Gringoire set out to follow the gypsy at all hazards. He had seen her,accompanied by her goat, take to the Rue de la Coutellerie; he took theRue de la Coutellerie.
"Why not?" he said to himself.
Gringoire, a practical philosopher of the streets of Paris, had noticedthat nothing is more propitious to revery than following a prettywoman without knowing whither she is going. There was in this voluntaryabdication of his freewill, in this fancy submitting itself to anotherfancy, which suspects it not, a mixture of fantastic independence andblind obedience, something indescribable, intermediate between slaveryand liberty, which pleased Gringoire,--a spirit essentially compound,undecided, and complex, holding the extremities of all extremes,incessantly suspended between all human propensities, and neutralizingone by the other. He was fond of comparing himself to Mahomet's coffin,attracted in two different directions by two loadstones, and hesitatingeternally between the heights and the depths, between the vault and thepavement, between fall and ascent, between zenith and nadir.
If Gringoire had lived in our day, what a fine middle course he wouldhold between classicism and romanticism!
But he was not sufficiently primitive to live three hundred years,and 'tis a pity. His absence is a void which is but too sensibly feltto-day.
Moreover, for the purpose of thus following passers-by (and especiallyfemale passers-by) in the streets, which Gringoire was fond of doing,there is no better disposition than ignorance of where one is going tosleep.
So he walked along, very thoughtfully, behind the young girl, whohastened her pace and made her goat trot as she saw the bourgeoisreturning home and the taverns--the only shops which had been open thatday--closing.
"After all," he half thought to himself, "she must lodge somewhere;gypsies have kindly hearts. Who knows?--"
And in the points of suspense which he placed after this reticence inhis mind, there lay I know not what flattering ideas.
Meanwhile, from time to time, as he passed the last groups of bourgeoisclosing their doors, he caught some scraps of their conversation, whichbroke the thread of his pleasant hypotheses.
Now it was two old men accosting each other.
"Do you know that it is cold, Master Thibaut Fernicle?" (Gringoire hadbeen aware of this since the beginning of the winter.)
"Yes, indeed, Master Boniface Disome! Are we going to have a wintersuch as we had three years ago, in '80, when wood cost eight sous themeasure?"
"Bah! that's nothing, Master Thibaut, compared with the winter of 1407,when it froze from St. Martin's Day until Candlemas! and so cold thatthe pen of the registrar of the parliament froze every three words, inthe Grand Chamber! which interrupted the registration of justice."
Further on there were two female neighbors at their windows, holdingcandles, which the fog caused to sputter.
"Has your husband told you about the mishap, Mademoiselle la Boudraque?"
"No. What is it, Mademoiselle Turquant?"
"The horse of M. Gilles Godin, the notary at the Chatelet, took frightat the Flemings and their procession, and overturned Master PhilippeAvrillot, lay monk of the Celestins."
"Really?"
"Actually."
"A bourgeois horse! 'tis rather too much! If it had been a cavalryhorse, well and good!"
And the windows were closed. But Gringoire had lost the thread of hisideas, nevertheless.
Fortunately, he speedily found it again, and he knotted it togetherwithout difficulty, thanks to the gypsy, thanks to Djali, who stillwalked in front of him; two fine, delicate, and charming creatures,whose tiny feet, beautiful forms, and graceful manners he was engaged inadmiring, almost confusing them in his contemplation; believing themto be both young girls, from their intelligence and good friendship;regarding them both as goats,--so far as the lightness, agility, anddexterity of their walk were concerned.
But the streets were becoming blacker and more deserted every moment.The curfew had sounded long ago, and it was only at rare intervalsnow that they encountered a passer-by in the street, or a light in thewindows. Gringoire had become involved, in his pursuit of the gypsy, inthat inextricable labyrinth of alleys, squares, and closed courtswhich surround the ancient sepulchre of the Saints-Innocents, and whichresembles a ball of thread tangled by a cat. "Here are streets whichpossess but little logic!" said Gringoire, lost in the thousands ofcircuits which returned upon themselves incessantly, but where the younggirl pursued a road which seemed familiar to her, without hesitation andwith a step which became ever more rapid. As for him, he would have beenutterly ignorant of his situation had he not espied, in passing, at theturn of a street, the octagonal mass of the pillory of the fish markets,the open-work summit of which threw its black, fretted outlines clearlyupon a window which was still lighted in the Rue Verdelet.
The young girl's attention had been attracted to him for the last fewmoments; she had repeatedly turned her head towards him with uneasiness;she had even once come to a standstill, and taking advantage of a ray oflight which escaped from a half-open bakery to survey him intently, fromhead to foot, then, having cast this glance, Gringoire had seen her makethat little pout which he had already noticed, after which she passedon.
This little pout had furnished Gringoire with food for thought. Therewas certainly both disdain and mockery in that graceful grimace. So hedropped his head, began to count the paving-stones, and to follow theyoung girl at a little greater distance, when, at the turn of a street,which had caused him to lose sight of her, he heard her utter a piercingcry.
He hastened his steps.
The street was full of shadows. Nevertheless, a twist of tow soaked inoil, which burned in a cage at the feet of the Holy Virgin at the streetcorner, permitted Gringoire to make out the gypsy struggling in the armsof two men, who were endeavoring to stifle her cries. The poor littlegoat, in great alarm, lowered his horns and bleated.
"Help! gentlemen of the watch!" shouted Gringoire, and advanced bravely.One of the men who held the young girl turned towards him. It was theformidable visage of Quasimodo.
Gringoire did not take to flight, but neither did he advance anotherstep.
Quasimodo came up to him, tossed him four paces away on the pavementwith a backward turn of the hand, and plunged rapidly into the gloom,bearing the young girl folded across one arm like a silken scarf. Hiscompanion followed him, and the poor goat ran after them all, bleatingplaintively.
"Murder! murder!" shrieked the unhappy gypsy.
"Halt, rascals, and yield me that wench!" suddenly shouted in a voice ofthunder, a cavalier who appeared suddenly from a neighboring square.
It was a captain of the king's archers, armed from head to foot, withhis sword in his hand.
He tore the gypsy from the arms of the dazed Quasimodo, threw her acrosshis saddle, and at the moment when the terrible hunchback, recoveringfrom his surprise, rushed upon him to regain his prey, fifteen orsixteen archers, who followed their captain closely, made theirappearance, with their two-edged swords in their fists. It was a squadof the king's police, which was making the rounds, by order of MessireRobert d'Estouteville, guard of the provostship of Paris.
Quasimodo was surrounded, seized, garroted; he roared, he foamed at themouth, he bit; and had it been broad daylight, there is no doubt thathis face alone, rendered more hideous by wrath, would have put theentire squad to flight. But by night he was deprived of his mostformidable weapon, his ugliness.
His companion had disappeared during the struggle.
The gypsy gracefully raised herself upright upon the officer's saddle,placed both hands upon the young man's shoulders, and gazed fixedly athim for several seconds, as though enchanted with his good looks andwith the aid which he had just rendered her. Then breaking silencefirst, she said to him, making her sweet voice still sweeter thanusual,--
"What is your name, monsieur le gendarme?"
"Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers, at your service, my beauty!" repliedthe officer, drawing himself up.
"Thanks,
" said she.
And while Captain Phoebus was turning up his moustache in Burgundianfashion, she slipped from the horse, like an arrow falling to earth, andfled.
A flash of lightning would have vanished less quickly.
"Nombrill of the Pope!" said the captain, causing Quasimodo's straps tobe drawn tighter, "I should have preferred to keep the wench."
"What would you have, captain?" said one gendarme. "The warbler hasfled, and the bat remains."