บทที่ บทที่ 13 · A BRIDAL NIGHT.

. A BRIDAL NIGHT.

A few moments later our poet found himself in a tiny arched

chamber, very cosy, very warm, seated at a table which appeared

to ask nothing better than to make some loans from a larder

hanging near by, having a good bed in prospect, and alone with a

pretty girl. The adventure smacked of enchantment. He began

seriously to take himself for a personage in a fairy tale; he

cast his eyes about him from time to time to time, as though to

see if the chariot of fire, harnessed to two-winged chimeras,

which alone could have so rapidly transported him from Tartarus

to Paradise, were still there. At times, also, he fixed his eyes

obstinately upon the holes in his doublet, in order to cling to

reality, and not lose the ground from under his feet completely.

His reason, tossed about in imaginary space, now hung only by

this thread.

The young girl did not appear to pay any attention to him; she

went and came, displaced a stool, talked to her goat, and

indulged in a pout now and then. At last she came and seated

herself near the table, and Gringoire was able to scrutinize her

at his ease.

You have been a child, reader, and you would, perhaps, be very

happy to be one still. It is quite certain that you have not,

more than once (and for my part, I have passed whole days, the

best employed of my life, at it) followed from thicket to

thicket, by the side of running water, on a sunny day, a

beautiful green or blue dragon-fly, breaking its flight in abrupt

angles, and kissing the tips of all the branches. You recollect

with what amorous curiosity your thought and your gaze were

riveted upon this little whirlwind, hissing and humming with

wings of purple and azure, in the midst of which floated an

imperceptible body, veiled by the very rapidity of its movement.

The aerial being which was dimly outlined amid this quivering of

wings, appeared to you chimerical, imaginary, impossible to

touch, impossible to see. But when, at length, the dragon-fly

alighted on the tip of a reed, and, holding your breath the

while, you were able to examine the long, gauze wings, the long

enamel robe, the two globes of crystal, what astonishment you

felt, and what fear lest you should again behold the form

disappear into a shade, and the creature into a chimera! Recall

these impressions, and you will readily appreciate what Gringoire

felt on contemplating, beneath her visible and palpable form,

that Esmeralda of whom, up to that time, he had only caught a

glimpse, amidst a whirlwind of dance, song, and tumult.

Sinking deeper and deeper into his revery: “So this,” he said to

himself, following her vaguely with his eyes, “is _la Esmeralda!_

a celestial creature! a street dancer! so much, and so little!

’Twas she who dealt the death-blow to my mystery this morning,

’tis she who saves my life this evening! My evil genius! My good

angel! A pretty woman, on my word! and who must needs love me

madly to have taken me in that fashion. By the way,” said he,

rising suddenly, with that sentiment of the true which formed the

foundation of his character and his philosophy, “I don’t know

very well how it happens, but I am her husband!”

With this idea in his head and in his eyes, he stepped up to the

young girl in a manner so military and so gallant that she drew

back.

“What do you want of me?” said she.

“Can you ask me, adorable Esmeralda?” replied Gringoire, with so

passionate an accent that he was himself astonished at it on

hearing himself speak.

The gypsy opened her great eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“What!” resumed Gringoire, growing warmer and warmer, and

supposing that, after all, he had to deal merely with a virtue of

the Cour des Miracles; “am I not thine, sweet friend, art thou

not mine?”

And, quite ingenuously, he clasped her waist.

The gypsy’s corsage slipped through his hands like the skin of an

eel. She bounded from one end of the tiny room to the other,

stooped down, and raised herself again, with a little poniard in

her hand, before Gringoire had even had time to see whence the

poniard came; proud and angry, with swelling lips and inflated

nostrils, her cheeks as red as an api apple,[15] and her eyes

darting lightnings. At the same time, the white goat placed

itself in front of her, and presented to Gringoire a hostile

front, bristling with two pretty horns, gilded and very sharp.

All this took place in the twinkling of an eye.

The dragon-fly had turned into a wasp, and asked nothing better

than to sting.

Our philosopher was speechless, and turned his astonished eyes

from the goat to the young girl. “Holy Virgin!” he said at last,

when surprise permitted him to speak, “here are two hearty

dames!”

The gypsy broke the silence on her side.

“You must be a very bold knave!”

“Pardon, mademoiselle,” said Gringoire, with a smile. “But why

did you take me for your husband?”

“Should I have allowed you to be hanged?”

“So,” said the poet, somewhat disappointed in his amorous hopes.

“You had no other idea in marrying me than to save me from the

gibbet?”

“And what other idea did you suppose that I had?”

Gringoire bit his lips. “Come,” said he, “I am not yet so

triumphant in Cupido, as I thought. But then, what was the good

of breaking that poor jug?”

Meanwhile Esmeralda’s dagger and the goat’s horns were still upon

the defensive.

“Mademoiselle Esmeralda,” said the poet, “let us come to terms. I

am not a clerk of the court, and I shall not go to law with you

for thus carrying a dagger in Paris, in the teeth of the

ordinances and prohibitions of M. the Provost. Nevertheless, you

are not ignorant of the fact that Noël Lescrivain was condemned,

a week ago, to pay ten Parisian sous, for having carried a

cutlass. But this is no affair of mine, and I will come to the

point. I swear to you, upon my share of Paradise, not to approach

you without your leave and permission, but do give me some

supper.”

The truth is, Gringoire was, like M. Despreaux, “not very

voluptuous.” He did not belong to that chevalier and musketeer

species, who take young girls by assault. In the matter of love,

as in all other affairs, he willingly assented to temporizing and

adjusting terms; and a good supper, and an amiable tête-à-tête

appeared to him, especially when he was hungry, an excellent

interlude between the prologue and the catastrophe of a love

adventure.

The gypsy did not reply. She made her disdainful little grimace,

drew up her head like a bird, then burst out laughing, and the

tiny poniard disappeared as it had come, without Gringoire being

able to see where the wasp concealed its sting.

A moment later, there stood upon the table a loaf of rye bread, a

slice of bacon, some wrinkled apples and a jug of beer. Gringoire

began to eat eagerly. One would have said, to hear the furious

clashing of his iron fork and his earthenware plate, that all his

love had turned to appetite.

The young girl seated opposite him, watched him in silence,

visibly preoccupied with another thought, at which she smiled

from time to time, while her soft hand caressed the intelligent

head of the goat, gently pressed between her knees.

A candle of yellow wax illuminated this scene of voracity and

revery.

Meanwhile, the first cravings of his stomach having been stilled,

Gringoire felt some false shame at perceiving that nothing

remained but one apple.

“You do not eat, Mademoiselle Esmeralda?”

She replied by a negative sign of the head, and her pensive

glance fixed itself upon the vault of the ceiling.

“What the deuce is she thinking of?” thought Gringoire, staring

at what she was gazing at; “’tis impossible that it can be that

stone dwarf carved in the keystone of that arch, which thus

absorbs her attention. What the deuce! I can bear the

comparison!”

He raised his voice, “Mademoiselle!”

She seemed not to hear him.

He repeated, still more loudly, “Mademoiselle Esmeralda!”

Trouble wasted. The young girl’s mind was elsewhere, and

Gringoire’s voice had not the power to recall it. Fortunately,

the goat interfered. She began to pull her mistress gently by the

sleeve.

“What dost thou want, Djali?” said the gypsy, hastily, as though

suddenly awakened.

“She is hungry,” said Gringoire, charmed to enter into

conversation. Esmeralda began to crumble some bread, which Djali

ate gracefully from the hollow of her hand.

Moreover, Gringoire did not give her time to resume her revery.

He hazarded a delicate question.

“So you don’t want me for your husband?”

The young girl looked at him intently, and said, “No.”

“For your lover?” went on Gringoire.

She pouted, and replied, “No.”

“For your friend?” pursued Gringoire.

She gazed fixedly at him again, and said, after a momentary

reflection, “Perhaps.”

This “perhaps,” so dear to philosophers, emboldened Gringoire.

“Do you know what friendship is?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied the gypsy; “it is to be brother and sister; two

souls which touch without mingling, two fingers on one hand.”

“And love?” pursued Gringoire.

“Oh! love!” said she, and her voice trembled, and her eye beamed.

“That is to be two and to be but one. A man and a woman mingled

into one angel. It is heaven.”

The street dancer had a beauty as she spoke thus, that struck

Gringoire singularly, and seemed to him in perfect keeping with

the almost oriental exaltation of her words. Her pure, red lips

half smiled; her serene and candid brow became troubled, at

intervals, under her thoughts, like a mirror under the breath;

and from beneath her long, drooping, black eyelashes, there

escaped a sort of ineffable light, which gave to her profile that

ideal serenity which Raphael found at the mystic point of

intersection of virginity, maternity, and divinity.

Nevertheless, Gringoire continued,—

“What must one be then, in order to please you?”

“A man.”

“And I—” said he, “what, then, am I?”

“A man has a helmet on his head, a sword in his hand, and golden

spurs on his heels.”

“Good,” said Gringoire, “without a horse, no man. Do you love any

one?”

“As a lover?—”

“Yes.”

She remained thoughtful for a moment, then said with a peculiar

expression: “That I shall know soon.”

“Why not this evening?” resumed the poet tenderly. “Why not me?”

She cast a grave glance upon him and said,—

“I can never love a man who cannot protect me.”

Gringoire colored, and took the hint. It was evident that the

young girl was alluding to the slight assistance which he had

rendered her in the critical situation in which she had found

herself two hours previously. This memory, effaced by his own

adventures of the evening, now recurred to him. He smote his

brow.

“By the way, mademoiselle, I ought to have begun there. Pardon my

foolish absence of mind. How did you contrive to escape from the

claws of Quasimodo?”

This question made the gypsy shudder.

“Oh! the horrible hunchback,” said she, hiding her face in her

hands. And she shuddered as though with violent cold.

“Horrible, in truth,” said Gringoire, who clung to his idea; “but

how did you manage to escape him?”

La Esmeralda smiled, sighed, and remained silent.

“Do you know why he followed you?” began Gringoire again, seeking

to return to his question by a circuitous route.

“I don’t know,” said the young girl, and she added hastily, “but

you were following me also, why were you following me?”

“In good faith,” responded Gringoire, “I don’t know either.”

Silence ensued. Gringoire slashed the table with his knife. The

young girl smiled and seemed to be gazing through the wall at

something. All at once she began to sing in a barely articulate

voice,—

Quando las pintadas aves,

Mudas estan, y la tierra—[16]

She broke off abruptly, and began to caress Djali.

“That’s a pretty animal of yours,” said Gringoire.

“She is my sister,” she answered.

“Why are you called _la Esmeralda?_” asked the poet.

“I do not know.”

“But why?”

She drew from her bosom a sort of little oblong bag, suspended

from her neck by a string of adrézarach beads. This bag exhaled a

strong odor of camphor. It was covered with green silk, and bore

in its centre a large piece of green glass, in imitation of an

emerald.

“Perhaps it is because of this,” said she.

Gringoire was on the point of taking the bag in his hand. She

drew back.

“Don’t touch it! It is an amulet. You would injure the charm or

the charm would injure you.”

The poet’s curiosity was more and more aroused.

“Who gave it to you?”

She laid one finger on her mouth and concealed the amulet in her

bosom. He tried a few more questions, but she hardly replied.

“What is the meaning of the words, _la Esmeralda?_”

“I don’t know,” said she.

“To what language do they belong?”

“They are Egyptian, I think.”

“I suspected as much,” said Gringoire, “you are not a native of

France?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are your parents alive?”

She began to sing, to an ancient air,—

Mon père est oiseau,

Ma mère est oiselle.

Je passe l’eau sans nacelle,

Je passe l’eau sans bateau,

Ma mère est oiselle,

Mon père est oiseau.[17]

“Good,” said Gringoire. “At what age did you come to France?”

“When I was very young.”

“And when to Paris?”

“Last year. At the moment when we were entering the papal gate I

saw a reed warbler flit through the air, that was at the end of

August; I said, it will be a hard winter.”

“So it was,” said Gringoire, delighted at this beginning of a

conversation. “I passed it in blowing my fingers. So you have the

gift of prophecy?”

She retired into her laconics again.

“Is that man whom you call the Duke of Egypt, the chief of your

tribe?”

“Yes.”

“But it was he who married us,” remarked the poet timidly.

She made her customary pretty grimace.

“I don’t even know your name.”

“My name? If you want it, here it is,—Pierre Gringoire.”

“I know a prettier one,” said she.

“Naughty girl!” retorted the poet. “Never mind, you shall not

provoke me. Wait, perhaps you will love me more when you know me

better; and then, you have told me your story with so much

confidence, that I owe you a little of mine. You must know, then,

that my name is Pierre Gringoire, and that I am a son of the

farmer of the notary’s office of Gonesse. My father was hung by

the Burgundians, and my mother disembowelled by the Picards, at

the siege of Paris, twenty years ago. At six years of age,

therefore, I was an orphan, without a sole to my foot except the

pavements of Paris. I do not know how I passed the interval from

six to sixteen. A fruit dealer gave me a plum here, a baker flung

me a crust there; in the evening I got myself taken up by the

watch, who threw me into prison, and there I found a bundle of

straw. All this did not prevent my growing up and growing thin,

as you see. In the winter I warmed myself in the sun, under the

porch of the Hôtel de Sens, and I thought it very ridiculous that

the fire on Saint John’s Day was reserved for the dog days. At

sixteen, I wished to choose a calling. I tried all in succession.

I became a soldier; but I was not brave enough. I became a monk;

but I was not sufficiently devout; and then I’m a bad hand at

drinking. In despair, I became an apprentice of the woodcutters,

but I was not strong enough; I had more of an inclination to

become a schoolmaster; ’tis true that I did not know how to read,

but that’s no reason. I perceived at the end of a certain time,

that I lacked something in every direction; and seeing that I was

good for nothing, of my own free will I became a poet and

rhymester. That is a trade which one can always adopt when one is

a vagabond, and it’s better than stealing, as some young brigands

of my acquaintance advised me to do. One day I met by luck, Dom

Claude Frollo, the reverend archdeacon of