"Oh, God!" said Fleur-de-Lys, "the poor creature!"
This thought filled with sadness the glance which she cast upon thepopulace. The captain, much more occupied with her than with that packof the rabble, was amorously rumpling her girdle behind. She turnedround, entreating and smiling.
"Please let me alone, Phoebus! If my mother were to return, she wouldsee your hand!"
At that moment, midday rang slowly out from the clock of Notre-Dame. Amurmur of satisfaction broke out in the crowd. The last vibration of thetwelfth stroke had hardly died away when all heads surged like the wavesbeneath a squall, and an immense shout went up from the pavement, thewindows, and the roofs,
"There she is!"
Fleur-de-Lys pressed her hands to her eyes, that she might not see.
"Charming girl," said Phoebus, "do you wish to withdraw?"
"No," she replied; and she opened through curiosity, the eyes which shehad closed through fear.
A tumbrel drawn by a stout Norman horse, and all surrounded by cavalryin violet livery with white crosses, had just debouched upon the Placethrough the Rue Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs. The sergeants of the watch wereclearing a passage for it through the crowd, by stout blows from theirclubs. Beside the cart rode several officers of justice and police,recognizable by their black costume and their awkwardness in the saddle.Master Jacques Charmolue paraded at their head.
In the fatal cart sat a young girl with her arms tied behind her back,and with no priest beside her. She was in her shift; her long black hair(the fashion then was to cut it off only at the foot of the gallows)fell in disorder upon her half-bared throat and shoulders.
Athwart that waving hair, more glossy than the plumage of a raven, athick, rough, gray rope was visible, twisted and knotted, chafing herdelicate collar-bones and twining round the charming neck of the poorgirl, like an earthworm round a flower. Beneath that rope glittered atiny amulet ornamented with bits of green glass, which had been left toher no doubt, because nothing is refused to those who are about to die.The spectators in the windows could see in the bottom of the cart hernaked legs which she strove to hide beneath her, as by a final feminineinstinct. At her feet lay a little goat, bound. The condemned girl heldtogether with her teeth her imperfectly fastened shift. One would havesaid that she suffered still more in her misery from being thus exposedalmost naked to the eyes of all. Alas! modesty is not made for suchshocks.
"Jesus!" said Fleur-de-Lys hastily to the captain. "Look fair cousin,'tis that wretched Bohemian with the goat."
So saying, she turned to Phoebus. His eyes were fixed on the tumbrel. Hewas very pale.
"What Bohemian with the goat?" he stammered.
"What!" resumed Fleur-de-Lys, "do you not remember?"
Phoebus interrupted her.
"I do not know what you mean."
He made a step to re-enter the room, but Fleur-de-Lys, whose jealousy,previously so vividly aroused by this same gypsy, had just beenre-awakened, Fleur-de-Lys gave him a look full of penetration anddistrust. She vaguely recalled at that moment having heard of a captainmixed up in the trial of that witch.
"What is the matter with you?" she said to Phoebus, "one would say, thatthis woman had disturbed you."
Phoebus forced a sneer,--
"Me! Not the least in the world! Ah! yes, certainly!"
"Remain, then!" she continued imperiously, "and let us see the end."
The unlucky captain was obliged to remain. He was somewhat reassured bythe fact that the condemned girl never removed her eyes from the bottomof the cart. It was but too surely la Esmeralda. In this last stage ofopprobrium and misfortune, she was still beautiful; her great black eyesappeared still larger, because of the emaciation of her cheeks; her paleprofile was pure and sublime. She resembled what she had been, inthe same degree that a virgin by Masaccio, resembles a virgin ofRaphael,--weaker, thinner, more delicate.
Moreover, there was nothing in her which was not shaken in some sort,and which with the exception of her modesty, she did not let go atwill, so profoundly had she been broken by stupor and despair. Her bodybounded at every jolt of the tumbrel like a dead or broken thing; hergaze was dull and imbecile. A tear was still visible in her eyes, butmotionless and frozen, so to speak.
Meanwhile, the lugubrious cavalcade has traversed the crowd amid criesof joy and curious attitudes. But as a faithful historian, we must statethat on beholding her so beautiful, so depressed, many were moved withpity, even among the hardest of them.
The tumbrel had entered the Parvis.
It halted before the central portal. The escort ranged themselves inline on both sides. The crowd became silent, and, in the midst of thissilence full of anxiety and solemnity, the two leaves of the grand doorswung back, as of themselves, on their hinges, which gave a creak likethe sound of a fife. Then there became visible in all its length, thedeep, gloomy church, hung in black, sparely lighted with a few candlesgleaming afar off on the principal altar, opened in the midst of thePlace which was dazzling with light, like the mouth of a cavern. At thevery extremity, in the gloom of the apse, a gigantic silver crosswas visible against a black drapery which hung from the vault to thepavement. The whole nave was deserted. But a few heads of priests couldbe seen moving confusedly in the distant choir stalls, and, at themoment when the great door opened, there escaped from the church aloud, solemn, and monotonous chanting, which cast over the head of thecondemned girl, in gusts, fragments of melancholy psalms,--
"_Non timebo millia populi circumdantis me: exsurge, Domine; salvum mefac, Deus_!"
"_Salvum me fac, Deus, quoniam intraverunt aquae usque ad animam meam_.
"_Infixus sum in limo profundi; et non est substantia_."
At the same time, another voice, separate from the choir, intoned uponthe steps of the chief altar, this melancholy offertory,--"_Qui verbummeum audit, et credit ei qui misit me, habet vitam oeternam et injudicium non venit; sed transit a morte im vitam_*."
* "He that heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me,hath eternal life, and hath not come into condemnation; but is passedfrom death to life."
This chant, which a few old men buried in the gloom sang from afar overthat beautiful creature, full of youth and life, caressed by the warmair of spring, inundated with sunlight was the mass for the dead.
The people listened devoutly.
The unhappy girl seemed to lose her sight and her consciousness inthe obscure interior of the church. Her white lips moved as though inprayer, and the headsman's assistant who approached to assist herto alight from the cart, heard her repeating this word in a lowtone,--"Phoebus."
They untied her hands, made her alight, accompanied by her goat, whichhad also been unbound, and which bleated with joy at finding itselffree: and they made her walk barefoot on the hard pavement to the footof the steps leading to the door. The rope about her neck trailed behindher. One would have said it was a serpent following her.
Then the chanting in the church ceased. A great golden cross and a rowof wax candles began to move through the gloom. The halberds of themotley beadles clanked; and, a few moments later, a long procession ofpriests in chasubles, and deacons in dalmatics, marched gravely towardsthe condemned girl, as they drawled their song, spread out before herview and that of the crowd. But her glance rested on the one who marchedat the head, immediately after the cross-bearer.
"Oh!" she said in a low voice, and with a shudder, "'tis he again! thepriest!"
It was in fact, the archdeacon. On his left he had the sub-chanter, onhis right, the chanter, armed with his official wand. He advanced withhead thrown back, his eyes fixed and wide open, intoning in a strongvoice,--
"_De ventre inferi clamavi, et exaudisti vocem meam_.
"_Et projecisti me in profundum in corde mans, et flumem circumdeditme_*."
* "Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardestmy voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep in the midst of the seas,and the floods compassed me about."
At the moment wh
en he made his appearance in the full daylight beneaththe lofty arched portal, enveloped in an ample cope of silver barredwith a black cross, he was so pale that more than one person in thecrowd thought that one of the marble bishops who knelt on the sepulchralstones of the choir had risen and was come to receive upon the brink ofthe tomb, the woman who was about to die.
She, no less pale, no less like a statue, had hardly noticed that theyhad placed in her hand a heavy, lighted candle of yellow wax; she hadnot heard the yelping voice of the clerk reading the fatal contentsof the apology; when they told her to respond with Amen, she respondedAmen. She only recovered life and force when she beheld the priest makea sign to her guards to withdraw, and himself advance alone towards her.
Then she felt her blood boil in her head, and a remnant of indignationflashed up in that soul already benumbed and cold.
The archdeacon approached her slowly; even in that extremity, she beheldhim cast an eye sparkling with sensuality, jealousy, and desire, overher exposed form. Then he said aloud,--
"Young girl, have you asked God's pardon for your faults andshortcomings?"
He bent down to her ear, and added (the spectators supposed that hewas receiving her last confession): "Will you have me? I can still saveyou!"
She looked intently at him: "Begone, demon, or I will denounce you!"
He gave vent to a horrible smile: "You will not be believed. You willonly add a scandal to a crime. Reply quickly! Will you have me?"
"What have you done with my Phoebus?"
"He is dead!" said the priest.
At that moment the wretched archdeacon raised his head mechanically andbeheld at the other end of the Place, in the balcony of the Gondelauriermansion, the captain standing beside Fleur-de-Lys. He staggered, passedhis hand across his eyes, looked again, muttered a curse, and all hisfeatures were violently contorted.
"Well, die then!" he hissed between his teeth. "No one shall haveyou." Then, raising his hand over the gypsy, he exclaimed in a funerealvoice:--"_I nunc, anima anceps, et sit tibi Deus misenicors_!"*
* "Go now, soul, trembling in the balance, and God have mercyupon thee."
This was the dread formula with which it was the custom to concludethese gloomy ceremonies. It was the signal agreed upon between thepriest and the executioner.
The crowd knelt.
"_Kyrie eleison_,"* said the priests, who had remained beneath the archof the portal.
* "Lord have mercy upon us."
"_Kyrie eleison_," repeated the throng in that murmur which runs overall heads, like the waves of a troubled sea.
"Amen," said the archdeacon.
He turned his back on the condemned girl, his head sank upon his breastonce more, he crossed his hands and rejoined his escort of priests, anda moment later he was seen to disappear, with the cross, the candles,and the copes, beneath the misty arches of the cathedral, and hissonorous voice was extinguished by degrees in the choir, as he chantedthis verse of despair,--
"_Omnes gurgites tui et fluctus tui super me transierunt_."*
* "All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me."
At the same time, the intermittent clash of the iron butts of thebeadles' halberds, gradually dying away among the columns of the nave,produced the effect of a clock hammer striking the last hour of thecondemned.
The doors of Notre-Dame remained open, allowing a view of the emptydesolate church, draped in mourning, without candles, and withoutvoices.
The condemned girl remained motionless in her place, waiting to bedisposed of. One of the sergeants of police was obliged to notify MasterCharmolue of the fact, as the latter, during this entire scene, had beenengaged in studying the bas-relief of the grand portal which represents,according to some, the sacrifice of Abraham; according to others, thephilosopher's alchemical operation: the sun being figured forth by theangel; the fire, by the fagot; the artisan, by Abraham.
There was considerable difficulty in drawing him away from thatcontemplation, but at length he turned round; and, at a signal which hegave, two men clad in yellow, the executioner's assistants, approachedthe gypsy to bind her hands once more.
The unhappy creature, at the moment of mounting once again the fatalcart, and proceeding to her last halting-place, was seized, possibly,with some poignant clinging to life. She raised her dry, red eyes toheaven, to the sun, to the silvery clouds, cut here and there by a bluetrapezium or triangle; then she lowered them to objects around her, tothe earth, the throng, the houses; all at once, while the yellow man wasbinding her elbows, she uttered a terrible cry, a cry of joy. Yonder, onthat balcony, at the corner of the Place, she had just caught sight ofhim, of her friend, her lord, Phoebus, the other apparition of her life!
The judge had lied! the priest had lied! it was certainly he, she couldnot doubt it; he was there, handsome, alive, dressed in his brilliantuniform, his plume on his head, his sword by his side!
"Phoebus!" she cried, "my Phoebus!"
And she tried to stretch towards him arms trembling with love andrapture, but they were bound.
Then she saw the captain frown, a beautiful young girl who was leaningagainst him gazed at him with disdainful lips and irritated eyes; thenPhoebus uttered some words which did not reach her, and both disappearedprecipitately behind the window opening upon the balcony, which closedafter them.
"Phoebus!" she cried wildly, "can it be you believe it?" A monstrousthought had just presented itself to her. She remembered that she hadbeen condemned to death for murder committed on the person of Phoebus deChateaupers.
She had borne up until that moment. But this last blow was too harsh.She fell lifeless on the pavement.
"Come," said Charmolue, "carry her to the cart, and make an end of it."
No one had yet observed in the gallery of the statues of the kings,carved directly above the arches of the portal, a strange spectator, whohad, up to that time, observed everything with such impassiveness, witha neck so strained, a visage so hideous that, in his motley accoutrementof red and violet, he might have been taken for one of those stonemonsters through whose mouths the long gutters of the cathedral havedischarged their waters for six hundred years. This spectator had missednothing that had taken place since midday in front of the portal ofNotre-Dame. And at the very beginning he had securely fastened to one ofthe small columns a large knotted rope, one end of which trailed on theflight of steps below. This being done, he began to look on tranquilly,whistling from time to time when a blackbird flitted past. Suddenly,at the moment when the superintendent's assistants were preparingto execute Charmolue's phlegmatic order, he threw his leg over thebalustrade of the gallery, seized the rope with his feet, his knees andhis hands; then he was seen to glide down the facade, as a drop ofrain slips down a window-pane, rush to the two executioners with theswiftness of a cat which has fallen from a roof, knock them down withtwo enormous fists, pick up the gypsy with one hand, as a child wouldher doll, and dash back into the church with a single bound, lifting theyoung girl above his head and crying in a formidable voice,--
"Sanctuary!"
This was done with such rapidity, that had it taken place at night,the whole of it could have been seen in the space of a single flash oflightning.
"Sanctuary! Sanctuary!" repeated the crowd; and the clapping of tenthousand hands made Quasimodo's single eye sparkle with joy and pride.
This shock restored the condemned girl to her senses. She raised hereyelids, looked at Quasimodo, then closed them again suddenly, as thoughterrified by her deliverer.
Charmolue was stupefied, as well as the executioners and the entireescort. In fact, within the bounds of Notre-Dame, the condemned girlcould not be touched. The cathedral was a place of refuge. All temporaljurisdiction expired upon its threshold.
Quasimodo had halted beneath the great portal, his huge feet seemedas solid on the pavement of the church as the heavy Roman pillars.His great, bushy head sat low between his shoulders, like the heads oflions, who also have a mane and no ne
ck. He held the young girl, who wasquivering all over, suspended from his horny hands like a white drapery;but he carried her with as much care as though he feared to break heror blight her. One would have said that he felt that she was a delicate,exquisite, precious thing, made for other hands than his. There weremoments when he looked as if not daring to touch her, even with hisbreath. Then, all at once, he would press her forcibly in his arms,against his angular bosom, like his own possession, his treasure, asthe mother of that child would have done. His gnome's eye, fastened uponher, inundated her with tenderness, sadness, and pity, and was suddenlyraised filled with lightnings. Then the women laughed and wept, thecrowd stamped with enthusiasm, for, at that moment Quasimodo had abeauty of his own. He was handsome; he, that orphan, that foundling,that outcast, he felt himself august and strong, he gazed in the faceof that society from which he was banished, and in which he had sopowerfully intervened, of that human justice from which he had wrenchedits prey, of all those tigers whose jaws were forced to remain empty, ofthose policemen, those judges, those executioners, of all that force ofthe king which he, the meanest of creatures, had just broken, with theforce of God.
And then, it was touching to behold this protection which had fallenfrom a being so hideous upon a being so unhappy, a creature condemned todeath saved by Quasimodo. They were two extremes of natural and socialwretchedness, coming into contact and aiding each other.
Meanwhile, after several moments of triumph, Quasimodo had plungedabruptly into the church with his burden. The populace, fond of allprowess, sought him with their eyes, beneath the gloomy nave, regrettingthat he had so speedily disappeared from their acclamations. All atonce, he was seen to re-appear at one of the extremities of the galleryof the kings of France; he traversed it, running like a madman, raisinghis conquest high in his arms and shouting: "Sanctuary!" The crowd brokeforth into fresh applause. The gallery passed, he plunged once moreinto the interior of the church. A moment later, he re-appeared upon theupper platform, with the gypsy still in his arms, still running madly,still crying, "Sanctuary!" and the throng applauded. Finally, he madehis appearance for the third time upon the summit of the tower wherehung the great bell; from that point he seemed to be showing to theentire city the girl whom he had saved, and his voice of thunder, thatvoice which was so rarely heard, and which he never heard himself,repeated thrice with frenzy, even to the clouds: "Sanctuary! Sanctuary!Sanctuary!"
"Noel! Noel!" shouted the populace in its turn; and that immenseacclamation flew to astonish the crowd assembled at the Greve on theother bank, and the recluse who was still waiting with her eyes rivetedon the gibbet.
BOOK NINTH.
CHAPTER I. DELIRIUM.