The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [156]
“Here is money to pay her.”
Phœbus felt the stranger’s cold hand slip a large piece of money into his. He could not help taking the money and squeezing the hand.
“By God!” he exclaimed, “you’re a good fellow!”
“One condition,” said the man. “Prove to me that I was wrong, and that you spoke the truth. Hide me in some corner where I can see whether this woman be really she whose name you mentioned.”
“Oh,” answered Phœbus, “with all my heart! We will take Saint Martha’s room; you can look in very easily from the kennel beside it.”
“Come on, then!” said the shadow.
“At your service,” replied the captain. “I don’t know whether or no you are Master Diabolus in propria persona: but let us be good friends for tonight; tomorrow I will pay you all my debts, of purse and sword.”
They set forth at a rapid pace. In a few moments the sound of the river warned them that they stood on Pont Saint-Michel, then covered with houses.
“I will first get you in,” said Phoebus to his companion; “then I will go and fetch my charmer, who was to wait for me near the Petit-Châtelet.”
His comrade made no answer; since they had walked side by side he had not said a word. Phœbus stopped before a low door and knocked loudly; a light appeared through the chinks of the door.
“Who is there?” cried a mumbling voice.
“By Saint Luke’s face! By God’s passion! By the Rood!” answered the captain.
The door opened instantly, and revealed to the new-comers an old woman and an old lamp, both in a very shaky state. The old woman was bent double, dressed in rags; her head shook; she had very small eyes, wore a kerchief on her head, and her hands, face, and neck were covered with wrinkles; her lips retreated under her gums, and she had tufts of white hair all around her mouth, which gave her the demure look of a cat.
The interior of the hovel was as dilapidated as its mistress; there were whitewashed walls, black beams running across the ceiling, a dismantled fireplace, cobwebs in every corner; in the middle of the room stood a rickety collection of tables and chairs; a dirty child played in the ashes; and in the background a staircase, or rather a wooden ladder, led to a trapdoor in the ceiling.
On entering this den Phoebus’s mysterious companion pulled his cloak up to his eyes. But the captain, swearing all the time like a Turk, hastened “to make the sun flash from a crown-piece,” as our all-accomplished Régnier says.
“Saint Martha’s room,” said he.
The old woman treated him like a lord, and put the coin away in a drawer. It was the money which the man in the black cloak had given Phoebus. While her back was turned, the ragged, disheveled little boy who was playing in the ashes went adroitly to the drawer, took out the crown-piece, and put in its place a dried leaf which he had pulled from a fagot.
The old woman beckoned to the two gentlemen, as she called them, to follow her, and climbed the ladder before them. On reaching the upper floor, she placed her lamp upon a chest; and Phoebus, as one familiar with the house, opened a door leading to a dark hole. “Go in there, my dear boy,” said he to his comrade. The man in the cloak obeyed without a word; the door closed behind him; he heard Phoebus bolt it, and a moment after go downstairs again with the old woman. The light had disappeared.
CHAPTER VIII
The Advantage of Windows Overlooking the River
Claude Frollo (for we presume that the reader, more