The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [121]
“The Vesle,” replied Mahiette, with a melancholy smile, “is the river.”
“Poor Chantefleurie!” said Oudarde, with a shudder; “drowned!”
“Drowned!” returned Mahiette; “and who could have told good father Guybertaut, when he floated down the river beneath the Pont de Tinquex, singing in his boat, that his dear little Paquette would one day pass under that same bridge, but without boat or song?”
“And the little shoe?” asked Gervaise.
“It disappeared with the mother,” replied Mahiette.
“Poor little shoe!” said Oudarde.
Oudarde, a fat and tender-hearted woman, would have been quite content to sigh in company with Mahiette; but Gervaise, who was more curious, had not come to the end of her questions.
“And the monster?” she suddenly said to Mahiette.
“What monster?” asked the latter.
“The little gipsy monster left by the witches in Chantefleurie’s room in exchange for her daughter. What did you do with it? I really hope you drowned it too.”
“Not a bit of it,” replied Mahiette.
“What! You burned it then? After all, that was better. A sorcerer’s child!”
“Nor that either, Gervaise. My lord the archbishop took an interest in the gipsy child; he exorcised it, blessed it, carefully took the devil out of the boy’s body, and sent him to Paris to be exposed upon the wooden bed at Notre-Dame, as a foundling.”
“These bishops,” grumbled Gervaise, “never do anything like other people, just because they are so learned. Just think, Oudarde, of putting the devil among the foundlings! For that little monster is sure to have been the devil. Well, Mahiette, what did they do with him in Paris! I’m sure no charitable person would take him.”
“I don’t know,” replied the native of Rheims; “it was just at that very time that my husband bought the clerk’s office at Beru, two leagues away from town, and we thought no more about the matter; particularly as near Beru there are the two hills of Cernay, which quite hide the spires of the Rheims cathedral.”
While talking thus, the three worthy women had reached the Place de Grève. In their preoccupation, they had passed the public breviary of the Tour-Roland without stopping, and were proceeding mechanically towards the pillory, around which the crowd increased momentarily. Probably the sight which at this instant attracted every eye would have made them completely forget the Rat-Hole, and the visit which they meant to pay, if the sturdy six-year-old Eustache, whom Mahiette led by the hand, had not suddenly reminded them of it by saying, as if some instinct warned him that the Rat-Hole lay behind him, “Mother, may I eat the cake now?”
Had Eustache been more crafty, that is to say less greedy, he would have waited still longer, and would not have risked the timid question, “Mother, may I eat the cake now?” until they were safe at home again, at Master Andry Musnier’s house, in the University, in the Rue Madame-la-Valence, when both branches of the Seine and the five bridges of the City would have been between the Rat-Hole and the cake.
This same question, a very rash one at the time that Eustache asked it, roused Mahiette’s attention.
“By the way,” she exclaimed, “we are forgetting the recluse! Show me your Rat-Hole, that I may carry her my cake.”
“Directly,” said Oudarde. “It’s a true charity.”
This was not at all to Eustache’s liking.
“Oh, my cake! my cake!” he whined, hunching up first one shoulder and then the other,—always a sign of extreme displeasure in such cases.
The three women retraced their steps, and as they approached the Tour-Roland, Oudarde said to the other two:—
“It will never do for all three of us to peep in at the hole at once, lest we should frighten the sachette. You two must pretend to be reading the Lord’s Prayer in the breviary while I put my nose in at the window; she knows me slightly. I’ll tell you when to come.”
She went to the window alone. As soon as she looked in, profound pity was expressed in every feature, and her bright frank face changed color as quickly as if it had passed from sunlight into moonlight; her eyes grew moist, her mouth quivered