The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [200]
Not fair as is the poplar-tree
But its leaves are green in winter bare.
“Alas! why do I tell you this?
Beauty alone has right to live;
Beauty can only beauty love,
April her back doth turn on January.
“Beauty is perfect,
Beauty wins all,
Beauty alone is lord of all.
“The raven only flies by day,
The owl by night alone doth fly,
The swan by day and night alike may fly.”
One morning, on waking, she saw at her window two vases full of flowers. One was a very beautiful and brilliant but cracked crystal vase. It had let the water with which it was filled escape, and the flowers which it held were withered. The other was an earthen jug, coarse and common; but it had retained all its water, and the flowers were fresh and rosy.
I do not know whether it was done purposely, but Esmeralda took the withered nosegay, and wore it all day in her bosom.
That day she did not hear the voice from the tower singing.
She cared but little. She passed her days in fondling Djali, in watching the door of the Gondelaurier house, in talking to herself about Phœbus, and in scattering crumbs of bread to the swallows.
She had entirely ceased to see or hear Quasimodo; the poor ringer seemed to have vanished from the church. But one night, when she could not sleep, and was thinking of her handsome captain, she heard a sigh close by her cell. Terrified, she rose, and saw by the light of the moon a shapeless mass lying outside across her door. It was Quasimodo sleeping there upon the stones.
CHAPTER V
The Key to the Porte-Rouge
Meantime, public rumor had informed the archdeacon of the miraculous manner in which the gipsy had been saved. When he learned of it, he knew not what he felt. He had accepted the fact of Esmeralda’s death. In this way, he made himself perfectly easy; he had sounded the utmost depths of grief. The human heart (Dom Claude had mused upon these matters) can hold but a certain quantity of despair. When the sponge is thoroughly soaked, the sea may pass over it without adding another drop to it.
Now, Esmeralda being dead, the sponge was soaked. Everything was over for Dom Claude in this world. But to know that she was alive, and Phoebus too, was to endure afresh the torments, shocks, and vicissitudes of life; and Claude was weary of them all.
When he heard this piece of news, he shut himself up in his cloister cell. He did not appear at the chapter meetings or the sacred offices. He barred his door against every one, even the bishop, and remained thus immured for several weeks. He was supposed to be ill, and indeed was so.
What did he do in his seclusion? With what thoughts was the unfortunate man battling? Was he waging a final conflict with his terrible passion? Was he plotting a final plan to kill her and destroy himself?
His Jehan, his adored brother, his spoiled child, came once to his door, knocked, swore, entreated, repeated his name half a score of times. Claude would not open.
He passed whole days with his face glued to his window-panes. From this window, in the cloisters as it was, he could see Esmeralda’s cell. He often saw her, with her goat,—sometimes with Quasimodo. He noticed the attentions of the ugly deaf man,—his obedience, his refined and submissive manners to the gipsy. He recalled, —for he had a good memory, and memory is the plague of the jealous,—he recalled the bell-ringer’s strange look at the dancer on a certain evening. He asked himself what motive could have led Quasimodo to save her. He witnessed countless little scenes between the girl and the deaf man, when their gestures, seen from a distance and commented on by his passion, struck him as very tender. He distrusted women’s whims. Then he vaguely felt awakening within him a jealousy such as he had never imagined possible,—a jealousy which made him blush with rage and shame. “‘Twas bad enough when it was the captain; but this fellow!” The idea overwhelmed him.
His nights were frightful. Since he knew the gipsy girl to be alive, the chill fancies of specters and tombs which had for an entire day beset him, had vanished, and