Truth to tell, Gringoire, like M. Depréaux, was “but little inclined to sensuality.” He had none of those swashbuckler and conquering ways that take girls by storm. In love, as in all other matters, he willingly resigned himself to temporizing and a middle course, and a good supper in charming tête-á-tête, especially when he was hungry, appeared to him an admirable interlude between the prologue and the dénouement of an amatory adventure.
The gipsy made no reply. She pouted her lips disdainfully, tossed her little head like a bird, then burst into a peal of laughter, and the dainty little weapon vanished as it had appeared, without Gringoire being able to observe where the wasp concealed its sting.
A minute afterward there appeared upon the table a loaf of bread, a slice of bacon, some wrinkled apples, and a mug of beer. Gringoire fell to ravenously. To hear the furious clatter of his fork on the earthenware platter you would have concluded that all his love had turned to hunger.
Seated opposite to him, the girl let him proceed in silence, being visibly preoccupied with some other thought, at which she smiled from time to time, while her gentle hand absently caressed the intelligent head of the goat pressed gently against her knee. A candle of yellow wax lit up this scene of voracity and musing. Presently, the first gnawings of his stomach being satisfied, Gringoire had a pang of remorse at seeing that nothing remained of the feast but one apple. “You are not eating, Mademoiselle Esmeralda?”
She replied with a shake of the head, and fixed her pensive gaze on the arched roof of the chamber.
“Now, what in the world is she absorbed in?” thought Gringoire as he followed her gaze: “it can’t possibly be that grinning dwarf’s face carved in the keystone of the vaulting. Que diable! I can well stand the comparison!”
He raised his voice: “Mademoiselle!”
She seemed not to hear him.
He tried again still louder: “Mademoiselle Esmeralda!”
Labour lost. The girl’s mind was elsewhere and Gringoire’s voice had not the power to call it back. Fortunately, the goat struck in and began pulling its mistress gently by the sleeve.
“What is it, Djali?” said the gipsy quickly, as if starting out of a dream.
“It is hungry,” said Gringoire, delighted at any opening for a conversation.
Esmeralda began crumbling some bread, which Djali ate daintily out of the hollow of her hand.
Gringoire gave her no time to resume her musings. He hazarded a delicate question.
“So you will not have me for your husband?”
The girl looked at him steadily. “No,” she said.
“Nor for your lover?”
She thrust out her under lip and answered “No.”
“For a friend, then?” continued Gringoire.
She regarded him fixedly, then after a moment’s reflection, “Perhaps,” she replied.
This perhaps, so dear to the philosopher, encouraged Gringoire. “Do you know what friendship is?” he asked.
“Yes,” returned the gipsy. “It is to be like brother and sister; two souls that touch without mingling; two fingers of the same hand.”
“And love?” proceeded Gringoire.
“Oh, love,” she said, and her voice vibrated and her eyes shone, “that is to be two and yet only one—a man and a woman blending into an angel—it is heaven!”
As she spoke, the dancing girl of the streets glowed with a beauty which affected Gringoire strangely, and which seemed to him in perfect harmony with the almost Oriental exaltation of her words. Her chaste and rosy lips were parted in a half smile, her pure and open brow was ruffled for a moment by her thoughts, as a mirror is dimmed by a passing breath, and from under her long, dark, drooping lashes there beamed a sort of ineffable light, imparting to her face that ideal suavity which later on Raphael found at the mystic point of intersection of the virginal, the human, and the divine.
Nevertheless, Gringoire continued: “What must a man be, then, to win your favour?”
“He must be a man!”
“And I,” said he; “what am I, then?”
“A man goes helmet on head, sword in hand, and gilt spurs on heel.”
“Good,” said Gringoire, “the horse makes the man. Do you love any one?”
“As a lover?”
“As a lover.”
She paused thoughtfully for a moment, then she said with a peculiar expression, “I shall know that soon.”
“And why not to-night?” rejoined the poet in tender accents; “why not me?”
She gave him a cold, grave look. “I could never love a man unless he could protect me.”
Gringoire reddened and accepted the rebuke. The girl evidently alluded to the feeble assistance he had rendered her in the critical situation of a couple of hours before. This recollection, effaced by the subsequent adventures of the evening, now returned to him. He smote his forehead.
“That reminds me, mademoiselle, I ought to have begun by that. Pardon my foolish distraction. How did you manage to escape out of the clutches of Quasimodo?”
The gipsy shuddered. “Oh, the horrible hunchback!” she exclaimed, hiding her face in her hands, and shivering as if overcome by violent cold.
“Horrible indeed,” agreed Gringoire; “but how,” he persisted, “did you get away from him?”
Esmeralda smiled, heaved a little sigh, and held her peace.
“Do you know why he followed you?” asked Gringoire, trying to come at the information he sought by another way.
“No, I do not,” answered the gipsy. “But,” she added sharply, “you were following me too. Why did you follow me?”
“To tell you the honest truth,” replied Gringoire, “I don’t know that either.”
There was a pause. Gringoire was scratching the table with his knife; the girl smiled to herself and seemed to be looking at something through the wall. Suddenly she began to sing, hardly above her breath:
“Quando las pintades aves
Mudas estàn, y la tierra…”1
She stopped abruptly, and fell to stroking Djali.
“That is a pretty little animal you have there.”
“It is my sister,” she replied.
“Why do they call you Esmeralda?” inquired the poet.
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, do tell me.”
She drew from her bosom a little oblong bag hanging round her neck by a chain of berries. The bag, which exhaled a strong smell of camphor, was made of green silk, and had in the middle a large green glass bead like an emerald. “It is perhaps because of that,” said she.
Gringoire put out his hand for the little bag, but she drew back. “Do not touch it! It is an amulet, and either you will do mischief to the charm, or it will hurt you.”
The poet’s curiosity became more and more lively. “Who gave it you?”
She laid a finger on her lips and hid the amulet again in her bosom. He tried her with further questions, but she scarcely answered.
“What does the word Esmeralda mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“What language is it?”
“Egyptian, I think.”
“I thought as much,” said Gringoire. “You are not a native of this country?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you father or mother?”
She began singing to an old air:
“Mon père est oiseau,
Ma mère est oiselle.
Je passe l’eau sans nacelle,
Je passe l’eau sans bateau.
Ma mère est oiselle,
Mon père est oiseau.”1
“Very good,” said Gringoire. “How old were you when you came to France?”
“Quite little.”
“And to Paris?”
“ year. As we came through the Porte Papale I saw the reed linnet fly overhead. It was the end of August; I said, It will be a hard winter.”
“And so it was,” said Gringoire, delighted at this turn in the conversation. “I spent it in blowing on my fingers. So you have the gift of prophecy?”
She lapsed again into her laconic answers—“No.”
“That man whom you call the Duke of Egypt, is he the head of your tribe?”
“Yes.”
“Well, but it was he who united us in marriage,” observed the poet timidly.
She made her favourite little grimace. “Why, I don’t even know your name!”
“My name? If you wish to know it, here it is—Pierre Gringoire.”
“I know a finer one than that,” said she.
“Ah, cruel one!” responded the poet. “Never mind, you cannot provoke me. See, perhaps you will like me when you know me better; besides, you have told me your story with so much confidence that it is only fair that I should tell you something of mine. You must know, then, that my name is Pierre Gringoire, and that my father farmed the office of notary in Gonesse. He was hanged by the Burgundians, and my mother was murdered by the Picards at the time of the siege of Paris, twenty years ago. So, at six years of age I was an orphan, with no sole to my foot but the pavement of Paris. How I got through the interval from six to sixteen I should be at a loss to tell. A fruit-seller would throw me a plum here, a baker a crust of bread there. At night I would get picked up by the watch, who put me in prison, where at least I found a truss of straw to lie upon. All this did not prevent me from growing tall and thin, as you perceive. In winter I warmed myself in the sun in the porch of the H?tel de Sens, and I thought it very absurd that the bonfires for the Feast of Saint-John should be reserved for the dog-days. At sixteen I wished to adopt a trade. I tried everything in turn. I became a soldier, but I was lacking in courage; friar, but I was not sufficiently pious—besides, I am a poor hand at drinking. In desperation I apprenticed myself to a Guild of Carpenters, but I was not strong enough. I had more inclination towards being a school-master: to be sure, I could not read, but that need not have prevented me. At last I was obliged to acknowledge that something was lacking in me for every profession; so, finding that I was good for nothing, I, of my own free will, turned poet and composer of rhythms. That is a calling a man can adopt when he is a vagabond, and is always better than robbing, as some young friends of mine, who are themselves footpads, urged me to do. One fine day I was fortunate enough to encounter Dom Claude Frollo, the reverend Archdeacon of Notre-Dame. He interested himself in me, and I owe it to him that I am to-day a finished man of letters, being well versed in Latin, from Cicero’s ’Offices’ to the ’Mortuology’ of the Celestine Fathers, nor ignorant of scholastics, of poetics, of music, nor even of hermetics nor alchemy—that subtlety of subtleties. Then, I am the author of the Mystery represented with great triumph and concourse of the people, filling the great Hall of the Palais de Justice. Moreover, I have written a book running to six hundred pages on the prodigious comet of 1465, over which a man lost his reason. Other successes, too, I have had. Being somewhat of an artillery carpenter, I helped in the construction of that great bombard of Jean Maugue, which, as you know, burst on the Charenton bridge the first time it was tried and killed four-and-twenty of the spectators. So, you see, I am not such a bad match. I know many very pleasing tricks which I would teach your goat; for instance, to imitate the Bishop of Paris, that accursed Pharisee whose mill-wheels splash the passengers the whole length of the Pont-aux-Meuniers. And then my Mystery play will bring me in a great deal of money, if only they pay me. In short, I am wholly at your service—myself, my wit, my science, and my learning; ready, damoselle, to live with you as it shall please you—in chastity or pleasure—as man and wife, if so you think good—as brother and sister, if it please you better.”
Gringoire stopped, waiting for the effect of his long speech on the girl. Her eyes were fixed on the ground.
“Ph?bus,” she murmured. Then, turning to the poet, “Ph?bus, what does that mean?”
Gringoire, though not exactly seeing the connection between his harangue and this question, was nothing loath to exhibit his erudition. Bridling with conscious pride, he answered: “It is a Latin word meaning ’the sun.”’
“The sun!” she exclaimed.
“And the name of a certain handsome archer, who was a god,” added Gringoire.
“A god!” repeated the gipsy with something pensive and passionate in her tone.
At that moment one of her bracelets became unfastened and slipped to the ground. Gringoire bent quickly to pick it up; when he rose the girl and her goat had disappeared. He only heard the sound of a bolt being shot which came from a little door leading, doubtless, into an inner room.
“Has she, at least, left me a bed?” inquired our philosopher.
He made the tour of the chamber. He found no piece of furniture suitable for slumber but a long wooden chest, and its lid was profusely carved, so that when Gringoire lay down upon it he felt very much as Micromegas must have done when he stretched himself at full length to slumber on the Alps.
“Well,” he said, accommodating himself as best he might to the inequalities of his couch, “one must make the best of it. But this is indeed a strange wedding-night. ’Tis a pity, too; there was something guileless and antediluvian about that marriage by broken pitcher that took my fancy.”
______________________
1 When the bright-hued birds are silent, And the earth…
2
My father’s a bird,
My mother’s another.
I pass over the water
Without boat or wherry.
My mother’s a bird,
And so is my father.
BOOK III
Chapter 1 - Notre-Dame
Assuredly the Cathedral of Notre-Dame at Paris is, to this day, a majestic and sublime edifice. But noble as it has remained while growing old, one cannot but regret, cannot but feel indignant at the innumerable degradations and mutilations inflicted on the venerable pile, both by the action of time and the hand of man, regardless alike of Charlemagne, who laid the first stone, and Philip Augustus, who laid the last.
On the face of this ancient queen of our cathedrals, beside each wrinkle one invariably finds a scar. “Tempus edax, homo edacior,” which I would be inclined to translate: “Time is blind, but man is senseless.”
Had we, with the reader, the leisure to examine, one by one, the traces of the destruction wrought on this ancient church, we should have to impute the smallest share to Time, the largest to men, and more especially to those whom we must perforce call artists, since, during the last two centuries, there have been individuals among them who assumed the title of architect.
And first of all, to cite only a few prominent examples, there are surely few such wonderful pages in the book of Architecture as the fa?ades of the Cathedral. Here unfold themselves to the eye, successively and at one glance, the three deep Gothic doorways; the richly traced and sculptured band of twenty-eight royal niches; the immense central rose-window, flanked by its two lateral windows, like a priest by the deacon and subdeacon; the lofty and fragile gallery of trifoliated arches supporting a heavy platform on its slender columns; finally, the two dark and massive towers with their projecting slate roofs—harmonious parts of one magnificent whole, rising one above another in five gigantic storeys, massed yet unconfused, their innumerable details of statuary, sculpture, and carving boldly allied to the impassive grandeur of the whole. A vast symphony in stone, as it were; the colossal achievement of a man and a nation—one and yet complex—like the Iliades and the Romances to which it is sister—prodigious result of the union of all the resources of an epoch, where on every stone is displayed in a hundred variations the fancy of the craftsman controlled by the genius of the artist; in a word, a sort of human Creation, mighty and prolific, like the divine Creation, of which it seems to have caught the double characteristics—variety and eternity.
