Wrath and spite suffocate him.
He would have liked to make the pillory crumble into ruins, and if the lightning of his eye could have dealt death, the gypsy would have been reduced to powder before she reached the platform.
She approached, without uttering a syllable, the victim who writhed in a vain effort to escape her, and detaching a gourd from her girdle, she raised it gently to the parched lips of the miserable man.
Then, from that eye which had been, up to that moment, so dry and burning, a big tear was seen to fall, and roll slowly down that deformed visage so long contracted with despair.
It was the first, in all probability, that the unfortunate man had ever shed.
Meanwhile, he had forgotten to drink.
The gypsy made her little pout, from impatience, and pressed the spout to the tusked month of Quasimodo, with a smile.
He drank with deep draughts.
His thirst was burning.
When he had finished, the wretch protruded his black lips, no doubt, with the object of kissing the beautiful hand which had just succoured him.
But the young girl, who was, perhaps, somewhat distrustful, and who remembered the violent attempt of the night, withdrew her hand with the frightened gesture of a child who is afraid of being bitten by a beast.
Then the poor deaf man fixed on her a look full of reproach and inexpressible sadness.
It would have been a touching spectacle anywhere,—this beautiful, fresh, pure, and charming girl, who was at the same time so weak, thus hastening to the relief of so much misery, deformity, and malevolence.
On the pillory, the spectacle was sublime.
The very populace were captivated by it, and began to clap their hands, crying,—
“Noel!
Noel!”
It was at that moment that the recluse caught sight, from the window of her bole, of the gypsy on the pillory, and hurled at her her sinister imprecation,—
“Accursed be thou, daughter of Egypt!
Accursed! accursed!”
CHAPTER V. END OF THE STORY OF THE CAKE.
La Esmeralda turned pale and descended from the pillory, staggering as she went.
The voice of the recluse still pursued her,—
“Descend! descend! Thief of Egypt! thou shalt ascend it once more!”
“The sacked nun is in one of her tantrums,” muttered the populace; and that was the end of it.
For that sort of woman was feared; which rendered them sacred.
People did not then willingly attack one who prayed day and night.
The hour had arrived for removing Quasimodo.
He was unbound, the crowd dispersed.
Near the Grand Pont, Mahiette, who was returning with her two companions, suddenly halted,—
“By the way, Eustache! what did you do with that cake?”
“Mother,” said the child, “while you were talking with that lady in the bole, a big dog took a bite of my cake, and then I bit it also.”
“What, sir, did you eat the whole of it?” she went on.
“Mother, it was the dog.
I told him, but he would not listen to me.
Then I bit into it, also.”
“‘Tis a terrible child!” said the mother, smiling and scolding at one and the same time. “Do you see, Oudarde? He already eats all the fruit from the cherry-tree in our orchard of Charlerange.
So his grandfather says that he will be a captain.
Just let me catch you at it again, Master Eustache. Come along, you greedy fellow!”
VOLUME II.
CHAPTER I. THE DANGER OF CONFIDING ONE’S SECRET TO A GOAT.
Many weeks had elapsed.
The first of March had arrived.
The sun, which Dubartas, that classic ancestor of periphrase, had not yet dubbed the “Grand-duke of Candles,” was none the less radiant and joyous on that account.
It was one of those spring days which possesses so much sweetness and beauty, that all Paris turns out into the squares and promenades and celebrates them as though they were Sundays.
In those days of brilliancy, warmth, and serenity, there is a certain hour above all others, when the facade of Notre-Dame should be admired.
It is the moment when the sun, already declining towards the west, looks the cathedral almost full in the face.
Its rays, growing more and more horizontal, withdraw slowly from the pavement of the square, and mount up the perpendicular facade, whose thousand bosses in high relief they cause to start out from the shadows, while the great central rose window flames like the eye of a cyclops, inflamed with the reflections of the forge.
This was the hour.
Opposite the lofty cathedral, reddened by the setting sun, on the stone balcony built above the porch of a rich Gothic house, which formed the angle of the square and the Rue du Parvis, several young girls were laughing and chatting with every sort of grace and mirth.