When Pierre Gringoire arrived on the Place de Greve, he was paralyzed.He had directed his course across the Pont aux Meuniers, in orderto avoid the rabble on the Pont au Change, and the pennons of JehanFourbault; but the wheels of all the bishop's mills had splashed him ashe passed, and his doublet was drenched; it seemed to him besides, thatthe failure of his piece had rendered him still more sensible to coldthan usual. Hence he made haste to draw near the bonfire, which wasburning magnificently in the middle of the Place. But a considerablecrowd formed a circle around it.
"Accursed Parisians!" he said to himself (for Gringoire, like a truedramatic poet, was subject to monologues) "there they are obstructing myfire! Nevertheless, I am greatly in need of a chimney corner; my shoesdrink in the water, and all those cursed mills wept upon me! That devilof a Bishop of Paris, with his mills! I'd just like to know what use abishop can make of a mill! Does he expect to become a miller instead ofa bishop? If only my malediction is needed for that, I bestow it uponhim! and his cathedral, and his mills! Just see if those boobies willput themselves out! Move aside! I'd like to know what they are doingthere! They are warming themselves, much pleasure may it give them! Theyare watching a hundred fagots burn; a fine spectacle!"
On looking more closely, he perceived that the circle was much largerthan was required simply for the purpose of getting warm at the king'sfire, and that this concourse of people had not been attracted solely bythe beauty of the hundred fagots which were burning.
In a vast space left free between the crowd and the fire, a young girlwas dancing.
Whether this young girl was a human being, a fairy, or an angel, is whatGringoire, sceptical philosopher and ironical poet that he was, couldnot decide at the first moment, so fascinated was he by this dazzlingvision.
She was not tall, though she seemed so, so boldly did her slender formdart about. She was swarthy of complexion, but one divined that, by day,her skin must possess that beautiful golden tone of the Andalusians andthe Roman women. Her little foot, too, was Andalusian, for it was bothpinched and at ease in its graceful shoe. She danced, she turned, shewhirled rapidly about on an old Persian rug, spread negligently underher feet; and each time that her radiant face passed before you, as shewhirled, her great black eyes darted a flash of lightning at you.
All around her, all glances were riveted, all mouths open; and, in fact,when she danced thus, to the humming of the Basque tambourine, whichher two pure, rounded arms raised above her head, slender, frail andvivacious as a wasp, with her corsage of gold without a fold, hervariegated gown puffing out, her bare shoulders, her delicate limbs,which her petticoat revealed at times, her black hair, her eyes offlame, she was a supernatural creature.
"In truth," said Gringoire to himself, "she is a salamander, she is anymph, she is a goddess, she is a bacchante of the Menelean Mount!"
At that moment, one of the salamander's braids of hair becameunfastened, and a piece of yellow copper which was attached to it,rolled to the ground.
"He, no!" said he, "she is a gypsy!"
All illusions had disappeared.
She began her dance once more; she took from the ground two swords,whose points she rested against her brow, and which she made to turnin one direction, while she turned in the other; it was a purely gypsyeffect. But, disenchanted though Gringoire was, the whole effect ofthis picture was not without its charm and its magic; the bonfireilluminated, with a red flaring light, which trembled, all alive, overthe circle of faces in the crowd, on the brow of the young girl, and atthe background of the Place cast a pallid reflection, on one side uponthe ancient, black, and wrinkled facade of the House of Pillars, on theother, upon the old stone gibbet.
Among the thousands of visages which that light tinged with scarlet,there was one which seemed, even more than all the others, absorbed incontemplation of the dancer. It was the face of a man, austere, calm,and sombre. This man, whose costume was concealed by the crowd whichsurrounded him, did not appear to be more than five and thirty years ofage; nevertheless, he was bald; he had merely a few tufts of thin, grayhair on his temples; his broad, high forehead had begun to be furrowedwith wrinkles, but his deep-set eyes sparkled with extraordinaryyouthfulness, an ardent life, a profound passion. He kept them fixedincessantly on the gypsy, and, while the giddy young girl of sixteendanced and whirled, for the pleasure of all, his revery seemed to becomemore and more sombre. From time to time, a smile and a sigh met upon hislips, but the smile was more melancholy than the sigh.
The young girl, stopped at length, breathless, and the people applaudedher lovingly.
"Djali!" said the gypsy.
Then Gringoire saw come up to her, a pretty little white goat, alert,wide-awake, glossy, with gilded horns, gilded hoofs, and gilded collar,which he had not hitherto perceived, and which had remained lying curledup on one corner of the carpet watching his mistress dance.
"Djali!" said the dancer, "it is your turn."
And, seating herself, she gracefully presented her tambourine to thegoat.
"Djali," she continued, "what month is this?"
The goat lifted its fore foot, and struck one blow upon the tambourine.It was the first month in the year, in fact.
"Djali," pursued the young girl, turning her tambourine round, "what dayof the month is this?"
Djali raised his little gilt hoof, and struck six blows on thetambourine.
"Djali," pursued the Egyptian, with still another movement of thetambourine, "what hour of the day is it?"
Djali struck seven blows. At that moment, the clock of the Pillar Houserang out seven.
The people were amazed.
"There's sorcery at the bottom of it," said a sinister voice in thecrowd. It was that of the bald man, who never removed his eyes from thegypsy.
She shuddered and turned round; but applause broke forth and drowned themorose exclamation.
It even effaced it so completely from her mind, that she continued toquestion her goat.
"Djali, what does Master Guichard Grand-Remy, captain of the pistoliersof the town do, at the procession of Candlemas?"
Djali reared himself on his hind legs, and began to bleat, marchingalong with so much dainty gravity, that the entire circle of spectatorsburst into a laugh at this parody of the interested devoutness of thecaptain of pistoliers.
"Djali," resumed the young girl, emboldened by her growing success,"how preaches Master Jacques Charmolue, procurator to the king in theecclesiastical court?"
The goat seated himself on his hind quarters, and began to bleat, wavinghis fore feet in so strange a manner, that, with the exception ofthe bad French, and worse Latin, Jacques Charmolue was therecomplete,--gesture, accent, and attitude.
And the crowd applauded louder than ever.
"Sacrilege! profanation!" resumed the voice of the bald man.
The gypsy turned round once more.
"Ah!" said she, "'tis that villanous man!" Then, thrusting her underlip out beyond the upper, she made a little pout, which appeared tobe familiar to her, executed a pirouette on her heel, and set aboutcollecting in her tambourine the gifts of the multitude.
Big blanks, little blanks, targes* and eagle liards showered into it.
* A blank: an old French coin; six blanks were worth two sousand a half; targe, an ancient coin of Burgundy, a farthing.
All at once, she passed in front of Gringoire. Gringoire put his hand sorecklessly into his pocket that she halted. "The devil!" said the poet,finding at the bottom of his pocket the reality, that is, to say, avoid. In the meantime, the pretty girl stood there, gazing at himwith her big eyes, and holding out her tambourine to him and waiting.Gringoire broke into a violent perspiration.
If he had all Peru in his pocket, he would certainly have given it tothe dancer; but Gringoire had not Peru, and, moreover, America had notyet been discovered.
Happily, an unexpected incident came to his rescue.
"Will you take yourself off, you Egyptian grasshopper?" cried a sharpvoice, which pro
ceeded from the darkest corner of the Place.
The young girl turned round in affright. It was no longer the voice ofthe bald man; it was the voice of a woman, bigoted and malicious.
However, this cry, which alarmed the gypsy, delighted a troop ofchildren who were prowling about there.
"It is the recluse of the Tour-Roland," they exclaimed, with wildlaughter, "it is the sacked nun who is scolding! Hasn't she supped?Let's carry her the remains of the city refreshments!"
All rushed towards the Pillar House.
In the meanwhile, Gringoire had taken advantage of the dancer'sembarrassment, to disappear. The children's shouts had reminded him thathe, also, had not supped, so he ran to the public buffet. But the littlerascals had better legs than he; when he arrived, they had stripped thetable. There remained not so much as a miserable _camichon_ at five sousthe pound. Nothing remained upon the wall but slender fleurs-de-lis,mingled with rose bushes, painted in 1434 by Mathieu Biterne. It was ameagre supper.
It is an unpleasant thing to go to bed without supper, it is a stillless pleasant thing not to sup and not to know where one is to sleep.That was Gringoire's condition. No supper, no shelter; he saw himselfpressed on all sides by necessity, and he found necessity very crabbed.He had long ago discovered the truth, that Jupiter created men during afit of misanthropy, and that during a wise man's whole life, his destinyholds his philosophy in a state of siege. As for himself, he had neverseen the blockade so complete; he heard his stomach sounding a parley,and he considered it very much out of place that evil destiny shouldcapture his philosophy by famine.
This melancholy revery was absorbing him more and more, when a song,quaint but full of sweetness, suddenly tore him from it. It was theyoung gypsy who was singing.
Her voice was like her dancing, like her beauty. It was indefinableand charming; something pure and sonorous, aerial, winged, so to speak.There were continual outbursts, melodies, unexpected cadences, thensimple phrases strewn with aerial and hissing notes; then floods ofscales which would have put a nightingale to rout, but in which harmonywas always present; then soft modulations of octaves which rose andfell, like the bosom of the young singer. Her beautiful face followed,with singular mobility, all the caprices of her song, from the wildestinspiration to the chastest dignity. One would have pronounced her now amad creature, now a queen.
The words which she sang were in a tongue unknown to Gringoire, andwhich seemed to him to be unknown to herself, so little relation didthe expression which she imparted to her song bear to the sense of thewords. Thus, these four lines, in her mouth, were madly gay,--
_Un cofre de gran riqueza Hallaron dentro un pilar, Dentro del, nuevas banderas Con figuras de espantar_.*
* A coffer of great richness In a pillar's heart they found, Within it lay new banners, With figures to astound.
And an instant afterwards, at the accents which she imparted to thisstanza,--
_Alarabes de cavallo Sin poderse menear, Con espadas, y los cuellos, Ballestas de buen echar_,
Gringoire felt the tears start to his eyes. Nevertheless, her songbreathed joy, most of all, and she seemed to sing like a bird, fromserenity and heedlessness.
The gypsy's song had disturbed Gringoire's revery as the swan disturbsthe water. He listened in a sort of rapture, and forgetfulness ofeverything. It was the first moment in the course of many hours when hedid not feel that he suffered.
The moment was brief.
The same woman's voice, which had interrupted the gypsy's dance,interrupted her song.
"Will you hold your tongue, you cricket of hell?" it cried, still fromthe same obscure corner of the place.
The poor "cricket" stopped short. Gringoire covered up his ears.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, "accursed saw with missing teeth, which comes tobreak the lyre!"
Meanwhile, the other spectators murmured like himself; "To the devilwith the sacked nun!" said some of them. And the old invisible kill-joymight have had occasion to repent of her aggressions against the gypsyhad their attention not been diverted at this moment by the processionof the Pope of the Fools, which, after having traversed many streets andsquares, debouched on the Place de Greve, with all its torches and allits uproar.
This procession, which our readers have seen set out from the Palaisde Justice, had organized on the way, and had been recruited by allthe knaves, idle thieves, and unemployed vagabonds in Paris; so that itpresented a very respectable aspect when it arrived at the Greve.
First came Egypt. The Duke of Egypt headed it, on horseback, with hiscounts on foot holding his bridle and stirrups for him; behind them, themale and female Egyptians, pell-mell, with their little childrencrying on their shoulders; all--duke, counts, and populace--in rags andtatters. Then came the Kingdom of Argot; that is to say, all the thievesof France, arranged according to the order of their dignity; the minorpeople walking first. Thus defiled by fours, with the divers insignia oftheir grades, in that strange faculty, most of them lame, somecripples, others one-armed, shop clerks, pilgrim, _hubins_, bootblacks,thimble-riggers, street arabs, beggars, the blear-eyed beggars, thieves,the weakly, vagabonds, merchants, sham soldiers, goldsmiths, passedmasters of pickpockets, isolated thieves. A catalogue that wouldweary Homer. In the centre of the conclave of the passed masters ofpickpockets, one had some difficulty in distinguishing the King ofArgot, the grand coesre, so called, crouching in a little cart drawnby two big dogs. After the kingdom of the Argotiers, came the Empire ofGalilee. Guillaume Rousseau, Emperor of the Empire of Galilee, marchedmajestically in his robe of purple, spotted with wine, preceded bybuffoons wrestling and executing military dances; surrounded by hismacebearers, his pickpockets and clerks of the chamber of accounts. Lastof all came the corporation of law clerks, with its maypoles crownedwith flowers, its black robes, its music worthy of the orgy, and itslarge candles of yellow wax. In the centre of this crowd, the grandofficers of the Brotherhood of Fools bore on their shoulders a littermore loaded down with candles than the reliquary of Sainte-Genevieve intime of pest; and on this litter shone resplendent, with crosier, cope,and mitre, the new Pope of the Fools, the bellringer of Notre-Dame,Quasimodo the hunchback.
Each section of this grotesque procession had its own music. TheEgyptians made their drums and African tambourines resound. The slangmen, not a very musical race, still clung to the goat's horn trumpet andthe Gothic rubebbe of the twelfth century. The Empire of Galilee was notmuch more advanced; among its music one could hardly distinguish somemiserable rebec, from the infancy of the art, still imprisoned in the_re-la-mi_. But it was around the Pope of the Fools that all the musicalriches of the epoch were displayed in a magnificent discord. It wasnothing but soprano rebecs, counter-tenor rebecs, and tenor rebecs,not to reckon the flutes and brass instruments. Alas! our readers willremember that this was Gringoire's orchestra.
It is difficult to convey an idea of the degree of proud and blissfulexpansion to which the sad and hideous visage of Quasimodo had attainedduring the transit from the Palais de Justice, to the Place de Greve. Itwas the first enjoyment of self-love that he had ever experienced. Downto that day, he had known only humiliation, disdain for his condition,disgust for his person. Hence, deaf though he was, he enjoyed, like averitable pope, the acclamations of that throng, which he hated becausehe felt that he was hated by it. What mattered it that his peopleconsisted of a pack of fools, cripples, thieves, and beggars? it wasstill a people and he was its sovereign. And he accepted seriously allthis ironical applause, all this derisive respect, with which the crowdmingled, it must be admitted, a good deal of very real fear. For thehunchback was robust; for the bandy-legged fellow was agile; for thedeaf man was malicious: three qualities which temper ridicule.
We are far from believing, however, that the new Pope of the Foolsunderstood both the sentiments which he felt and the sentiments whichhe inspired. The spirit which was lodged in this failure of a body had,necessarily, something incomplete and deaf about it. Thus, what he feltat
the moment was to him, absolutely vague, indistinct, and confused.Only joy made itself felt, only pride dominated. Around that sombre andunhappy face, there hung a radiance.
It was, then, not without surprise and alarm, that at the very momentwhen Quasimodo was passing the Pillar House, in that semi-intoxicatedstate, a man was seen to dart from the crowd, and to tear from hishands, with a gesture of anger, his crosier of gilded wood, the emblemof his mock popeship.
This man, this rash individual, was the man with the bald brow, who,a moment earlier, standing with the gypsy's group had chilled thepoor girl with his words of menace and of hatred. He was dressed inan ecclesiastical costume. At the moment when he stood forth from thecrowd, Gringoire, who had not noticed him up to that time, recognizedhim: "Hold!" he said, with an exclamation of astonishment. "Eh! 'tis mymaster in Hermes, Dom Claude Frollo, the archdeacon! What the devil doeshe want of that old one-eyed fellow? He'll get himself devoured!"
A cry of terror arose, in fact. The formidable Quasimodo had hurledhimself from the litter, and the women turned aside their eyes in ordernot to see him tear the archdeacon asunder.
He made one bound as far as the priest, looked at him, and fell upon hisknees.
The priest tore off his tiara, broke his crozier, and rent his tinselcope.
Quasimodo remained on his knees, with head bent and hands clasped.Then there was established between them a strange dialogue of signsand gestures, for neither of them spoke. The priest, erect on hisfeet, irritated, threatening, imperious; Quasimodo, prostrate, humble,suppliant. And, nevertheless, it is certain that Quasimodo could havecrushed the priest with his thumb.
At length the archdeacon, giving Quasimodo's powerful shoulder a roughshake, made him a sign to rise and follow him.
Quasimodo rose.
Then the Brotherhood of Fools, their first stupor having passed off,wished to defend their pope, so abruptly dethroned. The Egyptians, themen of slang, and all the fraternity of law clerks, gathered howlinground the priest.
Quasimodo placed himself in front of the priest, set in play the musclesof his athletic fists, and glared upon the assailants with the snarl ofan angry tiger.
The priest resumed his sombre gravity, made a sign to Quasimodo, andretired in silence.
Quasimodo walked in front of him, scattering the crowd as he passed.
When they had traversed the populace and the Place, the cloud of curiousand idle were minded to follow them. Quasimodo then constituted himselfthe rearguard, and followed the archdeacon, walking backwards, squat,surly, monstrous, bristling, gathering up his limbs, licking his boar'stusks, growling like a wild beast, and imparting to the crowd immensevibrations, with a look or a gesture.
Both were allowed to plunge into a dark and narrow street, where noone dared to venture after them; so thoroughly did the mere chimera ofQuasimodo gnashing his teeth bar the entrance.
"Here's a marvellous thing," said Gringoire; "but where the deuce shallI find some supper?"
CHAPTER IV. THE INCONVENIENCES OF FOLLOWING A PRETTY WOMAN THROUGH THESTREETS IN THE EVENING.