บทที่ บทที่ 10 · THE INCONVENIENCES OF FOLLOWING A PRETTY WOMAN

. THE INCONVENIENCES OF FOLLOWING A PRETTY WOMAN

THROUGH THE STREETS IN THE EVENING.

Gringoire set out to follow the gypsy at all hazards. He had seen

her, accompanied by her goat, take to the Rue de la Coutellerie;

he took the Rue de la Coutellerie.

“Why not?” he said to himself.

Gringoire, a practical philosopher of the streets of Paris, had

noticed that nothing is more propitious to revery than following

a pretty woman without knowing whither she is going. There was in

this voluntary abdication of his freewill, in this fancy

submitting itself to another fancy, which suspects it not, a

mixture of fantastic independence and blind obedience, something

indescribable, intermediate between slavery and liberty, which

pleased Gringoire,—a spirit essentially compound, undecided, and

complex, holding the extremities of all extremes, incessantly

suspended between all human propensities, and neutralizing one by

the other. He was fond of comparing himself to Mahomet’s coffin,

attracted in two different directions by two loadstones, and

hesitating eternally between the heights and the depths, between

the vault and the pavement, between fall and ascent, between

zenith and nadir.

If Gringoire had lived in our day, what a fine middle course he

would hold between classicism and romanticism!

But he was not sufficiently primitive to live three hundred

years, and ’tis a pity. His absence is a void which is but too

sensibly felt to-day.

Moreover, for the purpose of thus following passers-by (and

especially female passers-by) in the streets, which Gringoire was

fond of doing, there is no better disposition than ignorance of

where one is going to sleep.

So he walked along, very thoughtfully, behind the young girl, who

hastened her pace and made her goat trot as she saw the

_bourgeois_ returning home and the taverns—the only shops which

had been open that day—closing.

“After all,” he half thought to himself, “she must lodge

somewhere; gypsies have kindly hearts. Who knows?—”

And in the points of suspense which he placed after this

reticence in his mind, there lay I know not what flattering

ideas.

Meanwhile, from time to time, as he passed the last groups of

_bourgeois_ closing their doors, he caught some scraps of their

conversation, which broke the thread of his pleasant hypotheses.

Now it was two old men accosting each other.

“Do you know that it is cold, Master Thibaut Fernicle?”

(Gringoire had been aware of this since the beginning of the

winter.)

“Yes, indeed, Master Boniface Disome! Are we going to have a

winter such as we had three years ago, in ’80, when wood cost

eight sous the measure?”

“Bah! that’s nothing, Master Thibaut, compared with the winter of

1407, when it froze from St. Martin’s Day until Candlemas! and so

cold that the pen of the registrar of the parliament froze every

three words, in the Grand Chamber! which interrupted the

registration of justice.”

Further on there were two female neighbors at their windows,

holding candles, which the fog caused to sputter.

“Has your husband told you about the mishap, Mademoiselle la

Boudraque?”

“No. What is it, Mademoiselle Turquant?”

“The horse of M. Gilles Godin, the notary at the Châtelet, took

fright at the Flemings and their procession, and overturned

Master Philippe Avrillot, lay monk of the Célestins.”

“Really?”

“Actually.”

“A _bourgeois_ horse! ’tis rather too much! If it had been a

cavalry horse, well and good!”

And the windows were closed. But Gringoire had lost the thread of

his ideas, nevertheless.

Fortunately, he speedily found it again, and he knotted it

together without difficulty, thanks to the gypsy, thanks to

Djali, who still walked in front of him; two fine, delicate, and

charming creatures, whose tiny feet, beautiful forms, and

graceful manners he was engaged in admiring, almost confusing

them in his contemplation; believing them to be both young girls,

from their intelligence and good friendship; regarding them both

as goats,—so far as the lightness, agility, and dexterity of

their walk were concerned.

But the streets were becoming blacker and more deserted every

moment. The curfew had sounded long ago, and it was only at rare

intervals now that they encountered a passer-by in the street, or

a light in the windows. Gringoire had become involved, in his

pursuit of the gypsy, in that inextricable labyrinth of alleys,

squares, and closed courts which surround the ancient sepulchre

of the Saints-Innocents, and which resembles a ball of thread

tangled by a cat. “Here are streets which possess but little

logic!” said Gringoire, lost in the thousands of circuits which

returned upon themselves incessantly, but where the young girl

pursued a road which seemed familiar to her, without hesitation

and with a step which became ever more rapid. As for him, he

would have been utterly ignorant of his situation had he not

espied, in passing, at the turn of a street, the octagonal mass

of the pillory of the fish markets, the open-work summit of which

threw its black, fretted outlines clearly upon a window which was

still lighted in the Rue Verdelet.

The young girl’s attention had been attracted to him for the last

few moments; she had repeatedly turned her head towards him with

uneasiness; she had even once come to a standstill, and taking

advantage of a ray of light which escaped from a half-open bakery

to survey him intently, from head to foot, then, having cast this

glance, Gringoire had seen her make that little pout which he had

already noticed, after which she passed on.

This little pout had furnished Gringoire with food for thought.

There was certainly both disdain and mockery in that graceful

grimace. So he dropped his head, began to count the

paving-stones, and to follow the young girl at a little greater

distance, when, at the turn of a street, which had caused him to

lose sight of her, he heard her utter a piercing cry.

He hastened his steps.

The street was full of shadows. Nevertheless, a twist of tow

soaked in oil, which burned in a cage at the feet of the Holy

Virgin at the street corner, permitted Gringoire to make out the

gypsy struggling in the arms of two men, who were endeavoring to

stifle her cries. The poor little goat, in great alarm, lowered

his horns and bleated.

“Help! gentlemen of the watch!” shouted Gringoire, and advanced

bravely. One of the men who held the young girl turned towards

him. It was the formidable visage of Quasimodo.

Gringoire did not take to flight, but neither did he advance

another step.

Quasimodo came up to him, tossed him four paces away on the

pavement with a backward turn of the hand, and plunged rapidly

into the gloom, bearing the young girl folded across one arm like

a silken scarf. His companion followed him, and the poor goat ran

after them all, bleating plaintively.

“Murder! murder!” shrieked the unhappy gypsy.

“Halt, rascals, and yield me that wench!” suddenly shouted in a

voice of thunder, a cavalier who appeared suddenly from a

neighboring square.

It was a captain of the king’s archers, armed from head to foot,

with his sword in his hand.

He tore the gypsy from the arms of the dazed Quasimodo, threw her

across his saddle, and at the moment when the terrible hunchback,

recovering from his surprise, rushed upon him to regain his prey,

fifteen or sixteen archers, who followed their captain closely,

made their appearance, with their two-edged swords in their

fists. It was a squad of the king’s police, which was making the

rounds, by order of Messire Robert d’Estouteville, guard of the

provostship of Paris.

Quasimodo was surrounded, seized, garroted; he roared, he foamed

at the mouth, he bit; and had it been broad daylight, there is no

doubt that his face alone, rendered more hideous by wrath, would

have put the entire squad to flight. But by night he was deprived

of his most formidable weapon, his ugliness.

His companion had disappeared during the struggle.

The gypsy gracefully raised herself upright upon the officer’s

saddle, placed both hands upon the young man’s shoulders, and

gazed fixedly at him for several seconds, as though enchanted

with his good looks and with the aid which he had just rendered

her. Then breaking silence first, she said to him, making her

sweet voice still sweeter than usual,—

“What is your name, monsieur le gendarme?”

“Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers, at your service, my beauty!”

replied the officer, drawing himself up.

“Thanks,” said she.

And while Captain Phœbus was turning up his moustache in

Burgundian fashion, she slipped from the horse, like an arrow

falling to earth, and fled.

A flash of lightning would have vanished less quickly.

“Nombrill of the Pope!” said the captain, causing Quasimodo’s

straps to be drawn tighter, “I should have preferred to keep the

wench.”

“What would you have, captain?” said one gendarme. “The warbler

has fled, and the bat remains.”