Chapter I: The Little Shoe (1)

La Esmeralda was sleeping at the moment when the outcasts
assailed the church.

Soon the ever-increasing uproar around the edifice, and the
uneasy bleating of her goat which had been awakened, had roused
her from her slumbers. She had sat up, she had listened, she had
looked; then, terrified by the light and noise, she had rushed
from her cell to see. The aspect of the Place, the vision which
was moving in it, the disorder of that nocturnal assault, that
hideous crowd, leaping like a cloud of frogs, half seen in the
gloom, the croaking of that hoarse multitude, those few red
torches running and crossing each other in the darkness like the
meteors which streak the misty surfaces of marshes, this whole
scene produced upon her the effect of a mysterious battle between
the phantoms of the witches’ sabbath and the stone monsters of
the church. Imbued from her very infancy with the superstitions
of the Bohemian tribe, her first thought was that she had caught
the strange beings peculiar to the night, in their deeds of
witchcraft. Then she ran in terror to cower in her cell, asking
of her pallet some less terrible nightmare.

But little by little the first vapors of terror had been
dissipated; from the constantly increasing noise, and from many
other signs of reality, she felt herself besieged not by
spectres, but by human beings. Then her fear, though it did not
increase, changed its character. She had dreamed of the
possibility of a popular mutiny to tear her from her asylum. The
idea of once more recovering life, hope, Phœbus, who was ever
present in her future, the extreme helplessness of her condition,
flight cut off, no support, her abandonment, her isolation,—these
thoughts and a thousand others overwhelmed her. She fell upon her
knees, with her head on her bed, her hands clasped over her head,
full of anxiety and tremors, and, although a gypsy, an idolater,
and a pagan, she began to entreat with sobs, mercy from the good
Christian God, and to pray to our Lady, her hostess. For even if
one believes in nothing, there are moments in life when one is
always of the religion of the temple which is nearest at hand.

She remained thus prostrate for a very long time, trembling in
truth, more than praying, chilled by the ever-closer breath of
that furious multitude, understanding nothing of this outburst,
ignorant of what was being plotted, what was being done, what
they wanted, but foreseeing a terrible issue.

In the midst of this anguish, she heard some one walking near
her. She turned round. Two men, one of whom carried a lantern,
had just entered her cell. She uttered a feeble cry.

“Fear nothing,” said a voice which was not unknown to her, “it is
I.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Pierre Gringoire.”

This name reassured her. She raised her eyes once more, and
recognized the poet in very fact. But there stood beside him a
black figure veiled from head to foot, which struck her by its
silence.

“Oh!” continued Gringoire in a tone of reproach, “Djali
recognized me before you!”

The little goat had not, in fact, waited for Gringoire to
announce his name. No sooner had he entered than it rubbed itself
gently against his knees, covering the poet with caresses and
with white hairs, for it was shedding its hair. Gringoire
returned the caresses.

“Who is this with you?” said the gypsy, in a low voice.

“Be at ease,” replied Gringoire. “’Tis one of my friends.” Then
the philosopher setting his lantern on the ground, crouched upon
the stones, and exclaimed enthusiastically, as he pressed Djali
in his arms,—

“Oh! ’tis a graceful beast, more considerable no doubt, for it’s
neatness than for its size, but ingenious, subtle, and lettered
as a grammarian! Let us see, my Djali, hast thou forgotten any of
thy pretty tricks? How does Master Jacques Charmolue?...”

The man in black did not allow him to finish. He approached
Gringoire and shook him roughly by the shoulder.

Gringoire rose.

“’Tis true,” said he: “I forgot that we are in haste. But that is
no reason master, for getting furious with people in this manner.
My dear and lovely child, your life is in danger, and Djali’s
also. They want to hang you again. We are your friends, and we
have come to save you. Follow us.”

“Is it true?” she exclaimed in dismay.

“Yes, perfectly true. Come quickly!”

“I am willing,” she stammered. “But why does not your friend
speak?”

“Ah!” said Gringoire, “’tis because his father and mother were
fantastic people who made him of a taciturn temperament.”

She was obliged to content herself with this explanation.
Gringoire took her by the hand; his companion picked up the
lantern and walked on in front. Fear stunned the young girl. She
allowed herself to be led away. The goat followed them, frisking,
so joyous at seeing Gringoire again that it made him stumble
every moment by thrusting its horns between his legs.

“Such is life,” said the philosopher, every time that he came
near falling down; “’tis often our best friends who cause us to
be overthrown.”

They rapidly descended the staircase of the towers, crossed the
church, full of shadows and solitude, and all reverberating with
uproar, which formed a frightful contrast, and emerged into the
courtyard of the cloister by the red door. The cloister was
deserted; the canons had fled to the bishop’s palace in order to
pray together; the courtyard was empty, a few frightened lackeys
were crouching in dark corners. They directed their steps towards
the door which opened from this court upon the Terrain. The man
in black opened it with a key which he had about him. Our readers
are aware that the Terrain was a tongue of land enclosed by walls
on the side of the City and belonging to the chapter of
Notre-Dame, which terminated the island on the east, behind the
church. They found this enclosure perfectly deserted. There was
here less tumult in the air. The roar of the outcasts’ assault
reached them more confusedly and less clamorously. The fresh
breeze which follows the current of a stream, rustled the leaves
of the only tree planted on the point of the Terrain, with a
noise that was already perceptible. But they were still very
close to danger. The nearest edifices to them were the bishop’s
palace and the church. It was plainly evident that there was
great internal commotion in the bishop’s palace. Its shadowy mass
was all furrowed with lights which flitted from window to window;
as, when one has just burned paper, there remains a sombre
edifice of ashes in which bright sparks run a thousand eccentric
courses. Beside them, the enormous towers of Notre-Dame, thus
viewed from behind, with the long nave above which they rise cut
out in black against the red and vast light which filled the
Parvis, resembled two gigantic andirons of some cyclopean
fire-grate.

What was to be seen of Paris on all sides wavered before the eye
in a gloom mingled with light. Rembrandt has such backgrounds to
his pictures.

The man with the lantern walked straight to the point of the
Terrain. There, at the very brink of the water, stood the
wormeaten remains of a fence of posts latticed with laths,
whereon a low vine spread out a few thin branches like the
fingers of an outspread hand. Behind, in the shadow cast by this
trellis, a little boat lay concealed. The man made a sign to
Gringoire and his companion to enter. The goat followed them. The
man was the last to step in. Then he cut the boat’s moorings,
pushed it from the shore with a long boat-hook, and, seizing two
oars, seated himself in the bow, rowing with all his might
towards midstream. The Seine is very rapid at this point, and he
had a good deal of trouble in leaving the point of the island.

Gringoire’s first care on entering the boat was to place the goat
on his knees. He took a position in the stern; and the young
girl, whom the stranger inspired with an indefinable uneasiness,
seated herself close to the poet.

When our philosopher felt the boat sway, he clapped his hands and
kissed Djali between the horns.

“Oh!” said he, “now we are safe, all four of us.”

He added with the air of a profound thinker, “One is indebted
sometimes to fortune, sometimes to ruse, for the happy issue of
great enterprises.”

The boat made its way slowly towards the right shore. The young
girl watched the unknown man with secret terror. He had carefully
turned off the light of his dark lantern. A glimpse could be
caught of him in the obscurity, in the bow of the boat, like a
spectre. His cowl, which was still lowered, formed a sort of
mask; and every time that he spread his arms, upon which hung
large black sleeves, as he rowed, one would have said they were
two huge bat’s wings. Moreover, he had not yet uttered a word or
breathed a syllable. No other noise was heard in the boat than
the splashing of the oars, mingled with the rippling of the water
along her sides.

“On my soul!” exclaimed Gringoire suddenly, “we are as cheerful
and joyous as young owls! We preserve the silence of Pythagoreans
or fishes! _Pasque-Dieu!_ my friends, I should greatly like to
have some one speak to me. The human voice is music to the human
ear. ’Tis not I who say that, but Didymus of Alexandria, and they
are illustrious words. Assuredly, Didymus of Alexandria is no
mediocre philosopher.—One word, my lovely child! say but one word
to me, I entreat you. By the way, you had a droll and peculiar
little pout; do you still make it? Do you know, my dear, that
parliament hath full jurisdiction over all places of asylum, and
that you were running a great risk in your little chamber at
Notre-Dame? Alas! the little bird trochylus maketh its nest in
the jaws of the crocodile.—Master, here is the moon re-appearing.
If only they do not perceive us. We are doing a laudable thing in
saving mademoiselle, and yet we should be hung by order of the
king if we were caught. Alas! human actions are taken by two
handles. That is branded with disgrace in one which is crowned in
another. He admires Cicero who blames Catiline. Is it not so,
master? What say you to this philosophy? I possess philosophy by
instinct, by nature, _ut apes geometriam_.—Come! no one answers
me. What unpleasant moods you two are in! I must do all the
talking alone. That is what we call a monologue in
tragedy.—_Pasque-Dieu!_ I must inform you that I have just seen
the king, Louis XI., and that I have caught this oath from
him,—_Pasque-Dieu!_ They are still making a hearty howl in the
city.—’Tis a villanous, malicious old king. He is all swathed in
furs. He still owes me the money for my epithalamium, and he came
within a nick of hanging me this evening, which would have been
very inconvenient to me.—He is niggardly towards men of merit. He
ought to read the four books of Salvien of Cologne, _Adversus
Avaritiam_. In truth! ’Tis a paltry king in his ways with men of
letters, and one who commits very barbarous cruelties. He is a
sponge, to soak money raised from the people. His saving is like
the spleen which swelleth with the leanness of all the other
members. Hence complaints against the hardness of the times
become murmurs against the prince. Under this gentle and pious
sire, the gallows crack with the hung, the blocks rot with blood,
the prisons burst like over full bellies. This king hath one hand
which grasps, and one which hangs. He is the procurator of Dame
Tax and Monsieur Gibbet. The great are despoiled of their
dignities, and the little incessantly overwhelmed with fresh
oppressions. He is an exorbitant prince. I love not this monarch.
And you, master?”

The man in black let the garrulous poet chatter on. He continued
to struggle against the violent and narrow current, which
separates the prow of the City and the stem of the island of
Notre-Dame, which we call to-day the Isle St. Louis.

“By the way, master!” continued Gringoire suddenly. “At the
moment when we arrived on the Parvis, through the enraged
outcasts, did your reverence observe that poor little devil whose
skull your deaf man was just cracking on the railing of the
gallery of the kings? I am near sighted and I could not recognize
him. Do you know who he could be?”

The stranger answered not a word. But he suddenly ceased rowing,
his arms fell as though broken, his head sank on his breast, and
la Esmeralda heard him sigh convulsively. She shuddered. She had
heard such sighs before.

The boat, abandoned to itself, floated for several minutes with
the stream. But the man in black finally recovered himself,
seized the oars once more and began to row against the current.
He doubled the point of the Isle of Notre Dame, and made for the
landing-place of the Port au Foin.

“Ah!” said Gringoire, “yonder is the Barbeau mansion.—Stay,
master, look: that group of black roofs which make such singular
angles yonder, above that heap of black, fibrous grimy, dirty
clouds, where the moon is completely crushed and spread out like
the yolk of an egg whose shell is broken.—’Tis a fine mansion.
There is a chapel crowned with a small vault full of very well
carved enrichments. Above, you can see the bell tower, very
delicately pierced. There is also a pleasant garden, which
consists of a pond, an aviary, an echo, a mall, a labyrinth, a
house for wild beasts, and a quantity of leafy alleys very
agreeable to Venus. There is also a rascal of a tree which is
called ‘the lewd,’ because it favored the pleasures of a famous
princess and a constable of France, who was a gallant and a
wit.—Alas! we poor philosophers are to a constable as a plot of
cabbages or a radish bed to the garden of the Louvre. What
matters it, after all? human life, for the great as well as for
us, is a mixture of good and evil. Pain is always by the side of
joy, the spondee by the dactyl.—Master, I must relate to you the
history of the Barbeau mansion. It ends in tragic fashion. It was
in 1319, in the reign of Philippe V., the longest reign of the
kings of France. The moral of the story is that the temptations
of the flesh are pernicious and malignant. Let us not rest our
glance too long on our neighbor’s wife, however gratified our
senses may be by her beauty. Fornication is a very libertine
thought. Adultery is a prying into the pleasures of others—Ohé!
the noise yonder is redoubling!”

The tumult around Notre-Dame was, in fact, increasing. They
listened. Cries of victory were heard with tolerable
distinctness. All at once, a hundred torches, the light of which
glittered upon the helmets of men at arms, spread over the church
at all heights, on the towers, on the galleries, on the flying
buttresses. These torches seemed to be in search of something;
and soon distant clamors reached the fugitives distinctly:—“The
gypsy! the sorceress! death to the gypsy!”

The unhappy girl dropped her head upon her hands, and the unknown
began to row furiously towards the shore. Meanwhile our
philosopher reflected. He clasped the goat in his arms, and
gently drew away from the gypsy, who pressed closer and closer to
him, as though to the only asylum which remained to her.

It is certain that Gringoire was enduring cruel perplexity. He
was thinking that the goat also, “according to existing law,”
would be hung if recaptured; which would be a great pity, poor
Djali! that he had thus two condemned creatures attached to him;
that his companion asked no better than to take charge of the
gypsy. A violent combat began between his thoughts, in which,
like the Jupiter of the Iliad, he weighed in turn the gypsy and
the goat; and he looked at them alternately with eyes moist with
tears, saying between his teeth:

“But I cannot save you both!”

A shock informed them that the boat had reached the land at last.
The uproar still filled the city. The unknown rose, approached
the gypsy, and endeavored to take her arm to assist her to
alight. She repulsed him and clung to the sleeve of Gringoire,
who, in his turn, absorbed in the goat, almost repulsed her. Then
she sprang alone from the boat. She was so troubled that she did
not know what she did or whither she was going. Thus she remained
for a moment, stunned, watching the water flow past; when she
gradually returned to her senses, she found herself alone on the
wharf with the unknown. It appears that Gringoire had taken
advantage of the moment of debarcation to slip away with the goat
into the block of houses of the Rue Grenier-sur-l’Eau.

The poor gypsy shivered when she beheld herself alone with this
man. She tried to speak, to cry out, to call Gringoire; her
tongue was dumb in her mouth, and no sound left her lips. All at
once she felt the stranger’s hand on hers. It was a strong, cold
hand. Her teeth chattered, she turned paler than the ray of
moonlight which illuminated her. The man spoke not a word. He
began to ascend towards the Place de Grève, holding her by the
hand.

At that moment, she had a vague feeling that destiny is an
irresistible force. She had no more resistance left in her, she
allowed herself to be dragged along, running while he walked. At
this spot the quay ascended. But it seemed to her as though she
were descending a slope.

She gazed about her on all sides. Not a single passer-by. The
quay was absolutely deserted. She heard no sound, she felt no
people moving save in the tumultuous and glowing city, from which
she was separated only by an arm of the Seine, and whence her
name reached her, mingled with cries of “Death!” The rest of
Paris was spread around her in great blocks of shadows.

Meanwhile, the stranger continued to drag her along with the same
silence and the same rapidity. She had no recollection of any of
the places where she was walking. As she passed before a lighted
window, she made an effort, drew up suddenly, and cried out,
“Help!”

The _bourgeois_ who was standing at the window opened it,
appeared there in his shirt with his lamp, stared at the quay
with a stupid air, uttered some words which she did not
understand, and closed his shutter again. It was her last gleam
of hope extinguished.

The man in black did not utter a syllable; he held her firmly,
and set out again at a quicker pace. She no longer resisted, but
followed him, completely broken.

From time to time she called together a little strength, and
said, in a voice broken by the unevenness of the pavement and the
breathlessness of their flight, “Who are you? Who are you?” He
made no reply.

They arrived thus, still keeping along the quay, at a tolerably
spacious square. It was the Grève. In the middle, a sort of
black, erect cross was visible; it was the gallows. She
recognized all this, and saw where she was.

The man halted, turned towards her and raised his cowl.

“Oh!” she stammered, almost petrified, “I knew well that it was
he again!”

It was the priest. He looked like the ghost of himself; that is
an effect of the moonlight, it seems as though one beheld only
the spectres of things in that light.

“Listen!” he said to her; and she shuddered at the sound of that
fatal voice which she had not heard for a long time. He continued
speaking with those brief and panting jerks, which betoken deep
internal convulsions. “Listen! we are here. I am going to speak
to you. This is the Grève. This is an extreme point. Destiny
gives us to one another. I am going to decide as to your life;
you will decide as to my soul. Here is a place, here is a night
beyond which one sees nothing. Then listen to me. I am going to
tell you.... In the first place, speak not to me of your Phœbus.
(As he spoke thus he paced to and fro, like a man who cannot
remain in one place, and dragged her after him.) Do not speak to
me of him. Do you see? If you utter that name, I know not what I
shall do, but it will be terrible.”

Then, like a body which recovers its centre of gravity, he became
motionless once more, but his words betrayed no less agitation.
His voice grew lower and lower.

“Do not turn your head aside thus. Listen to me. It is a serious
matter. In the first place, here is what has happened.—All this
will not be laughed at. I swear it to you.—What was I saying?
Remind me! Oh!—There is a decree of Parliament which gives you
back to the scaffold. I have just rescued you from their hands.
But they are pursuing you. Look!”

He extended his arm toward the City. The search seemed, in fact,
to be still in progress there. The uproar drew nearer; the tower
of the lieutenant’s house, situated opposite the Grève, was full
of clamors and light, and soldiers could be seen running on the
opposite quay with torches and these cries, “The gypsy! Where is
the gypsy! Death! Death!”

“You see that they are in pursuit of you, and that I am not lying
to you. I love you.—Do not open your mouth; refrain from speaking
to me rather, if it be only to tell me that you hate me. I have
made up my mind not to hear that again.—I have just saved
you.—Let me finish first. I can save you wholly. I have prepared
everything. It is yours at will. If you wish, I can do it.”

He broke off violently. “No, that is not what I should say!”

As he went with hurried step and made her hurry also, for he did
not release her, he walked straight to the gallows, and pointed
to it with his finger,—

“Choose between us two,” he said, coldly.

She tore herself from his hands and fell at the foot of the
gibbet, embracing that funereal support, then she half turned her
beautiful head, and looked at the priest over her shoulder. One
would have said that she was a Holy Virgin at the foot of the
cross. The priest remained motionless, his finger still raised
toward the gibbet, preserving his attitude like a statue. At
length the gypsy said to him,—

“It causes me less horror than you do.”

Then he allowed his arm to sink slowly, and gazed at the pavement
in profound dejection.

“If these stones could speak,” he murmured, “yes, they would say
that a very unhappy man stands here.”

He went on. The young girl, kneeling before the gallows,
enveloped in her long flowing hair, let him speak on without
interruption. He now had a gentle and plaintive accent which
contrasted sadly with the haughty harshness of his features.

“I love you. Oh! how true that is! So nothing comes of that fire
which burns my heart! Alas! young girl, night and day—yes, night
and day I tell you,—it is torture. Oh! I suffer too much, my poor
child. ’Tis a thing deserving of compassion, I assure you. You
see that I speak gently to you. I really wish that you should no
longer cherish this horror of me.—After all, if a man loves a
woman, ’tis not his fault!—Oh, my God!—What! So you will never
pardon me? You will always hate me? All is over then. It is that
which renders me evil, do you see? and horrible to myself.—You
will not even look at me! You are thinking of something else,
perchance, while I stand here and talk to you, shuddering on the
brink of eternity for both of us! Above all things, do not speak
to me of the officer!—I would cast myself at your knees, I would
kiss not your feet, but the earth which is under your feet; I
would sob like a child, I would tear from my breast not words,
but my very heart and vitals, to tell you that I love you;—all
would be useless, all!—And yet you have nothing in your heart but
what is tender and merciful. You are radiant with the most
beautiful mildness; you are wholly sweet, good, pitiful, and
charming. Alas! You cherish no ill will for any one but me alone!
Oh! what a fatality!”

He hid his face in his hands. The young girl heard him weeping.
It was for the first time. Thus erect and shaken by sobs, he was
more miserable and more suppliant than when on his knees. He wept
thus for a considerable time.

“Come!” he said, these first tears passed, “I have no more words.
I had, however, thought well as to what you would say. Now I
tremble and shiver and break down at the decisive moment, I feel
conscious of something supreme enveloping us, and I stammer. Oh!
I shall fall upon the pavement if you do not take pity on me,
pity on yourself. Do not condemn us both. If you only knew how
much I love you! What a heart is mine! Oh! what desertion of all
virtue! What desperate abandonment of myself! A doctor, I mock at
science; a gentleman, I tarnish my own name; a priest, I make of
the missal a pillow of sensuality, I spit in the face of my God!
all this for thee, enchantress! to be more worthy of thy hell!
And you will not have the apostate! Oh! let me tell you all! more
still, something more horrible, oh! Yet more horrible!...”

As he uttered these last words, his air became utterly
distracted. He was silent for a moment, and resumed, as though
speaking to himself, and in a strong voice,—

“Cain, what hast thou done with thy brother?”

There was another silence, and he went on—

“What have I done with him, Lord? I received him, I reared him, I
nourished him, I loved him, I idolized him, and I have slain him!
Yes, Lord, they have just dashed his head before my eyes on the
stone of thine house, and it is because of me, because of this
woman, because of her.”

His eye was wild. His voice grew ever weaker; he repeated many
times, yet, mechanically, at tolerably long intervals, like a
bell prolonging its last vibration: “Because of her.—Because of
her.”

Then his tongue no longer articulated any perceptible sound; but
his lips still moved. All at once he sank together, like
something crumbling, and lay motionless on the earth, with his
head on his knees.

A touch from the young girl, as she drew her foot from under him,
brought him to himself. He passed his hand slowly over his hollow
cheeks, and gazed for several moments at his fingers, which were
wet, “What!” he murmured, “I have wept!”

And turning suddenly to the gypsy with unspeakable anguish,—

“Alas! you have looked coldly on at my tears! Child, do you know
that those tears are of lava? Is it indeed true? Nothing touches
when it comes from the man whom one does not love. If you were to
see me die, you would laugh. Oh! I do not wish to see you die!
One word! A single word of pardon! Say not that you love me, say
only that you will do it; that will suffice; I will save you. If
not—oh! the hour is passing. I entreat you by all that is sacred,
do not wait until I shall have turned to stone again, like that
gibbet which also claims you! Reflect that I hold the destinies
of both of us in my hand, that I am mad,—it is terrible,—that I
may let all go to destruction, and that there is beneath us a
bottomless abyss, unhappy girl, whither my fall will follow yours
to all eternity! One word of kindness! Say one word! only one
word!”

She opened her mouth to answer him. He flung himself on his knees
to receive with adoration the word, possibly a tender one, which
was on the point of issuing from her lips. She said to him, “You
are an assassin!”

The priest clasped her in his arms with fury, and began to laugh
with an abominable laugh.

“Well, yes, an assassin!” he said, “and I will have you. You will
not have me for your slave, you shall have me for your master. I
will have you! I have a den, whither I will drag you. You will
follow me, you will be obliged to follow me, or I will deliver
you up! You must die, my beauty, or be mine! belong to the
priest! belong to the apostate! belong to the assassin! this very
night, do you hear? Come! joy; kiss me, mad girl! The tomb or my
bed!”

His eyes sparkled with impurity and rage. His lewd lips reddened
the young girl’s neck. She struggled in his arms. He covered her
with furious kisses.

“Do not bite me, monster!” she cried. “Oh! the foul, odious monk!
leave me! I will tear out thy ugly gray hair and fling it in thy
face by the handful!”

He reddened, turned pale, then released her and gazed at her with
a gloomy air. She thought herself victorious, and continued,—

“I tell you that I belong to my Phœbus, that ’tis Phœbus whom I
love, that ’tis Phœbus who is handsome! you are old, priest! you
are ugly! Begone!”

He gave vent to a horrible cry, like the wretch to whom a hot
iron is applied. “Die, then!” he said, gnashing his teeth. She
saw his terrible look and tried to fly. He caught her once more,
he shook her, he flung her on the ground, and walked with rapid
strides towards the corner of the Tour-Roland, dragging her after
him along the pavement by her beautiful hands.

On arriving there, he turned to her,—

“For the last time, will you be mine?”

She replied with emphasis,—

“No!”

Then he cried in a loud voice,—

“Gudule! Gudule! here is the gypsy! take your vengeance!”

The young girl felt herself seized suddenly by the elbow. She
looked. A fleshless arm was stretched from an opening in the
wall, and held her like a hand of iron.

“Hold her well,” said the priest; “’tis the gypsy escaped.
Release her not. I will go in search of the sergeants. You shall
see her hanged.”

A guttural laugh replied from the interior of the wall to these
bloody words—“Hah! hah! hah!”—The gypsy watched the priest retire
in the direction of the Pont Notre-Dame. A cavalcade was heard in
that direction.

The young girl had recognized the spiteful recluse. Panting with
terror, she tried to disengage herself. She writhed, she made
many starts of agony and despair, but the other held her with
incredible strength. The lean and bony fingers which bruised her,
clenched on her flesh and met around it. One would have said that
this hand was riveted to her arm. It was more than a chain, more
than a fetter, more than a ring of iron, it was a living pair of
pincers endowed with intelligence, which emerged from the wall.

She fell back against the wall exhausted, and then the fear of
death took possession of her. She thought of the beauty of life,
of youth, of the view of heaven, the aspects of nature, of her
love for Phœbus, of all that was vanishing and all that was
approaching, of the priest who was denouncing her, of the
headsman who was to come, of the gallows which was there. Then
she felt terror mount to the very roots of her hair and she heard
the mocking laugh of the recluse, saying to her in a very low
tone: “Hah! hah! hah! you are going to be hanged!”

She turned a dying look towards the window, and she beheld the
fierce face of the sacked nun through the bars.

“What have I done to you?” she said, almost lifeless.

The recluse did not reply, but began to mumble with a singsong
irritated, mocking intonation: “Daughter of Egypt! daughter of
Egypt! daughter of Egypt!”

The unhappy Esmeralda dropped her head beneath her flowing hair,
comprehending that it was no human being she had to deal with.

All at once the recluse exclaimed, as though the gypsy’s question
had taken all this time to reach her brain,—“‘What have you done
to me?’ you say! Ah! what have you done to me, gypsy! Well!
listen.—I had a child! you see! I had a child! a child, I tell
you!—a pretty little girl!—my Agnès!” she went on wildly, kissing
something in the dark.—“Well! do you see, daughter of Egypt? they
took my child from me; they stole my child; they ate my child.
That is what you have done to me.”

The young girl replied like a lamb,—

“Alas! perchance I was not born then!”

“Oh! yes!” returned the recluse, “you must have been born. You
were among them. She would be the same age as you! so!—I have
been here fifteen years; fifteen years have I suffered; fifteen
years have I prayed; fifteen years have I beat my head against
these four walls—I tell you that ’twas the gypsies who stole her
from me, do you hear that? and who ate her with their teeth.—Have
you a heart? imagine a child playing, a child sucking; a child
sleeping. It is so innocent a thing!—Well! that, that is what
they took from me, what they killed. The good God knows it well!
To-day, it is my turn; I am going to eat the gypsy.—Oh! I would
bite you well, if the bars did not prevent me! My head is too
large!—Poor little one! while she was asleep! And if they woke
her up when they took her, in vain she might cry; I was not
there!—Ah! gypsy mothers, you devoured my child! come see your
own.”

Then she began to laugh or to gnash her teeth, for the two things
resembled each other in that furious face. The day was beginning
to dawn. An ashy gleam dimly lighted this scene, and the gallows
grew more and more distinct in the square. On the other side, in
the direction of the bridge of Notre-Dame, the poor condemned
girl fancied that she heard the sound of cavalry approaching.

“Madam,” she cried, clasping her hands and falling on her knees,
dishevelled, distracted, mad with fright; “madam! have pity! They
are coming. I have done nothing to you. Would you wish to see me
die in this horrible fashion before your very eyes? You are
pitiful, I am sure. It is too frightful. Let me make my escape.
Release me! Mercy. I do not wish to die like that!”

“Give me back my child!” said the recluse.

“Mercy! Mercy!”

“Give me back my child!”

“Release me, in the name of heaven!”

“Give me back my child!”

Again the young girl fell; exhausted, broken, and having already
the glassy eye of a person in the grave.

“Alas!” she faltered, “you seek your child, I seek my parents.”

“Give me back my little Agnès!” pursued Gudule. “You do not know
where she is? Then die!—I will tell you. I was a woman of the
town, I had a child, they took my child. It was the gypsies. You
see plainly that you must die. When your mother, the gypsy, comes
to reclaim you, I shall say to her: ‘Mother, look at that
gibbet!—Or, give me back my child. Do you know where she is, my
little daughter? Stay! I will show you. Here is her shoe, all
that is left me of her. Do you know where its mate is? If you
know, tell me, and if it is only at the other end of the world, I
will crawl to it on my knees.”

As she spoke thus, with her other arm extended through the
window, she showed the gypsy the little embroidered shoe. It was
already light enough to distinguish its shape and its colors.

“Let me see that shoe,” said the gypsy, quivering. “God! God!”

And at the same time, with her hand which was at liberty, she
quickly opened the little bag ornamented with green glass, which
she wore about her neck.

“Go on, go on!” grumbled Gudule, “search your demon’s amulet!”

All at once, she stopped short, trembled in every limb, and cried
in a voice which proceeded from the very depths of her being: “My
daughter!”

The gypsy had just drawn from the bag a little shoe absolutely
similar to the other. To this little shoe was attached a
parchment on which was inscribed this charm,—

Quand le pareil retrouveras
Ta mère te tendras les bras.[68]

Quicker than a flash of lightning, the recluse had laid the two
shoes together, had read the parchment and had put close to the
bars of the window her face beaming with celestial joy as she
cried,—

“My daughter! my daughter!”

“My mother!” said the gypsy.

Here we are unequal to the task of depicting the scene. The wall
and the iron bars were between them. “Oh! the wall!” cried the
recluse. “Oh! to see her and not to embrace her! Your hand! your
hand!”

The young girl passed her arm through the opening; the recluse
threw herself on that hand, pressed her lips to it and there
remained, buried in that kiss, giving no other sign of life than
a sob which heaved her breast from time to time. In the
meanwhile, she wept in torrents, in silence, in the dark, like a
rain at night. The poor mother poured out in floods upon that
adored hand the dark and deep well of tears, which lay within
her, and into which her grief had filtered, drop by drop, for
fifteen years.

All at once she rose, flung aside her long gray hair from her
brow, and without uttering a word, began to shake the bars of her
cage cell, with both hands, more furiously than a lioness. The
bars held firm. Then she went to seek in the corner of her cell a
huge paving stone, which served her as a pillow, and launched it
against them with such violence that one of the bars broke,
emitting thousands of sparks. A second blow completely shattered
the old iron cross which barricaded the window. Then with her two
hands, she finished breaking and removing the rusted stumps of
the bars. There are moments when woman’s hands possess superhuman
strength.

A passage broken, less than a minute was required for her to
seize her daughter by the middle of her body, and draw her into
her cell. “Come let me draw you out of the abyss,” she murmured.

When her daughter was inside the cell, she laid her gently on the
ground, then raised her up again, and bearing her in her arms as
though she were still only her little Agnès, she walked to and
fro in her little room, intoxicated, frantic, joyous, crying out,
singing, kissing her daughter, talking to her, bursting into
laughter, melting into tears, all at once and with vehemence.

“My daughter! my daughter!” she said. “I have my daughter! here
she is! The good God has given her back to me! Ha you! come all
of you! Is there any one there to see that I have my daughter?
Lord Jesus, how beautiful she is! You have made me wait fifteen
years, my good God, but it was in order to give her back to me
beautiful.—Then the gypsies did not eat her! Who said so? My
little daughter! my little daughter! Kiss me. Those good gypsies!
I love the gypsies!—It is really you! That was what made my heart
leap every time that you passed by. And I took that for hatred!
Forgive me, my Agnès, forgive me. You thought me very malicious,
did you not? I love you. Have you still the little mark on your
neck? Let us see. She still has it. Oh! you are beautiful! It was
I who gave you those big eyes, mademoiselle. Kiss me. I love you.
It is nothing to me that other mothers have children; I scorn
them now. They have only to come and see. Here is mine. See her
neck, her eyes, her hair, her hands. Find me anything as
beautiful as that! Oh! I promise you she will have lovers, that
she will! I have wept for fifteen years. All my beauty has
departed and has fallen to her. Kiss me.”

She addressed to her a thousand other extravagant remarks, whose
accent constituted their sole beauty, disarranged the poor girl’s
garments even to the point of making her blush, smoothed her
silky hair with her hand, kissed her foot, her knee, her brow,
her eyes, was in raptures over everything. The young girl let her
have her way, repeating at intervals and very low and with
infinite tenderness, “My mother!”

“Do you see, my little girl,” resumed the recluse, interspersing
her words with kisses, “I shall love you dearly? We will go away
from here. We are going to be very happy. I have inherited
something in Reims, in our country. You know Reims? Ah! no, you
do not know it; you were too small! If you only knew how pretty
you were at the age of four months! Tiny feet that people came
even from Epernay, which is seven leagues away, to see! We shall
have a field, a house. I will put you to sleep in my bed. My God!
my God! who would believe this? I have my daughter!”

“Oh, my mother!” said the young girl, at length finding strength
to speak in her emotion, “the gypsy woman told me so. There was a
good gypsy of our band who died last year, and who always cared
for me like a nurse. It was she who placed this little bag about
my neck. She always said to me: ‘Little one, guard this jewel
well! ’Tis a treasure. It will cause thee to find thy mother once
again. Thou wearest thy mother about thy neck.’—The gypsy
predicted it!”

The sacked nun again pressed her daughter in her arms.

“Come, let me kiss you! You say that prettily. When we are in the
country, we will place these little shoes on an infant Jesus in
the church. We certainly owe that to the good, holy Virgin. What
a pretty voice you have! When you spoke to me just now, it was
music! Ah! my Lord God! I have found my child again! But is this
story credible? Nothing will kill one—or I should have died of
joy.”

And then she began to clap her hands again and to laugh and to
cry out: “We are going to be so happy!”

At that moment, the cell resounded with the clang of arms and a
galloping of horses which seemed to be coming from the Pont
Notre-Dame, amid advancing farther and farther along the quay.
The gypsy threw herself with anguish into the arms of the sacked
nun.

“Save me! save me! mother! they are coming!”

“Oh, heaven! what are you saying? I had forgotten! They are in
pursuit of you! What have you done?”

“I know not,” replied the unhappy child; “but I am condemned to
die.”

“To die!” said Gudule, staggering as though struck by lightning;
“to die!” she repeated slowly, gazing at her daughter with
staring eyes.

“Yes, mother,” replied the frightened young girl, “they want to
kill me. They are coming to seize me. That gallows is for me!
Save me! save me! They are coming! Save me!”

The recluse remained for several moments motionless and
petrified, then she moved her head in sign of doubt, and suddenly
giving vent to a burst of laughter, but with that terrible laugh
which had come back to her,—

“Ho! ho! no! ’tis a dream of which you are telling me. Ah, yes! I
lost her, that lasted fifteen years, and then I found her again,
and that lasted a minute! And they would take her from me again!
And now, when she is beautiful, when she is grown up, when she
speaks to me, when she loves me; it is now that they would come
to devour her, before my very eyes, and I her mother! Oh! no!
these things are not possible. The good God does not permit such
things as that.”

Here the cavalcade appeared to halt, and a voice was heard to say
in the distance,—

“This way, Messire Tristan! The priest says that we shall find
her at the Rat-Hole.” The noise of the horses began again.

The recluse sprang to her feet with a shriek of despair. “Fly!
fly! my child! All comes back to me. You are right. It is your
death! Horror! Maledictions! Fly!”

She thrust her head through the window, and withdrew it again
hastily.

“Remain,” she said, in a low, curt, and lugubrious tone, as she
pressed the hand of the gypsy, who was more dead than alive.
“Remain! Do not breathe! There are soldiers everywhere. You
cannot get out. It is too light.”

Her eyes were dry and burning. She remained silent for a moment;
but she paced the cell hurriedly, and halted now and then to
pluck out handfuls of her gray hairs, which she afterwards tore
with her teeth.

Suddenly she said: “They draw near. I will speak with them. Hide
yourself in this corner. They will not see you. I will tell them
that you have made your escape. That I released you, i’ faith!”

She set her daughter (down for she was still carrying her), in
one corner of the cell which was not visible from without. She
made her crouch down, arranged her carefully so that neither foot
nor hand projected from the shadow, untied her black hair which
she spread over her white robe to conceal it, placed in front of
her her jug and her paving stone, the only articles of furniture
which she possessed, imagining that this jug and stone would hide
her. And when this was finished she became more tranquil, and
knelt down to pray. The day, which was only dawning, still left
many shadows in the Rat-Hole.

At that moment, the voice of the priest, that infernal voice,
passed very close to the cell, crying,—

“This way, Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers.”

At that name, at that voice, la Esmeralda, crouching in her
corner, made a movement.

“Do not stir!” said Gudule.

She had barely finished when a tumult of men, swords, and horses
halted around the cell. The mother rose quickly and went to post
herself before her window, in order to stop it up. She beheld a
large troop of armed men, both horse and foot, drawn up on the
Grève.

The commander dismounted, and came toward her.

“Old woman!” said this man, who had an atrocious face, “we are in
search of a witch to hang her; we were told that you had her.”

The poor mother assumed as indifferent an air as she could, and
replied,—

“I know not what you mean.”

The other resumed, “_Tête Dieu!_ What was it that frightened
archdeacon said? Where is he?”

“Monseigneur,” said a soldier, “he has disappeared.”

“Come, now, old madwoman,” began the commander again, “do not
lie. A sorceress was given in charge to you. What have you done
with her?”

The recluse did not wish to deny all, for fear of awakening
suspicion, and replied in a sincere and surly tone,—

“If you are speaking of a big young girl who was put into my
hands a while ago, I will tell you that she bit me, and that I
released her. There! Leave me in peace.”

The commander made a grimace of disappointment. “Don’t lie to me,
old spectre!” said he. “My name is Tristan l’Hermite, and I am
the king’s gossip. Tristan the Hermit, do you hear?” He added, as
he glanced at the Place de Grève around him, “’Tis a name which
has an echo here.”

“You might be Satan the Hermit,” replied Gudule, who was
regaining hope, “but I should have nothing else to say to you,
and I should never be afraid of you.”

“_Tête-Dieu_,” said Tristan, “here is a crone! Ah! So the witch
girl hath fled! And in which direction did she go?” Gudule
replied in a careless tone,—

“Through the Rue du Mouton, I believe.”

Tristan turned his head and made a sign to his troop to prepare
to set out on the march again. The recluse breathed freely once
more.

“Monseigneur,” suddenly said an archer, “ask the old elf why the
bars of her window are broken in this manner.”

This question brought anguish again to the heart of the miserable
mother. Nevertheless, she did not lose all presence of mind.

“They have always been thus,” she stammered.

“Bah!” retorted the archer, “only yesterday they still formed a
fine black cross, which inspired devotion.”

Tristan cast a sidelong glance at the recluse.

“I think the old dame is getting confused!”

The unfortunate woman felt that all depended on her
self-possession, and, although with death in her soul, she began
to grin. Mothers possess such strength.

“Bah!” said she, “the man is drunk. ’Tis more than a year since
the tail of a stone cart dashed against my window and broke in
the grating. And how I cursed the carter, too.”

“’Tis true,” said another archer, “I was there.”

Always and everywhere people are to be found who have seen
everything. This unexpected testimony from the archer
re-encouraged the recluse, whom this interrogatory was forcing to
cross an abyss on the edge of a knife. But she was condemned to a
perpetual alternative of hope and alarm.

“If it was a cart which did it,” retorted the first soldier, “the
stumps of the bars should be thrust inwards, while they actually
are pushed outwards.”

“Hé! hé!” said Tristan to the soldier, “you have the nose of an
inquisitor of the Châtelet. Reply to what he says, old woman.”

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed, driven to bay, and in a voice that
was full of tears in despite of her efforts, “I swear to you,
monseigneur, that ’twas a cart which broke those bars. You hear
the man who saw it. And then, what has that to do with your
gypsy?”

“Hum!” growled Tristan.

“The devil!” went on the soldier, flattered by the provost’s
praise, “these fractures of the iron are perfectly fresh.”

Tristan tossed his head. She turned pale.

“How long ago, say you, did the cart do it?”

“A month, a fortnight, perhaps, monseigneur, I know not.”

“She first said more than a year,” observed the soldier.

“That is suspicious,” said the provost.

“Monseigneur!” she cried, still pressed against the opening, and
trembling lest suspicion should lead them to thrust their heads
through and look into her cell; “monseigneur, I swear to you that
’twas a cart which broke this grating. I swear it to you by the
angels of paradise. If it was not a cart, may I be eternally
damned, and I reject God!”

“You put a great deal of heat into that oath;” said Tristan, with
his inquisitorial glance.

The poor woman felt her assurance vanishing more and more. She
had reached the point of blundering, and she comprehended with
terror that she was saying what she ought not to have said.

Here another soldier came up, crying,—

“Monsieur, the old hag lies. The sorceress did not flee through
the Rue de Mouton. The street chain has remained stretched all
night, and the chain guard has seen no one pass.”

Tristan, whose face became more sinister with every moment,
addressed the recluse,—

“What have you to say to that?”

She tried to make head against this new incident,

“That I do not know, monseigneur; that I may have been mistaken.
I believe, in fact, that she crossed the water.”

“That is in the opposite direction,” said the provost, “and it is
not very likely that she would wish to re-enter the city, where
she was being pursued. You are lying, old woman.”

“And then,” added the first soldier, “there is no boat either on
this side of the stream or on the other.”

“She swam across,” replied the recluse, defending her ground foot
by foot.

“Do women swim?” said the soldier.

“_Tête Dieu!_ old woman! You are lying!” repeated Tristan
angrily. “I have a good mind to abandon that sorceress and take
you. A quarter of an hour of torture will, perchance, draw the
truth from your throat. Come! You are to follow us.”

She seized on these words with avidity.

“As you please, monseigneur. Do it. Do it. Torture. I am willing.
Take me away. Quick, quick! let us set out at once!—During that
time,” she said to herself, “my daughter will make her escape.”