In the meantime, public minor had informed the archdeacon of themiraculous manner in which the gypsy had been saved. When he learned it,he knew not what his sensations were. He had reconciled himself to laEsmeralda's death. In that matter he was tranquil; he had reached thebottom of personal suffering. The human heart (Dora Claude had meditatedupon these matters) can contain only a certain quantity of despair.When the sponge is saturated, the sea may pass over it without causing asingle drop more to enter it.
Now, with la Esmeralda dead, the sponge was soaked, all was at an end onthis earth for Dom Claude. But to feel that she was alive, and Phoebusalso, meant that tortures, shocks, alternatives, life, were beginningagain. And Claude was weary of all this.
When he heard this news, he shut himself in his cell in the cloister. Heappeared neither at the meetings of the chapter nor at the services. Heclosed his door against all, even against the bishop. He remained thusimmured for several weeks. He was believed to be ill. And so he was, infact.
What did he do while thus shut up? With what thoughts was theunfortunate man contending? Was he giving final battle to his formidablepassion? Was he concocting a final plan of death for her and ofperdition for himself?
His Jehan, his cherished brother, his spoiled child, came once to hisdoor, knocked, swore, entreated, gave his name half a score of times.Claude did not open.
He passed whole days with his face close to the panes of his window.From that window, situated in the cloister, he could see la Esmeralda'schamber. He often saw herself with her goat, sometimes with Quasimodo.He remarked the little attentions of the ugly deaf man, his obedience,his delicate and submissive ways with the gypsy. He recalled, for he hada good memory, and memory is the tormentor of the jealous, he recalledthe singular look of the bellringer, bent on the dancer upon a certainevening. He asked himself what motive could have impelled Quasimodo tosave her. He was the witness of a thousand little scenes between thegypsy and the deaf man, the pantomime of which, viewed from afar andcommented on by his passion, appeared very tender to him. He distrustedthe capriciousness of women. Then he felt a jealousy which he couldnever have believed possible awakening within him, a jealousy which madehim redden with shame and indignation: "One might condone the captain,but this one!" This thought upset him.
His nights were frightful. As soon as he learned that the gypsy wasalive, the cold ideas of spectre and tomb which had persecuted him fora whole day vanished, and the flesh returned to goad him. He turned andtwisted on his couch at the thought that the dark-skinned maiden was sonear him.
Every night his delirious imagination represented la Esmeralda to him inall the attitudes which had caused his blood to boil most. He beheld heroutstretched upon the poniarded captain, her eyes closed, her beautifulbare throat covered with Phoebus's blood, at that moment of bliss whenthe archdeacon had imprinted on her pale lips that kiss whose burn theunhappy girl, though half dead, had felt. He beheld her, again, strippedby the savage hands of the torturers, allowing them to bare and toenclose in the boot with its iron screw, her tiny foot, her delicaterounded leg, her white and supple knee. Again he beheld that ivory kneewhich alone remained outside of Torterue's horrible apparatus. Lastly,he pictured the young girl in her shift, with the rope about her neck,shoulders bare, feet bare, almost nude, as he had seen her on that lastday. These images of voluptuousness made him clench his fists, and ashiver run along his spine.
One night, among others, they heated so cruelly his virgin and priestlyblood, that he bit his pillow, leaped from his bed, flung on a surpliceover his shirt, and left his cell, lamp in hand, half naked, wild, hiseyes aflame.
He knew where to find the key to the red door, which connected thecloister with the church, and he always had about him, as the readerknows, the key of the staircase leading to the towers.
CHAPTER VI. CONTINUATION OF THE KEY TO THE RED DOOR.