Kabanata Kabanata 21 · UNPOPULARITY.

. UNPOPULARITY.

The archdeacon and the bellringer, as we have already said, were

but little loved by the populace great and small, in the vicinity

of the cathedral. When Claude and Quasimodo went out together,

which frequently happened, and when they were seen traversing in

company, the valet behind the master, the cold, narrow, and

gloomy streets of the block of Notre-Dame, more than one evil

word, more than one ironical quaver, more than one insulting jest

greeted them on their way, unless Claude Frollo, which was rarely

the case, walked with head upright and raised, showing his severe

and almost august brow to the dumbfounded jeerers.

Both were in their quarter like “the poets” of whom Régnier

speaks,—

“All sorts of persons run after poets,

As warblers fly shrieking after owls.”

Sometimes a mischievous child risked his skin and bones for the

ineffable pleasure of driving a pin into Quasimodo’s hump. Again,

a young girl, more bold and saucy than was fitting, brushed the

priest’s black robe, singing in his face the sardonic ditty,

“_niche, niche_, the devil is caught.” Sometimes a group of

squalid old crones, squatting in a file under the shadow of the

steps to a porch, scolded noisily as the archdeacon and the

bellringer passed, and tossed them this encouraging welcome, with

a curse: “Hum! there’s a fellow whose soul is made like the other

one’s body!” Or a band of schoolboys and street urchins, playing

hop-scotch, rose in a body and saluted him classically, with some

cry in Latin: “_Eia! eia! Claudius cum claudo_!”

But the insult generally passed unnoticed both by the priest and

the bellringer. Quasimodo was too deaf to hear all these gracious

things, and Claude was too dreamy.

BOOK FIFTH.