A few moments later our poet found himself in a tiny
arched chamber, very cosy, very warm, seated at a table
which appeared to ask nothing better than to make some loans
from a larder hanging near by, having a good bed in prospect,
and alone with a pretty girl. The adventure smacked of
enchantment. He began seriously to take himself for a personage
in a fairy tale; he cast his eyes about him from time
to time to time, as though to see if the chariot of fire, harnessed
to two-winged chimeras, which alone could have so
rapidly transported him from Tartarus to Paradise, were still
there. At times, also, he fixed his eyes obstinately upon the
holes in his doublet, in order to cling to reality, and not lose
the ground from under his feet completely. His reason,
tossed about in imaginary space, now hung only by this
thread.
The young girl did not appear to pay any attention to him;
she went and came, displaced a stool, talked to her goat, and
indulged in a pout now and then. At last she came and
seated herself near the table, and Gringoire was able to
scrutinize her at his ease.
You have been a child, reader, and you would, perhaps, be
very happy to be one still. It is quite certain that you have
not, more than once (and for my part, I have passed whole
days, the best employed of my life, at it) followed from
thicket to thicket, by the side of running water, on a sunny
day, a beautiful green or blue dragon-fly, breaking its flight
in abrupt angles, and kissing the tips of all the branches.
You recollect with what amorous curiosity your thought and
your gaze were riveted upon this little whirlwind, hissing
and humming with wings of purple and azure, in the midst
of which floated an imperceptible body, veiled by the very
rapidity of its movement. The aerial being which was dimly
outlined amid this quivering of wings, appeared to you chimerical,
imaginary, impossible to touch, impossible to see.
But when, at length, the dragon-fly alighted on the tip of a
reed, and, holding your breath the while, you were able to examine
the long, gauze wings, the long enamel robe, the two
globes of crystal, what astonishment you felt, and what fear
lest you should again behold the form disappear into a shade,
and the creature into a chimera! Recall these impressions,
and you will readily appreciate what Gringoire felt on
contemplating, beneath her visible and palpable form, that
Esmeralda of whom, up to that time, he had only caught a
glimpse, amidst a whirlwind of dance, song, and tumult.
Sinking deeper and deeper into his revery: "So this,"
he said to himself, following her vaguely with his eyes, "is
la Esmeralda! a celestial creature! a street dancer! so much,
and so little! 'Twas she who dealt the death-blow to my
mystery this morning, 'tis she who saves my life this
evening! My evil genius! My good angel! A pretty woman,
on my word! and who must needs love me madly to have
taken me in that fashion. By the way," said he, rising
suddenly, with that sentiment of the true which formed the
foundation of his character and his philosophy, "I don't
know very well how it happens, but I am her husband!"
With this idea in his head and in his eyes, he stepped up
to the young girl in a manner so military and so gallant
that she drew back.
"What do you want of me?" said she.
"Can you ask me, adorable Esmeralda?" replied Gringoire,
with so passionate an accent that he was himself astonished
at it on hearing himself speak.
The gypsy opened her great eyes. "I don't know what
you mean."
"What!" resumed Gringoire, growing warmer and warmer,
and supposing that, after all, he had to deal merely with a
virtue of the Cour des Miracles; "am I not thine, sweet friend,
art thou not mine?"
And, quite ingenuously, he clasped her waist.
The gypsy's corsage slipped through his hands like the skin
of an eel. She bounded from one end of the tiny room to the
other, stooped down, and raised herself again, with a little
poniard in her hand, before Gringoire had even had time to
see whence the poniard came; proud and angry, with swelling
lips and inflated nostrils, her cheeks as red as an api
apple,* and her eyes darting lightnings. At the same time,
the white goat placed itself in front of her, and presented to
Gringoire a hostile front, bristling with two pretty horns,
gilded and very sharp. All this took place in the twinkling
of an eye.
* A small dessert apple, bright red on one side and greenish-
white on the other.
The dragon-fly had turned into a wasp, and asked nothing
better than to sting.
Our philosopher was speechless, and turned his astonished
eyes from the goat to the young girl. "Holy Virgin!" he
said at last, when surprise permitted him to speak, "here are
two hearty dames!"
The gypsy broke the silence on her side.
"You must be a very bold knave!"
"Pardon, mademoiselle," said Gringoire, with a smile. "But
why did you take me for your husband?"
"Should I have allowed you to be hanged?"
"So," said the poet, somewhat disappointed in his amorous
hopes. "You had no other idea in marrying me than to save
me from the gibbet?"
"And what other idea did you suppose that I had?"
Gringoire bit his lips. "Come," said he, "I am not yet so
triumphant in Cupido, as I thought. But then, what was the
good of breaking that poor jug?"
Meanwhile Esmeralda's dagger and the goat's horns were
still upon the defensive.
"Mademoiselle Esmeralda," said the poet, "let us come to
terms. I am not a clerk of the court, and I shall not go to
law with you for thus carrying a dagger in Paris, in the teeth
of the ordinances and prohibitions of M. the Provost.
Nevertheless, you are not ignorant of the fact that Noel
Lescrivain was condemned, a week ago, to pay ten Parisian sous,
for having carried a cutlass. But this is no affair of mine, and
I will come to the point. I swear to you, upon my share of
Paradise, not to approach you without your leave and permission,
but do give me some supper."
The truth is, Gringoire was, like M. Despreaux, "not very
voluptuous." He did not belong to that chevalier and musketeer
species, who take young girls by assault. In the matter
of love, as in all other affairs, he willingly assented to
temporizing and adjusting terms; and a good supper, and an amiable
t¨ºte-a-t¨ºte appeared to him, especially when he was hungry,
an excellent interlude between the prologue and the catastrophe
of a love adventure.
The gypsy did not reply. She made her disdainful little
grimace, drew up her head like a bird, then burst out laughing,
and the tiny poniard disappeared as it had come, without
Gringoire being able to see where the wasp concealed its sting.
A moment later, there stood upon the table a loaf of rye
bread, a slice of bacon, some wrinkled apples and a jug of
beer. Gringoire began to eat eagerly. One would have said,
to hear the furious clashing of his iron fork and his
earthenware plate, that all his love had turned to appetite.
The young girl seated opposite him, watched him in silence,
visibly preoccupied with another thought, at which she smiled
from time to time, while her soft hand caressed the intelligent
head of the goat, gently pressed between her knees.
A candle of yellow wax illuminated this scene of voracity
and revery.
Meanwhile, the first cravings of his stomach having been
stilled, Gringoire felt some false shame at perceiving that
nothing remained but one apple.
"You do not eat, Mademoiselle Esmeralda?"
She replied by a negative sign of the head, and her pensive
glance fixed itself upon the vault of the ceiling.
"What the deuce is she thinking of?" thought Gringoire,
staring at what she was gazing at; "'tis impossible that it can
be that stone dwarf carved in the keystone of that arch, which
thus absorbs her attention. What the deuce! I can bear the
comparison!"
He raised his voice, "Mademoiselle!"
She seemed not to hear him.
He repeated, still more loudly, "Mademoiselle Esmeralda!"
Trouble wasted. The young girl's mind was elsewhere, and
Gringoire's voice had not the power to recall it. Fortunately,
the goat interfered. She began to pull her mistress gently
by the sleeve.
"What dost thou want, Djali?" said the gypsy, hastily, as though
suddenly awakened.
"She is hungry," said Gringoire, charmed to enter into conversation.
Esmeralda began to crumble some bread, which Djali ate gracefully
from the hollow of her hand.
Moreover, Gringoire did not give her time to resume her
revery. He hazarded a delicate question.
"So you don't want me for your husband?"
The young girl looked at him intently, and said, "No."
"For your lover?" went on Gringoire.
She pouted, and replied, "No."
"For your friend?" pursued Gringoire.
She gazed fixedly at him again, and said, after a momentary
reflection, "Perhaps."
This "perhaps," so dear to philosophers, emboldened Gringoire.
"Do you know what friendship is?" he asked.
"Yes," replied the gypsy; "it is to be brother and sister; two
souls which touch without mingling, two fingers on one hand."
"And love?" pursued Gringoire.
"Oh! love!" said she, and her voice trembled, and her eye
beamed. "That is to be two and to be but one. A man and a
woman mingled into one angel. It is heaven."
The street dancer had a beauty as she spoke thus, that
struck Gringoire singularly, and seemed to him in perfect
keeping with the almost oriental exaltation of her words.
Her pure, red lips half smiled; her serene and candid brow
became troubled, at intervals, under her thoughts, like a mirror
under the breath; and from beneath her long, drooping, black
eyelashes, there escaped a sort of ineffable light, which gave
to her profile that ideal serenity which Raphael found at
the mystic point of intersection of virginity, maternity,
and divinity.
Nevertheless, Gringoire continued,--
"What must one be then, in order to please you?"
"A man."
"And I--" said he, "what, then, am I?"
"A man has a hemlet on his head, a sword in his hand, and
golden spurs on his heels."
"Good," said Gringoire, "without a horse, no man. Do
you love any one?"
"As a lover?--"
"Yes."
She remained thoughtful for a moment, then said with a
peculiar expression: "That I shall know soon."
"Why not this evening?" resumed the poet tenderly. "Why
not me?"
She cast a grave glance upon him and said,--
"I can never love a man who cannot protect me."
Gringoire colored, and took the hint. It was evident that
the young girl was alluding to the slight assistance which he
had rendered her in the critical situation in which she had
found herself two hours previously. This memory, effaced by
his own adventures of the evening, now recurred to him. He
smote his brow.
"By the way, mademoiselle, I ought to have begun there.
Pardon my foolish absence of mind. How did you contrive
to escape from the claws of Quasimodo?"
This question made the gypsy shudder.
"Oh! the horrible hunchback," said she, hiding her face in
her hands. And she shuddered as though with violent cold.
"Horrible, in truth," said Gringoire, who clung to his idea;
"but how did you manage to escape him?"
La Esmeralda smiled, sighed, and remained silent.
"Do you know why he followed you?" began Gringoire again,
seeking to return to his question by a circuitous route.
"I don't know," said the young girl, and she added hastily,
"but you were following me also, why were you following me?"
"In good faith," responded Gringoire, "I don't know either."
Silence ensued. Gringoire slashed the table with his knife.
The young girl smiled and seemed to be gazing through the
wall at something. All at once she began to sing in a barely
articulate voice,--
~Quando las pintadas aves,
Mudas estan, y la tierra~--*
* When the gay-plumaged birds grow weary, and the earth--
She broke off abruptly, and began to caress Djali.
"That's a pretty animal of yours," said Gringoire.
"She is my sister," she answered.
"Why are you called 'la Esmeralda?'" asked the poet.
"I do not know."
"But why?"
She drew from her bosom a sort of little oblong bag, suspended
from her neck by a string of adr¨¦zarach beads. This
bag exhaled a strong odor of camphor. It was covered with
green silk, and bore in its centre a large piece of green glass,
in imitation of an emerald.
"Perhaps it is because of this," said she.
Gringoire was on the point of taking the bag in his hand.
She drew back.
"Don't touch it! It is an amulet. You would injure the
charm or the charm would injure you."
The poet's curiosity was more and more aroused.
"Who gave it to you?"
She laid one finger on her mouth and concealed the amulet
in her bosom. He tried a few more questions, but she
hardly replied.
"What is the meaning of the words, 'la Esmeralda?'"
"I don't know," said she.
"To what language do they belong?"
"They are Egyptian, I think."
"I suspected as much," said Gringoire, "you are not a
native of France?"
"I don't know."
"Are your parents alive?"
She began to sing, to an ancient air,--
~Mon p¨¨re est oiseau,
Ma m¨¨re est oiselle.
B
Je passe l'eau sans nacelle,
Je passe l'eau sans bateau,
Ma m¨¨re est oiselle,
Mon p¨¨re est oiseau~.*
* My father is a bird, my mother is a bird. I cross the
water without a barque, I cross the water without a boat.
My mother is a bird, my father is a bird.
"Good," said Gringoire. "At what age did you come to France?"
"When I was very young."
"And when to Paris?"
"Last year. At the moment when we were entering the
papal gate I saw a reed warbler flit through the air, that was
at the end of August; I said, it will be a hard winter."
"So it was," said Gringoire, delighted at this beginning of
a conversation. "I passed it in blowing my fingers. So
you have the gift of prophecy?"
She retired into her laconics again.
"Is that man whom you call the Duke of Egypt, the chief
of your tribe?"
"Yes."
"But it was he who married us," remarked the poet timidly.
She made her customary pretty grimace.
"I don't even know your name."
"My name? If you want it, here it is,--Pierre Gringoire."
"I know a prettier one," said she.
"Naughty girl!" retorted the poet. "Never mind, you shall
not provoke me. Wait, perhaps you will love me more when
you know me better; and then, you have told me your story
with so much confidence, that I owe you a little of mine. You
must know, then, that my name is Pierre Gringoire, and that
I am a son of the farmer of the notary's office of Gonesse.
My father was hung by the Burgundians, and my mother
disembowelled by the Picards, at the siege of Paris, twenty years
ago. At six years of age, therefore, I was an orphan, without
a sole to my foot except the pavements of Paris. I do not
know how I passed the interval from six to sixteen. A fruit
dealer gave me a plum here, a baker flung me a crust there;
in the evening I got myself taken up by the watch, who threw
me into prison, and there I found a bundle of straw. All this
did not prevent my growing up and growing thin, as you see.
In the winter I warmed myself in the sun, under the porch of
the H?tel de Sens, and I thought it very ridiculous that the
fire on Saint John's Day was reserved for the dog days. At
sixteen, I wished to choose a calling. I tried all in succession.
I became a soldier; but I was not brave enough. I became a
monk; but I was not sufficiently devout; and then I'm a bad
hand at drinking. In despair, I became an apprentice of the
woodcutters, but I was not strong enough; I had more of
an inclination to become a schoolmaster; 'tis true that I did
not know how to read, but that's no reason. I perceived at
the end of a certain time, that I lacked something in every
direction; and seeing that I was good for nothing, of my own
free will I became a poet and rhymester. That is a trade
which one can always adopt when one is a vagabond, and it's
better than stealing, as some young brigands of my acquaintance
advised me to do. One day I met by luck, Dom Claude
Frollo, the reverend archdeacon of Notre-Dame. He took an
interest in me, and it is to him that I to-day owe it that I am a
veritable man of letters, who knows Latin from the ~de Officiis~
of Cicero to the mortuology of the Celestine Fathers, and a
barbarian neither in scholastics, nor in politics, nor in rhythmics,
that sophism of sophisms. I am the author of the Mystery
which was presented to-day with great triumph and a great
concourse of populace, in the grand hall of the Palais de Justice.
I have also made a book which will contain six hundred
pages, on the wonderful comet of 1465, which sent one man
mad. I have enjoyed still other successes. Being somewhat
of an artillery carpenter, I lent a hand to Jean Mangue's great
bombard, which burst, as you know, on the day when it was
tested, on the Pont de Charenton, and killed four and twenty
curious spectators. You see that I am not a bad match in
marriage. I know a great many sorts of very engaging tricks,
which I will teach your goat; for example, to mimic the
Bishop of Paris, that cursed Pharisee whose mill wheels
splash passers-by the whole length of the Pont aux Meuniers.
And then my mystery will bring me in a great deal of coined
money, if they will only pay me. And finally, I am at your
orders, I and my wits, and my science and my letters, ready
to live with you, damsel, as it shall please you, chastely or
joyously; husband and wife, if you see fit; brother and sister,
if you think that better."
Gringoire ceased, awaiting the effect of his harangue on the
young girl. Her eyes were fixed on the ground.
"'Phoebus,'" she said in a low voice. Then, turning towards
the poet, "'Phoebus',--what does that mean?"
Gringoire, without exactly understanding what the connection
could be between his address and this question, was not
sorry to display his erudition. Assuming an air of importance,
he replied,--
"It is a Latin word which means 'sun.'"
"Sun!" she repeated.
"It is the name of a handsome archer, who was a god,"
added Gringoire.
"A god!" repeated the gypsy, and there was something pensive and
passionate in her tone.
At that moment, one of her bracelets became unfastened
and fell. Gringoire stooped quickly to pick it up; when he
straightened up, the young girl and the goat had disappeared.
He heard the sound of a bolt. It was a little door, communicating,
no doubt, with a neighboring cell, which was being
fastened on the outside.
"Has she left me a bed, at least?" said our philosopher.
He made the tour of his cell. There was no piece of furniture
adapted to sleeping purposes, except a tolerably long
wooden coffer; and its cover was carved, to boot; which
afforded Gringoire, when he stretched himself out upon it, a
sensation somewhat similar to that which Microm¨¦gas would
feel if he were to lie down on the Alps.
"Come!" said he, adjusting himself as well as possible, "I
must resign myself. But here's a strange nuptial night. 'Tis
a pity. There was something innocent and antediluvian about
that broken crock, which quite pleased me."