Hunchback of Notre Dame (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (59 page)

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!”

W
hen 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 winter 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,—

“So you are happy?”

Gringoire eagerly replied,—

“Yes, on my honor! At first I loved women, then animals; now I love stones. They are quite as amusing as animals or women, and they are less treacherous.”

The priest pressed his hand to his head. It was his habitual gesture.

“Indeed?”

“Stay!” said Gringoire; “you shall see my pleasures!” He took the arm of the unresisting priest, and led him into the staircase turret of For-l‘Evêque. “There’s a staircase for you! Every time I see it I am happy. It is the simplest and yet the rarest in Paris. Every step is beveled underneath. Its beauty and simplicity consist in the treads, which, for a foot or more in width, are interlaced, mortised, dovetailed, jointed, linked together, and set into one another in a genuinely solid and goodly way.”

“And you desire nothing more?”

“No.”

“And you have no regrets?”

“Neither regret nor desire. I have arranged my mode of life.”

“What man arranges,” said Claude, “circumstances disarrange.”

“I am a Pyrrhonian philosopher,” replied Gringoire, “and I keep everything equally balanced.”

“And how do you earn your living?”

“I still write occasional epics and tragedies; but what brings me in the most, is that trade which you have seen me follow, master,—namely, upholding pyramids of chairs in my teeth.”

“That is a sorry trade for a philosopher.”

“‘Tis keeping up an equilibrium all the same,” said Gringoire. “When one has but a single idea he finds it in everything.”

“I know that!” responded the archdeacon.

After a pause he added,—

“And yet you are poor enough?”

“Poor! Yes; but not unhappy.”

At this instant the sound of horses’ hoofs was heard, and our two friends saw a company of archers belonging to the king’s ordnance file by at the end of the street, with raised lances, and an officer at their head. The cavalcade was a brilliant one, and clattered noisily over the pavement.

“How you stare at that officer!” said Gringoire to the arch deacon.

“Because I think I have seen him before.”

“What is his name?”

“I believe,” said Claude, “that his name is Phœbus de Château pers.”

“Phoebus! a queer name! There is also a Phoebus, Count de Foix. I once knew a girl who never swore save by Phœbus.”

“Come with me,” said the priest. “I have something to say to you.”

Ever since the troops passed by, some agitation was apparent beneath the icy exterior of the archdeacon. He walked on; Gringoire followed, accustomed to obey him, like all who ever approached that man full of such ascendency. They reached the Rue des Bernardins in silence, and found it quite deserted. Here Dom Claude paused.

“What have you to tell me, master?” asked Gringoire.

“Don’t you think,” replied the archdeacon, with a most reflective air, “that the dress of those horsemen whom we just saw is far handsomer than yours and mine?”

Gringoire shook his head.

“I’ faith! I like my red and yellow jacket better than those scales of steel and iron. What pleasure can there be in making as much noise when you walk as the Quai de la Ferraille in an earthquake?”

“Then, Gringoire, you never envied those fine fellows in their warlike array?”

“Envied them what, Sir Archdeacon,—their strength, their armor, or their discipline? Philosophy and independence in rags are far preferable. I would rather be the head of a fly than the tail of a lion.”

“That’s strange,” said the priest, meditatively. “And yet a handsome uniform is a fine thing.”

Gringoire, seeing that he was absorbed in thought, left him in order to admire the porch of a neighboring house. He came back clapping his hands.

“If you were not so absorbed in the fine uniforms of those soldiers, Sir Archdeacon, I would beg you to take a look at that door. I always said that my lord Aubry’s house had the most superb entrance in the world.”

“Pierre Gringoire,” said the archdeacon, “what have you done with that little gipsy dancer?”

“Esmeralda? What a sudden change of subject!”

“Was she not your wife?”

“Yes, by means of a broken pitcher. We are married for four years. By the way,” added Gringoire, regarding the archdeacon with a half-bantering air, “are you still thinking of her?”

“And you,—do you think of her no longer?”

“Seldom. I have so many other things to occupy me. Heavens! how pretty that little goat of hers was!”

“Did not the girl save your life?”

“She did indeed, by Jupiter!”

“Well, what has become of her? What have you done with her?”

“I can’t say, I fancy that they hanged her.”

“You really think so?”

“I’m not sure of it. When I saw that they had taken to hanging people, I withdrew from the game.”

“Is that all you know about the matter?”

“Stay. I was told that she had taken refuge in Notre-Dame, and that she was in safety there, and I am delighted to hear it; and I can’t find out whether the goat was saved along with her. And that’s all I know about it.”