The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [38]
Master Coppenole, lost in wonder, approached him.
“By God’s cross and the Holy Father! you are the most lovely monster that I ever saw in my life. You deserve to be pope of Rome as well as of Paris.”
So saying, he laid his hand sportively upon his shoulder. Quasimodo never budged. Coppenole continued:—
“You’re a rascal with whom I have a longing to feast, were it to cost me a new douzain of twelve pounds Tours. What say you?”
Quasimodo made no answer.
“By God’s cross!” said the hosier, “you’re not deaf, are you?”
He was indeed deaf.
Still, he began to lose his temper at Coppenole’s proceedings, and turned suddenly towards him, gnashing his teeth so savagely that the Flemish giant recoiled, like a bull-dog before a cat.
Then a circle of terror and respect, whose radius was not less than fifteen geometric paces, was formed about the strange character. An old woman explained to Master Coppenole that Quasimodo was deaf.
“Deaf!” said the hosier, with his hearty Flemish laugh. “By God’s cross! but he is a perfect pope!”
“Ha! I know him now,” cried Jehan, who had at last descended from his capital to view Quasimodo more closely; “it’s my brother the archdeacon’s bell-ringer. Good-day, Quasimodo!”
“What a devil of a fellow!” said Robin Poussepain, still aching from his fall. “He appears: he’s a hunchback; he walks: he’s bandy-legged; he looks at you: he is blind of one eye; you talk to him: he is deaf. By the way, what use does this Polyphemus make of his tongue?”
“He talks when he likes,” said the old woman; “he grew deaf from ringing the bells. He is not dumb.”
“That’s all he lacks,” remarked Jehan.
“And he has one eye too many,” said Robin Poussepain.
“Not at all,” judiciously observed Jehan. “A one-eyed man is far more incomplete than a blind one. He knows what he lacks.”
But all the beggars, all the lackeys, all the cutpurses, together with the students, had gone in procession to fetch, from the storeroom of the basoche, the pasteboard tiara and mock robes of the Pope of Fools. Quasimodo submitted to be arrayed in them without a frown, and with a sort of proud docility. Then he was seated upon a barrow painted in motley colors. Twelve officers of the fraternity of fools raised it to their shoulders; and a sort of bitter, scornful joy dawned upon the morose face of the Cyclop when he saw beneath his shapeless feet the heads of so many handsome, straight, and well-made men. Then the howling, tatterdemalion train set out, as was the custom, to make the tour of the galleries within the Palace before parading the streets and public squares.
CHAPTER VI
Esmeralda
We are delighted to be able to inform our readers that during the whole of this scene Gringoire and his play had stood their ground. His actors, spurred on by him, had not stopped spouting his verses, and he had not given over listening. He had resigned himself to the uproar, and was determined to go on to the bitter end, not despairing of recovering some portion of public attention. This ray of hope revived when he saw Quasimodo, Coppenole, and the deafening escort of the Pope of Fools leave the hall with a tremendous noise. The crowd followed eagerly on their heels. “Good!” said he to himself; “now we have got rid of all the marplots.” Unfortunately, all the marplots meant the whole audience. In the twinkling of an eye, the great hall was empty.
To be exact, there still remained a handful of spectators, some scattered, others grouped around the pillars, women, old men, or children, who had had enough of the tumult and the hurly-burly. A few students still lingered, astride of the window-frames, gazing into the square.
“Well,” thought Gringoire, “here are still enough to hear the end of my mystery. There are but few, but it is a picked public, an intellectual audience.”
A moment later, a melody meant to produce the greatest effect at the appearance of the Holy Virgin was missing. Gringoire saw that his