The Hunchback of Notre Dame (37 page)

“I will send you new boots, but no money.”

“Only a paltry penny, brother,” continued the suppliant Jehan. “I will learn Gratian by heart. I will believe heartily in God. I will be a regular Pythagoras of learning and virtue. But give me a penny, for pity’s sake! Would you have me devoured by famine, which gapes before me with its jaws blacker, more noisome, deeper than Tartarus or a monk’s nose?”

Dom Claude shook his wrinkled brow: “‘Qm
non laborat,-”’

Jehan did not let him finish.

“Well, then,” he cried, “to the devil! Hurrah for fun! I’ll go to the tavern, I’ll fight, I’ll drink, and I’ll go to see the girls!”

And upon this, he flung up his cap and cracked his fingers like castanets.

The archdeacon looked at him with a gloomy air.

“Jehan, you have no soul!”

“In that case, according to Epicurus, I lack an unknown quantity composed of unknown qualities.”

“Jehan, you must think seriously of reform.”

“Oh, come!” cried the student, gazing alternately at his brother and at the alembics on the stove; “is everything crooked here,—ideas as well as bottles?”

“Jehan, you are on a very slippery road. Do you know where you are going?”

“To the tavern,” said Jehan.

“The tavern leads to the pillory.”

“It’s as good a lantern as any other, and perhaps it was the one with which Diogenes found his man.”

“The pillory leads to the gallows.”

“The gallows is a balance, with a man in one scale and the whole world in the other. It is a fine thing to be the man.”

“The gallows leads to hell.”

“That’s a glorious fire.”

“Jehan, Jehan, you will come to a bad end!”

“I shall have had a good beginning.”

At this moment the sound of footsteps was heard on the stairs.

“Silence!” said the archdeacon, putting his finger to his lip: “Here comes Master Jacques. Listen, Jehan,” he added in a low voice; “take care you never mention what you may see and hear here. Hide yourself quickly under that stove, and don’t dare to breathe.”

The student crawled under the stove; there, a capital idea occurred to him.

“By the way, brother Claude, I want a florin for holding my breath.”

“Silence! you shall have it.”

“Then give it to me.”

“Take it!” said the archdeacon, angrily, flinging him his purse.

Jehan crept farther under the stove, and the door opened.

CHAPTER V

The Two Men Dressed in Black

T
he person who entered wore a black gown and a gloomy air. Our friend Jehan (who, as may readily be supposed, had so disposed himself in his corner that he could see and hear everything at his good pleasure) was struck, at the first glance, by the extreme melancholy of the newcomer’s face and attire. Yet a certain amiability pervaded the countenance, albeit it was the amiability of a cat or a judge,—a sickly amiability. The man was very grey, wrinkled, bordering on sixty years; had white eyebrows, hanging lip, and big hands. When Jehan saw that he was a mere nobody,—that is, probably a doctor or a magistrate, and that his nose was very far away from his mouth, a sure sign of stupidity,—he curled himself up in his hiding-place, in despair at having to pass an indefinite length of time in so uncomfortable a position and in such poor company.

Meantime, the archdeacon did not even rise from his chair to greet this person. He signed to him to be seated on a stool near the door, and after a few moments’ silence, which seemed the continuation of a previous meditation, he said in a somewhat patronizing tone, “Good-morning, Master Jacques.”

“Your servant, master,” replied the man in black.

In the two ways of pronouncing,—on the one hand that “Master Jacques,” and on the other that distinctive “master,”—there was the difference that there is between
domine and domne.
It bespoke the greeting of teacher and pupil.

“Well,” resumed the archdeacon after a fresh pause, which Master Jacques took care not to break, “have you succeeded?”

“Alas! master,” said the other, with a sad smile, “I am still blowing away. As many ashes as I choose; but not a particle of gold.”

Dom Claude made an impatient gesture. “I’m not talking about that, Master Jacques Charmolue, but about the trial of your sorcerer, Marc Cenaine,—wasn’t that what you called him?—the butler to the Court of Accounts. Does he confess his magic? Was the rack successful?”

“Alas! no,” replied Master Jacques, still with the same sad smile, “we have not that consolation. The man is as hard as flint; we might boil him at the Pig-market before he would say a word. And yet, we have spared nothing to get at the truth; all his bones are out of joint already; we have left no stone unturned. As the old comic author, Plautus says:—

‘Advorsum stimulos, laminas, crucesque, compedesque,

Nervos, catenas, carceres, numellas, pedicas, boias.‘
^cr

All in vain; the man is terrible indeed. I can’t make him out!”

“You’ve not found anything new at his house?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Master Jacques, fumbling in his purse; “this parchment. There are words written on it which we cannot comprehend. And yet the criminal lawyer, Philippe Lheulier, knows a little Hebrew, which he picked up in that affair of the Jews in the Rue Kantersten at Brussels.”

So saying, Master Jacques unrolled a parchment.

“Give it to me,” said the archdeacon. And casting his eyes over the writing, he exclaimed, “Clear magic, Master Jacques! ‘
Emen
-
Hétan!’
that is the cry of the vampires as they appear at their Sabbath.
‘Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso!’
—that is the word of command which rechains the devil in hell.
‘Hax, pax, max!’
this belongs to medicine: a prescription against the bite of mad dogs. Master Jacques, you are the king’s attorney to the Ecclesiastical Court. This parchment is an abomination.”

“We will return the man to the rack. Here again,” added Master Jacques, rummaging in his wallet once more, “is something else which we found in Marc Cenaine’s house.”

It was a vessel similar to those which covered Dom Claude’s stove.

“Ah!” said the archdeacon, “an alchemist’s crucible.”

“I must confess,” replied Master Jacques, with his shy, awkward smile, “that I tried it on my furnace, but I succeeded no better than with my own.”

The archdeacon began to examine the vessel.

“What has he inscribed upon his crucible? ‘
Och
!
Och’
—the word which drives away fleas! This Marc Cenaine is a dolt! I can easily believe that you will never make gold with this. Put it in your alcove in summer, for that’s all it’s fit for.”

“Talking of mistakes,” said the king’s proxy, “I have just been studying the porch below before I came upstairs; is your reverence very sure that it is the opening of the book of physics which is represented there on the side towards the Hospital; and that, of the seven nude figures at the feet of the Virgin, the one with wings at his heels is meant for Mercury?”

“Yes,” replied the priest; “it is so written by Augustin Nypho, that Italian doctor who had a bearded familiar spirit, which taught him everything. However, we will go down, and I will explain all this to you on the spot.”

“Thanks, master,” said Charmolue, bowing to the ground. “By the way, I forgot! When will it please you to have the little witch arrested?”

“What witch?”

“That gipsy girl whom you know well, who comes every day and dances in the square before the cathedral, despite the official prohibition. She has a goat which is possessed, and which has the devil’s own horns; which reads and writes, and is as good a mathematician as Picatrix, and would be quite enough to hang an entire tribe of gipsies. The papers are ready; the case will be a short one, I warrant! A pretty creature, by my soul,—that dancing-girl! The finest black eyes! Two carbuncles! When shall we begin?”

The archdeacon was extremely pale.

“I will let you know,” he stammered in a voice which was scarcely articulate; then he added, with an effort, “Devote yourself to Marc Cenaine.”

“Never fear,” said Charmolue, smiling; “I’ll have him restrapped to the leather bed when I go back. But he’s a devil of a fellow; he would tire out Pierrat Torterue himself, and his hands are bigger than mine. As the worthy Plautus says:—

‘Nudus vinctus, centum pondo, es quando pendes per pedes.
’
^cs

The torture of the wheel! That’s the best thing we have. He shall take a turn at that.”

Dom Claude seemed absorbed in gloomy reverie. He turned to Charmolue with the words,—

“Master Pierrat,—Master Jacques, I mean,—devote yourself to Marc Cenaine.”

“Yes, yes, Dom Claude. Poor man! he must have suffered like Mummol. But then, what an idea, to go to the Witches’ Sabbath,—a butler of the Court of Accounts, who must know Charlemagne’s text,
‘Stryga vel masca!’
^ct
As for that little girl,—Smelarda, as they call her,—I will await your orders. Ah! and as we pass through the porch you will also explain to me the meaning of the gardener painted in relief at the entrance to the church. The Sower, isn’t it? Eh! master, what are you thinking about?”

Dom Claude, lost in his own thoughts, did not hear him. Charmolue, following the direction of his gaze saw that it was fixed mechanically upon the large cobweb which covered the window. At this instant a rash fly, in search of the March sun, plunged headlong into the trap and was caught in it. At the vibration of its web the huge spider made a sudden sally from its central cell, and with one bound fell upon the fly, which it doubled up with its front antennæ, while its hideous proboscis dug out the head. “Poor fly!” said the king’s proxy to the Ecclesiastical Court; and he raised his hand to save it. The archdeacon, with a start, held back his arm with convulsive force.

“Master Jacques,” he cried, “do not interfere with the work of Fate!”

The attorney turned in alarm; he felt as if iron pincers had seized his arm. The priest’s eye was fixed, wild, and flaming, and was still fastened upon the horrible little group of the spider and the fly.

“Oh, yes,” added the priest in a voice which seemed to come from his very entrails, “this is a universal symbol. The insect flies about, is happy, is young; it seeks the spring sun, the fresh air, freedom; oh, yes, but it runs against the fatal web; the spider appears,—the hideous spider! Poor dancing-girl! poor predestined fly! Master Jacques, do not interfere! it is the hand of Fate! Alas! Claude, you are the spider. Claude, you are the fly as well! You flew abroad in search of learning, light, and sun; your only desire was to gain the pure air, the broad light of eternal truth; but in your haste to reach the dazzling window which opens into the other world,—the world of intellect, light, and learning,—blind fly! senseless doctor! you failed to see that subtle spider’s web woven by Fate between the light and you; you plunged headlong into it, wretched fool! and now you struggle in its meshes, with bruised head and broken wings, in the iron grasp of destiny. Master Jacques, Master Jacques, let the spider do its work!“
¹⁴
“I assure you,” said Charmolue, looking at him uncomprehend ingly, ”I will not touch it. But for mercy’s sake, master, let go my arm! Your hand is like a pair of pincers.”

The archdeacon did not hear him. “Oh, madman!” he resumed, without taking his eyes from the window. “And if you could have broken this dreadful web with your frail wings, do you think you could have reached the light? Alas! how could you have passed that pane of glass beyond it,—that transparent obstacle, that crystal wall harder than iron, which separates all philosophy from truth? Oh, vanity of science! How many sages have flown from afar to bruise their heads against it! How many contending systems have rushed pell-mell against that everlasting pane of glass!”

He ceased speaking. These last ideas, which had insensibly diverted his thoughts from himself to science, seemed to have calmed him. Jacques Charmolue completely restored him to a sense of reality by asking him this question: “Come, master, when are you going to help me to make gold? I long for success.”

The archdeacon shook his head with a bitter smile:

“Master Jacques, read Michel Psellus,
‘Dialogues de Energia et Operatione Dæmonum.’
^cu
Our work is not altogether innocent.”

“Not so loud, master! I fear you are right,” said Charmolue. “But I must needs dabble a little in hermetics, being only the king’s proxy to the Ecclesiastical Court, at a salary of thirty Tours crowns a year. But speak lower.”

At this moment the sound of champing and chewing proceeding from under the stove, attracted Charmolue’s anxious ear.

“What was that?” he asked.

It was the student, who, greatly cramped and much bored in his hiding-place, had contrived to find an old crust of bread and a bit of mouldy cheese, and had set to work to devour them without more ado, by the way of consolation and of breakfast. As he was ravenously hungry, he made a great deal of noise, and smacked his lips loudly over every mouthful as to give the alarm to the lawyer.

“It is my cat,” said the archdeacon, hastily, “feasting under there upon some mouse.”

This explanation satisfied Charmolue.

“Indeed, master,” he replied with a respectful smile, “every philosopher has had his familiar animal. You know what Servius says:
‘Nullus enim locus sine genio est.’”
^cv

But Dom Claude, who feared some fresh outbreak from Jehan, reminded his worthy disciple that they had certain figures on the porch to study together; and the two left the cell, to the great relief of the student, who began seriously to fear that his knees would leave their permanent mark upon his chin.

CHAPTER VI

The Effect Produced by Seven Oaths in the Public Square

T
he Deum laudamus!” cried Master Jehan, as he stepped from his hiding-place; ”the two screech-owls have gone.
Och! och! Hax! pax! max!
the fleas! the mad dogs! the devil! I’ve had enough of their talk! My head rings like a belfry. Mouldy cheese into the bargain! Now, then! let us be off; let us take our big brother’s purse, and convert all these coins into bottles!”

He cast a look of tenderness and admiration into the interior of the precious purse, adjusted his dress, wiped his boots, dusted his poor shoulder-pads all grey with ashes, whistled a tune, frisked about, looked to see if there was nothing left in the cell which he might carry off, scraped up a few glass charms and trinkets from the top of the stove, thinking he might pass them off upon Isabeau la Thierrye for jewels, then gave a push to the door, which his brother had left ajar as a final favor, and which he left open in his turn as a final piece of mischief, and hopped down the winding stairs as nimbly as a bird.

In the midst of the shadows of the spiral staircase he elbowed something which moved aside with a growl; he took it for granted that it was Quasimodo, and this struck him as so droll that he held his sides with laughter all the rest of the way down. As he came out into the public square, he was still laughing.

He stamped his foot when he found himself on solid ground once more. “Oh,” said he, “good and honorable pavement of Paris! Cursed stairs, which would put all the angels of Jacob’s ladder out of breath! What was I thinking of when I poked myself into that stone gimlet which pierces the sky; and all to eat musty cheese, and to see the steeples of Paris through a garret window!”

He walked on a few paces, and saw the two screech-owls—that is to say, Dom Claude and Master Jacques Charmolue—lost in contemplation of a bit of carving on the porch. He approached them on tiptoe, and heard the archdeacon say in a very low voice to Charmolue, “It was Guillaume de Paris who had a Job graven on that lapis-lazuli colored stone, gilded at the edges. Job represents the philosopher’s stone, which must also be tried and tortured before it can become perfect, as Raymond Lulle says:
‘Sub conservatione formæ specifice salva anima.”’
^cw

“That’s all one to me,” said Jehan. “‘Tis I who hold the purse.”

At this instant he heard a loud ringing voice pronounce a terrible string of oaths just behind him.

“Zounds! Odds bodikins! By the Rood! By Cock and pye! Damme! ‘Sdeath! Thunder and Mars!”

“By my soul,” exclaimed Jehan, “that can be no other than my friend Captain Phœbus!”

The name of Phœbus reached the archdeacon’s ears, just as he was explaining to the king’s proxy the dragon hiding his tail in a bath from which rise smoke and a king’s head. Dom Claude shuddered, stopped short, to the great surprise of Charmolue, turned, and saw his brother Jehan talking to a tall officer at the door of the Gondelaurier house.

It was indeed Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers. He was leaning against the corner of his lady-love’s house, and swearing like a pirate.

“My word! Captain Phœbus,” said Jehan, taking him by the hand, “you swear with admirable spirit!”

“Thunder and Mars!” replied the captain.

“Thunder and Mars, yourself!” responded the student. “Now, then, my fine captain, what has caused such an outburst of elegant epithets?”

“Your pardon, good comrade Jehan,” cried Phœbus, shaking him by the hand; “but a horse running at full speed cannot stop short. Now, I was swearing at full gallop. I have just come from those prudes; and when I leave them, I always have my mouth full of oaths; I must needs spit them out, or I should choke. Thunder and guns!”

“Will you take a drink?” asked the student. This proposition calmed the captain.

“With pleasure; but I’ve no money.”

“But I have!”

“Pshaw! let me see!”

Jehan displayed the purse to the captain’s eyes, with dignity and simplicity. Meanwhile the archdeacon, having left the amazed Charmolue, had approached them, and stood some paces distant, watching them both unobserved by them, so absorbed were they in looking at the purse.

Phœbus exclaimed, “A purse in your pocket, Jehan! That’s like the moon in a pail of water. I see it, but it is not really there. It’s only a shadow. By Heaven! I wager there’s nothing but pebbles in it!”

Jehan answered coldly, “I’ll show you the kind of pebbles that I pave my pocket with.”

And without another word he emptied the purse upon a neighboring post, with the air of a Roman saving his country.

“Good God!” muttered Phoebus; “gold pieces, big silver pieces, little silver pieces, crowns, shillings, and pence! It is dazzling!”

Jehan remained dignified and unmoved. A few pennies had rolled into the mud; the captain, in his enthusiasm, stooped to pick them up. Jehan restrained him, saying,—

“Fie, Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers!”

Phoebus counted the money, and turning solemnly to Jehan, asked, “Do you know, Jehan, that you have here twenty-three crowns? Whom did you rob last night in the Rue Coupe-Gueule?”

Jehan threw back his fair curly head, and said, half closing his eyes in scorn,—

“I have a brother who is an archdeacon and a fool.”

“Confound it!” cried Phœbus; “so you have, the worthy fellow!”

“Let us take a drink,” said Jehan.

“Where shall we go?” said Phoebus; “to the Pomme d‘Eve!”

“No, Captain; let us go to the Vieille Science.”

“No, the wine is better at the Pomme d‘Eve; and besides, at the door is a vine in the sun, which cheers me as I drink.”

“So be it,” said the student; and taking Phoebus by the arm, the two friends set out for that tavern. It is needless to say that they first picked up the money, and that the archdeacon followed them.

The archdeacon followed them, sad and worn. Was this the Phœbus whose accursed name, since his interview with Gringoire, had mingled with all his thoughts? He knew not; but at any rate it was a Phoebus, and that magic name was enough to make the archdeacon follow the two heedless comrades with stealthy tread, listening to their every word and noting their least gesture with eager attention. Moreover, nothing was easier than to hear everything they said; for they spoke very loud, utterly regardless of the fact that they were taking the passers-by into their confidence. They talked of duels, women, drinking, and riots.

At the corner of a street the sound of a tambourine was heard from a neighboring cross-way. Dom Claude overheard the officer say to the student,—

“Thunder! We must hasten.”

“Why, Phœbus?”

“I’m afraid the gipsy girl will see me.”

“What gipsy girl?”

“That little thing with the goat.”

“Smeralda?”

“Just so, Jehan. I always forget her devil of a name. Make haste; she would be sure to recognize me. I don’t wish to have that girl accost me in the street.”

“Do you know her, Phœbus?”

Here the archdeacon saw Phoebus chuckle, put his mouth to Jehan’s ear, and whisper a few words to him; then he burst out laughing, and shook his head with a triumphant air.

“Really?” said Jehan.

“Upon my soul!” said Phoebus.

“Tonight?”

“Tonight.”

“Are you sure she will come?”

“Are you mad, Jehan? How can there be any doubt in such matters?”

“Captain Phoebus, you are a lucky soldier!”

The archdeacon heard every word of this conversation. His teeth chattered; he shook from head to foot. He stood still a moment, leaned against a post like a drunken man, then followed in the track of the two jolly scamps.

When he rejoined them they had changed the subject. He heard them singing at the top of their voices the old refrain:—

“The lads of Petty-Tiles, they say,
Like calves are butchered every day.”