The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [151]
The archdeacon shook his head with a bitter smile:
“Master Jacques, read Michel Psellus, ‘Dialogues de Energia et Operatione Dæmonum.’cu Our work is not altogether innocent.”
“Not so loud, master! I fear you are right,” said Charmolue. “But I must needs dabble a little in hermetics, being only the king’s proxy to the Ecclesiastical Court, at a salary of thirty Tours crowns a year. But speak lower.”
At this moment the sound of champing and chewing proceeding from under the stove, attracted Charmolue’s anxious ear.
“What was that?” he asked.
It was the student, who, greatly cramped and much bored in his hiding-place, had contrived to find an old crust of bread and a bit of mouldy cheese, and had set to work to devour them without more ado, by the way of consolation and of breakfast. As he was ravenously hungry, he made a great deal of noise, and smacked his lips loudly over every mouthful as to give the alarm to the lawyer.
“It is my cat,” said the archdeacon, hastily, “feasting under there upon some mouse.”
This explanation satisfied Charmolue.
“Indeed, master,” he replied with a respectful smile, “every philosopher has had his familiar animal. You know what Servius says: ‘Nullus enim locus sine genio est.’”cv
But Dom Claude, who feared some fresh outbreak from Jehan, reminded his worthy disciple that they had certain figures on the porch to study together; and the two left the cell, to the great relief of the student, who began seriously to fear that his knees would leave their permanent mark upon his chin.
CHAPTER VI
The Effect Produced by Seven Oaths in the Public Square
The Deum laudamus!” cried Master Jehan, as he stepped from his hiding-place; ”the two screech-owls have gone. Och! och! Hax! pax! max! the fleas! the mad dogs! the devil! I’ve had enough of their talk! My head rings like a belfry. Mouldy cheese into the bargain! Now, then! let us be off; let us take our big brother’s purse, and convert all these coins into bottles!”
He cast a look of tenderness and admiration into the interior of the precious purse, adjusted his dress, wiped his boots, dusted his poor shoulder-pads all grey with ashes, whistled a tune, frisked about, looked to see if there was nothing left in the cell which he might carry off, scraped up a few glass charms and trinkets from the top of the stove, thinking he might pass them off upon Isabeau la Thierrye for jewels, then gave a push to the door, which his brother had left ajar as a final favor, and which he left open in his turn as a final piece of mischief, and hopped down the winding stairs as nimbly as a bird.
In the midst of the shadows of the spiral staircase he elbowed something which moved aside with a growl; he took it for granted that it was Quasimodo, and this struck him as so droll that he held his sides with laughter all the rest of the way down. As he came out into the public square, he was still laughing.
He stamped his foot when he found himself on solid ground once more. “Oh,” said he, “good and honorable pavement of Paris! Cursed stairs, which would put all the angels of Jacob’s ladder out of breath! What was I thinking of when I poked myself into that stone gimlet which pierces the sky; and all to eat musty cheese, and to see the steeples of Paris through a garret window!”
He walked on a few paces, and saw the two screech-owls—that is to say, Dom Claude and Master Jacques Charmolue—lost in contemplation of a bit of carving on the porch. He approached them on tiptoe, and heard the archdeacon say in a very low voice to Charmolue, “It was Guillaume de Paris who had a Job graven on that lapis-lazuli colored stone, gilded at the edges. Job represents the philosopher’s stone, which must also be tried and tortured before it can become perfect, as Raymond Lulle says: ‘Sub conservatione formæ specifice salva anima.”’cw
“That’s all one to me,” said Jehan. “‘Tis I who hold the purse.”
At this instant he heard a loud ringing