Hunchback of Notre Dame (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Victor Hugo

  “What else?” said the archdeacon.

  “Alas! dearest brother, I would fain lead a better life. I came to you full of contrition. I am penitent. I confess my sins. I beat my breast lustily. You were quite right to wish me to become a licentiate, and submonitor of the College de Torchi. I now feel that I have the strongest vocation for that office. But I have no ink, I must buy some; I have no pens, I must buy some; I have no paper, I have no books, I must buy some. I am in great want of a little money for all these things, and I come to you, brother, with a contrite heart.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes,” said the student. “A little money.”

  “I have none.”

  The student then said with a grave and at the same time resolute air, “Very well, brother: I am sorry to be obliged to tell you that very fine offers and propositions have been made me by another party. You will not give me the money? No? In that case, I shall turn Vagabond.”

  As he uttered this monstrous word, he assumed the expression of an Ajax, expecting to see the thunderbolt descend upon his head.

  The archdeacon said coldly,—

  “Turn Vagabond!”

  Jehan bowed low and hurried down the cloister stairs, whistling as he went.

  Just as he passed through the courtyard of the cloisters, under his brother’s window, he heard that window open, looked up, and saw the archdeacon’s stern face at the aperture.

  “Go to the devil!” said Dom Claude; “this is the last money which you will ever get from me!”

  At the same time he flung at Jehan a purse which raised a large lump on his forehead, and with which he departed, at once angry and pleased, like a dog pelted with marrow-bones.

  CHAPTER III

  Joy Forever!

  The reader may remember that a part of the Court of Miracles was enclosed by the ancient boundary wall of the city, many of whose towers had at this time begun to fall into ruin. One of these towers had been made into a pleasure-house by the Vagabonds. There was a tavern in the lower portion, and other things above. This tower was the most lively and consequently the most horrible spot in the Vagrant community. It was a sort of monstrous bee-hive, which buzzed and hummed night and day. At night, when all the surplus beggars were asleep, when there was not a window still lighted in any of the dirty houses in the square, when no sound was longer to be heard from any of the innumerable hovels, the abode of swarms of thieves, prostitutes, and stolen children or foundlings, the jolly tower might always be known by the noise which rose from it, by the red light which, beaming alike from chimneys, windows, and cracks in the crumbling walls, escaped, as it were, at every pore.

  The cellar, then, was the tavern. It was reached by a low door, and a flight of stairs as steep as a classic Alexandrine verse. Over the door, by way of sign, there was a marvelous daub portraying a number of coins fresh from the mint and fresh-killed chickens, with these punning words above: “The Bell-Ringers for the Dead.”

  One evening, when the curfew-bell was ringing from every belfry in Paris, the sergeants of the watch, had they chanced to enter the much-dreaded Court of Miracles, might have observed that there was even more uproar than usual in the tavern of the Vagabonds; that there was more drinking and more swearing than ordinary. Outside, in the square, numerous groups were chatting together in low tones, as if planning some great enterprise; and here and there some scamp squatted on the ground, sharpening a rusty iron blade upon a paving-stone. Within the tavern itself, however, cards and wine proved so powerful a diversion from the ideas which that evening occupied the minds of the Vagrant community that it would have been hard to guess from the remarks of the drinkers what the scheme on foot really was; they merely seemed somewhat more jovial than usual, and between the legs of every man glistened a weapon,—a pruning-hook, an axe, a big two-edged sword, or the hook of an old hackbut.

  The room was circular in shape and very large; but the tables were so closely crowded and the topers so numerous that the entire contents of the tavern—men, women, benches, beer-jugs, drinkers, sleepers, gamblers, able-bodied and crippled—seemed to be heaped together pell-mell, with no more order or harmony than a pile of oyster-shells. A number of tallow dips burned on the tables; but the real luminary of the tavern, which played the same part as the chandelier in an opera-house, was the fire. This cellar was so damp that the fire on the hearth was never suffered to go out, even in midsummer. There was a huge fireplace with carved overhanging mantel, bristling with clumsy iron andirons and kitchen utensils, and one of those tremendous fires of wood and turf mixed, which at night, in village streets, cast such red and spectral images on the opposite walls from the window of a forge. A large dog sat soberly in the ashes, and turned a spit laden with meat before the embers.

  In spite of the confusion, after the first glance, three principal groups were readily to be distinguished, pressing about three personages with whom the reader is already acquainted. One of these persons, grotesquely decked with various gaudy Oriental rags, was Mathias Hungadi Spicali, Duke of Egypt and Bohemia. The rascal sat upon a table, with crossed legs and uplifted finger, loudly dispensing his store of black and white magic to the many gaping faces around him. Another mob crowded closely about our old friend, the worthy King of Tunis, or lord of blacklegs, Clopin Trouillefou. Armed to the teeth, he was very seriously, and in low tones, superintending the pillage of an enormous cask full of weapons which stood staved in before him, and from which were disgorged quantities of axes, swords, priming-pans, coats of mail, spear-heads and antique lance-heads, arrows and cross-bow bolts, like so many apples and grapes from a cornucopia. Each took from the heap what he chose,—one a helmet, one a sword-blade, and another a misericordia, or cross-handled dagger. The very children armed themselves, and there were even legless cripples, crawling about, barbed and cuirassed, between the legs of the topers, like big beetles.

  Lastly a third audience—the noisiest, jolliest, and most numerous of all—thronged the benches and tables, in whose midst held forth and swore a flute-like voice issuing from a heavy suit of armor, complete from helmet to spurs. The individual who had thus imprisoned himself in full panoply was so entirely hidden by his warlike habit that nothing was to be seen of him but an impudent, red, snub nose, a lock of light curly hair, a rosy mouth, and a pair of bold eyes. His belt was stuck full of daggers and knives, a huge sword hung at his side, a rusty cross-bow was on the other thigh, and a vast jug of wine stood before him; not to mention a plump and ragged damsel at his right hand. Every mouth in his vicinity laughed, cursed, and drank.

  Add to these twenty secondary groups,—the serving men and maids running about with jugs on their heads; gamblers stooping over their marbles, their hop-scotch, dice, vachette, or exciting game of tringlet; the quarrels in one corner, the kisses in another,—and you will have some idea of the scene over which flickered the glare of a huge roaring fire, which made a myriad of monstrous shadows dance upon the walls.

  As for the noise, it was like the inside of a big bell ringing a full peal.

  The dripping-pan, in which a shower of fat from the spit was crackling, filled up with its constant sputtering the intervals in the endless dialogues going on from one side of the hall to the other.

  Amidst this uproar, a philosopher sat at the back of the room on the bench in the chimney-place, musing, with his feet in the ashes and his eyes on the burning brands; it was Pierre Gringoire.

  “Come! make haste, arm yourselves! We march in an hour!” said Clopin Trouillefou to his Men of Slang.

  A girl hummed,—

  “Good-night, mamma; good-night, my sire;

  Who sits up last, rakes down the fire.”

  Two card-players disputed together.

  “Knave,” cried the redder-faced of the two, shaking his fist at the other, “I will mark you with the club; then you can take the place of the knave of clubs in the king’s own pack of cards.”

  “Ouf!” roared a Norman, readily to be recognized by his nasal twan
g; “we are crowded together here like so many saints at Cail louville!”

  “Boys,” said the Duke of Egypt to his followers, speaking in falsetto tones, “the witches of France attend their Sabbath without broomstick, or ointment, or any steed, merely by uttering a few magical words. Italian witches always keep a goat waiting for them at the door. All are obliged to go up the chimney.”

  The voice of the young scamp armed from head to foot rose above the uproar.

  “Noël! Noël!” he shouted. “Today I wear armor the for first time. A Vagrant! I am a Vagrant, by Christ’s wounds! Give me drink! Friends, my name is Jehan Frollo du Moulin, and I am a gentleman born. It is my opinion that if God himself were a gendarme, he would turn plunderer. Brothers, we are about to go on a fine expedition. We are valiant fellows. Assault the church, break open the doors, carry off the lovely damsel in distress, save her from her judges, save her from the priests; dismantle the cloisters, burn the bishop in his palace. We’ll do all this in less time than it takes a burgomaster to eat a spoonful of soup. Our cause is just; we will strip Notre-Dame, and that’s the end of it. We’ll hang Quasimodo. Do you know Quasimodo, ladies? Did you ever see him ring the big bell of a Whit-Sunday until he was out of breath? My word! it’s a lovely sight! He looks like a devil astride of a great gaping pair of jaws. Friends, listen to me. I am a Vagrant to my heart’s core; I am a Man of Slang in my inmost soul; I was born a Cadger. I have been very rich, and I’ve devoured my fortune. My mother meant to make a soldier of me; my father, a sub-deacon; my aunt, a member of the Court of Inquiry; my grandmother, prothonotary to the king; my great-aunt, a paymaster in the army; but I,—I turned Vagrant. I told my father that I had made my choice, and be hurled a curse at my head; and my mother,—she, poor old lady, fell to weeping and sputtering, like that log on the fire. A short life and a merry one, say I! I am as good as a whole houseful of lunatics! Landlady, my darling, more wine! I’ve money enough still to pay for it. No more Surène wine for me; it frets my throat. Zounds! I’d as soon gargle myself with a swarm of bees!”

  Meantime, the rabble applauded his words with shouts of laughter; and seeing that the tumult about him increased, the student exclaimed: —

  “Oh, what a delightful confusion! Populi debacchantis populosa debacchatio!”dn Then he began to sing, his eye rolling in feigned ecstasy, in the voice of a canon intoning vespers: “Quœ cantica! quœ organa! quœ cantilenœ! quœ melodiœ hic sine fine decantantur! Sonant melliflua hymnorum organa, suavissima angelorum melodia cantica canticorum mira—”do He stopped short: “Here, you devil of a tavern-keeper, give me some supper!”

  There was a moment of comparative quiet, during which the sharp voice of the Duke of Egypt was heard in its turn, instructing his followers:—

  “The weasel is called Aduine, the fox Blue-foot or the Wood-ranger, the wolf Grey-foot, or Gold-foot, the bear Old Man or Grandfather. The cap of a gnome will make its possessor invisible, and enable him to see invisible things. Every toad that is baptized should be clad in black or red velvet, a bell round its neck and another at its feet. The godfather holds it by the head, the godmother by the legs.”

  The Vagrants continued to arm, whispering together as they did so, at the other end of the tavern.

  “Poor Esmeralda!” said a gipsy; “she’s our sister. We must rescue her.”

  “Is she still at Notre-Dame?” asked a Jewish-looking Cadger.

  “Yes, in good sooth, she is!”

  “Well, then, comrades,” cried the Cadger, “on to Notre-Dame! So much the more, that there are two statues in the chapel of Saint Féréol and Saint Ferrution.—one of Saint John the Baptist and the other of Saint Anthony,—of solid gold, the two together weighing seven golden marks and fifteen sterlings, and the silver-gilt pedestals weigh seventeen marks and five ounces. I know all about this; I am a jeweler.”

  Here Jehan’s supper was served. He exclaimed, as he threw himself back upon the bosom of the girl next him:—

  “By Saint Voult-de-Lucques, known to the world at large as Saint Goguelu, I am perfectly happy. Before me stands a fool staring at me with as smug a face as any archduke. And at my left elbow sits another, with teeth so long that they hide his chin. And then, too, I’m like Marshal de Gié at the siege of Pontoise,—my right wing rests upon an eminence. Body of Mahomet! comrade, you look very like a dealer in tennis-balls, and yet you dare to take your seat by my side! I am a noble, my friend. Nobility and trade cannot keep company. Get you gone! Hollo there, you fellows! don’t fall to fighting. What! Baptiste Croque-Oison, you who have so fine a nose, will you risk it against the heavy fists of yonder lout? Donkey! non cuiquam datum est habere nasum.dp You are indeed divine, Jacqueline Ronge-Oreille! ‘Tis a pity you’re so bald. Hollo! my name is Jehan Frollo, and my brother is an archdeacon. May the devil take him! Every word I say is true. When I turned vagabond, I cheerfully renounced the half of a house situated in paradise, which my brother promised me (Dimidiam domum in paradiso). I quote the Scriptures. I have an estate in fee in the Rue Tirechappe, and all the women are in love with me as truly as it is true that Saint Aloy sius was an excellent goldsmith, and that the five handicrafts of the good city of Paris are those of the tanners, leather-dressers, baldric-makers, purse-makers, and cordwainers, and that Saint Lawrence was broiled over egg-shells. I swear, comrades,—

  ‘That for a year I’ll drink no wine

  If there be any lie in words of mine!’

  My charmer, it is moonlight; only look yonder, through that loop-hole; how the wind rumples the clouds,—as I do your kerchief! Come, girls! snuff the children and the candles. Christ and Mahomet! what am I eating now, by Jupiter? Ho, there, you old jade! the hairs which are missing on the heads of your women, I find in your omelets. I say old girl! I like my omelets bald. May the devil put your nose out of joint! A fine hostelry of Beelzebub this, where the wenches comb their heads with forks!”

  So saying, he smashed his plate upon the paved floor, and fell to singing at the top of his lungs:—

  “And for this self of mine,

  Now by the Blood Divine!

  No creed I crave,

  No law to save.

  I have no fire,

  I have no hut;

  And I require

  No faith to put

  In monarch high

  Or Deity!”

  Meantime, Clopin Trouillefou had finished his distribution of arms. He approached Gringoire, who seemed plunged in deep thought, with his feet upon an andiron.

  “Friend Pierre,” said the king of blacklegs, “what the devil are you thinking about?”

  Gringoire turned to him with a melancholy smile.

  “I love the fire, my dear lord; not for the trivial reason that the fire warms our feet or cooks our soup, but because it throws out sparks. I sometimes spend hours in watching the sparks fly up. I discover a thousand things in these stars that sprinkle the black chimney-back. These stars are worlds as well.”

  “May I be struck by lightning if I understand you!” said the Vagrant. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “I do not,” replied Gringoire.

  Clopin then went up to the Duke of Egypt:—

  “Comrade Mathias, this is not a lucky moment for our scheme. They say that King Louis XI is in Paris.”

  “So much the more reason for rescuing our sister from his claws,” answered the old gipsy.

  “You speak like a man, Mathias,” said the King of Tunis. “Moreover, we will act adroitly. We need fear no resistance within the church. The canons are mere hares, and we muster strong. The officers of the Parliament will be nicely taken in tomorrow when they come to seize her! By the Pope’s bowel! I don’t want the pretty maid hanged!”

  With these words, Clopin left the tavern.

  Meantime, Jehan shouted in hoarse tones,—

  “I drink, I eat, I am drunk, I am Jupiter himself! Ha! Pierre l‘As sommeur, if you stare at me like that, I’ll dust your nose with my fist!”

  Gringoire,
on his side, roused from his meditations, was contemplating the wild, noisy scene before him, muttering between his teeth: “Luxuriosa res vinum et tumultuosa ebrietas.dq Alas! I have good reasons for not drinking; and how aptly Saint Benedict says: ‘Vinum apostatare facit etiam sapientes!”,dr

  At this instant Clopin returned, and cried in a voice of thunder, —

  “Midnight!”

  At this word, which had the effect of “Boot and saddle!” upon a regiment at rest, all the Vagrants, men, women, and children, rushed hurriedly from the tavern, with a great clatter of arms and old iron.

  The moon was overcast.

  The Court of Miracles was quite dark. There was not a light to be seen; and yet it was far from being empty. A crowd of men and women, talking together in low tones had collected. There was an audible buzz of voices and a glitter of all sorts of weapons in the darkness. Clopin mounted a huge stone.

  “To your ranks, Men of Slang!” he cried. “To your ranks, Gipsies! To your ranks, Greeks!”

  There was a stir in the gloom. The vast multitude seemed to be forming into line. After a brief pause the King of Tunis again raised his voice:—

  “Now, silence as we pass through Paris! ‘The chive in the cly’dsis the password! The torches will not be lighted until we reach Notre-Dame! Forward, march!”

  Ten minutes later the horsemen of the watch fled in terror before a long procession of dark, silent men descending upon the Pont-au-Change through the crooked streets which traverse the closely built region of the Halles in every direction.

  CHAPTER IV

  An Awkward Friend

  That same night Quasimodo did not sleep. He had just made his last round in the church. He did not notice, as he closed the doors, that the archdeacon passed, and seemed somewhat vexed at seeing him so carefully bolt and chain the immense iron bars which made the wide leaves as solid as a wall. Dom Claude looked even more preoccupied than usual. Moreover, ever since his nocturnal adventure in the cell he had abused Quasimodo constantly; but though he maltreated him, nay, sometimes even beat him, nothing shook the submission, patience, and humble resignation of the faithful ringer. From the archdeacon he would bear anything and everything,—insults, threats, blows,—without murmuring a reproach, without uttering a complaint. At most he anxiously followed Dom Claude with his eye, as he climbed the tower stairs; but the archdeacon had carefully abstained from appearing again in the gipsy’s presence.