by Victor Hugo
He returned to Notre-Dame, lighted his lamp, and climbed the tower. As he had supposed, the gipsy was still in the same place.
As soon as she caught sight of him, she ran to meet him.
“Alone!” she cried mournfully, clasping her lovely hands.
“I could not find him,” said Quasimodo, coldly.
“You should have waited all night,” she replied indignantly.
He saw her angry gesture, and understood the reproach.
“I will watch better another time,” said he, hanging his head.
“Go!” said she.
He left her. She was offended with him. He would rather be maltreated by her than distress her. He kept all the pain for himself.
From that day forth the gipsy saw him no more. He ceased to visit her cell. At most, she sometimes caught a glimpse of the ringer on the top of a tower, gazing sadly at her. But as soon as she saw him, he disappeared.
We must own that she was but little troubled by this willful absence of the poor hunchback. In her secret heart she thanked him for it. However, Quasimodo did not lie under any delusion on this point.
She no longer saw him, but she felt the presence of a good genius around her. Her provisions were renewed by an invisible hand while she slept. One morning she found a cage of birds on her window-sill. Over her cell there was a piece of carving which alarmed her. She had more than once shown this feeling before Quasimodo. One morning (for all these things occurred at night) she no longer saw it; it was broken off. Any one who had climbed up to it must have risked his life.
Sometimes in the evening she heard a voice, hidden behind the wind-screen of the belfry, sing, as if to lull her to sleep, a weird, sad song, verses without rhyme, such as a deaf person might make:—
“Heed not the face,
Maiden, heed the heart.
The heart of a fine young man is oft deformed.
There are hearts where Love finds no abiding
place.
“Maiden, the pine-tree is not fair,
Not fair as is the poplar-tree
But its leaves are green in winter bare.
“Alas! why do I tell you this?
Beauty alone has right to live;
Beauty can only beauty love,
April her back doth turn on January.
“Beauty is perfect,
Beauty wins all,
Beauty alone is lord of all.
“The raven only flies by day,
The owl by night alone doth fly,
The swan by day and night alike may fly.”
One morning, on waking, she saw at her window two vases full of flowers. One was a very beautiful and brilliant but cracked crystal vase. It had let the water with which it was filled escape, and the flowers which it held were withered. The other was an earthen jug, coarse and common; but it had retained all its water, and the flowers were fresh and rosy.
I do not know whether it was done purposely, but Esmeralda took the withered nosegay, and wore it all day in her bosom.
That day she did not hear the voice from the tower singing.
She cared but little. She passed her days in fondling Djali, in watching the door of the Gondelaurier house, in talking to herself about Phœbus, and in scattering crumbs of bread to the swallows.
She had entirely ceased to see or hear Quasimodo; the poor ringer seemed to have vanished from the church. But one night, when she could not sleep, and was thinking of her handsome captain, she heard a sigh close by her cell. Terrified, she rose, and saw by the light of the moon a shapeless mass lying outside across her door. It was Quasimodo sleeping there upon the stones.
CHAPTER V
The Key to the Porte-Rouge
Meantime, public rumor had informed the archdeacon of the miraculous manner in which the gipsy had been saved. When he learned of it, he knew not what he felt. He had accepted the fact of Esmeralda’s death. In this way, he made himself perfectly easy; he had sounded the utmost depths of grief. The human heart (Dom Claude had mused upon these matters) can hold but a certain quantity of despair. When the sponge is thoroughly soaked, the sea may pass over it without adding another drop to it.
Now, Esmeralda being dead, the sponge was soaked. Everything was over for Dom Claude in this world. But to know that she was alive, and Phoebus too, was to endure afresh the torments, shocks, and vicissitudes of life; and Claude was weary of them all.
When he heard this piece of news, he shut himself up in his cloister cell. He did not appear at the chapter meetings or the sacred offices. He barred his door against every one, even the bishop, and remained thus immured for several weeks. He was supposed to be ill, and indeed was so.
What did he do in his seclusion? With what thoughts was the unfortunate man battling? Was he waging a final conflict with his terrible passion? Was he plotting a final plan to kill her and destroy himself?
His Jehan, his adored brother, his spoiled child, came once to his door, knocked, swore, entreated, repeated his name half a score of times. Claude would not open.
He passed whole days with his face glued to his window-panes. From this window, in the cloisters as it was, he could see Esmeralda’s cell. He often saw her, with her goat,—sometimes with Quasimodo. He noticed the attentions of the ugly deaf man,—his obedience, his refined and submissive manners to the gipsy. He recalled, —for he had a good memory, and memory is the plague of the jealous,—he recalled the bell-ringer’s strange look at the dancer on a certain evening. He asked himself what motive could have led Quasimodo to save her. He witnessed countless little scenes between the girl and the deaf man, when their gestures, seen from a distance and commented on by his passion, struck him as very tender. He distrusted women’s whims. Then he vaguely felt awakening within him a jealousy such as he had never imagined possible,—a jealousy which made him blush with rage and shame. “‘Twas bad enough when it was the captain; but this fellow!” The idea overwhelmed him.
His nights were frightful. Since he knew the gipsy girl to be alive, the chill fancies of specters and tombs which had for an entire day beset him, had vanished, and the flesh again rose in revolt against the spirit. He writhed upon his bed at the idea that the dark-skinned damsel was so near a neighbor.
Every night his fevered imagination pictured Esmeralda in all those attitudes which had stirred his blood most quickly. He saw her stretched across the body of the wounded captain, her eyes closed, her beautiful bare throat covered with Phoebus’s blood, at that moment of rapture when he himself had pressed upon her pale lips that kiss which had burned the unhappy girl, half dead though she was, like a living coal. He again saw her disrobed by the savage hands of the executioners, exposing and enclosing in the buskin with its iron screws her tiny foot, her plump and shapely leg, and her white and supple knee.
He again saw that ivory knee alone left uncovered by Torterue’s horrid machine. Finally, he figured to himself the young girl in her shift, the rope about her neck, her shoulders bare, her feet bare, almost naked, as he saw her on what was to have been her last day on earth. These voluptuous pictures made him clinch his hands, and caused a shudder to run from head to foot.
One night, especially, they so cruelly heated his virgin and priestly blood that he bit his pillow, leaped from his bed, threw a surplice over his shirt, and left his cell, lamp in hand, but half-dressed, wild and haggard, with flaming eyes.
He knew where to find the key to the Porte-Rouge, which led from the cloisters to the church, and he always carried about him, as the reader knows, a key to the tower stairs.
CHAPTER VI
The Key to the Porte-Rouge (continued)
That night Esmeralda fell asleep in her cell, full of peace, hope, and pleasant thoughts. She had been asleep for some time, dreaming, as she always did, of Phoebus, when she fancied she heard a noise. Her sleep was light and restless,—a bird’s sleep. A mere trifle roused her. She opened her eyes. The night was very dark. Still, she saw a face peering in at the window; the vision was lighte
d up by a lamp. When this face saw that Esmeralda was looking at it, it blew out the lamp. Still, the girl had had time to catch a glimpse of it; her eyes closed in terror.
“Oh,” said she, in a feeble voice, “the priest!”
All her past misery flashed upon her with lightning speed. She sank back upon her bed, frozen with fear.
A moment after, she felt a touch which made her shudder so that she started up wide awake and furious.
The priest had glided to her side. He clasped her in his arms.
She tried to scream, but could not.
“Begone, monster! Begone, assassin!” she said at last, in a low voice trembling with wrath and horror.
“Mercy! mercy!” murmured the priest, pressing his lips to her shoulders.
She seized his bald head in both hands by the hairs which remained, and strove to prevent his kisses as if they had been bites.
“Mercy!”repeated the unfortunate man. “If you knew what my love for you is! It is fire, molten lead, a thousand knives driven into my heart!”
And he held her arms with superhuman strength. She cried desperately: “Release me, or I shall spit in your face!”
He released her. “Degrade me, strike me, do your worst! do what you will! but have mercy! love me!”
Then she struck him with the impotent fury of a child. She clinched her lovely hands to bruise his face. “Demon, begone!”
“Love me! love me! have pity!” cried the poor priest, clasping her, and returning her blows with caresses.
All at once she felt him stronger than she.
“No more of this!” he exclaimed, gnashing his teeth.
She lay conquered, crushed, and quivering in his arms, at his mercy. She felt a wanton hand wandering over her. She made one last effort, and shrieked: “Help! help! a vampire! a vampire!”
No one came. Djali alone was awakened, and bleated piteously.
“Silence!” said the panting priest.
Suddenly, in her struggle, as she fought upon the floor, the gipsy’s hand encountered something cold and metallic. It was Quasimodo’s whistle. She seized it with a convulsion of hope, raised it to her lips, and blew with all her remaining strength. The whistle gave forth a sharp, shrill, piercing sound.
“What is that?” said the priest.
Almost as he spoke he felt himself grasped by a vigorous arm. The cell was dark; he could not distinguish exactly who held him; but he heard teeth chattering with rage, and there was just enough light mingled with the darkness for him to see the broad blade of a knife gleam above his head.
He thought he recognized the figure of Quasimodo. He supposed that it could be no other. He remembered having stumbled, as he entered, over a bundle lying across the outside of the door. But as the new-comer did not utter a word, he knew not what to think. He flung himself upon the arm which held the knife, crying. “Quasimodo!” He forgot, in this moment of distress, that Quasimodo was deaf.
In the twinkling of an eye the priest was stretched on the floor, and felt a heavy knee pressed against his breast. By the angular imprint of that knee, he knew Quasimodo; but what was he to do? How was he also to be recognized by the hunchback? Night made the deaf man blind.
He was lost. The young girl, pitiless as an enraged tigress, did not interpose to save him. The knife came nearer his head; it was a critical moment. All at once his adversary appeared to hesitate.
“No blood upon her!” said he, in a dull voice.
It was indeed the voice of Quasimodo.
Then the priest felt a huge hand drag him from the cell by the heels; he was not to die within those walls. Luckily for him, the moon had risen some moments before.
When they crossed the threshold, its pale rays fell upon the priest. Quasimodo looked him in the face, trembled, relaxed his hold, and shrank back.
The gipsy, who had advanced to the door of her cell, saw with surprise that the actors had suddenly changed parts. It was now the priest who threatened, and Quasimodo who implored.
The priest, who was overwhelming the deaf man with gestures of wrath and reproach, violently signed him to withdraw.
The deaf man bowed his head, then knelt before the gipsy’s door. “My lord,” said he, in grave, submissive tones, “do what you will afterwards; but kill me first!”
So saying, he offered his knife to the priest. The priest, beside himself with rage, rushed upon him. But the young girl was quicker than he. She tore the knife from Quasimodo’s hands, and uttered a frenzied laugh.
“Approach now!” she cried.
She held the blade high above her head. The priest stood irresolute. She would certainly have struck.
“You dare not touch me now, coward!” she exclaimed.
Then she added with a pitiless look, and knowing that her words would pierce the priest’s heart like a thousand red-hot irons,—
“Ah, I know that Phœbus is not dead!”
The priest threw Quasimodo to the ground with a kick, and rushed down the stairs quivering with rage.
When he had gone, Quasimodo picked up the whistle which had just saved the gipsy.
“It was getting rusty,” said he, returning it to her; then he left her alone.
The young girl, overcome by this violent scene, fell exhausted on her bed and burst into a flood of tears. Her horizon was again becoming overcast.
The priest, on his side, groped his way back to his cell.
That was sufficient. Dom Claude was jealous of Quasimodo.
He repeated musingly the fatal words: “No one else shall have her!”
BOOK TEN
CHAPTER I
Gringoire Has Several Capital Ideas in Succession in the Rue des Bernardins
When Pierre Gringoire saw the turn which this whole matter was taking, and that a rope, hanging, and other unpleasant things must certainly be the fate of the chief actors in the play, he no longer cared to meddle with it. The Vagrants, with whom he remained, considering that after all they were the best company to be found in Paris,—the Vagrants still retained their interest in the gipsy. He thought this very natural on the part of people who, like her, had no prospect but Charmolue and Torterue to which to look forward, and who did not, like him, roam through the realms of imagination upon the wings of Pegasus. He learned from their conversation that his bride of the broken jug had taken refuge in Notre-Dame, and he was very glad of it; but he felt no temptation to visit her. He sometimes wondered what had become of the little goat, and that was all. In the daytime he performed feats of juggling for a living, and at night he wrought out an elaborate memorial against the Bishop of Paris; for he remembered being drenched by his mill-wheels, and he bore him a grudge for it. He also busied himself with comments on that fine work by Baudry-le-Rouge, Bishop of Noyon and Tournay, entitled “De cupa petrarum,”dl which had inspired him with an ardent taste for architecture,—a fancy which had replaced in his heart the passion for hermetics, of which indeed it was but a natural corollary, since there is a close connection between hermetics and masonry. Gringoire had turned from the love of an idea to love of the substance.
One day he halted near Saint-Germain-l‘Auxerrois, at the corner of a building known as the For-l‘Evêque, which faces another known as the For-le-Roi. This For-l’Evêque contained a charming fourteenth-century chapel, the chancel of which looked towards the street. Gringoire was devoutly studying the outside carvings. He was enjoying one of those moments of selfish, exclusive, supreme pleasure, during which the artist sees nothing in the world but art, and sees the world in art. All at once he felt a hand laid heavily on his shoulder. He turned. It was his former friend, his former master, the archdeacon.
He was astounded. It was a long time since he had seen the archdeacon, and Dom Claude was one of those solemn and impassioned men a meeting with whom always upsets the equilibrium of a sceptic philosopher.
The archdeacon was silent for some moments, during which Gringoire had leisure to observe him. He found Dom Claude greatly changed,—pale as a w
inter morning, hollow-eyed, his hair almost white. The priest at last broke the silence, saying in a calm but icy tone,—
“How are you, Master Pierre?”
“As to my health?” answered Gringoire. “Well, well! I may say I am tolerably robust, upon the whole. I take everything in moderation. You know, master, the secret of good health, according to Hippocrates: ‘Id est: cibi, potus, somni, cenus, omnia moderata sint.”’dm
“Then you have nothing to trouble you, Master Pierre?” replied the archdeacon, looking fixedly at Gringoire.
“No, by my faith!”
“And what are you doing now?”
“You see, master, I am examining the cutting of these stones, and the style in which that bas-relief is thrown out.”
The priest smiled a bitter smile, which only lifted one corner of his mouth.
“And does that amuse you?”
“It is paradise!” exclaimed Gringoire. And bending over the sculptures with the ravished mien of a demonstrator of living phenomena, he added: “For instance, don’t you think that metamorphosis in low-relief is carved with exceeding skill, refinement, and patience? Just look at this little column. Around what capital did you ever see foliage more graceful or more daintily chiseled? Here are three of Jean Maillevin’s alto-relievos. They are not the finest works of that great genius. Still, the ingenuousness, the sweetness of the faces, the careless ease of the attitudes and draperies, and that inexplicable charm which is mingled with all their defects, make these tiny figures most delicate and delightful, perhaps almost too much so. Don’t you think this is entertaining?”
“Yes, indeed!” said the priest.
“And if you could only see the inside of the chapel!” continued the poet, with his garrulous enthusiasm. “Carvings everywhere, crowded as close as the leaves in the heart of a cabbage! The chancel is fashioned most devoutly, and is so peculiar that I have never seen its like elsewhere.”
Dom Claude interrupted him,—