“Oh!”he cried, “now we are safe, all four of us!”and added with the air of a profound thinker: “We are indebted sometimes to fortune, sometimes to strategy, for the happy issue of a great undertaking.”
The boat was making its way slowly across to the right bank. The gipsy girl regarded their unknown companion with secret terror. He had carefully shut off the light of his dark-lantern, and was now only dimly perceptible in the bow of the boat, like a shadowy phantom. His hood, which was still pulled down, formed a kind of mask to his face, and each time that in rowing he opened his arms, his long hanging black sleeves gave them the appearance of enormous bat’s wings. As yet he had breathed not a word. There was no sound in the boat but the regular splash of the oars and the rippling of the water against the sides of the skiff.
“Upon my soul!”suddenly exclaimed Gringoire, “we are as lively as a company of horned-owls! We observe a silence of Pythagoreans or of fishes! Pasque-Dieu! my friends, I wish that some one would converse with me. The human voice is music in the human ear. That is not my own saying, but of Didymus of Alexandria, and an illustrious saying it is! Certes, Didymus of Alexandria was no mediocre philosopher. One word, my pretty one—only one word, I entreat you. By the way, you used to make a droll little grimace, peculiar to yourself; do you make it still? You must know, my dear, that the Parliament has full jurisdiction over all places of sanctuary, and that you were in great peril in that little cell of yours in Notre-Dame? The little trochilus builds its nest in the crocodile’s jaws. Master, here’s the moon appearing again. If they only do not catch sight of us! We are performing a laudable act in saving mademoiselle, and yet they would string us up in the King’s name if they were to catch us. Alas, that every human action should have two handles! They blame in me what they crown in thee. One man admires C?sar, and abuses Catiline. Is that not so, master? What say you to this philosophy? I possess the philosophy of instinct, of nature, ut apes geometriam. What, no answer from anybody? You are both, it seems, in a very churlish mood!
“You oblige me to do the talking alone. That is what we call in tragedy a monologue. Pasque-Dieu!—I would have you know that I am just come from King Louis XI, and that I have caught that oath from him—Pasque-Dieu! they are keeping up a glorious howling in the city! ’Tis a bad, wicked old king. He is all wrapped in furs. He still owes me the money for my epithalamium, and he all but hanged me to-night, which would have greatly hindered my career. He is niggardly towards men of merit. He would do well to read the four books of Salvian of Cologne—Adversus Avaritiam. In good sooth, he is a king very narrow in his dealings with men of letters, and who commits most barbarous cruelties—a sponge laid upon the people, and sucking up their money. His thrift is as the spleen that grows big upon the wasting of the other members. And so the complaints against the hardness of the times turn to murmurs against the prince. Under this mild and pious lord of ours the gibbets are weighed down with corpses, the blocks rot with gore, the prisons burst like overfilled sacks. This king robs with one hand, and hangs with the other. He is the purveyor for Mme. Gabelle1 and M. Gibbet. The high are stripped of their dignities, and the low are increasingly loaded with fresh burdens. ’Tis an exorbitant prince. I like not this monarch. What say you, my master?”
The man in black let the garrulous poet babble on. He was still struggling against the strong full current that separates the prow of the city from the poop of the ?le Notre-Dame, now called the ?le Saint Louis.
“By-the-bye, master,”Gringoire began again suddenly; “just as we reached the Parvis through the raging crowd of truands, did your reverence remark the poor little devil whose brains that deaf ringer of yours was in the act of dashing out against the parapet of the gallery of kings? I am near-sighted, and could not recognise him. Who can it have been, think you?”
The unknown answered not a word, but he ceased rowing abruptly; his arms fell slack as if broken, his head dropped upon his breast, and Esmeralda heard him sigh convulsively.
She started violently; she had heard sights like that before.
The boat, left to itself, drifted for a few moments with the stream; but the man in black roused himself at last, grasped the oars again, and set the boat once more up-stream. He doubled the point of the ?le Notre-Dame, and made for the landing-place at the hay wharf.
“Ah!”said Gringoire, “we are passing the Logis Barbeau. Look, master, at that group of black roofs that form such quaint angles over there, just underneath that mass of low-hanging gray cloud, through which the moon looks all crushed and spread abroad like the yolk of an egg when the shell is broken. ’Tis a very fine mansion. It has a chapel crowned by a small dome which is wholly lined with admirably carved enrichments. Just above it, you can see the bell-tower, very delicately perforated. It also possesses a pleasant garden comprising a pond, an aviary, an echo, a mall, a labyrinth, and wild beast house, and many bosky paths very agreeable to Venus. Besides, there’s a very naughty tree which they call the ‘pander,’ because it cloaked the pleasures of a notorious princess and a certain Constable of France—a man of wit and gallantry. Alas! we poor philosophers are to a Constable of France as the cabbage or radish-bed to the garden of the Louvre. Well, what matters it after all? Life is a mixture of good and evil for the great even as for us. Sorrow is ever by the side of joy, the spondee beside the dactyl. Master, I must tell you that story of the Logis Barbeau some day; it had a tragical ending. It happened in 1319, in the reign of Philippe V, the longest reign of all the kings of France. The moral of the story is that the temptations of the flesh are pernicious and malign. Let our eyes not linger too long upon our neighbour’s wife, however much our senses may be excited by her beauty. Fornication is a very libertine thought. Adultery, a prying into the pleasant delights of another. Ohé! the noise grows louder over there!”
In truth, the uproar was increasing round Notre-Dame. They listened. They were plainly shouts of victory. Suddenly a hundred torches, their light flashing upon the helmets of men-at-arms, spread themselves rapidly over the church at every height, over the towers, the galleries, under the buttresses, appearing to be searching for something; and soon the distant shouts reached the ears of the fugitives: “The gipsy! the witch! Death to the Egyptian!”
The unhappy girl dropped her face in her hands, and the unknown began rowing furiously towards the bank. Meanwhile our philosopher cogitated rapidly. He clasped the goat in his arms, and edged gently away from the gipsy, who pressed closer and closer to his side as her only remaining protection.
Certainly Gringoire was on the horns of a cruel dilemma. He reflected that the goat too, by the existing legislation, was bound to be hanged if retaken, which would be a sad pity, poor little Djali! that two condemned females thus clinging on to him were more than he could manage, and that finally his companion asked for nothing better than to take charge of the gipsy girl. Nevertheless, a violent struggle went on in his mind, during which, like the Jupiter of the Iliad, he weighed the gipsy and the goat by turns in the balance, looking first at one and then at the other, his eyes moist with tears, while he muttered between his teeth, “And yet I cannot save both of you!”
The bumping of the boat against the landing-place shook him out of his musings. The sinister hubbub still resounded through the city. The unknown rose, advanced to the girl, and made as if to help her ashore; but she evaded him, and laid hold of Gringoire’s sleeve; whereat he, in turn, being fully occupied with the goat, almost repulsed her. She accordingly sprang ashore by herself, but in such a state of fear and bewilderment that she knew not what she did or whither she was going. She stood thus a moment, stupefied, gazing down at the swift flowing water. When she some-what recovered her senses, she found herself alone on the landing-stage with the unknown man. Gringoire had apparently availed himself of the moment of their going ashore to vanish with the goat among the labyrinth of houses of the Rue Grenier sur l’Eau.
The poor little gipsy shuddered to find herself alone with this man. She strove to speak, to cry out, to call to Gringoire, but her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, and no sound issued from her lips. Suddenly she felt the hand of the unknown grasp hers—a cold, strong hand. Her teeth chattered, she turned paler than the moonbeams that shone upon her. The man said not a word, but strode away in the direction of the Place de Grève, still holding her firmly by the hand. At that moment she had a dim sense of the irresistible force of destiny. All power of will forsook her; she let him drag her along, running to keep pace with him: the ground at this part of the quay rose somewhat, but to her they seemed to be rushing down an incline.
She looked on all sides—not a single passenger to be seen; the quay was absolutely deserted. She heard no sound, she perceived no sign of life save in the glaring and tumultuous city, from which she was only separated by an arm of the river, and from which her own name reached her coupled with shouts of death. All the rest of Paris lay around her shadowy and silent as the grave.
Meanwhile the stranger was dragging her along in the same silence and at the same rapid pace. She had no recollection of any of the streets they traversed. Passing a lighted window she made a last effort, and stopping suddenly, screamed, “Help!”
The citizen at the window opened it, and showing himself in his night-shirt and a lamp in his hand, looked out stupidly on to the quay, muttered a few words which she could not catch, and closed his shutter once more. Her last ray of hope was extinguished.
The man in black proffered no remark; he held her fast and quickened his pace. She offered no further resistance, but followed him limp and hopeless.
From time to time she gathered sufficient strength to ask in a voice broken by the roughness of the pavement and the breathless haste of their motion: “Who are you? Who are you?”But there was no reply.
In this manner they presently reached an open square of considerable size. The moon shone faintly out; a sort of black cross was dimly visible standing in the middle. It was a gibbet. She saw this, and in a flash knew where she was. It was the Place de Grève.
The man stood still, turned towards her and lifted his hood. “Oh,”she stammered, petrified with horror, “I knew it must be he!”
It was the priest. He looked like a wraith in the spectral moonlight.
“Listen,”said he; and she shivered at the sound of the ill-omened voice that she had not heard for so long. “Listen,”he went on, speaking with that broken and gasping utterance which bespeaks the profoundest inward upheaval. “We have arrived at our destination. I would speak with thee. This is the Grève; we have reached the extreme limit. Fate has delivered each of us into the hand of the other. Thou shalt have the disposing of my soul; I, of thy life. Here is a place and an hour beyond which there is no seeing. Listen to me, then. I will tell thee—but first, name not thy Ph?bus to me. (And while he spoke thus he paced to and fro, like a man incapable of standing still, dragging her with him.) Speak not of him! Mark me, if thou utterest his name, I know not what I shall do, but it will be something terrible.”
Having relieved his mind of this, he stood motionless, like a body finding its centre of gravity. But his agitation was in nowise diminished; his voice sank deeper and deeper.
“Turn not away from me thus. Hear me; ’tis a matter of the utmost import. First, this is what has happened—’tis no laughing matter, I warrant! What was I saying? Remind me! Ah—there is a decree of Parliament delivering thee over to execution again. I have but now succeeded in rescuing thee out of their hands. But they are on thy track. Behold!”
He stretched his arm towards the city, where, in truth, the search seemed to be eagerly prosecuted. The noise of it drew nearer. The tower of the lieutenant’s house opposite the Grève was full of lights and bustle, and they could see soldiers running about the opposite quay with torches in their hands, shouting, “The gipsy! Where is the gipsy? Death to her! death!”
“Thou seest plainly,”resumed the priest, “that they are in pursuit of thee and that I lie not. Oh, I love thee. Nay, speak not, open not thy lips, if it be to tell me that thou hatest me. I am resolved not to hear that again. I have just saved thee. Let me finish what I have to say. I can save thee altogether; I have prepared everything. It remains for thee to desire it. As thou wilt, so I can do.”
He interrupted himself vehemently. “No, that is not what I should have said!”
With a hurried step, and making her hasten too, for he had retained his grasp of her arm, he walked straight to the gibbet, and pointing to it:
“Choose between us,”he said coldly.
She wrenched herself from his grasp and fell at the foot of the gibbet, clasping her arms round that grim pillar; and, half turning her beautiful head, gazed at the priest over her shoulder. It might have been a Madonna at the foot of the Cross. The priest had remained transfixed, his finger pointing to the gibbet, motionless as a statue.
At last the gipsy spoke: “This is less abhorrent to me than you are.”
He let his arm drop slowly, and bent his eyes upon the ground in deepest dejection. “If these stones could speak,”he murmured, “they would say, ‘Here is, indeed, a most unhappy man!”’
“I love you,”he resumed, and the girl, still kneeling at the gibbet, her long hair falling around her, let him speak without interrupting him. His tones were plaintive now and gentle, contrasting sadly with the harsh disdain stamped upon his features. “Yes, in spite of all, ’tis perfectly true. Is there then nothing to show for this fire that consumes my heart! Alas! night and day—yes, girl, night and day—does that deserve no pity? ’Tis a love of the night and the day, I tell you—’tis torture! Oh! my torment is too great, my poor child. ’Tis a thing worthy of compassion, I do protest to you. You see, I speak in all gentleness. I would fain have you cease to abhor me. Look you, when a man loves a woman, it is not his fault! Oh, my God! What! will you then never forgive me? will you hate me ever thus? And is this the end? That is what makes me wicked, look you, and horrible to myself. You will not even look at me. You are, may-be, thinking of something else while I stand here talking to you, and we both are trembling on the brink of eternity! But above all things, speak not to me of that soldier! What! I might fling myself at your knees, I might kiss, not your feet—for that you will not have, but the ground under your feet! I might sob like a child, might tear from my breast, not words, but my very heart, to tell you that I love you—and all would be in vain—all! And yet, there is nothing in your soul but what is tender and merciful. Loving kindness beams from you; you are all goodness and sweetness, full of pity and grace. Alas! your harshness is for me alone. Oh, bitter fate!”
