The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [149]
“Well,” resumed the archdeacon after a fresh pause, which Master Jacques took care not to break, “have you succeeded?”
“Alas! master,” said the other, with a sad smile, “I am still blowing away. As many ashes as I choose; but not a particle of gold.”
Dom Claude made an impatient gesture. “I’m not talking about that, Master Jacques Charmolue, but about the trial of your sorcerer, Marc Cenaine,—wasn’t that what you called him?—the butler to the Court of Accounts. Does he confess his magic? Was the rack successful?”
“Alas! no,” replied Master Jacques, still with the same sad smile, “we have not that consolation. The man is as hard as flint; we might boil him at the Pig-market before he would say a word. And yet, we have spared nothing to get at the truth; all his bones are out of joint already; we have left no stone unturned. As the old comic author, Plautus says:—
‘Advorsum stimulos, laminas, crucesque, compedesque,
Nervos, catenas, carceres, numellas, pedicas, boias.‘cr
All in vain; the man is terrible indeed. I can’t make him out!”
“You’ve not found anything new at his house?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Master Jacques, fumbling in his purse; “this parchment. There are words written on it which we cannot comprehend. And yet the criminal lawyer, Philippe Lheulier, knows a little Hebrew, which he picked up in that affair of the Jews in the Rue Kantersten at Brussels.”
So saying, Master Jacques unrolled a parchment.
“Give it to me,” said the archdeacon. And casting his eyes over the writing, he exclaimed, “Clear magic, Master Jacques! ‘Emen-Hétan!’ that is the cry of the vampires as they appear at their Sabbath. ‘Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso!’—that is the word of command which rechains the devil in hell. ‘Hax, pax, max!’ this belongs to medicine: a prescription against the bite of mad dogs. Master Jacques, you are the king’s attorney to the Ecclesiastical Court. This parchment is an abomination.”
“We will return the man to the rack. Here again,” added Master Jacques, rummaging in his wallet once more, “is something else which we found in Marc Cenaine’s house.”
It was a vessel similar to those which covered Dom Claude’s stove.
“Ah!” said the archdeacon, “an alchemist’s crucible.”
“I must confess,” replied Master Jacques, with his shy, awkward smile, “that I tried it on my furnace, but I succeeded no better than with my own.”
The archdeacon began to examine the vessel.
“What has he inscribed upon his crucible? ‘Och! Och’—the word which drives away fleas! This Marc Cenaine is a dolt! I can easily believe that you will never make gold with this. Put it in your alcove in summer, for that’s all it’s fit for.”
“Talking of mistakes,” said the king’s proxy, “I have just been studying the porch below before I came upstairs; is your reverence very sure that it is the opening of the book of physics which is represented there on the side towards the Hospital; and that, of the seven nude figures at the feet of the Virgin, the one with wings at his heels is meant for Mercury?”
“Yes,” replied the priest; “it is so written by Augustin Nypho, that Italian doctor who had a bearded familiar spirit, which taught him everything. However, we will go down, and I will explain all this to you on the spot.”
“Thanks, master,” said Charmolue, bowing to the ground. “By the way, I forgot! When will it please you to have the little witch arrested?”
“What witch?”
“That gipsy girl whom you know well, who comes every day and dances in the square before the cathedral, despite the official prohibition. She has a goat which is possessed, and which has the devil’s own horns; which reads and writes, and is as good a mathematician as Picatrix, and would be quite enough to hang an entire tribe of gipsies. The papers are ready; the case will be a short one, I warrant! A pretty creature, by my soul,—that dancing-girl! The finest black eyes! Two carbuncles! When shall we begin?”
The archdeacon was extremely