The Hunchback of Notre Dame (50 page)

BOOK TEN

CHAPTER I

Gringoire Has Several Capital Ideas in Succession in the Rue des Bernardins

W
hen Pierre Gringoire saw the turn which this whole matter was taking, and that a rope, hanging, and other unpleasant things must certainly be the fate of the chief actors in the play, he no longer cared to meddle with it. The Vagrants, with whom he remained, considering that after all they were the best company to be found in Paris,—the Vagrants still retained their interest in the gipsy. He thought this very natural on the part of people who, like her, had no prospect but Charmolue and Torterue to which to look forward, and who did not, like him, roam through the realms of imagination upon the wings of Pegasus. He learned from their conversation that his bride of the broken jug had taken refuge in Notre-Dame, and he was very glad of it; but he felt no temptation to visit her. He sometimes wondered what had become of the little goat, and that was all. In the daytime he performed feats of juggling for a living, and at night he wrought out an elaborate memorial against the Bishop of Paris; for he remembered being drenched by his mill-wheels, and he bore him a grudge for it. He also busied himself with comments on that fine work by Baudry-le-Rouge, Bishop of Noyon and Tournay, entitled
“De cupa petrarum,”
^dl
which had inspired him with an ardent taste for architecture,—a fancy which had replaced in his heart the passion for hermetics, of which indeed it was but a natural corollary, since there is a close connection between hermetics and masonry. Gringoire had turned from the love of an idea to love of the substance.

One day he halted near Saint-Germain-l‘Auxerrois, at the corner of a building known as the For-l‘Evêque, which faces another known as the For-le-Roi. This For-l’Evêque contained a charming fourteenth-century chapel, the chancel of which looked towards the street. Gringoire was devoutly studying the outside carvings. He was enjoying one of those moments of selfish, exclusive, supreme pleasure, during which the artist sees nothing in the world but art, and sees the world in art. All at once he felt a hand laid heavily on his shoulder. He turned. It was his former friend, his former master, the archdeacon.

He was astounded. It was a long time since he had seen the archdeacon, and Dom Claude was one of those solemn and impassioned men a meeting with whom always upsets the equilibrium of a sceptic philosopher.

The archdeacon was silent for some moments, during which Gringoire had leisure to observe him. He found Dom Claude greatly changed,—pale as a winter morning, hollow-eyed, his hair almost white. The priest at last broke the silence, saying in a calm but icy tone,—

“How are you, Master Pierre?”

“As to my health?” answered Gringoire. “Well, well! I may say I am tolerably robust, upon the whole. I take everything in moderation. You know, master, the secret of good health, according to Hippocrates:
‘Id est: cibi, potus, somni, cenus, omnia moderata sint.”’
^dm

“Then you have nothing to trouble you, Master Pierre?” replied the archdeacon, looking fixedly at Gringoire.

“No, by my faith!”

“And what are you doing now?”

“You see, master, I am examining the cutting of these stones, and the style in which that bas-relief is thrown out.”

The priest smiled a bitter smile, which only lifted one corner of his mouth.

“And does that amuse you?”

“It is paradise!” exclaimed Gringoire. And bending over the sculptures with the ravished mien of a demonstrator of living phenomena, he added: “For instance, don’t you think that metamorphosis in low-relief is carved with exceeding skill, refinement, and patience? Just look at this little column. Around what capital did you ever see foliage more graceful or more daintily chiseled? Here are three of Jean Maillevin’s alto-relievos. They are not the finest works of that great genius. Still, the ingenuousness, the sweetness of the faces, the careless ease of the attitudes and draperies, and that inexplicable charm which is mingled with all their defects, make these tiny figures most delicate and delightful, perhaps almost too much so. Don’t you think this is entertaining?”

“Yes, indeed!” said the priest.

“And if you could only see the inside of the chapel!” continued the poet, with his garrulous enthusiasm. “Carvings everywhere, crowded as close as the leaves in the heart of a cabbage! The chancel is fashioned most devoutly, and is so peculiar that I have never seen its like elsewhere.”

Dom Claude interrupted him,—

“So you are happy?”

Gringoire eagerly replied,—

“Yes, on my honor! At first I loved women, then animals; now I love stones. They are quite as amusing as animals or women, and they are less treacherous.”

The priest pressed his hand to his head. It was his habitual gesture.

“Indeed?”

“Stay!” said Gringoire; “you shall see my pleasures!” He took the arm of the unresisting priest, and led him into the staircase turret of For-l‘Evêque. “There’s a staircase for you! Every time I see it I am happy. It is the simplest and yet the rarest in Paris. Every step is beveled underneath. Its beauty and simplicity consist in the treads, which, for a foot or more in width, are interlaced, mortised, dovetailed, jointed, linked together, and set into one another in a genuinely solid and goodly way.”

“And you desire nothing more?”

“No.”

“And you have no regrets?”

“Neither regret nor desire. I have arranged my mode of life.”

“What man arranges,” said Claude, “circumstances disarrange.”

“I am a Pyrrhonian philosopher,” replied Gringoire, “and I keep everything equally balanced.”

“And how do you earn your living?”

“I still write occasional epics and tragedies; but what brings me in the most, is that trade which you have seen me follow, master,—namely, upholding pyramids of chairs in my teeth.”

“That is a sorry trade for a philosopher.”

“‘Tis keeping up an equilibrium all the same,” said Gringoire. “When one has but a single idea he finds it in everything.”

“I know that!” responded the archdeacon.

After a pause he added,—

“And yet you are poor enough?”

“Poor! Yes; but not unhappy.”

At this instant the sound of horses’ hoofs was heard, and our two friends saw a company of archers belonging to the king’s ordnance file by at the end of the street, with raised lances, and an officer at their head. The cavalcade was a brilliant one, and clattered noisily over the pavement.

“How you stare at that officer!” said Gringoire to the arch deacon.

“Because I think I have seen him before.”

“What is his name?”

“I believe,” said Claude, “that his name is Phœbus de Château pers.”

“Phoebus! a queer name! There is also a Phoebus, Count de Foix. I once knew a girl who never swore save by Phœbus.”

“Come with me,” said the priest. “I have something to say to you.”

Ever since the troops passed by, some agitation was apparent beneath the icy exterior of the archdeacon. He walked on; Gringoire followed, accustomed to obey him, like all who ever approached that man full of such ascendency. They reached the Rue des Bernardins in silence, and found it quite deserted. Here Dom Claude paused.

“What have you to tell me, master?” asked Gringoire.

“Don’t you think,” replied the archdeacon, with a most reflective air, “that the dress of those horsemen whom we just saw is far handsomer than yours and mine?”

Gringoire shook his head.

“I’ faith! I like my red and yellow jacket better than those scales of steel and iron. What pleasure can there be in making as much noise when you walk as the Quai de la Ferraille in an earthquake?”

“Then, Gringoire, you never envied those fine fellows in their warlike array?”

“Envied them what, Sir Archdeacon,—their strength, their armor, or their discipline? Philosophy and independence in rags are far preferable. I would rather be the head of a fly than the tail of a lion.”

“That’s strange,” said the priest, meditatively. “And yet a handsome uniform is a fine thing.”

Gringoire, seeing that he was absorbed in thought, left him in order to admire the porch of a neighboring house. He came back clapping his hands.

“If you were not so absorbed in the fine uniforms of those soldiers, Sir Archdeacon, I would beg you to take a look at that door. I always said that my lord Aubry’s house had the most superb entrance in the world.”

“Pierre Gringoire,” said the archdeacon, “what have you done with that little gipsy dancer?”

“Esmeralda? What a sudden change of subject!”

“Was she not your wife?”

“Yes, by means of a broken pitcher. We are married for four years. By the way,” added Gringoire, regarding the archdeacon with a half-bantering air, “are you still thinking of her?”

“And you,—do you think of her no longer?”

“Seldom. I have so many other things to occupy me. Heavens! how pretty that little goat of hers was!”

“Did not the girl save your life?”

“She did indeed, by Jupiter!”

“Well, what has become of her? What have you done with her?”

“I can’t say, I fancy that they hanged her.”

“You really think so?”

“I’m not sure of it. When I saw that they had taken to hanging people, I withdrew from the game.”

“Is that all you know about the matter?”

“Stay. I was told that she had taken refuge in Notre-Dame, and that she was in safety there, and I am delighted to hear it; and I can’t find out whether the goat was saved along with her. And that’s all I know about it.”

“I’ll tell you more,” cried Dom Claude; and his voice, hitherto so low, slow, and almost muffled, became as loud as thunder. “She did indeed take refuge in Notre-Dame. But within three days justice will again overtake her, and she will be hanged upon the Place de Grève. Parliament has issued a decree.”

“That’s a pity!” said Gringoire.

The priest, in the twinkling of an eye, had recovered his coldness and calm.

“And who the devil,” resumed the poet, “has amused himself by soliciting an order of restitution? Why couldn’t he have left Parliament in peace? What harm does it do if a poor girl takes shelter under the flying buttresses of Notre-Dame, alongside of the swallows’ nests?”

“There are Satans in the world,” replied the archdeacon.

“That’s a devilish bad job,” observed Gringoire.

The archdeacon resumed, after a pause,—

“So she saved your life?”

“From my good friends the Vagrants. A little more, or a little less, and I should have been hanged. They would be very sorry for it now.”

“Don’t you want to do anything to help her?”

“With all my heart, Dom Claude; but what if I should get myself into trouble?”

“What would that matter?”

“What! what would it matter? How kind you are, master! I have two great works but just begun.”

The priest struck his forehead. In spite of his feigned calmness, an occasional violent gesture betrayed his inward struggles.

“How is she to be saved?”

Gringoire said: “Master, I might answer,
‘Il padelt,’
which is Turkish for, ‘God is our hope.’”

“How is she to be saved?” dreamily repeated the archdeacon.

Gringoire in his turn clapped his hand to his head.

“See here, master, I have a lively imagination; I will devise various expedients. Suppose the king were asked to pardon her?”

“Louis XI,—to pardon!”

“Why not?”

“As well try to rob a tiger of his bone!”

Gringoire set to work to find some fresh solution of the difficulty.

“Well!—stop!—Do you want me to draw up a petition to the midwives declaring the girl to be pregnant?”

This made the priest’s hollow eye flash.

“Pregnant, villain! do you know anything about it?”

Gringoire was terrified by his expression. He made haste to say, “Oh, no, not I! our marriage was a true
forismaritagium.
I was entirely left out. But at any rate, we should gain time.”

“Folly! infamy! be silent!”

“You are wrong to be so vexed,” grumbled Gringoire. “We should gain time; it would do no one any harm, and the midwives, who are poor women, would earn forty Paris pence.”

The priest paid no attention to him.

“And yet she must be got away!” he muttered. “The order will be executed within three days! Besides, even if there were no order, that Quasimodo! Women have very depraved tastes!” He raised his voice: “Master Pierre, I considered it well; there’s but one means of salvation for her.”

“What is it? I, for my part, see none.”

“Listen, Master Pierre, and remember that you owe your life to her. I will frankly tell you my idea. The church is watched night and day. No one is allowed to come out but those who are seen to go in. Therefore, you can go in. You will come, and I will take you to her. You will change clothes with her. She will put on your doublet; you will put on her gown.”

“So far, so good,” remarked the philosopher. “What next?”

“What next? She will walk out in your clothes; you will stay behind in hers. Perhaps they may hang you, but she will be saved.”

Gringoire scratched his ear, with a very grave look.

“There!” said he; “that’s an idea which would never have occurred to me.”

At Dom Claude’s unexpected proposition, the poet’s benign and open face had suddenly darkened, like a smiling Italian landscape when some fatal blast sweeps a cloud across the sun.

“Well, Gringoire, what do you say to the plan?”

“I say, master, that they would not hang me
perhaps,
but they would hang me without the slightest doubt.”

“That does not concern us!”

“The Devil it doesn‘t!” said Gringoire.

“She saved your life. You would only be paying your debt.”

“There are plenty of others which I have not paid.”

“Master Pierre, it absolutely must be done.”

The archdeacon spoke with authority.

“Listen to me, Dom Claude,” replied the dismayed poet. “You cling to that idea, and you are wrong. I don’t see why I should be hanged in another person’s stead.”