The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [150]
“I will let you know,” he stammered in a voice which was scarcely articulate; then he added, with an effort, “Devote yourself to Marc Cenaine.”
“Never fear,” said Charmolue, smiling; “I’ll have him restrapped to the leather bed when I go back. But he’s a devil of a fellow; he would tire out Pierrat Torterue himself, and his hands are bigger than mine. As the worthy Plautus says:—
‘Nudus vinctus, centum pondo, es quando pendes per pedes.’cs
The torture of the wheel! That’s the best thing we have. He shall take a turn at that.”
Dom Claude seemed absorbed in gloomy reverie. He turned to Charmolue with the words,—
“Master Pierrat,—Master Jacques, I mean,—devote yourself to Marc Cenaine.”
“Yes, yes, Dom Claude. Poor man! he must have suffered like Mummol. But then, what an idea, to go to the Witches’ Sabbath,—a butler of the Court of Accounts, who must know Charlemagne’s text, ‘Stryga vel masca!’ct As for that little girl,—Smelarda, as they call her,—I will await your orders. Ah! and as we pass through the porch you will also explain to me the meaning of the gardener painted in relief at the entrance to the church. The Sower, isn’t it? Eh! master, what are you thinking about?”
Dom Claude, lost in his own thoughts, did not hear him. Charmolue, following the direction of his gaze saw that it was fixed mechanically upon the large cobweb which covered the window. At this instant a rash fly, in search of the March sun, plunged headlong into the trap and was caught in it. At the vibration of its web the huge spider made a sudden sally from its central cell, and with one bound fell upon the fly, which it doubled up with its front antennæ, while its hideous proboscis dug out the head. “Poor fly!” said the king’s proxy to the Ecclesiastical Court; and he raised his hand to save it. The archdeacon, with a start, held back his arm with convulsive force.
“Master Jacques,” he cried, “do not interfere with the work of Fate!”
The attorney turned in alarm; he felt as if iron pincers had seized his arm. The priest’s eye was fixed, wild, and flaming, and was still fastened upon the horrible little group of the spider and the fly.
“Oh, yes,” added the priest in a voice which seemed to come from his very entrails, “this is a universal symbol. The insect flies about, is happy, is young; it seeks the spring sun, the fresh air, freedom; oh, yes, but it runs against the fatal web; the spider appears,—the hideous spider! Poor dancing-girl! poor predestined fly! Master Jacques, do not interfere! it is the hand of Fate! Alas! Claude, you are the spider. Claude, you are the fly as well! You flew abroad in search of learning, light, and sun; your only desire was to gain the pure air, the broad light of eternal truth; but in your haste to reach the dazzling window which opens into the other world,—the world of intellect, light, and learning,—blind fly! senseless doctor! you failed to see that subtle spider’s web woven by Fate between the light and you; you plunged headlong into it, wretched fool! and now you struggle in its meshes, with bruised head and broken wings, in the iron grasp of destiny. Master Jacques, Master Jacques, let the spider do its work!“14 “I assure you,” said Charmolue, looking at him uncomprehend ingly, ”I will not touch it. But for mercy’s sake, master, let go my arm! Your hand is like a pair of pincers.”
The archdeacon did not hear him. “Oh, madman!” he resumed, without taking his eyes from the window. “And if you could have broken this dreadful web with your frail wings, do you think you could have reached the light? Alas! how could you have passed that pane of glass beyond it,—that transparent obstacle, that crystal wall harder than iron, which separates all philosophy from truth? Oh, vanity of science! How many sages have flown from afar to bruise their heads against it! How many contending systems have rushed pell-mell against that everlasting pane of glass!”
He ceased speaking. These last ideas, which had insensibly diverted his thoughts from himself to science, seemed to have calmed him. Jacques Charmolue completely