The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [195]
She listened with deep emotion. A tear sparkled in the bell-ringer’s eye, but it did not fall. He seemed to make it a point of honor to repress it.
“Listen,” he resumed, when he no longer feared lest that tear should flow; “we have very tall towers here; a man who fell from them would be dead long before he touched the pavement; whenever it would please you to have me fall, you need not even say a single word; one glance will be enough.”
Then he rose. This peculiar being, unhappy though the gipsy was, yet roused a feeling of compassion in her heart. She signed him to stay.
“No, no,” said he, “I must not stay too long. I am not at my ease. It is out of pity that you do not turn away your eyes. I will go where I can see you without your seeing me. That will be better.”
He drew from his pocket a small metal whistle.
“There,” said he, “when you need me, when you wish me to come to you, when I do not horrify you too much, whistle with this. I hear that sound.”
He laid the whistle on the ground, and fled.
CHAPTER IV
Earthenware and Crystal
One day followed another.
Calm gradually returned to Esmeralda’s soul. Excess of grief, like excess of joy, is a violent thing, and of brief duration. The heart of man cannot long remain at any extreme. The gipsy had suffered so much that surprise was the only emotion of which she was now capable. With security, hope had returned. She was far away from society, far from life, but she vaguely felt that it might not perhaps be impossible to return to them. She was like one dead, yet holding in reserve the key to her tomb.
She felt the terrible images which had so long possessed her fading gradually away. All the hideous phantoms, Pierrat Torterue, Jacques Charmolue, had vanished from her mind,—all, even the priest himself.
And then, too, Phœbus lived; she was sure of it; she had seen him. To her, the life of Phoebus was all in all. After the series of fatal shocks which had laid waste her soul, but one thing was left standing, but one sentiment,—her love for the captain. Love is like a tree; it grows spontaneously, strikes its roots deep into our whole being, and often continues to flourish over a heart in ruins.
And the inexplicable part of it is, that the blinder this passion, the more tenacious it is. It is never stronger than when it is utterly unreasonable.
Undoubtedly Esmeralda’s thoughts of the captain were tinged with bitterness. Undoubtedly it was frightful that he too should have been deceived, he who should have deemed such a thing impossible,—that he should have believed the stab to come from her, who would have given a thousand lives for him. But, after all, she must not blame him too severely; had she not confessed her crime? Had she not, weak woman that she was, yielded to torture? The fault was wholly hers. She should have let them tear out every nail rather than wrest a single word from her. Well, could she but see Phœbus once more, for one moment only, it would need but a word, a look, to undeceive him, to bring him back. She had no doubts in the matter. She also strove to account to herself for various strange facts,—for the accident of Phœbus’s presence on the day of her doing penance, and for the young girl with whom he was. Probably she was his sister. An improbable explanation, but one with which she contented herself, because she needed to believe that Phœbus still loved her, and loved her alone. Had he not sworn it to her? What more did she want, simple, credulous girl that she was? And then, in this business, were not appearances much more against her than against him? She therefore waited; she hoped.
Let us add that the church, that vast church which surounded her on every side, which guarded her, which preserved her, was itself a sovereign balm. The solemn lines of its architecture, the religious attitude