Book Seventh

Chapter I

Delirium

Claude Frollo was no longer in Notre-Dame when his adopted son so abruptly cut the fatal web in which the archdeacon and the gypsy were entangled. He had torn off his alb, cope, and stole, had flung all into the hands of the stupefied beadle, had made his escape through the private door of the cloister, had ordered a boatman to transport him to the left bank of the Seine, and had plunged into the hilly streets of the University. He no longer knew where he was, what he thought, or whether he were dreaming.

Frightful ideas were on his mind. Once more he could see clearly into his soul, and he shuddered. He thought of that unhappy girl who had destroyed him, and whom he had destroyed. He plunged to his heart’s content in evil thoughts, and in proportion as he sank deeper, he felt a Satanic laugh burst forth within him.

He sought to picture to himself the happiness which he might have found upon earth, if she had not been a gypsy, and if he had not been a priest, if Phoebus had not existed and if she had loved him; when he pictured to himself that a life of serenity and love would have been possible to him also, his heart melted in tenderness and despair.

Oh! She! Still she! He did not regret, he did not repent; all that he had done he was ready to do again; he preferred to behold her in the hands of the executioner rather than in the arms of the captain. But he suffered.

There was another moment when, while laughing diabolically at himself, he represented to himself la Esmeralda as he had seen her on that first day, lively, careless, joyous, dancing, and la Esmeralda of the last day, in her scanty shift, with a rope about her neck, mounting slowly with her bare feet, the angular ladder of the gallows; he figured to himself this double picture in such a manner that he gave vent to a terrible cry.

The sun had set behind the lofty Tour-de-Nesle. It was the twilight hour.

In his state of frenzy, he knew not whither he was going. Eventually, he made it backto Notre-Dame.

At the instant when he arrived, panting, he dared not raise his eyes to the fatal edifice.

“Oh!” he said, in a low voice, “is it really true that such a thing took place here, today, this very morning?”

Still, he ventured to glance at the church. The front was sombre; the sky behind was glittering with stars. The cloister door was shut; but the archdeacon always carried with him the key of the tower in which his laboratory was situated. He made use of it to enter the church.

In the church he found the gloom and silence of a cavern. By the deep shadows which fell in broad sheets from all directions, he recognized the fact that the hangings for the ceremony of the morning had not yet been removed. The great silver cross shone from the depths of the gloom.

It seemed to him that the church was shaking, moving, that it was alive. This fever or madness had reached such a degree of intensity that the external world was no longer anything more for the unhappy man than a sort of Apocalypse,—visible, palpable, terrible.

He slowly climbed the stairs of the towers. All at once, he felt a freshness on his face, and found himself at the door of the highest gallery. The air was cold; the sky was filled with hurrying clouds.

He lowered his gaze, and contemplated for a moment.

At that moment the clock rang midnight. The priest thought of midday; twelve o’clock had come back again.

“Oh!” he said in a very low tone, “she must be cold now.”

All at once, he saw a shade, a whiteness, a form, a woman, appear from the opposite angle of the tower. He started. Beside this woman was a little goat, which mingled its bleat with the last bleat of the clock.

He had strength enough to look. It was she.

She was pale, she was gloomy. Her hair fell over her shoulders as in the morning; but there was no longer a rope on her neck, her hands were no longer bound; she was free, she was dead.

She was dressed in white and had a white veil on her head.

She came towards him, slowly, with her gaze fixed on the sky. The supernatural goat followed her. He felt as though made of stone and too heavy to flee. At every step which she took in advance, he took one backwards, and that was all. In this way he retreated once more beneath the gloomy arch of the stairway. He was chilled by the thought that she might enter there also; had she done so, he would have died of terror.

She did arrive, in fact, in front of the door to the stairway, and paused there for several minutes, stared intently into the darkness, but without appearing to see the priest, and passed on. She seemed taller to him than when she had been alive; he saw the moon through her white robe; he heard her breath.

When she had passed on, he began to descend the staircase again, with the slowness which he had observed in the spectre, believing himself to be a spectre too, he distinctly heard in his ear a voice laughing and repeating,—

“A spirit passed before my face, and I heard a small voice, and the hair of my flesh stood up.”

Chapter II

Hunchbacked, One Eyed, Lame

At Notre-Dame there was a tiny cell situated on the roof of the side aisle, beneath the flying buttresses.

It was here that Quasimodo had deposited la Esmeralda, after his wild and triumphant course. As long as that course lasted, the young girl had been unable to recover her senses. When she awoke, she saw that she was in Notre-Dame; she remembered having been torn from the hands of the executioner; that Phoebus was alive, that Phoebus loved her no longer; she turned to Quasimodo, who was standing in front of her, and who terrified her; she said to him,—

“Why have you saved me?”

He gazed at her with anxiety, as though seeking to divine what she was saying to him. She repeated her question. Then he gave her a profoundly sorrowful glance and fled. She was astonished.

A few moments later he returned, bearing a package which he cast at her feet. It was clothing which some charitable women had left on the threshold of the church for her.

She made haste to dress herself. The robe was a white one with a white veil,—the garb of a novice of the Hôtel-Dieu.

She had barely finished when she beheld Quasimodo returning. He carried a basket under one arm and a mattress under the other. In the basket there was a bottle, bread, and some provisions. He set the basket on the floor and said, “Eat!” He spread the mattress on the flagging and said, “Sleep.”

It was his own food, it was his own bed.

The gypsy raised her eyes to thank him, but she could not articulate a word. She dropped her head with a quiver of terror.

Then he said to her,—

“I frighten you. I am very ugly, am I not? Do not look at me; only listen to me. During the day you will remain here; at night you can walk all over the church. But do not leave the church either by day or by night. You would be lost. They would kill you, and I should die.”

She was touched and raised her head to answer him. He had disappeared. She found herself alone once more.

At the moment she felt a hairy head glide between her hands, upon her knees. She started and looked. It was the poor goat, Djali, which had made its escape after her, at the moment when Quasimodo had put to flight Charmolue’s brigade. The gypsy covered it with kisses.

“Oh! Djali!” she said, “how I have forgotten you!”

At the same time, as though an invisible hand had lifted the weight which had repressed her tears in her heart for so long, she began to weep, and she felt that all that was most acrid and bitter in her grief depart with them.

Chapter III

Deaf

On the following morning, she perceived on awaking, that she had been asleep. That astonished her. She had been so long unaccustomed to sleep! A joyous ray of the rising sun entered through her window and touched her face. At the same time with the sun she saw the face of Quasimodo. She involuntarily closed her eyes again. Then she heard a rough voice saying, very gently,—

“Be not afraid. I am your friend. I came to watch you sleep. It does not hurt you if I come to see you sleep, does it? What difference does it make to you if I am here when your eyes are closed! Now I am going. Stay, I have placed myself behind the wall. You can open your eyes again.”

The gypsy, much touched, opened her eyes. He was, in fact, no longer at the window. She approached the opening, and saw him crouching in an angle of the wall. “Come,” she said to him gently. From the movement of the gypsy’s lips, Quasimodo thought that she was driving him away; then he rose and started walking away. “Do come,” she cried, but he continued to retreat. Then she darted from her cell, ran to him, and grasped his arm. On feeling her touch him, Quasimodo trembled in every limb.

He was the first to break the silence. “So you were telling me to return?”

She made an affirmative sign of the head, and said, “Yes.”

He understood the motion of the head. “Alas!” he said, as though hesitating whether to finish, “I am—I am deaf.”

“Poor man!” exclaimed the Bohemian, with an expression of kindly pity.

He began to smile sadly.

“You think that that was all that I lacked, do you not? Yes, I am deaf, that is the way I am made. ’Tis horrible, is it not? You are so beautiful!”

“Well!” she interposed with a smile, “tell me why you saved me.”

He watched her attentively while she was speaking.

“I understand,” he replied. “You ask me why I saved you. You have forgotten a wretch who tried to abduct you one night, a wretch to whom you gave water on the following day on their infamous pillory. A drop of water and a little pity,—that is more than I can repay with my life. You have forgotten that wretch; but he remembers it.”

She listened to him with profound tenderness.

“Listen,” he resumed, when he was no longer afraid that the tear would escape; “our towers here are very high, a man who should fall from them would be dead before touching the pavement; when it shall please you to have me fall, you will not have to utter even a word, a glance will suffice.”

Then he rose. Unhappy as was the Bohemian, this eccentric being still aroused some compassion in her. She made him a sign to remain.

“No, no,” said he; “I must not remain too long.”

He drew from his pocket a little metal whistle.

“Here,” said he, “when you have need of me. I can hear this sound.”

He laid the whistle on the floor and fled.