The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [245]
She opened her mouth to answer him. He threw himself upon his knees before her, to receive with adoration the words, perhaps relenting, which were about to fall from her lips. She said to him, “You are an assassin!”
The priest caught her fiercely in his arms, and began to laugh an abominable laugh.
“Well, yes, an assassin!” said he; “and you shall be mine. You will not have me for your slave, you shall have me for your master. You shall be mine! You shall be mine! I have a den whither I will drag you. You must follow me, you must needs follow me, or I will give you up to justice! You must die, my beauty, or be mine,—be the priest‘s, the apostate’s, the assassin‘s! and that this night; do you hear me? Come! rejoice; come, kiss me, foolish girl! The tomb, or my bed!”
His eyes flashed with rage and desire. His impure lips reddened the neck of the young girl. She struggled in his arms. He covered her with frantic kisses.
“Do not bite me, monster!” she shrieked. “Oh, the hateful, poisonous monk! Let me go! I will tear out your vile grey hair, and throw it by handfuls in your face!”
He flushed, then paled, then released her, and looked at her gloomily. She thought herself victorious, and went on:—
“I tell you that I belong to my Phœbus, that ‘tis Phoebus I love, that Phœbus alone is handsome! You priest, are old! you are ugly! Begone!”
He uttered a violent cry, like the wretch to whom a red-hot iron is applied. “Then die!” he said, gnashing his teeth. She saw his frightful look, and strove to fly. He overtook her, shook her, threw her down, and walked rapidly towards the corner of the Tour-Roland, dragging her after him over the pavement by her fair hands.
Reaching it, he turned to her:—
“For the last time, will you be mine?”
She answered emphatically,—
“No!”
Then he called in a loud voice,—
“Gudule! Gudule! here is the gipsy girl! Avenge yourself!”
The young girl felt herself suddenly seized by the elbow. She looked. A fleshless arm was thrust from a loop-hole in the wall, and held her with an iron grip.
“Hold her fast!” said the priest; “it’s the runaway gipsy. Do not let her go. I will fetch the officers. You shall see her hanged.”
A guttural laugh from the other side of the wall replied to these bloody words: “Ha! ha! ha!” The gipsy saw the priest depart in the direction of the Pont Notre-Dame. The tramp of horses was heard coming from that quarter.
The girl recognized the spiteful recluse. Panting with terror, she tried to release herself. She writhed, she twisted herself in agony and despair; but the woman held her with unnatural strength. The thin bony fingers which bruised her flesh fastened about her arm like a vise. That hand seemed riveted to her wrist. It was stronger than any chain, stronger than any pillory or iron ring; it was a pair of intelligent and living pincers issuing from a wall.
Exhausted, she sank back, and the fear of death took possession of her. She thought of the beauty of life, of youth, of the sight of the sky, of the various aspects of Nature, of the love of Phœbus, of all that was behind her and of all that was rapidly coming upon her, of the priest who would denounce her, of the hangman who would soon arrive, of the gallows which was already there. Then terror rose to the very roots of her hair, and she heard the melancholy laugh of the recluse, as she whispered in her ear,—
“Ha! ha! ha! You shall be hanged!”
She turned, almost fainting, to the window, and saw the savage face of the sachette through