The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [190]
“Bark, Grève, growl, Grève!
Spin, spin, my spindle brave,
For the hangman spin a cord,
As he whistles in the prison yard,
Bark, Grève, growl, Grève!
“The lovely hempen cord forevermore!
Sow from Issy e‘en to Vanvre’s shore
Hemp, and never of corn a grain.
No thief will ever steal for gain
The lovely hempen cord.
“Growl, Grève, bark, Grève!
To see the wanton and the knave
Hanging on the gallows high,
Every window is an eye.
Growl, Grève, bark, Grève!”
Hereupon the young man laughed, and caressed the girl. The old woman was La Falourdel; the girl was a woman of the town; the young man was his brother Jehan.
He continued to gaze. As well this sight as another.
He saw Jehan go to a window at the back of the room, open it, cast a glance at the quay, where countless lighted windows gleamed in the distance, and he heard him say, as he closed the window,—
“By my soul! it is night already. The citizens have lighted their candles, and the good God his stars.”
Then Jehan went back to the girl and broke a bottle which stood on the table, exclaiming,—
“Empty already, by Jove! and I have no more money! Isabeau, my love, I shall never feel content with Jupiter until he turns your two white breasts into two black bottles, whence I may suck Beaune wine night and day.”
This witticism made the girl laugh, and Jehan sallied forth.
Dom Claude had barely time to throw himself on the ground, lest he should be encountered, looked in the face, and recognized by his brother. Luckily, the street was dark, and the student was drunk. However, he noticed the archdeacon lying on the pavement in the mire.
“Ho! ho!” said he; “here’s a fellow who has led a jolly life today.”
With his foot he stirred Dom Claude, who held his breath.
“Dead drunk,” continued Jehan. “Well, he is full,—a regular leech dropped from a cask because he can suck no more. He is bald,” he added, stooping; “he is an old man! Fortunate senex!”dk
Then Dom Claude heard him move off, saying,—
“All the same, reason is a fine thing, and my brother the archdeacon is very lucky to be both wise and rich.”
The archdeacon then rose, and ran at full speed in the direction of Notre-Dame, whose enormous towers rose before him in the darkness above the surrounding houses.
When, quite breathless, he reached the square in front of the cathedral, he shrank back, and dared not raise his eyes to the fatal building.
“Oh,” said he in a low tone, “is it indeed true that such a thing can have occurred here today,—this very morning?”
Still he ventured to look at the church. The front was dark; the sky behind it glittered with stars. The crescent moon, which had just risen above the horizon, had that instant paused at the summit of the right-hand tower, and seemed to have perched, like a luminous bird, on the edge of the railing, which was cut into black trefoils.
The cloister door was closed, but the archdeacon always carried about him the key to the tower in which was his laboratory. He now used it to let himself into the church.
Inside, all was gloomy and silent as the tomb. By the heavy shadows falling on all sides in broad masses, he knew that the hangings put up for the morning’s ceremonies had not yet been removed. The great silver cross gleamed through the darkness, dotted with sparkling points of light, like the milky way of this sepulchral night. The long choir windows showed the tops of their pointed arches above the black drapery, the panes, traversed by a moonbeam, wearing only the doubtful colors of the night,—a sort of violet, white, and blue, in tints which are found nowhere else save on the face of the dead. The archdeacon, seeing these pale points of arches all around the choir, fancied that he beheld the miters of bishops who had been damned. He shut his eyes, and when he reopened them, he imagined that there was a circle of ashen faces gazing at him.
He fled across the church. Then it seemed to him that the church, too, moved, stirred, breathed, and lived; that each big column became a monstrous leg, which pawed the ground with its broad