Chương Chương 19 · THE DOG AND HIS MASTER.

. THE DOG AND HIS MASTER.

Nevertheless, there was one human creature whom Quasimodo

excepted from his malice and from his hatred for others, and whom

he loved even more, perhaps, than his cathedral: this was Claude

Frollo.

The matter was simple; Claude Frollo had taken him in, had

adopted him, had nourished him, had reared him. When a little

lad, it was between Claude Frollo’s legs that he was accustomed

to seek refuge, when the dogs and the children barked after him.

Claude Frollo had taught him to talk, to read, to write. Claude

Frollo had finally made him the bellringer. Now, to give the big

bell in marriage to Quasimodo was to give Juliet to Romeo.

Hence Quasimodo’s gratitude was profound, passionate, boundless;

and although the visage of his adopted father was often clouded

or severe, although his speech was habitually curt, harsh,

imperious, that gratitude never wavered for a single moment. The

archdeacon had in Quasimodo the most submissive slave, the most

docile lackey, the most vigilant of dogs. When the poor

bellringer became deaf, there had been established between him

and Claude Frollo, a language of signs, mysterious and understood

by themselves alone. In this manner the archdeacon was the sole

human being with whom Quasimodo had preserved communication. He

was in sympathy with but two things in this world: Notre-Dame and

Claude Frollo.

There is nothing which can be compared with the empire of the

archdeacon over the bellringer; with the attachment of the

bellringer for the archdeacon. A sign from Claude and the idea of

giving him pleasure would have sufficed to make Quasimodo hurl

himself headlong from the summit of Notre-Dame. It was a

remarkable thing—all that physical strength which had reached in

Quasimodo such an extraordinary development, and which was placed

by him blindly at the disposition of another. There was in it, no

doubt, filial devotion, domestic attachment; there was also the

fascination of one spirit by another spirit. It was a poor,

awkward, and clumsy organization, which stood with lowered head

and supplicating eyes before a lofty and profound, a powerful and

superior intellect. Lastly, and above all, it was gratitude.

Gratitude so pushed to its extremest limit, that we do not know

to what to compare it. This virtue is not one of those of which

the finest examples are to be met with among men. We will say

then, that Quasimodo loved the archdeacon as never a dog, never a

horse, never an elephant loved his master.