“Sleep.”
It was his own repast, it was his own bed, which the bellringer had gone in search of.
The gypsy raised her eyes to thank him, but she could not articulate a word.
She dropped her head with a quiver of terror.
Then he said to her.—
“I frighten you.
I am very ugly, am I not?
Do not look at me; only listen to me.
During the day you will remain here; at night you can walk all over the church.
But do not leave the church either by day or by night.
You would be lost.
They would kill you, and I should die.”
She was touched and raised her head to answer him.
He had disappeared.
She found herself alone once more, meditating upon the singular words of this almost monstrous being, and struck by the sound of his voice, which was so hoarse yet so gentle.
Then she examined her cell.
It was a chamber about six feet square, with a small window and a door on the slightly sloping plane of the roof formed of flat stones.
Many gutters with the figures of animals seemed to be bending down around her, and stretching their necks in order to stare at her through the window.
Over the edge of her roof she perceived the tops of thousands of chimneys which caused the smoke of all the fires in Paris to rise beneath her eyes.
A sad sight for the poor gypsy, a foundling, condemned to death, an unhappy creature, without country, without family, without a hearthstone.
At the moment when the thought of her isolation thus appeared to her more poignant than ever, she felt a bearded and hairy head glide between her hands, upon her knees.
She started (everything alarmed her now) and looked.
It was the poor goat, the agile Djali, which had made its escape after her, at the moment when Quasimodo had put to flight Charmolue’s brigade, and which had been lavishing caresses on her feet for nearly an hour past, without being able to win a glance.
The gypsy covered him with kisses.
“Oh! Djali!” she said, “how I have forgotten thee!
And so thou still thinkest of me!
Oh! thou art not an ingrate!”
At the same time, as though an invisible hand had lifted the weight which had repressed her tears in her heart for so long, she began to weep, and, in proportion as her tears flowed, she felt all that was most acrid and bitter in her grief depart with them.
Evening came, she thought the night so beautiful that she made the circuit of the elevated gallery which surrounds the church.
It afforded her some relief, so calm did the earth appear when viewed from that height.
CHAPTER III. DEAF.
On the following morning, she perceived on awaking, that she had been asleep.
This singular thing astonished her.
She had been so long unaccustomed to sleep!
A joyous ray of the rising sun entered through her window and touched her face.
At the same time with the sun, she beheld at that window an object which frightened her, the unfortunate face of Quasimodo.
She involuntarily closed her eyes again, but in vain; she fancied that she still saw through the rosy lids that gnome’s mask, one-eyed and gap-toothed.
Then, while she still kept her eyes closed, she heard a rough voice saying, very gently,—
“Be not afraid. I am your friend.
I came to watch you sleep.
It does not hurt you if I come to see you sleep, does it?
What difference does it make to you if I am here when your eyes are closed!
Now I am going.
Stay, I have placed myself behind the wall.
You can open your eyes again.”
There was something more plaintive than these words, and that was the accent in which they were uttered.
The gypsy, much touched, opened her eyes.
He was, in fact, no longer at the window.
She approached the opening, and beheld the poor hunchback crouching in an angle of the wall, in a sad and resigned attitude.
She made an effort to surmount the repugnance with which he inspired her. “Come,” she said to him gently.