Собор Парижской богоматери / Notre-Dame de Paris. Виктор Мари Гюго
archers, who followed their captain closely, made their appearance, with their two-edged swords in their fists.
Quasimodo was surrounded; he roared, he foamed at the mouth, he bit. His companion had disappeared during the struggle.
The gypsy gracefully raised herself upright upon the officer’s saddle, placed both hands upon the young man’s shoulders, and gazed fixedly at him for several seconds, as though enchanted with his good looks and with the aid which he had just rendered her. Then breaking silence first, she said to him, making her sweet voice still sweeter than usual,—
“What is your name, monsieur le gendarme?”
“Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers, at your service, my beauty!” replied the officer, drawing himself up.
“Thank you,” said she.
And then she slipped from the horse, like an arrow falling to earth, and fled. A flash of lightning would have vanished less quickly.
Chapter IV
Result of the Dangers
Gringoire, thoroughly stunned by his fall, remained on the pavement. Little by little, he regained his senses.
“That devil of a hunchbacked cyclops!” he muttered between his teeth; and he tried to rise. But he was too much dazed and bruised; he was forced to remain where he was.
“The mud of Paris,” he said to himself—for decidedly he thought that he was sure that the gutter would prove his refuge for the night; and what can one do in a refuge, except dream?—“the mud of Paris is particularly stinking; it must contain a great deal of volatile and nitric salts. That, moreover, is the opinion of Master Nicholas Flamel, and of the alchemists—”
The word alchemists suddenly suggested to his mind the idea of Archdeacon Claude Frollo. He recalled the violent scene which he had just witnessed in part; that the gypsy was struggling with two men, that Quasimodo had a companion. “That would be strange!” he said to himself.
The place was becoming less and less tenable.
A group of children rushed towards the square where Gringoire lay, with shouts and laughter. They were dragging after them some sort of hideous sack.
“Ohé, Hennequin Dandèche! Ohé, Jehan Pincebourde!” they shouted in deafening tones, “old Eustache Moubon, the merchant at the corner, has just died. We’ve got his straw pallet, we’re going to have a bonfire out of it. It’s the turn of the Flemish to-day!”
They flung the pallet directly upon Gringoire. At the same time, one of them took a handful of straw and set off to light it at the wick of the good Virgin.
“S’death!” growled Gringoire, “am I going to be too warm now?”
It was a critical moment. He was caught between fire and water; he made a superhuman effort, the effort of a counterfeiter of money who is on the point of being boiled, and who seeks to escape. He rose to his feet, flung aside the straw pallet upon the street urchins, and fled.
“Holy Virgin!” shrieked the children; “’tis the merchant’s ghost!”
And they fled in their turn.
Chapter V
The Broken Jug
After having run for some time at the top of his speed, without knowing where, our poet finally stopped.
He continued to advance at a slower pace. Soon he saw legless cripple in a bowl, who was hopping along on his two hands like a wounded field-spider which has but two legs left. At the moment when he passed close to this species of spider with a human countenance, it raised towards him a lamentable voice: “La buona mancia, signor! la buona mancia![6]”
He overtook a man with crutches and wooden legs. This living tripod saluted him as he passed, but stopping his hat on a level with Gringoire’s chin, like a shaving dish, while he shouted in the latter’s ears: “Señor cabellero, para comprar un pedaso de pan![7]”
For the third time something barred his way. This something or, rather, someone was a blind man, who droned through his nose with a Hungarian accent: “Facitote caritatem!”
“Well, now,” said Gringoire, “here’s one at last who speaks a Christian tongue. My friend,” and he turned towards the blind man, “I sold my last shirt last week.”
That said, he turned his back upon the blind man, and continued to walk. But then all three came up to him in great haste and began to sing their song to him.
Gringoire set out to run. The blind man ran! The lame man ran! The cripple in the bowl ran!
And then they swarmed about him, and men with one arm, and with one eye, and the leprous with their sores, some emerging from little adjacent streets, howling and bellowing. This whole legion had closed in behind him, and his three beggars held him fast.
Tehy reached the end of the street. It opened upon an immense place, with a thousand scattered lights. Gringoire continued walking, hoping to escape.
“Onde vas, hombre?” (Where are you going, my man?) cried the cripple, flinging away his crutches, and running after him.
In the meantime the legless man, erect upon his feet, crowned Gringoire with his heavy iron bowl.
“Where am I?” said the terrified poet.
“In the Court of Miracles,” replied a fourth spectre.
Cour des Miracles was a city of thieves, a hideous wart on the face of Paris; a sewer, from which escaped every morning, and whither returned every night to crouch, a stream of vices; a lying hospital where the ne’er-do-wells of all nations, beggars by day, were transformed by night into brigands.
It was a vast place, irregular and badly paved. Fires, around which swarmed strange groups, blazed here and there. Every one was going, coming, and shouting.
It was like a new world, unknown, unheard of, misshapen, creeping, swarming, fantastic.
At that moment, a distinct cry arose. “Let’s take him to the king! Let’s take him to the king!”
“To the king! to the king!” repeated all voices.
They dragged him off to the great fire.
Near the fire was a hogshead, and on the hogshead a beggar. This was the king on his throne.
The three who had Gringoire in their clutches led him in front of this hogshead, and the entire place fell silent for a moment.
Gringoire dared neither breathe nor raise his eyes.
The king addressed him, from the summit of his cask,—
“Who is this rogue?”
Gringoire shuddered. That voice made him recall to him another voice, which, that very morning, had dealt the deathblow to his mystery. He raised his head. It was indeed Clopin Trouillefou.
Gringoire, without knowing why, had regained some hope, on recognizing his accursed mendicant of the Grand Hall.
“Master,” stammered he; “monseigneur—sire—how ought I to address you?”
“Monseigneur, his majesty, or comrade, call me what you please. But make haste. What do you have to say in your own defence?”
“In your own defence?” thought Gringoire, “that displeases me.” He resumed, stuttering, “I am he, who this morning—”
“By the devil’s claws!” interrupted Clopin, “Listen. You have violated the privileges of our city. You must be punished unless you are a capon, a franc-mitou or a rifodé; that is to say, in the slang of honest folks,—a thief, a beggar, or a vagabond. Are you anything of that sort? Justify yourself; announce your titles.”
“Alas!” said Gringoire, “I have not that honor. I am the author—”
“That
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