Part 54

But the other never stirred. When he beheld his adversary on guard and ready to parry,— “Captain Phœbus,” he said, and his tone vibrated with bitterness, “you forget your appointment.” The rages of men like Phœbus are milk-soups, whose ebullition is calmed by a drop of cold water. This simple remark caused the sword which glittered in the captain’s hand to be lowered. “Captain,” pursued the man, “to-morrow, the day after to-morrow, a month hence, ten years hence, you will find me ready to cut your throat; but go first to your rendezvous.” “In sooth,” said Phœbus, as though seeking to capitulate with himself, “these are two charming things to be encountered in a rendezvous,—a sword and a wench; but I do not see why I should miss the one for the sake of the other, when I can have both.” He replaced his sword in its scabbard. “Go to your rendezvous,” said the man. “Monsieur,” replied Phœbus with some embarrassment, “many thanks for your courtesy. In fact, there will be ample time to-morrow for us to chop up father Adam’s doublet into slashes and buttonholes. I am obliged to you for allowing me to pass one more agreeable quarter of an hour. I certainly did hope to put you in the gutter, and still arrive in time for the fair one, especially as it has a better appearance to make the women wait a little in such cases. But you strike me as having the air of a gallant man, and it is safer to defer our affair until to-morrow. So I will betake myself to my rendezvous; it is for seven o’clock, as you know.” Here Phœbus scratched his ear. “Ah. _Corne Dieu!_ I had forgotten! I haven’t a sou to discharge the price of the garret, and the old crone will insist on being paid in advance. She distrusts me.” “Here is the wherewithal to pay.” Phœbus felt the stranger’s cold hand slip into his a large piece of money. He could not refrain from taking the money and pressing the hand. “_Vrai Dieu!_” he exclaimed, “you are a good fellow!” “One condition,” said the man. “Prove to me that I have been wrong and that you were speaking the truth. Hide me in some corner whence I can see whether this woman is really the one whose name you uttered.” “Oh!” replied Phœbus, “’tis all one to me. We will take, the Sainte-Marthe chamber; you can look at your ease from the kennel hard by.” “Come then,” said the shadow. “At your service,” said the captain, “I know not whether you are Messer Diavolus in person; but let us be good friends for this evening; to-morrow I will repay you all my debts, both of purse and sword.” They set out again at a rapid pace. At the expiration of a few minutes, the sound of the river announced to them that they were on the Pont Saint-Michel, then loaded with houses. “I will first show you the way,” said Phœbus to his companion, “I will then go in search of the fair one who is awaiting me near the Petit-Châtelet.” His companion made no reply; he had not uttered a word since they had been walking side by side. Phœbus halted before a low door, and knocked roughly; a light made its appearance through the cracks of the door. “Who is there?” cried a toothless voice. “_Corps-Dieu! Tête-Dieu! Ventre-Dieu!_” replied the captain. The door opened instantly, and allowed the new-comers to see an old woman and an old lamp, both of which trembled. The old woman was bent double, clad in tatters, with a shaking head, pierced with two small eyes, and coiffed with a dish clout; wrinkled everywhere, on hands and face and neck; her lips retreated under her gums, and about her mouth she had tufts of white hairs which gave her the whiskered look of a cat. The interior of the den was no less dilapitated than she; there were chalk walls, blackened beams in the ceiling, a dismantled chimney-piece, spiders’ webs in all the corners, in the middle a staggering herd of tables and lame stools, a dirty child among the ashes, and at the back a staircase, or rather, a wooden ladder, which ended in a trapdoor in the ceiling. On entering this lair, Phœbus’s mysterious companion raised his mantle to his very eyes. Meanwhile, the captain, swearing like a Saracen, hastened to “make the sun shine in a crown” as saith our admirable Régnier. “The Sainte-Marthe chamber,” said he. The old woman addressed him as monseigneur, and shut up the crown in a drawer. It was the coin which the man in the black mantle had given to Phœbus. While her back was turned, the bushy-headed and ragged little boy who was playing in the ashes, adroitly approached the drawer, abstracted the crown, and put in its place a dry leaf which he had plucked from a fagot. The old crone made a sign to the two gentlemen, as she called them, to follow her, and mounted the ladder in advance of them. On arriving at the upper story, she set her lamp on a coffer, and, Phœbus, like a frequent visitor of the house, opened a door which opened on a dark hole. “Enter here, my dear fellow,” he said to his companion. The man in the mantle obeyed without a word in reply, the door closed upon him; he heard Phœbus bolt it, and a moment later descend the stairs again with the aged hag. The light had disappeared. CHAPTER VIII. THE UTILITY OF WINDOWS WHICH OPEN ON THE RIVER. Claude Frollo (for we presume that the reader, more intelligent than Phœbus, has seen in this whole adventure no other surly monk than the archdeacon), Claude Frollo groped about for several moments in the dark lair into which the captain had bolted him. It was one of those nooks which architects sometimes reserve at the point of junction between the roof and the supporting wall. A vertical section of this kennel, as Phœbus had so justly styled it, would have made a triangle. Moreover, there was neither window nor air-hole, and the slope of the roof prevented one from standing upright. Accordingly, Claude crouched down in the dust, and the plaster which cracked beneath him; his head was on fire; rummaging around him with his hands, he found on the floor a bit of broken glass, which he pressed to his brow, and whose coolness afforded him some relief. What was taking place at that moment in the gloomy soul of the archdeacon? God and himself could alone know. In what order was he arranging in his mind la Esmeralda, Phœbus, Jacques Charmolue, his young brother so beloved, yet abandoned by him in the mire, his archdeacon’s cassock, his reputation perhaps dragged to la Falourdel’s, all these adventures, all these images? I cannot say. But it is certain that these ideas formed in his mind a horrible group. He had been waiting a quarter of an hour; it seemed to him that he had grown a century older. All at once he heard the creaking of the boards of the stairway; some one was ascending. The trapdoor opened once more; a light reappeared. There was a tolerably large crack in the worm-eaten door of his den; he put his face to it. In this manner he could see all that went on in the adjoining room. The cat-faced old crone was the first to emerge from the trap-door, lamp in hand; then Phœbus, twirling his moustache, then a third person, that beautiful and graceful figure, la Esmeralda. The priest beheld her rise from below like a dazzling apparition. Claude trembled, a cloud spread over his eyes, his pulses beat violently, everything rustled and whirled around him; he no longer saw nor heard anything. When he recovered himself, Phœbus and Esmeralda were alone seated on the wooden coffer beside the lamp which made these two youthful figures and a miserable pallet at the end of the attic stand out plainly before the archdeacon’s eyes. Beside the pallet was a window, whose panes broken like a spider’s web upon which rain has fallen, allowed a view, through its rent meshes, of a corner of the sky, and the moon lying far away on an eiderdown bed of soft clouds. The young girl was blushing, confused, palpitating. Her long, drooping lashes shaded her crimson cheeks. The officer, to whom she dared not lift her eyes, was radiant. Mechanically, and with a charmingly unconscious gesture, she traced with the tip of her finger incoherent lines on the bench, and watched her finger. Her foot was not visible. The little goat was nestling upon it. The captain was very gallantly clad; he had tufts of embroidery at his neck and wrists; a great elegance at that day. It was not without difficulty that Dom Claude managed to hear what they were saying, through the humming of the blood, which was boiling in his temples. (A conversation between lovers is a very commonplace affair. It is a perpetual “I love you.” A musical phrase which is very insipid and very bald for indifferent listeners, when it is not ornamented with some _fioriture;_ but Claude was not an indifferent listener.) “Oh!” said the young girl, without raising her eyes, “do not despise me, monseigneur Phœbus. I feel that what I am doing is not right.” “Despise you, my pretty child!” replied the officer with an air of superior and distinguished gallantry, “despise you, _tête-Dieu!_ and why?” “For having followed you!” “On that point, my beauty, we don’t agree. I ought not to despise you, but to hate you.” The young girl looked at him in affright: “Hate me! what have I done?” “For having required so much urging.” “Alas!” said she, “’tis because I am breaking a vow. I shall not find my parents! The amulet will lose its virtue. But what matters it? What need have I of father or mother now?” So saying, she fixed upon the captain her great black eyes, moist with joy and tenderness. “Devil take me if I understand you!” exclaimed Phœbus. La Esmeralda remained silent for a moment, then a tear dropped from her eyes, a sigh from her lips, and she said,—“Oh! monseigneur, I love you.” Such a perfume of chastity, such a charm of virtue surrounded the young girl, that Phœbus did not feel completely at his ease beside her. But this remark emboldened him: “You love me!” he said with rapture, and he threw his arm round the gypsy’s waist. He had only been waiting for this opportunity. The priest saw it, and tested with the tip of his finger the point of a poniard which he wore concealed in his breast. “Phœbus,” continued the Bohemian, gently releasing her waist from the captain’s tenacious hands, “You are good, you are generous, you are handsome; you saved me, me who am only a poor child lost in Bohemia. I had long been dreaming of an officer who should save my life. ’Twas of you that I was dreaming, before I knew you, my Phœbus; the officer of my dream had a beautiful uniform like yours, a grand look, a sword; your name is Phœbus; ’tis a beautiful name. I love your name; I love your sword. Draw your sword, Phœbus, that I may see it.” “Child!” said the captain, and he unsheathed his sword with a smile. The gypsy looked at the hilt, the blade; examined the cipher on the guard with adorable curiosity, and kissed the sword, saying,—