The priest whom the young girls had observed at the top of the Northtower, leaning over the Place and so attentive to the dance of thegypsy, was, in fact, Archdeacon Claude Frollo.
Our readers have not forgotten the mysterious cell which the archdeaconhad reserved for himself in that tower. (I do not know, by the way beit said, whether it be not the same, the interior of which can be seento-day through a little square window, opening to the east at the heightof a man above the platform from which the towers spring; a bare anddilapidated den, whose badly plastered walls are ornamented hereand there, at the present day, with some wretched yellow engravingsrepresenting the facades of cathedrals. I presume that this hole isjointly inhabited by bats and spiders, and that, consequently, it wagesa double war of extermination on the flies).
Every day, an hour before sunset, the archdeacon ascended the staircaseto the tower, and shut himself up in this cell, where he sometimespassed whole nights. That day, at the moment when, standing before thelow door of his retreat, he was fitting into the lock the complicatedlittle key which he always carried about him in the purse suspended tohis side, a sound of tambourine and castanets had reached his ear. Thesesounds came from the Place du Parvis. The cell, as we have already said,had only one window opening upon the rear of the church. Claude Frollohad hastily withdrawn the key, and an instant later, he was on the topof the tower, in the gloomy and pensive attitude in which the maidenshad seen him.
There he stood, grave, motionless, absorbed in one look and one thought.All Paris lay at his feet, with the thousand spires of its edifices andits circular horizon of gentle hills--with its river winding under itsbridges, and its people moving to and fro through its streets,--withthe clouds of its smoke,--with the mountainous chain of its roofs whichpresses Notre-Dame in its doubled folds; but out of all the city,the archdeacon gazed at one corner only of the pavement, the Place duParvis; in all that throng at but one figure,--the gypsy.
It would have been difficult to say what was the nature of this look,and whence proceeded the flame that flashed from it. It was a fixedgaze, which was, nevertheless, full of trouble and tumult. And, from theprofound immobility of his whole body, barely agitated at intervalsby an involuntary shiver, as a tree is moved by the wind; from thestiffness of his elbows, more marble than the balustrade on whichthey leaned; or the sight of the petrified smile which contracted hisface,--one would have said that nothing living was left about ClaudeFrollo except his eyes.
The gypsy was dancing; she was twirling her tambourine on the tip of herfinger, and tossing it into the air as she danced Provencal sarabands;agile, light, joyous, and unconscious of the formidable gaze whichdescended perpendicularly upon her head.
The crowd was swarming around her; from time to time, a man accoutred inred and yellow made them form into a circle, and then returned, seatedhimself on a chair a few paces from the dancer, and took the goat's headon his knees. This man seemed to be the gypsy's companion. Claude Frollocould not distinguish his features from his elevated post.
From the moment when the archdeacon caught sight of this stranger, hisattention seemed divided between him and the dancer, and his face becamemore and more gloomy. All at once he rose upright, and a quiver ranthrough his whole body: "Who is that man?" he muttered between histeeth: "I have always seen her alone before!"
Then he plunged down beneath the tortuous vault of the spiral staircase,and once more descended. As he passed the door of the bell chamber,which was ajar, he saw something which struck him; he beheld Quasimodo,who, leaning through an opening of one of those slate penthouses whichresemble enormous blinds, appeared also to be gazing at the Place. Hewas engaged in so profound a contemplation, that he did not notice thepassage of his adopted father. His savage eye had a singular expression;it was a charmed, tender look. "This is strange!" murmured Claude. "Isit the gypsy at whom he is thus gazing?" He continued his descent. Atthe end of a few minutes, the anxious archdeacon entered upon the Placefrom the door at the base of the tower.
"What has become of the gypsy girl?" he said, mingling with the group ofspectators which the sound of the tambourine had collected.
"I know not," replied one of his neighbors, "I think that she has goneto make some of her fandangoes in the house opposite, whither they havecalled her."
In the place of the gypsy, on the carpet, whose arabesques had seemed tovanish but a moment previously by the capricious figures of her dance,the archdeacon no longer beheld any one but the red and yellow man,who, in order to earn a few testers in his turn, was walking round thecircle, with his elbows on his hips, his head thrown back, his face red,his neck outstretched, with a chair between his teeth. To the chair hehad fastened a cat, which a neighbor had lent, and which was spitting ingreat affright.
"Notre-Dame!" exclaimed the archdeacon, at the moment when the juggler,perspiring heavily, passed in front of him with his pyramid of chair andhis cat, "What is Master Pierre Gringoire doing here?"
The harsh voice of the archdeacon threw the poor fellow into such acommotion that he lost his equilibrium, together with his whole edifice,and the chair and the cat tumbled pell-mell upon the heads of thespectators, in the midst of inextinguishable hootings.
It is probable that Master Pierre Gringoire (for it was indeed he) wouldhave had a sorry account to settle with the neighbor who owned the cat,and all the bruised and scratched faces which surrounded him, if hehad not hastened to profit by the tumult to take refuge in the church,whither Claude Frollo had made him a sign to follow him.
The cathedral was already dark and deserted; the side-aisles were fullof shadows, and the lamps of the chapels began to shine out like stars,so black had the vaulted ceiling become. Only the great rose window ofthe facade, whose thousand colors were steeped in a ray of horizontalsunlight, glittered in the gloom like a mass of diamonds, and threw itsdazzling reflection to the other end of the nave.
When they had advanced a few paces, Dom Claude placed his back against apillar, and gazed intently at Gringoire. The gaze was not the one whichGringoire feared, ashamed as he was of having been caught by a grave andlearned person in the costume of a buffoon. There was nothing mocking orironical in the priest's glance, it was serious, tranquil, piercing. Thearchdeacon was the first to break the silence.
"Come now, Master Pierre. You are to explain many things to me. Andfirst of all, how comes it that you have not been seen for two months,and that now one finds you in the public squares, in a fine equipment intruth! Motley red and yellow, like a Caudebec apple?"
"Messire," said Gringoire, piteously, "it is, in fact, an amazingaccoutrement. You see me no more comfortable in it than a cat coiffedwith a calabash. 'Tis very ill done, I am conscious, to expose messieursthe sergeants of the watch to the liability of cudgelling beneath thiscassock the humerus of a Pythagorean philosopher. But what would youhave, my reverend master? 'tis the fault of my ancient jerkin, whichabandoned me in cowardly wise, at the beginning of the winter, under thepretext that it was falling into tatters, and that it required repose inthe basket of a rag-picker. What is one to do? Civilization has not yetarrived at the point where one can go stark naked, as ancient Diogeneswished. Add that a very cold wind was blowing, and 'tis not in the monthof January that one can successfully attempt to make humanity takethis new step. This garment presented itself, I took it, and I left myancient black smock, which, for a hermetic like myself, was farfrom being hermetically closed. Behold me then, in the garments of astage-player, like Saint Genest. What would you have? 'tis an eclipse.Apollo himself tended the flocks of Admetus."
"'Tis a fine profession that you are engaged in!" replied thearchdeacon.
"I agree, my master, that 'tis better to philosophize and poetize, toblow the flame in the furnace, or to receive it from carry cats on ashield. So, when you addressed me, I was as foolish as an ass before aturnspit. But what would you have, messire? One must eat every day, andthe finest Alexandrine verses are not worth a bit of Brie cheese. Now, Imade for Madame Marguerite of Flanders, t
hat famous epithalamium, as youknow, and the city will not pay me, under the pretext that it was notexcellent; as though one could give a tragedy of Sophocles for fourcrowns! Hence, I was on the point of dying with hunger. Happily, I foundthat I was rather strong in the jaw; so I said to this jaw,--performsome feats of strength and of equilibrium: nourish thyself. _Ale teipsam_. A pack of beggars who have become my good friends, have taughtme twenty sorts of herculean feats, and now I give to my teeth everyevening the bread which they have earned during the day by the sweat ofmy brow. After all, concede, I grant that it is a sad employment formy intellectual faculties, and that man is not made to pass his life inbeating the tambourine and biting chairs. But, reverend master, it isnot sufficient to pass one's life, one must earn the means for life."
Dom Claude listened in silence. All at once his deep-set eye assumed sosagacious and penetrating an expression, that Gringoire felt himself, soto speak, searched to the bottom of the soul by that glance.
"Very good, Master Pierre; but how comes it that you are now in companywith that gypsy dancer?"
"In faith!" said Gringoire, "'tis because she is my wife and I am herhusband."
The priest's gloomy eyes flashed into flame.
"Have you done that, you wretch!" he cried, seizing Gringoire's arm withfury; "have you been so abandoned by God as to raise your hand againstthat girl?"
"On my chance of paradise, monseigneur," replied Gringoire, tremblingin every limb, "I swear to you that I have never touched her, if that iswhat disturbs you."
"Then why do you talk of husband and wife?" said the priest. Gringoiremade haste to relate to him as succinctly as possible, all that thereader already knows, his adventure in the Court of Miracles and thebroken-crock marriage. It appeared, moreover, that this marriage had ledto no results whatever, and that each evening the gypsy girl cheatedhim of his nuptial right as on the first day. "'Tis a mortification,"he said in conclusion, "but that is because I have had the misfortune towed a virgin."
"What do you mean?" demanded the archdeacon, who had been graduallyappeased by this recital.
"'Tis very difficult to explain," replied the poet. "It is asuperstition. My wife is, according to what an old thief, who is calledamong us the Duke of Egypt, has told me, a foundling or a lost child,which is the same thing. She wears on her neck an amulet which, it isaffirmed, will cause her to meet her parents some day, but which willlose its virtue if the young girl loses hers. Hence it follows that bothof us remain very virtuous."
"So," resumed Claude, whose brow cleared more and more, "you believe,Master Pierre, that this creature has not been approached by any man?"
"What would you have a man do, Dom Claude, as against a superstition?She has got that in her head. I assuredly esteem as a rarity thisnunlike prudery which is preserved untamed amid those Bohemian girlswho are so easily brought into subjection. But she has three things toprotect her: the Duke of Egypt, who has taken her under his safeguard,reckoning, perchance, on selling her to some gay abbe; all his tribe,who hold her in singular veneration, like a Notre-Dame; and a certaintiny poignard, which the buxom dame always wears about her, in somenook, in spite of the ordinances of the provost, and which one causes tofly out into her hands by squeezing her waist. 'Tis a proud wasp, I cantell you!"
The archdeacon pressed Gringoire with questions.
La Esmeralda, in the judgment of Gringoire, was an inoffensive andcharming creature, pretty, with the exception of a pout which waspeculiar to her; a naive and passionate damsel, ignorant of everythingand enthusiastic about everything; not yet aware of the differencebetween a man and a woman, even in her dreams; made like that; wildespecially over dancing, noise, the open air; a sort of woman bee, withinvisible wings on her feet, and living in a whirlwind. She owed thisnature to the wandering life which she had always led. Gringoire hadsucceeded in learning that, while a mere child, she had traversed Spainand Catalonia, even to Sicily; he believed that she had even been takenby the caravan of Zingari, of which she formed a part, to the kingdomof Algiers, a country situated in Achaia, which country adjoins, on oneside Albania and Greece; on the other, the Sicilian Sea, which is theroad to Constantinople. The Bohemians, said Gringoire, were vassals ofthe King of Algiers, in his quality of chief of the White Moors. Onething is certain, that la Esmeralda had come to France while still veryyoung, by way of Hungary. From all these countries the young girl hadbrought back fragments of queer jargons, songs, and strange ideas, whichmade her language as motley as her costume, half Parisian, half African.However, the people of the quarters which she frequented loved her forher gayety, her daintiness, her lively manners, her dances, and hersongs. She believed herself to be hated, in all the city, by but twopersons, of whom she often spoke in terror: the sacked nun of theTour-Roland, a villanous recluse who cherished some secret grudgeagainst these gypsies, and who cursed the poor dancer every time thatthe latter passed before her window; and a priest, who never met herwithout casting at her looks and words which frightened her.
The mention of this last circumstance disturbed the archdeacon greatly,though Gringoire paid no attention to his perturbation; to such anextent had two months sufficed to cause the heedless poet to forget thesingular details of the evening on which he had met the gypsy, andthe presence of the archdeacon in it all. Otherwise, the little dancerfeared nothing; she did not tell fortunes, which protected her againstthose trials for magic which were so frequently instituted against gypsywomen. And then, Gringoire held the position of her brother, if not ofher husband. After all, the philosopher endured this sort of platonicmarriage very patiently. It meant a shelter and bread at least. Everymorning, he set out from the lair of the thieves, generally with thegypsy; he helped her make her collections of targes* and little blanks**in the squares; each evening he returned to the same roof with her,allowed her to bolt herself into her little chamber, and slept the sleepof the just. A very sweet existence, taking it all in all, he said,and well adapted to revery. And then, on his soul and conscience, thephilosopher was not very sure that he was madly in love with the gypsy.He loved her goat almost as dearly. It was a charming animal, gentle,intelligent, clever; a learned goat. Nothing was more common in theMiddle Ages than these learned animals, which amazed people greatly, andoften led their instructors to the stake. But the witchcraft of the goatwith the golden hoofs was a very innocent species of magic. Gringoireexplained them to the archdeacon, whom these details seemed to interestdeeply. In the majority of cases, it was sufficient to present thetambourine to the goat in such or such a manner, in order to obtain fromhim the trick desired. He had been trained to this by the gypsy, whopossessed, in these delicate arts, so rare a talent that two monthshad sufficed to teach the goat to write, with movable letters, the word"Phoebus."
* An ancient Burgundian coin.
** An ancient French coin.
"'Phoebus!'" said the priest; "why 'Phoebus'?"
"I know not," replied Gringoire. "Perhaps it is a word which shebelieves to be endowed with some magic and secret virtue. She oftenrepeats it in a low tone when she thinks that she is alone."
"Are you sure," persisted Claude, with his penetrating glance, "that itis only a word and not a name?"
"The name of whom?" said the poet.
"How should I know?" said the priest.
"This is what I imagine, messire. These Bohemians are something likeGuebrs, and adore the sun. Hence, Phoebus."
"That does not seem so clear to me as to you, Master Pierre."
"After all, that does not concern me. Let her mumble her Phoebus at herpleasure. One thing is certain, that Djali loves me almost as much as hedoes her."
"Who is Djali?"
"The goat."
The archdeacon dropped his chin into his hand, and appeared to reflectfor a moment. All at once he turned abruptly to Gringoire once more.
"And do you swear to me that you have not touched her?"
"Whom?" said Gringoire; "the goat?"
"No, that woman."
&nbs
p; "My wife? I swear to you that I have not."
"You are often alone with her?"
"A good hour every evening."
Porn Claude frowned.
"Oh! oh! _Solus cum sola non cogitabuntur orare Pater Noster_."
"Upon my soul, I could say the _Pater_, and the _Ave Maria_, andthe _Credo in Deum patrem omnipotentem_ without her paying any moreattention to me than a chicken to a church."
"Swear to me, by the body of your mother," repeated the archdeaconviolently, "that you have not touched that creature with even the tip ofyour finger."
"I will also swear it by the head of my father, for the two thingshave more affinity between them. But, my reverend master, permit me aquestion in my turn."
"Speak, sir."
"What concern is it of yours?"
The archdeacon's pale face became as crimson as the cheek of a younggirl. He remained for a moment without answering; then, with visibleembarrassment,--
"Listen, Master Pierre Gringoire. You are not yet damned, so far asI know. I take an interest in you, and wish you well. Now the leastcontact with that Egyptian of the demon would make you the vassal ofSatan. You know that 'tis always the body which ruins the soul. Woe toyou if you approach that woman! That is all."
"I tried once," said Gringoire, scratching his ear; "it was the firstday: but I got stung."
"You were so audacious, Master Pierre?" and the priest's brow cloudedover again.
"On another occasion," continued the poet, with a smile, "I peepedthrough the keyhole, before going to bed, and I beheld the mostdelicious dame in her shift that ever made a bed creak under her barefoot."
"Go to the devil!" cried the priest, with a terrible look; and, givingthe amazed Gringoire a push on the shoulders, he plunged, with longstrides, under the gloomiest arcades of the cathedral.
CHAPTER III. THE BELLS.