We must confess that she was not greatly affected by this voluntary withdrawal of the hunchback. In her heart she was grateful to him for it. Nor did Quasimodo delude himself upon the subject.
She saw him no more, but she felt the presence of a good genius about her. Her provisions were renewed by an invisible hand while she slept. One morning she found a cage of birds on her window–sill. Above her cell there was a sculptured figure that frightened her. She had given evidence of this more than once in Quasimodo’s presence. One morning (for all these things were done in the night) she woke to find it gone. It had been broken away, and whoever had climbed up to that figure must have risked his life.
Sometimes, in the evening, she would hear a voice, concealed under the leaden eaves of the steeple, singing, as if to lull her to sleep, a melancholy and fantastic song, without rhyme or rhythm, such as a deaf man might make:
“Look not on the face,
Maiden, look upon the heart.
The heart of a fair youth is oft unsightly;
There be hearts that cannot hold love long.
Maiden, the pine’s not fair to see,
Not fair to see as the poplar is,
But it keeps its green the winter through.
“Alas, ’tis vain to speak like this!
What is not fair ought not to be;
Beauty will only beauty love;
April looks not on January.
“Beauty is perfect,
Beauty can do all,
Beauty is the only thing that does not live by halves.
The raven flies only by day,
The owl flies only by night,
The swan flies day and night.”
One morning when she rose she found two vases full of flowers standing at the window. One of them was of glass, very beautiful in shape and colour, but cracked; it had let all the water in it run out, and the flowers it held were faded. The other was of earthenware, rude and common, but it retained all the water, so that its flowers remained fresh and blooming.
I know not if she acted with intention, but Esmeralda took the faded nosegay and wore it in her bosom all day.
That day the voice from the tower was silent.
She did not greatly care. She passed her days in caressing Djali, in watching the door of the Gondelaurier mansion, in talking to herself about Ph?bus, and crumbling her bread to the swallows.
Besides, she had altogether ceased to see or hear Quasimodo. The poor bell–ringer seemed to have disappeared from the church. However, one night as she lay awake thinking of her handsome captain, she was startled by hearing the sound of breathing near her cell. She rose, and saw by the light of the moon a shapeless mass lying across her door. It was Quasimodo sleeping there upon the stones.
Chapter 5 - The Key of the Porte Rouge
Meanwhile public talk had acquainted the Archdeacon with the miraculous manner in which the gipsy girl had been saved. He knew not what his feelings were when he learned this. He had reconciled himself to the thought of Esmeralda’s death, and so had regained some peace of mind — he had touched the depths of possible affliction. The human heart (and Dom Claude had meditated upon these matters) cannot hold more than a given quantity of despair. When the sponge is soaked, an ocean may pass over it without its absorbing one drop more.
Now Esmeralda dead, the sponge was full; the last word had been said for Dom Claude on this earth. But to know her living, and Ph?bus too, was to take up his martyrdom, his pangs, his schemes and alternatives — in short, his whole life again. And Claude was weary of it all.
When he learned the news, he shut himself up in his cell in the cloister. He did not appear at the conferences of the chapter, nor at any of the services of the church, and closed his door to every one, even the bishop. He kept himself thus immured for several weeks. He was judged to be ill, as indeed he was.
What was he doing while shut up thus? With what thoughts was the unhappy man contending. Was he making a last stand against his fatal passion — combining some final plan of death for her and perdition for himself?
His Jehan, his beloved brother, his spoiled darling, came once to his door and knocked, swore, entreated, told his name a dozen times over. The door remained closed.
He passed whole days with his face pressed against his window, for from thence he could see the cell of Esmeralda, and often the girl herself with her goat, sometimes with Quasimodo. He remarked the deaf hunchback’s assiduities, his obedience, his delicate and submissive ways with the gipsy. He remembered — for he had a long memory, and memory is the scourge of the jealous — the peculiar look the bell–ringer had fixed upon the dancing girl on a certain evening, and he asked himself what motive could have urged Quasimodo to save her. He was witness of a thousand little scenes between the gipsy and the hunchback, the pantomime of which, seen at that distance and commented on by his passion, seemed very tender to him. He mistrusted the capricious fancy of woman. And presently he was vaguely conscious of entertaining a jealousy such as he never could have anticipated — a jealousy that made him redden with shame and indignation.
“The captain,”thought he, “well, that might pass; but this one — !”The idea overwhelmed him.
His nights were dreadful. Since ever he learned that the gipsy girl was alive, the cold images of spectres and the grave which had possessed him for a whole day, vanished, and the flesh returned to torment him. He writhed upon his bed to know the girl so near him.
Each night his delirious imagination called up Esmeralda before him in all the attitudes most calculated to inflame his blood. He saw her swooning over the stabbed officer, her fair, uncovered bosom crimsoned with the young man’s blood — at that moment of poignant delight when the Archdeacon had imprinted on her pallid lips that kiss of which, half dead as she was, the unhappy girl had felt the burning pressure. Again he beheld her disrobed by the rude hands of the torturers, saw them lay bare and thrust into the hideous boot with its iron screws her tiny foot, her round and delicate leg, her white and supple knee. He saw that ivory knee alone left visible outside Torterue’s horrible apparatus. Finally, he pictured to himself the girl in her shift, the rope round her neck, her shoulders and her feet bare, almost naked, as he had seen her that last day, and he clenched his hands in agony, and a long shiver ran through him.
At last one night these images so cruelly inflamed his celibate’s blood that he tore his pillow with his teeth, leaped from his bed, threw a surplice over his night garment, and left his cell, lamp in hand, haggard, half naked, the fire of madness in his eyes.
He knew where to find the key of the Porte Rouge, the communication between the cloister and the church, and, as we know, he always carried with him a key to the tower stair–case.
Chapter 6 - Sequel to the key of the Porte Rouge
That night Esmeralda had fallen asleep in her little chamber full of hope and sweet thoughts, the horrors of the past forgotten. She had been sleeping for some time, dreaming, as ever, of Ph?bus, when she seemed to hear some sound. Her slumbers were light and broken — the sleep of a bird; the slightest thing awoke her. She opened her eyes. The night was very dark. Nevertheless, she saw a face peering in at her through the window — a lamp shed its light on this apparition. The moment it found itself observed by Esmeralda the apparition extinguished the lamp. However, the girl had had time to recognise the features. She closed her eyes in terror.
“Oh,” she murmured weakly, “the priest!”
All her past misfortunes flashed like lightning through her mind. She fell back upon her bed frozen with horror.
The next moment she felt something in contact with the whole length of her body which sent such a shudder through her that she started up in bed, wide awake and furious. The priest had glided up beside her and clasped his arms about her.
She tried to scream but could not.
“Begone, monster! begone, assassin!” she said, in a voice hoarse with passion and dread.
“Have pity! have pity!” murmured the priest, pressing his lips to her shoulder.
She clutched his tonsured head by its scant remaining locks and strove to repel his kisses as if he had been biting her.
“Have pity!” repeated the unhappy wretch. “Didst thou but know what my love for thee is! ’Tis fire! ’tis molten lead — a thousand daggers in my heart!”
He held her arm fast with a superhuman grip. “Let me go!” she cried wildly, “or I spit in thy face!”
He released her. “Vilify me — strike me — be angry — do what thou wilt; but in mercy, love me!”
She struck him with the fury of a child. She raised her pretty hands to tear his face. “Away, demon!”
“Love me! love me!” pleaded the unhappy priest, coming close to her again and answering her blows by caresses.
Suddenly she felt that he was overpowering her. “There must be an end to this,” said he, grinding his teeth.
She was vanquished, panting, broken, in his arms, at his mercy. She felt a lascivious hand groping over her, and making one supreme effort she screamed, “Help! help! a vampire! a vampire!”
But no one came. Only Djali was awakened and bleating in terror.
“Keep quiet,” panted the priest. Suddenly in her struggles the gipsy’s hand came against something cold and metallic. It was Quasimodo’s whistle. She seized it with a spasm of relief, put it to her lips, and blew with all her remaining strength. The whistle came clear, shrill, piercing.
“What is that?” said the priest. Almost as he spoke he felt himself dragged away by vigorous arms; the cell was dark, he could not distinguish clearly who it was that held him, but he heard teeth gnashing with rage, and there was just sufficient light in the gloom to show him the glitter of a great knife–blade just above his head.
The priest thought he could distinguish the outline of Quasimodo. He supposed it could be no one else. He recollected having stumbled, in entering, over a bundle lying across the outside of the door. Yet, as the new–comer uttered no word, he knew not what to think. He seized the arm that held the knife. “Quasimodo!” he cried, forgetting in this moment of danger that Quasimodo was deaf.
In a trice the priest was thrown upon the floor and felt a knee of iron planted on his chest. By the pressure of that knee he recognised the hunchback. But what could he do — how make himself known to the other? Night made the deaf man blind.
He was lost. The girl, pitiless as an enraged tigress, would not interfere to save him. The knife was nearing his head — it was a critical moment. Suddenly his adversary seemed to hesitate. “No blood near her!” he said under his breath.
There was no mistaking — it was Quasimodo’s voice.
On this the priest felt the huge hand dragging him out of the cell by the foot; he was to die outside.
Fortunately for him the moon had just risen. As they crossed the threshold a pale ray fell across the priest’s face. Quasimodo stared at him, a tremor seized him, he relinquished his hold and shrank back.
The gipsy girl, who had stolen to the door, was surprised to see them suddenly change parts; for now it was the priest who threatened and Quasimodo who entreated.
The priest, overwhelming the deaf man with gestures of anger and reproof, motioned vehemently to him to withdraw.
The hunchback hung his head, then went and knelt before the gipsy’s door. “Monseigneur,” he said in firm but resigned tones, “you will do as you think fit afterward, but you will have to kill me first.” So saying, he offered his knife to the priest.
Claude, beside himself with passion, put out his hand to seize it, but the girl was too quick for him. She snatched the knife from Quasimodo and burst into a frantic laugh. “Now come!” she cried to the priest.
She held the blade aloft. The priest faltered — she would most certainly have struck. “You dare not approach me, coward!” she cried. Then she added in a pitiless tone, and knowing well that she was plunging a thousand red–hot irons into the priest’s heart: “Ha! I know that Ph?bus is not dead!”
The priest threw Quasimodo to the ground with a furious kick; then, trembling with passion, hurled himself into the darkness of the stair–case.
When he was gone, Quasimodo picked up the whistle which had just been the means of saving the gipsy. “It was getting rusty,” was all he said as he handed it back to her; then he left her to herself.
Overpowered by the violent scene, the girl sank exhausted upon her couch and broke into bitter sobs. Her outlook was becoming sinister once more.
Meanwhile the priest had groped his way back to his cell.
It had come to this — Dom Claude was jealous of Quasimodo. Lost in thought, he repeated his baleful words, “No one shall have her.”
BOOK X
Chapter 1 - Gringoire has several bright ideas in succession in the Rue des Bernardins
Directly Gringoire had seen the turn affairs were taking, and that there was every prospect of the rope, the gallows, and various other disagreeables for the chief actors in this drama, he felt in nowise drawn to take part in it. The truands, with whom he had remained, considering them the best company in Paris — the truands continued to be interested in the gipsy girl. This he judged very natural in people who, like her, had nothing but Charmolue and Torterue to look forward to, and did not caracol in the regions of the imagination as he did astride of Pegasus. He had learned from them that his bride of the broken pitcher had taken refuge in Notre–Dame, and he rejoiced at it. But he was not even tempted to go and visit her there. He sometimes thought of the little goat, but that was the utmost. For the rest, he performed feats of strength during the daytime to earn a living, and at night he was engaged in elaborating a memorial against the Bishop of Paris, for he had not forgotten how the wheels of his mills had drenched him, and owed the bishop a grudge in consequence. He was also busy writing a commentary on the great work of Baudry le Rouge, Bishop of Noyon and Tournay, De Cupa Petrarum, which had inspired him with a violent taste for architecture, a love which had supplanted his passion for hermetics, of which, too, it was but a natural consequence, seeing that there is an intimate connection between hermetics and freemasonry. Gringoire had passed from the love of an idea to the love for its outward form.
He happened one day to stop near the Church of Saint–Germain–l’Auxerrois, at a corner of a building called the For–l’évêque, which was opposite another called the For–le–Roi. To the former was attached a charming fourteenth century chapel, the chancel of which was towards the street. Gringoire was absorbed in studying its external sculpture. It was one of those moments of selfish, exclusive, and supreme enjoyment in which the artist sees nothing in all the world but art, and sees the whole world in art. Suddenly a hand was laid heavily on his shoulder. He turned round — it was his former friend and master, the Archdeacon.
