Chapter VI: Unpopularity

The archdeacon and the bellringer, as we have already said, were
but little loved by the populace great and small, in the vicinity
of the cathedral. When Claude and Quasimodo went out together,
which frequently happened, and when they were seen traversing in
company, the valet behind the master, the cold, narrow, and
gloomy streets of the block of Notre-Dame, more than one evil
word, more than one ironical quaver, more than one insulting jest
greeted them on their way, unless Claude Frollo, which was rarely
the case, walked with head upright and raised, showing his severe
and almost august brow to the dumbfounded jeerers.

Both were in their quarter like “the poets” of whom Régnier
speaks,—

“All sorts of persons run after poets,
As warblers fly shrieking after owls.”

Sometimes a mischievous child risked his skin and bones for the
ineffable pleasure of driving a pin into Quasimodo’s hump. Again,
a young girl, more bold and saucy than was fitting, brushed the
priest’s black robe, singing in his face the sardonic ditty,
“_niche, niche_, the devil is caught.” Sometimes a group of
squalid old crones, squatting in a file under the shadow of the
steps to a porch, scolded noisily as the archdeacon and the
bellringer passed, and tossed them this encouraging welcome, with
a curse: “Hum! there’s a fellow whose soul is made like the other
one’s body!” Or a band of schoolboys and street urchins, playing
hop-scotch, rose in a body and saluted him classically, with some
cry in Latin: “_Eia! eia! Claudius cum claudo_!”

But the insult generally passed unnoticed both by the priest and
the bellringer. Quasimodo was too deaf to hear all these gracious
things, and Claude was too dreamy.

BOOK FIFTH.