Day followed day. Calm gradually returned to the soul of la Esmeralda.Excess of grief, like excess of joy is a violent thing which lasts buta short time. The heart of man cannot remain long in one extremity. Thegypsy had suffered so much, that nothing was left her but astonishment.With security, hope had returned to her. She was outside the pale ofsociety, outside the pale of life, but she had a vague feeling that itmight not be impossible to return to it. She was like a dead person, whoshould hold in reserve the key to her tomb.
She felt the terrible images which had so long persecuted her,gradually departing. All the hideous phantoms, Pierrat Torterue, JacquesCharmolue, were effaced from her mind, all, even the priest.
And then, Phoebus was alive; she was sure of it, she had seen him. Toher the fact of Phoebus being alive was everything. After the series offatal shocks which had overturned everything within her, she had foundbut one thing intact in her soul, one sentiment,--her love for thecaptain. Love is like a tree; it sprouts forth of itself, sends itsroots out deeply through our whole being, and often continues toflourish greenly over a heart in ruins.
And the inexplicable point about it is that the more blind is thispassion, the more tenacious it is. It is never more solid than when ithas no reason in it.
La Esmeralda did not think of the captain without bitterness, no doubt.No doubt it was terrible that he also should have been deceived; that heshould have believed that impossible thing, that he could have conceivedof a stab dealt by her who would have given a thousand lives for him.But, after all, she must not be too angry with him for it; had she notconfessed her crime? had she not yielded, weak woman that she was, totorture? The fault was entirely hers. She should have allowed her fingernails to be torn out rather than such a word to be wrenched from her. Inshort, if she could but see Phoebus once more, for a single minute,only one word would be required, one look, in order to undeceive him,to bring him back. She did not doubt it. She was astonished also at manysingular things, at the accident of Phoebus's presence on the day of thepenance, at the young girl with whom he had been. She was his sister, nodoubt. An unreasonable explanation, but she contented herself with it,because she needed to believe that Phoebus still loved her, and lovedher alone. Had he not sworn it to her? What more was needed, simple andcredulous as she was? And then, in this matter, were not appearancesmuch more against her than against him? Accordingly, she waited. Shehoped.
Let us add that the church, that vast church, which surrounded her onevery side, which guarded her, which saved her, was itself a sovereigntranquillizer. The solemn lines of that architecture, the religiousattitude of all the objects which surrounded the young girl, the sereneand pious thoughts which emanated, so to speak, from all the pores ofthat stone, acted upon her without her being aware of it. The edificehad also sounds fraught with such benediction and such majesty,that they soothed this ailing soul. The monotonous chanting of thecelebrants, the responses of the people to the priest, sometimesinarticulate, sometimes thunderous, the harmonious trembling of thepainted windows, the organ, bursting forth like a hundred trumpets, thethree belfries, humming like hives of huge bees, that whole orchestra onwhich bounded a gigantic scale, ascending, descending incessantlyfrom the voice of a throng to that of one bell, dulled her memory, herimagination, her grief. The bells, in particular, lulled her. It wassomething like a powerful magnetism which those vast instruments shedover her in great waves.
Thus every sunrise found her more calm, breathing better, less pale. Inproportion as her inward wounds closed, her grace and beauty blossomedonce more on her countenance, but more thoughtful, more reposeful. Herformer character also returned to her, somewhat even of her gayety, herpretty pout, her love for her goat, her love for singing, her modesty.She took care to dress herself in the morning in the corner of hercell for fear some inhabitants of the neighboring attics might see herthrough the window.
When the thought of Phoebus left her time, the gypsy sometimes thoughtof Quasimodo. He was the sole bond, the sole connection, the solecommunication which remained to her with men, with the living.Unfortunate girl! she was more outside the world than Quasimodo. Sheunderstood not in the least the strange friend whom chance had givenher. She often reproached herself for not feeling a gratitude whichshould close her eyes, but decidedly, she could not accustom herself tothe poor bellringer. He was too ugly.
She had left the whistle which he had given her lying on the ground.This did not prevent Quasimodo from making his appearance from time totime during the first few days. She did her best not to turn aside withtoo much repugnance when he came to bring her her basket of provisionsor her jug of water, but he always perceived the slightest movement ofthis sort, and then he withdrew sadly.
Once he came at the moment when she was caressing Djali. He stoodpensively for several minutes before this graceful group of the goat andthe gypsy; at last he said, shaking his heavy and ill-formed head,--
"My misfortune is that I still resemble a man too much. I should like tobe wholly a beast like that goat."
She gazed at him in amazement.
He replied to the glance,--
"Oh! I well know why," and he went away.
On another occasion he presented himself at the door of the cell (whichhe never entered) at the moment when la Esmeralda was singing an oldSpanish ballad, the words of which she did not understand, but which hadlingered in her ear because the gypsy women had lulled her to sleepwith it when she was a little child. At the sight of that villanous formwhich made its appearance so abruptly in the middle of her song, theyoung girl paused with an involuntary gesture of alarm. The unhappybellringer fell upon his knees on the threshold, and clasped his large,misshapen hands with a suppliant air. "Oh!" he said, sorrowfully,"continue, I implore you, and do not drive me away." She did not wish topain him, and resumed her lay, trembling all over. By degrees, however,her terror disappeared, and she yielded herself wholly to the slow andmelancholy air which she was singing. He remained on his knees withhands clasped, as in prayer, attentive, hardly breathing, his gazeriveted upon the gypsy's brilliant eyes.
On another occasion, he came to her with an awkward and timid air."Listen," he said, with an effort; "I have something to say to you."She made him a sign that she was listening. Then he began to sigh, halfopened his lips, appeared for a moment to be on the point of speaking,then he looked at her again, shook his head, and withdrew slowly, withhis brow in his hand, leaving the gypsy stupefied. Among the grotesquepersonages sculptured on the wall, there was one to whom he wasparticularly attached, and with which he often seemed to exchangefraternal glances. Once the gypsy heard him saying to it,--
"Oh! why am not I of stone, like you!"
At last, one morning, la Esmeralda had advanced to the edge of the roof,and was looking into the Place over the pointed roof of Saint-Jean leRond. Quasimodo was standing behind her. He had placed himself in thatposition in order to spare the young girl, as far as possible, thedispleasure of seeing him. All at once the gypsy started, a tear and aflash of joy gleamed simultaneously in her eyes, she knelt on thebrink of the roof and extended her arms towards the Place with anguish,exclaiming: "Phoebus! come! come! a word, a single word in the name ofheaven! Phoebus! Phoebus!" Her voice, her face, her gesture, her wholeperson bore the heartrending expression of a shipwrecked man who ismaking a signal of distress to the joyous vessel which is passing afaroff in a ray of sunlight on the horizon.
Quasimodo leaned over the Place, and saw that the object of this tenderand agonizing prayer was a young man, a captain, a handsome cavalierall glittering with arms and decorations, prancing across the end of thePlace, and saluting with his plume a beautiful lady who was smiling athim from her balcony. However, the officer did not hear the unhappy girlcalling him; he was too far away.
But the poor deaf man heard. A profound sigh heaved his breast; heturned round; his heart was swollen with all the tears which he wasswallowing; his convulsively-clenched fists struck against his head, andwhen he withdrew them there was a bu
nch of red hair in each hand.
The gypsy paid no heed to him. He said in a low voice as he gnashed histeeth,--
"Damnation! That is what one should be like! 'Tis only necessary to behandsome on the outside!"
Meanwhile, she remained kneeling, and cried with extraor-dinaryagitation,--"Oh! there he is alighting from his horse! He is about toenter that house!--Phoebus!--He does not hear me! Phoebus!--How wickedthat woman is to speak to him at the same time with me! Phoebus!Phoebus!"
The deaf man gazed at her. He understood this pantomime. The poorbellringer's eye filled with tears, but he let none fall. All at once hepulled her gently by the border of her sleeve. She turned round. He hadassumed a tranquil air; he said to her,--
"Would you like to have me bring him to you?"
She uttered a cry of joy.
"Oh! go! hasten! run! quick! that captain! that captain! bring him tome! I will love you for it!"
She clasped his knees. He could not refrain from shaking his head sadly.
"I will bring him to you," he said, in a weak voice. Then he turned hishead and plunged down the staircase with great strides, stifling withsobs.
When he reached the Place, he no longer saw anything except the handsomehorse hitched at the door of the Gondelaurier house; the captain hadjust entered there.
He raised his eyes to the roof of the church. La Esmeralda was therein the same spot, in the same attitude. He made her a sad sign with hishead; then he planted his back against one of the stone posts of theGondelaurier porch, determined to wait until the captain should comeforth.
In the Gondelaurier house it was one of those gala days which precedea wedding. Quasimodo beheld many people enter, but no one come out. Hecast a glance towards the roof from time to time; the gypsy did not stirany more than himself. A groom came and unhitched the horse and led itto the stable of the house.
The entire day passed thus, Quasimodo at his post, la Esmeralda on theroof, Phoebus, no doubt, at the feet of Fleur-de-Lys.
At length night came, a moonless night, a dark night. Quasimodofixed his gaze in vain upon la Esmeralda; soon she was no more thana whiteness amid the twilight; then nothing. All was effaced, all wasblack.
Quasimodo beheld the front windows from top to bottom of theGondelaurier mansion illuminated; he saw the other casements in thePlace lighted one by one, he also saw them extinguished to the verylast, for he remained the whole evening at his post. The officer did notcome forth. When the last passers-by had returned home, when the windowsof all the other houses were extinguished, Quasimodo was left entirelyalone, entirely in the dark. There were at that time no lamps in thesquare before Notre-Dame.
Meanwhile, the windows of the Gondelaurier mansion remained lighted,even after midnight. Quasimodo, motionless and attentive, beheld athrong of lively, dancing shadows pass athwart the many-coloredpainted panes. Had he not been deaf, he would have heard more and moredistinctly, in proportion as the noise of sleeping Paris died away, asound of feasting, laughter, and music in the Gondelaurier mansion.
Towards one o'clock in the morning, the guests began to take theirleave. Quasimodo, shrouded in darkness watched them all pass out throughthe porch illuminated with torches. None of them was the captain.
He was filled with sad thoughts; at times he looked upwards into theair, like a person who is weary of waiting. Great black clouds, heavy,torn, split, hung like crape hammocks beneath the starry dome of night.One would have pronounced them spiders' webs of the vault of heaven.
In one of these moments he suddenly beheld the long window on thebalcony, whose stone balustrade projected above his head, openmysteriously. The frail glass door gave passage to two persons, andclosed noiselessly behind them; it was a man and a woman.
It was not without difficulty that Quasimodo succeeded in recognizingin the man the handsome captain, in the woman the young lady whom hehad seen welcome the officer in the morning from that very balcony. Theplace was perfectly dark, and a double crimson curtain which had fallenacross the door the very moment it closed again, allowed no light toreach the balcony from the apartment.
The young man and the young girl, so far as our deaf man could judge,without hearing a single one of their words, appeared to abandonthemselves to a very tender tete-a-tete. The young girl seemed to haveallowed the officer to make a girdle for her of his arm, and gentlyrepulsed a kiss.
Quasimodo looked on from below at this scene which was all the morepleasing to witness because it was not meant to be seen. He contemplatedwith bitterness that beauty, that happiness. After all, nature was notdumb in the poor fellow, and his human sensibility, all maliciouslycontorted as it was, quivered no less than any other. He thought of themiserable portion which Providence had allotted to him; that woman andthe pleasure of love, would pass forever before his eyes, and that heshould never do anything but behold the felicity of others. But thatwhich rent his heart most in this sight, that which mingled indignationwith his anger, was the thought of what the gypsy would suffer could shebehold it. It is true that the night was very dark, that la Esmeralda,if she had remained at her post (and he had no doubt of this), was veryfar away, and that it was all that he himself could do to distinguishthe lovers on the balcony. This consoled him.
Meanwhile, their conversation grew more and more animated. The younglady appeared to be entreating the officer to ask nothing more of her.Of all this Quasimodo could distinguish only the beautiful claspedhands, the smiles mingled with tears, the young girl's glances directedto the stars, the eyes of the captain lowered ardently upon her.
Fortunately, for the young girl was beginning to resist but feebly, thedoor of the balcony suddenly opened once more and an old dame appeared;the beauty seemed confused, the officer assumed an air of displeasure,and all three withdrew.
A moment later, a horse was champing his bit under the porch, and thebrilliant officer, enveloped in his night cloak, passed rapidly beforeQuasimodo.
The bellringer allowed him to turn the corner of the street, then he ranafter him with his ape-like agility, shouting: "Hey there! captain!"
The captain halted.
"What wants this knave with me?" he said, catching sight through thegloom of that hipshot form which ran limping after him.
Meanwhile, Quasimodo had caught up with him, and had boldly grasped hishorse's bridle: "Follow me, captain; there is one here who desires tospeak with you!
"_Cornemahom_!" grumbled Phoebus, "here's a villanous; ruffled birdwhich I fancy I have seen somewhere. Hola master, will you let myhorse's bridle alone?"
"Captain," replied the deaf man, "do you not ask me who it is?"
"I tell you to release my horse," retorted Phoebus, impatiently. "Whatmeans the knave by clinging to the bridle of my steed? Do you take myhorse for a gallows?"
Quasimodo, far from releasing the bridle, prepared to force him toretrace his steps. Unable to comprehend the captain's resistance, hehastened to say to him,--
"Come, captain, 'tis a woman who is waiting for you." He added with aneffort: "A woman who loves you."
"A rare rascal!" said the captain, "who thinks me obliged to go to allthe women who love me! or who say they do. And what if, by chance, sheshould resemble you, you face of a screech-owl? Tell the woman who hassent you that I am about to marry, and that she may go to the devil!"
"Listen," exclaimed Quasimodo, thinking to overcome his hesitation witha word, "come, monseigneur! 'tis the gypsy whom you know!"
This word did, indeed, produce a great effect on Phoebus, but not of thekind which the deaf man expected. It will be remembered that our gallantofficer had retired with Fleur-de-Lys several moments before Quasimodohad rescued the condemned girl from the hands of Charmolue. Afterwards,in all his visits to the Gondelaurier mansion he had taken care not tomention that woman, the memory of whom was, after all, painful to him;and on her side, Fleur-de-Lys had not deemed it politic to tell him thatthe gypsy was alive. Hence Phoebus believed poor "Similar" to be dead,and that a month or two had elapsed since h
er death. Let us add thatfor the last few moments the captain had been reflecting on the profounddarkness of the night, the supernatural ugliness, the sepulchral voiceof the strange messenger; that it was past midnight; that the street wasdeserted, as on the evening when the surly monk had accosted him; andthat his horse snorted as it looked at Quasimodo.
"The gypsy!" he exclaimed, almost frightened. "Look here, do you comefrom the other world?"
And he laid his hand on the hilt of his dagger.
"Quick, quick," said the deaf man, endeavoring to drag the horse along;"this way!"
Phoebus dealt him a vigorous kick in the breast.
Quasimodo's eye flashed. He made a motion to fling himself on thecaptain. Then he drew himself up stiffly and said,--
"Oh! how happy you are to have some one who loves you!"
He emphasized the words "some one," and loosing the horse's bridle,--
"Begone!"
Phoebus spurred on in all haste, swearing. Quasimodo watched himdisappear in the shades of the street.
"Oh!" said the poor deaf man, in a very low voice; "to refuse that!"
He re-entered Notre-Dame, lighted his lamp and climbed to the toweragain. The gypsy was still in the same place, as he had supposed.
She flew to meet him as far off as she could see him. "Alone!" shecried, clasping her beautiful hands sorrowfully.
"I could not find him," said Quasimodo coldly.
"You should have waited all night," she said angrily.
He saw her gesture of wrath, and understood the reproach.
"I will lie in wait for him better another time," he said, dropping hishead.
"Begone!" she said to him.
He left her. She was displeased with him. He preferred to have herabuse him rather than to have afflicted her. He had kept all the pain tohimself.
From that day forth, the gypsy no longer saw him. He ceased to come toher cell. At the most she occasionally caught a glimpse at the summit ofthe towers, of the bellringer's face turned sadly to her. But as soon asshe perceived him, he disappeared.
We must admit that she was not much grieved by this voluntary absenceon the part of the poor hunchback. At the bottom of her heart she wasgrateful to him for it. Moreover, Quasimodo did not deceive himself onthis point.
She no longer saw him, but she felt the presence of a good genius abouther. Her provisions were replenished by an invisible hand during herslumbers. One morning she found a cage of birds on her window. Therewas a piece of sculpture above her window which frightened her. She hadshown this more than once in Quasimodo's presence. One morning, forall these things happened at night, she no longer saw it, it had beenbroken. The person who had climbed up to that carving must have riskedhis life.
Sometimes, in the evening, she heard a voice, concealed beneath the windscreen of the bell tower, singing a sad, strange song, as though to lullher to sleep. The lines were unrhymed, such as a deaf person can make.
_Ne regarde pas la figure, Jeune fille, regarde le coeur. Le coeur d'un beau jeune homme est souvent difforme. Il y a des coeurs ou l'amour ne se conserve pas_.
_Jeune fille, le sapin n'est pas beau, N'est pas beau comme le peuplier, Mais il garde son feuillage l'hiver_.
_Helas! a quoi bon dire cela? Ce qui n'est pas beau a tort d'etre; La beaute n'aime que la beaute, Avril tourne le dos a Janvier_.
_La beaute est parfaite, La beaute peut tout, La beaute est la seule chose qui n'existe pas a demi_.
_Le corbeau ne vole que le jour, Le hibou ne vole que la nuit, Le cygne vole la nuit et le jour_.*
* Look not at the face, young girl, look at the heart. Theheart of a handsome young man is often deformed. There are hearts inwhich love does not keep. Young girl, the pine is not beautiful; it isnot beautiful like the poplar, but it keeps its foliage in winter. Alas!What is the use of saying that? That which is not beautiful has no rightto exist; beauty loves only beauty; April turns her back on January.Beauty is perfect, beauty can do all things, beauty is the only thingwhich does not exist by halves. The raven flies only by day, the owlflies only by night, the swan flies by day and by night.
One morning, on awaking, she saw on her window two vases filled withflowers. One was a very beautiful and very brilliant but cracked vase ofglass. It had allowed the water with which it had been filled to escape,and the flowers which it contained were withered. The other was anearthenware pot, coarse and common, but which had preserved all itswater, and its flowers remained fresh and crimson.
I know not whether it was done intentionally, but La Esmeralda took thefaded nosegay and wore it all day long upon her breast.
That day she did not hear the voice singing in the tower.
She troubled herself very little about it. She passed her days incaressing Djali, in watching the door of the Gondelaurier house, intalking to herself about Phoebus, and in crumbling up her bread for theswallows.
She had entirely ceased to see or hear Quasimodo. The poor bellringerseemed to have disappeared from the church. One night, nevertheless,when she was not asleep, but was thinking of her handsome captain, sheheard something breathing near her cell. She rose in alarm, and saw bythe light of the moon, a shapeless mass lying across her door on theoutside. It was Quasimodo asleep there upon the stones.
CHAPTER V. THE KEY TO THE RED DOOR.