The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [210]
The dripping-pan, in which a shower of fat from the spit was crackling, filled up with its constant sputtering the intervals in the endless dialogues going on from one side of the hall to the other.
Amidst this uproar, a philosopher sat at the back of the room on the bench in the chimney-place, musing, with his feet in the ashes and his eyes on the burning brands; it was Pierre Gringoire.
“Come! make haste, arm yourselves! We march in an hour!” said Clopin Trouillefou to his Men of Slang.
A girl hummed,—
“Good-night, mamma; good-night, my sire;
Who sits up last, rakes down the fire.”
Two card-players disputed together.
“Knave,” cried the redder-faced of the two, shaking his fist at the other, “I will mark you with the club; then you can take the place of the knave of clubs in the king’s own pack of cards.”
“Ouf!” roared a Norman, readily to be recognized by his nasal twang; “we are crowded together here like so many saints at Cail louville!”
“Boys,” said the Duke of Egypt to his followers, speaking in falsetto tones, “the witches of France attend their Sabbath without broomstick, or ointment, or any steed, merely by uttering a few magical words. Italian witches always keep a goat waiting for them at the door. All are obliged to go up the chimney.”
The voice of the young scamp armed from head to foot rose above the uproar.
“Noël! Noël!” he shouted. “Today I wear armor the for first time. A Vagrant! I am a Vagrant, by Christ’s wounds! Give me drink! Friends, my name is Jehan Frollo du Moulin, and I am a gentleman born. It is my opinion that if God himself were a gendarme, he would turn plunderer. Brothers, we are about to go on a fine expedition. We are valiant fellows. Assault the church, break open the doors, carry off the lovely damsel in distress, save her from her judges, save her from the priests; dismantle the cloisters, burn the bishop in his palace. We’ll do all this in less time than it takes a burgomaster to eat a spoonful of soup. Our cause is just; we will strip Notre-Dame, and that’s the end of it. We’ll hang Quasimodo. Do you know Quasimodo, ladies? Did you ever see him ring the big bell of a Whit-Sunday until he was out of breath? My word! it’s a lovely sight! He looks like a devil astride of a great gaping pair of jaws. Friends, listen to me. I am a Vagrant to my heart’s core; I am a Man of Slang in my inmost soul; I was born a Cadger. I have been very rich, and I’ve devoured my fortune. My mother meant to make a soldier of me; my father, a sub-deacon; my aunt, a member of the Court of Inquiry; my grandmother, prothonotary to the king; my great-aunt, a paymaster in the army; but I,—I turned Vagrant. I told my father that I had made my choice, and be hurled a curse at my head; and my mother,—she, poor old lady, fell to weeping and sputtering, like that log on the fire. A short life and a merry one, say I! I am as good as a whole houseful of lunatics! Landlady, my darling, more wine! I’ve money enough still to pay for it. No more Surène wine for me; it frets my throat. Zounds! I’d as soon gargle myself with a swarm of bees!”
Meantime, the rabble applauded his words with shouts of laughter; and seeing that the tumult about him increased, the student exclaimed: —
“Oh, what a delightful confusion! Populi debacchantis populosa debacchatio!”dn Then he began to sing, his eye rolling in feigned ecstasy, in the voice of a canon intoning vespers: “Quœ cantica! quœ organa! quœ cantilenœ! quœ melodiœ hic sine fine decantantur! Sonant melliflua hymnorum organa, suavissima angelorum melodia cantica canticorum mira—”do He stopped short: “Here, you devil of a tavern-keeper, give me some supper!”
There was a moment of comparative quiet, during which the sharp voice of the Duke of Egypt was heard in its turn, instructing his followers:—
“The weasel is called Aduine, the fox Blue-foot or the Wood-ranger, the wolf Grey-foot, or Gold-foot, the bear Old Man or Grandfather. The cap of a gnome will make its possessor invisible, and enable him to see invisible things. Every toad that is baptized should be clad