“Phoebus,” said the priest; “and why ‘Ph?bus’？”
“I don’t know,” answered Gringoire. “It may be a word which she thinks has some secret magic virtue. She often repeats it in an undertone when she thinks she is alone.”
“Are you sure,” returned Claude, with his penetrating glance, “that it is a word, and not a name?”
“Whose name?” said the poet.
“How do I know?” said the priest.
“This is what I believe, sir. These gipsies are a kind of fire-worshippers, and worship the sun. Hence, ‘Ph?bus.”’
“That is not so clear to me as to you, Master Pierre.”
“Never mind; it doesn’t concern me. Let her mumble her ‘Ph?bus’ as much as she likes. I’m sure of one thing; and that is, that Djali is almost as fond of me as of her.”
“Who is Djali?”
“That’s the goat.”
The archdeacon rested his chin on his hand, and seemed for a moment lost in thought. Suddenly he turned abruptly to Gringoire.
“And you swear that you have never touched her?”
“Who?” said Gringoire,—“the goat?”
“No, that woman.”
“My wife? I swear I never have.”
“And you are often alone with her?”
“A good hour every evening.”
Dom Claude frowned.
“Oh! oh! Solus cum sola non cogitabuntur orare Pater noster.”ch
“By my soul! I might repeat the Pater, and the Ave Maria, and the Credo in Deum patrem omnipotentem, without her taking any more notice of me than a hen would of a church.”
“Swear to me by your mother’s soul,” repeated the archdeacon, vehemently, “that you have never laid the tip of your finger upon the girl.”
“I will swear it by my father’s head as well, if you like. But, my reverend master, let me ask one question in my turn.”
“Speak, sir.”
“What difference does it make to you?”
The archdeacon’s pale face turned red as a girl’s cheek. For a moment he made no answer; then, with evident embarrassment, he said,— “Hark ye, Master Pierre Gringoire. You are not yet damned, so far as I know. I am interested in you, and wish you well. Now, the slightest contact with that devilish gipsy girl would make you the slave of Satan. You know that it is always the body which destroys the soul. Woe betide you if you approach that woman! That is all.”
“I tried it once,” said Gringoire, scratching his ear. “That was the first day; but I got stung.”
“Had you the effrontery, Master Pierre?”
And the priest’s face clouded.
“Another time,” said the poet, smiling, “I peeped through her keyhole before I went to bed, and I saw, in her shift, as delicious a damsel as ever made a bed creak beneath her naked foot.”
“Go to the devil!” cried the priest, with a terrible look; and pushing away the amazed Gringoire by the shoulders, he was soon lost to sight beneath the gloomiest arches of the cathedral.
CHAPTER III
The Bells
Ever since the morning when he was pilloried, the people living in the neighborhood of Notre-Dame fancied that Quasimodo’s zeal for bell-ringing had grown very cold. Up to that time he had pulled the bells upon every occasion and no occasion at all; their music sounded from prime to complines; the belfry rang a peal for high mass, or the bells sounded a merry chime for a wedding or a christening, mingling and blending in the air like a rich embroidery of all sorts of melodious sounds. The old church, resonant and re-echoing, was forever sounding its joy-bells. There seemed to be an ever-present spirit of noise and caprice, which shouted and sang through those brazen tongues. Now that spirit seemed to have vanished; the cathedral seemed somber, and given over to silence; for festivals and funerals there was still the simple tolling, dry and bare, such as the ritual required, and nothing more; of the double noise which a church sends forth, from its organ within and its bells without, only the organ remained. It seemed as if there were no musician left in the belfry towers. And yet, Quasimodo was still there. What had happened to him? Did the shame and despair felt upon the pillory still rankle within him; did the executioner’s lashes still tingle in his soul; and had the agony caused by such treatment killed all emotion within him, even his passion for the bells? Or had big Marie a rival in the heart of the ringer of Notre-Dame, and were the big bell and her fourteen sisters neglected for a fairer and more attractive object?