The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [36]
The revelry became more and more Flemish. Téniers could have given but an imperfect idea of it! Imagine Salvator Rosa’s battle-piece turned into a bacchanal feast. There were no longer students, ambassadors, townspeople, men, or women; no longer a Clopin Trouillefou, a Gilles Lecornu, a Simone Quatrelivres, or a Robin Poussepain. All distinctions died in the common license. The great hall ceased to be anything but a vast furnace of effrontery and mirth, wherein every mouth was a cry, every face a grimace, every individual a posture; the sum total howled and yelled. The strange faces which took their turn in gnashing their teeth through the rose-window were like so many brands cast into the flames; and from this effervescent mob arose, like steam from a furnace, a sharp, shrill, piercing sound, like the buzz of a gnat’s wings.
“Oh, confound it!”
“Just look at that face!”
“That’s nothing!”
“Let’s have another!”
“Guillemette Maugerepuis, do look at that bull’s head! it only lacks horns. It is not your husband.”
“Another!”
“By the Pope’s head! what’s the meaning of that contortion?”
“Well there! that’s not fair. You should show only your face.”
“That damned Perrette Callebotte! She is just capable of such a thing.”
“Noël! Noël!”
“I’m smothering!”
“There’s a fellow whose ears are too big to go through!”
But we must do justice to our friend Jehan. Amidst this uproar he was still to be seen perched upon his pillar, like a cabin-boy on a topsail. He exerted himself with incredible fury. His mouth was opened wide, and there issued from it so a yell which no one heard,—not that it was drowned by the general clamor, tremen dous though it was; but because it undoubtedly reached the limit of audible shrillness,—the twelve thousand vibrations of Sauveur or the eight thousand of Biot.
As for Gringoire, the first moment of depression over, he recovered his composure. He braced himself to meet adversity. “Go on!” he cried for the third time to his actors, whom he regarded as mere talking-machines; then, as he strode up and down in front of the marble table, he was seized with a desire to appear in his turn at the chapel window, were it only for the pleasure of making faces at that ungrateful mob. “But no, that would be unworthy of us; no vengeance. Let us struggle on to the end,” he murmured; “the power of poetry over the people is great; I will bring them back. Let us see whether grimaces or polite learning will triumph.”
Alas! he was left the only spectator of his play.
It was even worse than before. Now he saw nothing but people’s backs.
I am wrong. The patient fat man, whom he had already consulted at a critical moment, was still turned towards the theater. As for Gisquette and Liénarde, they had long since deserted.
Gringoire was touched to the heart by the fidelity of his only listener. He went up to him and addressed him, shaking him slightly by the arm; for the worthy man was leaning against the railing in a light doze.
“Sir,” said Gringoire, “I thank you.”
“Sir,” replied the fat fellow with a yawn, “for what?”
“I see what annoys you,” resumed the poet; “it is all this noise which prevents you from hearing readily. But be calm! your name shall be handed down to posterity. Your name, if you please?”
“Renauld Château, Keeper of the Seals of Châtelet, at Paris, at your service.”
“Sir, you are the sole representative of the muses here,” said Gringoire.
“You are too kind, sir,” replied the Keeper of the Seals of Chatelet.
“You are the only