The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [97]
“A madman!”
“And,” said Tourangeau suddenly, “the splendid goal,—have you attained that? Have you made gold?”
“Had I made it,” replied the archdeacon, pronouncing his words slowly, like a man who is reflecting, “the King of France would be called Claude, and not Louis.”
The stranger frowned.
“What do I say?” added Dom Claude with a scornful smile. “What would the throne of France avail me when I could reconstruct the Empire of the East?”
“Well, well,” said the stranger.
“Oh, poor fool!” muttered Coictier.
The archdeacon went on, apparently replying to his own thoughts only:—
“But no, I still crawl; I bruise my face and knees on the sharp stones of the subterranean way. I see dimly; I do not behold the full splendor! I do not read; I spell!”
“And when you can read,” asked the stranger, “shall you make gold?”
“Who can doubt it?” said the archdeacon.
“In that case, Notre-Dame knows that I am in great need of money, and I would fain learn to read your books. Tell me, reverend master, is your science hostile or displeasing to Notre-Dame?”
To this question from the stranger Dom Claude merely answered with a quiet dignity,—
“Whose archdeacon am I?”
“True, my master. Well; will it please you to initiate me? Let me spell with you.”
Claude assumed the majestic and pontifical attitude of a Samuel.
“Old man, it needs more years than still remain to you to undertake the journey through mysterious things. Your head is very grey! None ever leave the cavern without white hairs, but none enter save with dark hair. Science is skilled in furrowing, withering, and wrinkling human faces; it needs not that old age should bring to her faces ready wrinkled. Yet if you long to submit yourself to discipline at your age, and to decipher the dread alphabet of sages, come to me; it is well: I will try what I can do. I will not bid you, you poor old man, go visit the sepulchres in the Pyramids, of which ancient Herodotus speaks, nor the brick tower of Babylon, nor the huge white marble sanctuary of the Indian temple of Eklinga. Neither I nor you have seen the Chaldean edifices constructed after the sacred form of Sikra, or the Temple of Solomon, which is destroyed, or the stone doors of the tomb of the kings of Israel, which are shattered. We will be content with the fragments of the book of Hermes which we have at hand. I will explain to you the statue of Saint Christopher, the symbolism of the sower, and that of the two angels at the door of the Sainte-Chapelle, one of whom has his hand in a vase and the other in a cloud—”
“Here Jacques Coictier, who had been disconcerted by the archdeacon’s spirited replies, recovered himself, and interrupted in the triumphant tone of one wise man setting another right: ”Erras, amice Claudi. The symbol is not the number. You take Orpheus for Hermes.”
“It is you who err,” gravely answered the archdeacon. “Dædalus is the basement; Orpheus is the wall; Hermes is the building itself,—is the whole. Come when you will,” he added, turning to Tourangeau; “I will show you the particles of gold remaining in the bottom of Nicolas Flamel’s crucible, and you may compare them with the gold of Guillaume de Paris. I will teach you the secret virtues of the Greek word peristera. But first of all, you must read in turn the marble letters of the alphabet, the granite pages of the book. We will go from the porch of Bishop Guillaume and of Saint-Jean le Rond to the Sainte-Chapelle, then to the house of Nicolas Flamel in the Rue Marivault, to his tomb, which is in the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents, to his two almshouses in the Rue Montmorency. You shall read the hieroglyphics which cover the four great iron andirons in the porch of the Hospice Saint-Gervais, and those in the Rue de la Fer ronnerie. We will spell over together once more the façades of Saint-Côme, Sainte-Geneviève des Ardents, Saint-Martin, Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie—”
For some time