Chapter IV: The Dog and His Master

Nevertheless, there was one human creature whom Quasimodo
excepted from his malice and from his hatred for others, and whom
he loved even more, perhaps, than his cathedral: this was Claude
Frollo.

The matter was simple; Claude Frollo had taken him in, had
adopted him, had nourished him, had reared him. When a little
lad, it was between Claude Frollo’s legs that he was accustomed
to seek refuge, when the dogs and the children barked after him.
Claude Frollo had taught him to talk, to read, to write. Claude
Frollo had finally made him the bellringer. Now, to give the big
bell in marriage to Quasimodo was to give Juliet to Romeo.

Hence Quasimodo’s gratitude was profound, passionate, boundless;
and although the visage of his adopted father was often clouded
or severe, although his speech was habitually curt, harsh,
imperious, that gratitude never wavered for a single moment. The
archdeacon had in Quasimodo the most submissive slave, the most
docile lackey, the most vigilant of dogs. When the poor
bellringer became deaf, there had been established between him
and Claude Frollo, a language of signs, mysterious and understood
by themselves alone. In this manner the archdeacon was the sole
human being with whom Quasimodo had preserved communication. He
was in sympathy with but two things in this world: Notre-Dame and
Claude Frollo.

There is nothing which can be compared with the empire of the
archdeacon over the bellringer; with the attachment of the
bellringer for the archdeacon. A sign from Claude and the idea of
giving him pleasure would have sufficed to make Quasimodo hurl
himself headlong from the summit of Notre-Dame. It was a
remarkable thing—all that physical strength which had reached in
Quasimodo such an extraordinary development, and which was placed
by him blindly at the disposition of another. There was in it, no
doubt, filial devotion, domestic attachment; there was also the
fascination of one spirit by another spirit. It was a poor,
awkward, and clumsy organization, which stood with lowered head
and supplicating eyes before a lofty and profound, a powerful and
superior intellect. Lastly, and above all, it was gratitude.
Gratitude so pushed to its extremest limit, that we do not know
to what to compare it. This virtue is not one of those of which
the finest examples are to be met with among men. We will say
then, that Quasimodo loved the archdeacon as never a dog, never a
horse, never an elephant loved his master.