, and supposing that, after all, he had to deal merely with a virtue of thecour des miracles; "am i not thine, sweet friend, art thou not mine?" and, quite ingenuously, he clasped herwaist. the gypsy's corsage slipped through hishands like the skin of an eel.
she bounded from one end of the tiny roomto the other, stooped down, and raised herself again, with a little poniard in herhand, before gringoire had even had time to see whence the poniard came; proud and angry, with swelling lips and inflatednostrils, her cheeks as red as an api apple, and her eyes darting lightnings. at the same time, the white goat placeditself in front of her, and presented to gringoire a hostile front, bristling withtwo pretty horns, gilded and very sharp. all this took place in the twinkling of aneye. the dragon-fly had turned into a wasp, andasked nothing better than to sting.
our philosopher was speechless, and turnedhis astonished eyes from the goat to the young girl. "holy virgin!" he said at last, whensurprise permitted him to speak, "here are two hearty dames!"the gypsy broke the silence on her side. "you must be a very bold knave!" "pardon, mademoiselle," said gringoire,with a smile. "but why did you take me for your husband?""should i have allowed you to be hanged?" "so," said the poet, somewhat disappointedin his amorous hopes. "you had no other idea in marrying me thanto save me from the gibbet?"
"and what other idea did you suppose that ihad?" gringoire bit his lips."come," said he, "i am not yet so triumphant in cupido, as i thought. but then, what was the good of breakingthat poor jug?" meanwhile esmeralda's dagger and the goat'shorns were still upon the defensive. "mademoiselle esmeralda," said the poet,"let us come to terms. i am not a clerk of the court, and i shallnot go to law with you for thus carrying a dagger in paris, in the teeth of theordinances and prohibitions of m. the provost.
nevertheless, you are not ignorant of thefact that noel lescrivain was condemned, a week ago, to pay ten parisian sous, forhaving carried a cutlass. but this is no affair of mine, and i willcome to the point. i swear to you, upon my share of paradise,not to approach you without your leave and permission, but do give me some supper." the truth is, gringoire was, like m.despreaux, "not very voluptuous." he did not belong to that chevalier andmusketeer species, who take young girls by assault. in the matter of love, as in all otheraffairs, he willingly assented to
temporizing and adjusting terms; and a goodsupper, and an amiable tete-a-tete appeared to him, especially when he was hungry, an excellent interlude between the prologueand the catastrophe of a love adventure. the gypsy did not reply. she made her disdainful little grimace,drew up her head like a bird, then burst out laughing, and the tiny poniarddisappeared as it had come, without gringoire being able to see where the waspconcealed its sting. a moment later, there stood upon the tablea loaf of rye bread, a slice of bacon, some wrinkled apples and a jug of beer.
gringoire began to eat eagerly.one would have said, to hear the furious clashing of his iron fork and hisearthenware plate, that all his love had turned to appetite. the young girl seated opposite him, watchedhim in silence, visibly preoccupied with another thought, at which she smiled fromtime to time, while her soft hand caressed the intelligent head of the goat, gentlypressed between her knees. a candle of yellow wax illuminated thisscene of voracity and revery. meanwhile, the first cravings of hisstomach having been stilled, gringoire felt some false shame at perceiving that nothingremained but one apple.
"you do not eat, mademoiselle esmeralda?" she replied by a negative sign of the head,and her pensive glance fixed itself upon the vault of the ceiling. "what the deuce is she thinking of?"thought gringoire, staring at what she was gazing at; "'tis impossible that it can bethat stone dwarf carved in the keystone of that arch, which thus absorbs herattention. what the deuce!i can bear the comparison!" he raised his voice, "mademoiselle!" she seemed not to hear him.he repeated, still more loudly,
"mademoiselle esmeralda!"trouble wasted. the young girl's mind was elsewhere, andgringoire's voice had not the power to recall it.fortunately, the goat interfered. she began to pull her mistress gently bythe sleeve. "what dost thou want, djali?" said thegypsy, hastily, as though suddenly awakened. "she is hungry," said gringoire, charmed toenter into conversation. esmeralda began to crumble some bread,which djali ate gracefully from the hollow of her hand.
moreover, gringoire did not give her timeto resume her revery. he hazarded a delicate question."so you don't want me for your husband?" the young girl looked at him intently, andsaid, "no." "for your lover?" went on gringoire.she pouted, and replied, "no." "for your friend?" pursued gringoire. she gazed fixedly at him again, and said,after a momentary reflection, "perhaps." this "perhaps," so dear to philosophers,emboldened gringoire. "do you know what friendship is?" he asked. "yes," replied the gypsy; "it is to bebrother and sister; two souls which touch
without mingling, two fingers on one hand.""and love?" pursued gringoire. "oh! love!" said she, and her voicetrembled, and her eye beamed. "that is to be two and to be but one.a man and a woman mingled into one angel. it is heaven." the street dancer had a beauty as she spokethus, that struck gringoire singularly, and seemed to him in perfect keeping with thealmost oriental exaltation of her words. her pure, red lips half smiled; her sereneand candid brow became troubled, at intervals, under her thoughts, like amirror under the breath; and from beneath her long, drooping, black eyelashes, there
escaped a sort of ineffable light, whichgave to her profile that ideal serenity which raphael found at the mystic point ofintersection of virginity, maternity, and divinity. nevertheless, gringoire continued,--"what must one be then, in order to please you?""a man." "and i--" said he, "what, then, am i?" "a man has a hemlet on his head, a sword inhis hand, and golden spurs on his heels." "good," said gringoire, "without a horse,no man. do you love any one?"
"as a lover?--""yes." she remained thoughtful for a moment, thensaid with a peculiar expression: "that i shall know soon." "why not this evening?" resumed the poettenderly. "why not me?"she cast a grave glance upon him and said - -,"i can never love a man who cannot protectme." gringoire colored, and took the hint. it was evident that the young girl wasalluding to the slight assistance which he
had rendered her in the critical situationin which she had found herself two hours previously. this memory, effaced by his own adventuresof the evening, now recurred to him. he smote his brow."by the way, mademoiselle, i ought to have begun there. pardon my foolish absence of mind.how did you contrive to escape from the claws of quasimodo?"this question made the gypsy shudder. "oh! the horrible hunchback," said she,hiding her face in her hands. and she shuddered as though with violentcold.
"horrible, in truth," said gringoire, whoclung to his idea; "but how did you manage to escape him?"la esmeralda smiled, sighed, and remained silent. "do you know why he followed you?" begangringoire again, seeking to return to his question by a circuitous route. "i don't know," said the young girl, andshe added hastily, "but you were following me also, why were you following me?""in good faith," responded gringoire, "i don't know either." silence ensued.gringoire slashed the table with his knife.
the young girl smiled and seemed to begazing through the wall at something. all at once she began to sing in a barelyarticulate voice,-- quando las pintadas aves,mudas estan, y la tierra--* * when the gay-plumaged birds grow weary,and the earth-- she broke off abruptly, and began to caressdjali. "that's a pretty animal of yours," saidgringoire. "she is my sister," she answered. "why are you called 'la esmeralda?'" askedthe poet. "i do not know.""but why?"
she drew from her bosom a sort of littleoblong bag, suspended from her neck by a string of adrezarach beads.this bag exhaled a strong odor of camphor. it was covered with green silk, and bore inits centre a large piece of green glass, in imitation of an emerald."perhaps it is because of this," said she. gringoire was on the point of taking thebag in his hand. she drew back."don't touch it! it is an amulet. you would injure the charm or the charmwould injure you." the poet's curiosity was more and morearoused.
"who gave it to you?" she laid one finger on her mouth andconcealed the amulet in her bosom. he tried a few more questions, but shehardly replied. "what is the meaning of the words, 'laesmeralda?'" "i don't know," said she."to what language do they belong?" "they are egyptian, i think." "i suspected as much," said gringoire, "youare not a native of france?" "i don't know.""are your parents alive?" she began to sing, to an ancient air,--
mon pere est oiseau,ma mere est oiselle. je passe l'eau sans nacelle,je passe l'eau sans bateau, ma mere est oiselle,mon pere est oiseau.* * my father is a bird, my mother is abird. i cross the water without a barque,i cross the water without a boat. my mother is a bird, my father is a bird. "good," said gringoire."at what age did you come to france?" "when i was very young.""and when to paris?" "last year.
at the moment when we were entering thepapal gate i saw a reed warbler flit through the air, that was at the end ofaugust; i said, it will be a hard winter." "so it was," said gringoire, delighted atthis beginning of a conversation. "i passed it in blowing my fingers.so you have the gift of prophecy?" she retired into her laconics again. "is that man whom you call the duke ofegypt, the chief of your tribe?" "yes.""but it was he who married us," remarked the poet timidly. she made her customary pretty grimace."i don't even know your name."
"my name?if you want it, here it is,--pierre gringoire." "i know a prettier one," said she."naughty girl!" retorted the poet. "never mind, you shall not provoke me. wait, perhaps you will love me more whenyou know me better; and then, you have told me your story with so much confidence, thati owe you a little of mine. you must know, then, that my name is pierregringoire, and that i am a son of the farmer of the notary's office of gonesse. my father was hung by the burgundians, andmy mother disembowelled by the picards, at
the siege of paris, twenty years ago. at six years of age, therefore, i was anorphan, without a sole to my foot except the pavements of paris.i do not know how i passed the interval from six to sixteen. a fruit dealer gave me a plum here, a bakerflung me a crust there; in the evening i got myself taken up by the watch, who threwme into prison, and there i found a bundle of straw. all this did not prevent my growing up andgrowing thin, as you see. in the winter i warmed myself in the sun,under the porch of the hotel de sens, and i
thought it very ridiculous that the fire onsaint john's day was reserved for the dog days. at sixteen, i wished to choose a calling.i tried all in succession. i became a soldier; but i was not braveenough. i became a monk; but i was not sufficientlydevout; and then i'm a bad hand at drinking. in despair, i became an apprentice of thewoodcutters, but i was not strong enough; i had more of an inclination to become aschoolmaster; 'tis true that i did not know how to read, but that's no reason.
i perceived at the end of a certain time,that i lacked something in every direction; and seeing that i was good for nothing, ofmy own free will i became a poet and rhymester. that is a trade which one can always adoptwhen one is a vagabond, and it's better than stealing, as some young brigands of myacquaintance advised me to do. one day i met by luck, dom claude frollo,the reverend archdeacon of notre-dame. he took an interest in me, and it is to himthat i to-day owe it that i am a veritable man of letters, who knows latin from the deofficiis of cicero to the mortuology of the celestine fathers, and a barbarian neither
in scholastics, nor in politics, nor inrhythmics, that sophism of sophisms. i am the author of the mystery which waspresented to-day with great triumph and a great concourse of populace, in the grandhall of the palais de justice. i have also made a book which will containsix hundred pages, on the wonderful comet of 1465, which sent one man mad.i have enjoyed still other successes. being somewhat of an artillery carpenter,i lent a hand to jean mangue's great bombard, which burst, as you know, on the day whenit was tested, on the pont de charenton, and killed four and twenty curiousspectators. you see that i am not a bad match inmarriage.
i know a great many sorts of very engagingtricks, which i will teach your goat; for example, to mimic the bishop of paris, thatcursed pharisee whose mill wheels splash passers-by the whole length of the pont auxmeuniers. and then my mystery will bring me in agreat deal of coined money, if they will only pay me. and finally, i am at your orders, i and mywits, and my science and my letters, ready to live with you, damsel, as it shallplease you, chastely or joyously; husband and wife, if you see fit; brother andsister, if you think that better." gringoire ceased, awaiting the effect ofhis harangue on the young girl.
her eyes were fixed on the ground. "'phoebus,'" she said in a low voice.then, turning towards the poet, "'phoebus',--what does that mean?" gringoire, without exactly understandingwhat the connection could be between his address and this question, was not sorry todisplay his erudition. assuming an air of importance, he replied,-- "it is a latin word which means 'sun.'""sun!" she repeated. "it is the name of a handsome archer, whowas a god," added gringoire. "a god!" repeated the gypsy, and there wassomething pensive and passionate in her
tone. at that moment, one of her bracelets becameunfastened and fell. gringoire stooped quickly to pick it up;when he straightened up, the young girl and the goat had disappeared. he heard the sound of a bolt.it was a little door, communicating, no doubt, with a neighboring cell, which wasbeing fastened on the outside. "has she left me a bed, at least?" said ourphilosopher. he made the tour of his cell. there was no piece of furniture adapted tosleeping purposes, except a tolerably long
wooden coffer; and its cover was carved, toboot; which afforded gringoire, when he stretched himself out upon it, a sensation somewhat similar to that which micromegaswould feel if he were to lie down on the alps."come!" said he, adjusting himself as well as possible, "i must resign myself. but here's a strange nuptial night.'tis a pity. there was something innocent andantediluvian about that broken crock, which quite pleased me."