Текст книги "Собор Парижской богоматери / Notre-Dame de Paris"

Place de Grève was bordered on one side by the quay, and on the other three by a series of narrow and gloomy houses. By day, one could admire the variety of its edifices, all sculptured in stone or wood, presenting complete specimens of the different domestic architectures of the Middle Ages, running back from the fifteenth to the eleventh century. At night, one could distinguish nothing of all that mass of buildings, except the black indentation of the roofs, unrolling their chain of acute angles round the place.

When Pierre Gringoire arrived on the Place de Grève, he was paralyzed. He had directed his course across the Pont aux Meuniers, in order to avoid the crowd; but the wheels of all the bishop’s mills had splashed him as he passed, and he was drenched. Hence he went to draw near the bonfire, which was burning magnificently in the middle of the Place. But a considerable crowd formed a circle around it.

“Accursed Parisians!” he said to imself, “there they are obstructing my fire! Nevertheless, I am greatly in need of warmth. Move aside! I’d like to know what they are doing there!”

On looking more closely, he saw that the circle was much larger than was required simply for the purpose of getting warm.

In a vast space between the crowd and the fire, a young girl was dancing.

Gringoire was fascinated.

She was not tall. Her skin possessed a beautiful golden tone of the Andalusians and the Roman women. She danced, she turned, she whirled rapidly about on an old Persian rug, and each time her radiant face passed before you, as she whirled, her great black eyes darted a flash of lightning at you.

She was a supernatural creature.

“In truth,” said Gringoire to himself, “she is a nymph, she is a goddess!”

At that moment, one of girl’s braids of hair became unfastened, and a piece of yellow copper which was attached to it, rolled to the ground.

“No!” said he, “she is a gypsy!”

All illusions had disappeared.

Disenchanted though Gringoire was, the whole picture was not without its charm and its magic; the bonfire illuminated, with a red flaring light, which trembled, all alive, over the circle of faces in the crowd and on the young girl.

Among the thousands of faces which that light tinged with scarlet, there was one which seemed, even more than all the others, absorbed in contemplation of the dancer. It was the face of a man, calm, and sombre. This man, whose costume was concealed by the crowd, did not appear to be more than thirty five years of age; his broad, high forehead had begun to be furrowed with wrinkles, but his deep-set eyes sparkled with extraordinary youthfulness. He kept them fixed on the gypsy. From time to time, he would a smile and let out a sigh.

The young girl, stopped, breathless, and the people applauded her lovingly.

“Djali!” said the gypsy.

Then Gringoire saw a pretty little white goat come up to her.

“Djali!” said the dancer, “it is your turn.”

And, seating herself, she gracefully presented her tambourine to the goat.

“Djali,” she continued, “what month is this?”

The goat lifted its fore foot, and struck one blow upon the tambourine. It was the first month in the year, in fact.

“Djali,” pursued the young girl, turning her tambourine round, “what day of the month is this?”

Djali raised his little gilt hoof, and struck six blows on the tambourine.

The people were amazed.

“There’s sorcery at the bottom of it,” said a sinister voice in the crowd. It was that of the man, who never removed his eyes from the gypsy.

She continued to question her goat.

“Djali, what does Master Guichard Grand-Remy, captain of the pistoliers of the town do, at the procession of Candlemas?”

Djali reared himself on his hind legs, and began to bleat, marching along with so much dainty gravity, that the entire circle of spectators burst into a laugh at this parody of the interested devoutness of the captain of pistoliers.

The crowd applauded louder than ever.

“Sacrilege!” resumed the voice of the bald man.

The gypsy turned around.

“Ah!” said she, “’tis that villanous man!” Then she executed a pirouette on her heel, and set about[4]4
  set about – отправилась


[Закрыть] collecting in her tambourine the gifts of the multitude.

Money showered into it.

All at once, she passed in front of Gringoire. Gringoire put his hand into his pocket to find it empty. The pretty girl stood there, waiting.

An unexpected incident came to his rescue.

“Will you take yourself off, you Egyptian grasshopper?” cried a sharp voice.

The young girl turned round. It was no longer the voice of the bald man; it was the voice of a woman.

Gringoire had taken advantage of the dancer’s embarrassment to disappear.

It is an unpleasant thing to go to bed without supper, it is a still less pleasant thing not to eat and not to know where to sleep. That was Gringoire’s condition. No supper, no shelter.

This melancholy was absorbing him more and more, when a song suddenly tore him from it. It was the young gypsy who was singing.

Her voice was like her dancing, like her beauty. It was indefinable and charming. The words which she sang were in a tongue unknown to Gringoire. He felt the tears in his eyes. Her song breathed joy, most of all.

The same woman’s voice interrupted the song.

“Will you hold your tongue, you cricket of hell?” it cried, still from the same obscure corner of the place.

The poor “cricket” stopped short. Gringoire covered up his ears.

At this moment the attention has been diverted by the procession of the Pope of the Fools, which, after having traversed many streets and squares, came to the Place de Grève.

It is difficult to convey an idea of what Quasimodo had felt. It was the first enjoyment of self-love that he had ever experienced. To that day, he had known only humiliation, disdain, disgust.

At the very moment when Quasimodo was passing the Pillar House, a man darted from the crowd to tear from his hands, with a gesture of anger, his crosier of gilded wood – the emblem of his mock popeship.

This man was the man with the bald brow, who, a moment earlier, chilled the poor gypsy with his words of hatred. Gringoire, who had not noticed him up to that time, recognized him: “Hold!” he said. “’tis my master, Dom Claude Frollo, the archdeacon! What the devil does he want of that old one-eyed fellow?”

A cry of terror arose, in fact. Quasimodo threw himself from the plank. He leaped to the priest, looked at him, and fell upon his knees.

The priest tore off his tiara, broke his crozier, and rent his tinsel cope.

Quasimodo remained on his knees, with head bent and hands clasped. Then there was a strange dialogue of signs and gestures, for neither of them spoke.

The archdeacon gave Quasimodo a powerful shake, made him a sign to rise and follow him.

Quasimodo rose and walked in front of him.

Both were allowed to plunge into a dark and narrow street, where no one dared to go after them.

Gringoire set out to follow the gypsy at all hazards. He had seen her, accompanied by her goat, take to the Rue de la Coutellerie.

“Why not?” he said to himself.

He walked along, very thoughtfully, behind the young girl. She hastened her pace and made her goat trot.

“After all,” he half thought to himself, “she must lodge somewhere; gypsies have kind hearts. Who knows?—”

The streets were becoming blacker and more deserted every moment. The curfew had sounded long ago. Gringoire had become involved, in his pursuit of the gypsy, in the labyrinth of alleys, squares, and closed courts.

The young girl’s attention had been attracted to him for the last few moments; she had repeatedly turned her head towards him with uneasiness.

He dropped his head, began to count the paving-stones, and tried to follow the young girl at a little greater distance, when, at the turn of a street, which had caused him to lose sight of her, he heard her utter a piercing cry.

He hastened his steps.

The street was full of shadows. Nevertheless, he saw the gypsy struggling in the arms of two men. The poor little goat, in great alarm, lowered his horns and bleated.

“Help! Gentlemen of the watch[5]5
  gentlemen of the watch – стража


[Закрыть]!” shouted Gringoire, and advanced bravely. One of the men who held the young girl turned towards him. It was Quasimodo.

Gringoire did not take to flight, but neither did he advance another step.

Quasimodo came up to him, tossed him four paces away on the pavement with a backward turn of the hand, and plunged rapidly into the gloom, bearing the young girl folded across one arm like a silken scarf. His companion followed him, and the poor goat ran after them all, bleating.

“Murder! Murder!” shrieked the unhappy gypsy.

“Halt, rascals, and give me that wench!” suddenly shouted in a voice of thunder.

It was a captain of the king’s archers, armed from head to foot, with his sword in his hand.

He tore the gypsy from the arms of the dazed Quasimodo, threw her across his saddle, and at the moment when the terrible hunchback, recovering from his surprise, rushed upon him to regain his prey, fifteen or sixteen archers, who followed their captain closely, made their appearance, with their two-edged swords in their fists.

Quasimodo was surrounded; he roared, he foamed at the mouth, he bit. His companion had disappeared during the struggle.

The gypsy gracefully raised herself upright upon the officer’s saddle, placed both hands upon the young man’s shoulders, and gazed fixedly at him for several seconds, as though enchanted with his good looks and with the aid which he had just rendered her. Then breaking silence first, she said to him, making her sweet voice still sweeter than usual,—

“What is your name, monsieur le gendarme?”

“Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers, at your service, my beauty!” replied the officer, drawing himself up.

“Thank you,” said she.

And then she slipped from the horse, like an arrow falling to earth, and fled. A flash of lightning would have vanished less quickly.

Gringoire, thoroughly stunned by his fall, remained on the pavement. Little by little, he regained his senses.

“That devil of a hunchbacked cyclops!” he muttered between his teeth; and he tried to rise. But he was too much dazed and bruised; he was forced to remain where he was.

“The mud of Paris,” he said to himself—for decidedly he thought that he was sure that the gutter would prove his refuge for the night; and what can one do in a refuge, except dream?—“the mud of Paris is particularly stinking; it must contain a great deal of volatile and nitric salts. That, moreover, is the opinion of Master Nicholas Flamel, and of the alchemists—”

The word alchemists suddenly suggested to his mind the idea of Archdeacon Claude Frollo. He recalled the violent scene which he had just witnessed in part; that the gypsy was struggling with two men, that Quasimodo had a companion. “That would be strange!” he said to himself.

The place was becoming less and less tenable.

A group of children rushed towards the square where Gringoire lay, with shouts and laughter. They were dragging after them some sort of hideous sack.

“Ohé, Hennequin Dandèche! Ohé, Jehan Pincebourde!” they shouted in deafening tones, “old Eustache Moubon, the merchant at the corner, has just died. We’ve got his straw pallet, we’re going to have a bonfire out of it. It’s the turn of the Flemish to-day!”

They flung the pallet directly upon Gringoire. At the same time, one of them took a handful of straw and set off to light it at the wick of the good Virgin.

“S’death!” growled Gringoire, “am I going to be too warm now?”

It was a critical moment. He was caught between fire and water; he made a superhuman effort, the effort of a counterfeiter of money who is on the point of being boiled, and who seeks to escape. He rose to his feet, flung aside the straw pallet upon the street urchins, and fled.

“Holy Virgin!” shrieked the children; “’tis the merchant’s ghost!”

And they fled in their turn.

After having run for some time at the top of his speed, without knowing where, our poet finally stopped.

He continued to advance at a slower pace. Soon he saw legless cripple in a bowl, who was hopping along on his two hands like a wounded field-spider which has but two legs left. At the moment when he passed close to this species of spider with a human countenance, it raised towards him a lamentable voice: “La buona mancia, signor! la buona mancia![6]6
  «Подайте немного денег, сеньор! Немного денег!»


[Закрыть]”

He overtook a man with crutches and wooden legs. This living tripod saluted him as he passed, but stopping his hat on a level with Gringoire’s chin, like a shaving dish, while he shouted in the latter’s ears: “Señor cabellero, para comprar un pedaso de pan![7]7
  «Сеньор, подайте на кусок хлеба.»


[Закрыть]”

For the third time something barred his way. This something or, rather, someone was a blind man, who droned through his nose with a Hungarian accent: “Facitote caritatem!”

“Well, now,” said Gringoire, “here’s one at last who speaks a Christian tongue. My friend,” and he turned towards the blind man, “I sold my last shirt last week.”

That said, he turned his back upon the blind man, and continued to walk. But then all three came up to him in great haste and began to sing their song to him.

Gringoire set out to run. The blind man ran! The lame man ran! The cripple in the bowl ran!

And then they swarmed about him, and men with one arm, and with one eye, and the leprous with their sores, some emerging from little adjacent streets, howling and bellowing. This whole legion had closed in behind him, and his three beggars held him fast.

Tehy reached the end of the street. It opened upon an immense place, with a thousand scattered lights. Gringoire continued walking, hoping to escape.

“Onde vas, hombre?” (Where are you going, my man?) cried the cripple, flinging away his crutches, and running after him.

In the meantime the legless man, erect upon his feet, crowned Gringoire with his heavy iron bowl.

“Where am I?” said the terrified poet.

“In the Court of Miracles,” replied a fourth spectre.

Cour des Miracles was a city of thieves, a hideous wart on the face of Paris; a sewer, from which escaped every morning, and whither returned every night to crouch, a stream of vices; a lying hospital where the ne’er-do-wells of all nations, beggars by day, were transformed by night into brigands.

It was a vast place, irregular and badly paved. Fires, around which swarmed strange groups, blazed here and there. Every one was going, coming, and shouting.

It was like a new world, unknown, unheard of, misshapen, creeping, swarming, fantastic.

At that moment, a distinct cry arose. “Let’s take him to the king! Let’s take him to the king!”

“To the king! to the king!” repeated all voices.

They dragged him off to the great fire.

Near the fire was a hogshead, and on the hogshead a beggar. This was the king on his throne.

The three who had Gringoire in their clutches led him in front of this hogshead, and the entire place fell silent for a moment.

Gringoire dared neither breathe nor raise his eyes.

The king addressed him, from the summit of his cask,—

“Who is this rogue?”

Gringoire shuddered. That voice made him recall to him another voice, which, that very morning, had dealt the deathblow to his mystery. He raised his head. It was indeed Clopin Trouillefou.

Gringoire, without knowing why, had regained some hope, on recognizing his accursed mendicant of the Grand Hall.

“Master,” stammered he; “monseigneur—sire—how ought I to address you?”

“Monseigneur, his majesty, or comrade, call me what you please. But make haste. What do you have to say in your own defence?”

“In your own defence?” thought Gringoire, “that displeases me.” He resumed, stuttering, “I am he, who this morning—”

“By the devil’s claws!” interrupted Clopin, “Listen. You have violated the privileges of our city. You must be punished unless you are a capon, a franc-mitou or a rifodé; that is to say, in the slang of honest folks,—a thief, a beggar, or a vagabond. Are you anything of that sort? Justify yourself; announce your titles.”

“Alas!” said Gringoire, “I have not that honor. I am the author—”

“That is sufficient,” resumed Trouillefou, without permitting him to finish. “You are going to be hanged. ’Tis a very simple matter, gentlemen and honest bourgeois! as you treat our people in your abode, so we treat you in ours! The law which you apply to vagabonds, vagabonds apply to you. ’Tis your fault if it is harsh.”

“Messeigneurs, emperors, and kings,” said Gringoire coolly, “don’t think of such a thing; my name is Pierre Gringoire. I am the poet whose morality was presented this morning in the grand hall of the Courts.”

“Ah! so it was you, master!” said Clopin. “I was there, par la tête Dieu! Well! comrade, is that any reason, because you bored us to death this morning, that you should not be hung this evening?”

“I shall find difficulty in getting out of it,” said Gringoire to himself. Nevertheless, he made one more effort: “I don’t see why poets are not classed with vagabonds,” said he. “Vagabond, Aesopus certainly was; Homerus was a beggar; Mercurius was a thief—”

Clopin interrupted him: “I believe that you are trying to blarney us with your jargon. Zounds! let yourself be hung, and don’t kick up such a row over it!”

“Pardon me, monseigneur, the King of Thunes,” replied Gringoire. “It is worth trouble—One moment!—Listen to me—You are not going to condemn me without having heard me—”

His voice was drowned in the uproar which rose around him.

In the meantime, Clopin Trouillefou appeared to hold a momentary conference with the Duke of Egypt, and the Emperor of Galilee. After a while, he turned to Gringoire.

“Listen,” said he; “I don’t see why you should not be hung. It is true that it appears to be repugnant to you; and it is very natural, for you bourgeois are not accustomed to it. After all, we don’t wish you any harm. Will you become one of us?”

“Certainly I will,” said Gringoire

“Do you consent,” resumed Clopin, “to enroll yourself among the people of the knife?”

“Of the knife, precisely,” responded Gringoire.

“You recognize yourself as a member of the free bourgeoisie?” added the King of Thunes.

“Of the free bourgeoisie.”

“Subject of the Kingdom of Argot[8]8
  Kingdom of Argot – воры


[Закрыть]?”

“Of the Kingdom of Argot.”

“A vagabond?”

“A vagabond.”

“In your soul?”

“In my soul.”

“I must call your attention to the fact,” continued the king, “that you will be hung all the same.”

“The devil!” said the poet.

“Only,” continued Clopin imperturbably, “you will be hung later on, with more ceremony, at the expense of the good city of Paris, on a handsome stone gibbet, and by honest men. That is a consolation.”

“Just so,” responded Gringoire.

Clopin made a sign. Several thieves brought two thick posts connected with a beam at the top. A rope was swinigng gracefully over the beam.

“What are they going to do?” Gringoire asked himself with some uneasiness. A sound of bells, which he heard at that moment, put an end to his anxiety; it was a stuffed manikin, which the vagabonds were suspending by the neck from the rope, hung with bells. Clopin, pointing out to Gringoire a rickety old stool placed beneath the manikin,—“Climb up there.”

“Death of the devil!” objected Gringoire; “I shall break my neck.”

“Climb!” repeated Clopin.

Gringoire mounted the stool, and succeeded.

“Now,” went on the King of Thunes, “twist your right foot round your left leg, and rise on the tip of your left foot. You are to rise on tiptoe, as I tell you; reach the pocket of the manikin and pull out the purse that is there,—and if you do all this without our hearing the sound of a bell, all is well: you shall be a vagabond.”

“And if the bells makes a sound?”

“Then you will be hanged.”

“And if there should come a gust of wind?”

“You will be hanged.”

Gringoire raised himself on his left foot, and stretched out his arm: but at the moment when his hand touched the manikin, he lost his balance, and fell heavily to the ground.

“Pick him up and hang him without ceremony.” said Clopin.

At that moment a cry arose among the thieves: “La Esmeralda! La Esmeralda!”

The crowd opened, and gave passage to a pure and dazzling form.

It was the gypsy.

“La Esmeralda!” said Gringoire.

She approached the victim with her light step. Her pretty Djali followed her.

“You are going to hang this man?” she said gravely, to Clopin.

“Yes, sister,” replied the King of Thunes, “unless you will take him for your husband.”

“I’ll take him,” said she.

Gringoire firmly believed that he had been in a dream ever since morning, and that this was the continuation of it.

The Duke of Egypt brought an earthenware crock, without uttering a word. The gypsy offered it to Gringoire: “Fling it on the ground,” said she.

The crock broke into four pieces.

“Brother,” then said the Duke of Egypt, laying his hands upon their foreheads, “she is your wife; sister, he is your husband for four years. Go.”