Gringoire had succeeded in learning that, while a mere child, she had traversed Spain and Catalonia, even to Sicily; he believed that she had even been taken by the caravan of Zingari, of which she formed a part, to the kingdom of Algiers, a country situated in Achaia, which country adjoins, on one side Albania and Greece; on the other, the Sicilian Sea, which is the road to Constantinople.
The Bohemians, said Gringoire, were vassals of the King of Algiers, in his quality of chief of the White Moors.
One thing is certain, that la Esmeralda had come to France while still very young, by way of Hungary.
From all these countries the young girl had brought back fragments of queer jargons, songs, and strange ideas, which made her language as motley as her costume, half Parisian, half African.
However, the people of the quarters which she frequented loved her for her gayety, her daintiness, her lively manners, her dances, and her songs.
She believed herself to be hated, in all the city, by but two persons, of whom she often spoke in terror: the sacked nun of the Tour-Roland, a villanous recluse who cherished some secret grudge against these gypsies, and who cursed the poor dancer every time that the latter passed before her window; and a priest, who never met her without casting at her looks and words which frightened her.
The mention of this last circumstance disturbed the archdeacon greatly, though Gringoire paid no attention to his perturbation; to such an extent had two months sufficed to cause the heedless poet to forget the singular details of the evening on which he had met the gypsy, and the presence of the archdeacon in it all. Otherwise, the little dancer feared nothing; she did not tell fortunes, which protected her against those trials for magic which were so frequently instituted against gypsy women.
And then, Gringoire held the position of her brother, if not of her husband.
After all, the philosopher endured this sort of platonic marriage very patiently.
It meant a shelter and bread at least.
Every morning, he set out from the lair of the thieves, generally with the gypsy; he helped her make her collections of targes and little blanks in the squares; each evening he returned to the same roof with her, allowed her to bolt herself into her little chamber, and slept the sleep of the just. A very sweet existence, taking it all in all, he said, and well adapted to revery.
And then, on his soul and conscience, the philosopher was not very sure that he was madly in love with the gypsy.
He loved her goat almost as dearly.
It was a charming animal, gentle, intelligent, clever; a learned goat.
Nothing was more common in the Middle Ages than these learned animals, which amazed people greatly, and often led their instructors to the stake.
But the witchcraft of the goat with the golden hoofs was a very innocent species of magic.
Gringoire explained them to the archdeacon, whom these details seemed to interest deeply.
In the majority of cases, it was sufficient to present the tambourine to the goat in such or such a manner, in order to obtain from him the trick desired.
He had been trained to this by the gypsy, who possessed, in these delicate arts, so rare a talent that two months had sufficed to teach the goat to write, with movable letters, the word
“Phoebus.”
“‘Phoebus!’” said the priest; “why
‘Phoebus’?”
“I know not,” replied Gringoire. “Perhaps it is a word which she believes to be endowed with some magic and secret virtue.
She often repeats it in a low tone when she thinks that she is alone.”
“Are you sure,” persisted Claude, with his penetrating glance, “that it is only a word and not a name?”
“The name of whom?” said the poet.
“How should I know?” said the priest.
“This is what I imagine, messire.
These Bohemians are something like Guebrs, and adore the sun.
Hence, Phoebus.”
“That does not seem so clear to me as to you, Master Pierre.”
“After all, that does not concern me.
Let her mumble her Phoebus at her pleasure.
One thing is certain, that Djali loves me almost as much as he does her.”
“Who is Djali?”
“The goat.”
The archdeacon dropped his chin into his hand, and appeared to reflect for a moment.
All at once he turned abruptly to Gringoire once more.
“And do you swear to me that you have not touched her?”
“Whom?” said Gringoire; “the goat?”
“No, that woman.”
“My wife?
I swear to you that I have not.”
“You are often alone with her?”
“A good hour every evening.”
Porn Claude frowned.
“Oh! oh!
Solus cum sola non cogitabuntur orare Pater Noster.”
“Upon my soul, I could say the Pater, and the Ave Maria, and the Credo in Deum patrem omnipotentem without her paying any more attention to me than a chicken to a church.”
“Swear to me, by the body of your mother,” repeated the archdeacon violently, “that you have not touched that creature with even the tip of your finger.”