It happened that in this year of grace 1482 the Feast of the Annunciation fell upon Tuesday, the 25th of March. On that day the air was so pure and so clear that Quasimodo felt some slight return of his love for the bells. He therefore climbed up into the north tower, while below, the beadle threw wide open the church doors, which were then made of huge panels of hard wood covered with leather, edged with gilded iron nails, and framed in carvings “very cunningly wrought.”
The high belfry cage reached, Quasimodo gazed at the six bells for some time with a sad shake of the head, as if mourning over the strange thing which had come between his heart and them. But when he had set them swinging; when he felt that cluster of bells vibrating beneath his touch; when he saw—for he could not hear—the quivering octave run up and down that sonorous scale as a bird hops from twig to twig; when the demon of music, that demon which shakes a dazzling sheaf of runs, trills, and arpeggios, had taken possession of the poor deaf fellow,—then he was happy again; he forgot everything; and as his heart swelled with bliss his face grew radiant.
He came and went, he clapped his hands, he ran from one rope to another, he encouraged the six singers with voice and gesture, as the leader of an orchestra spurs on intelligent performers.
“Go on,” he cried; “go on, Gabrielle! Pour all your music into the public square; this is a high holiday. Thibauld, no laziness! your pace is slackening; go on, go on, I say! Are you growing rusty, sluggard? That’s good! quick! quick! don’t let me see the clapper. Make them all as deaf as I am. That’s it, Thibauld! bravely done! Guillaume! Guillaume! you are the biggest of them all, and Pasquier is the smallest, and yet Pasquier rings the best. I’ll wager that they who can hear, hear him better than they do you. Good! good! my Gabrielle! louder! louder! Hollo! what are you two doing up there, you Sparrows? I don’t see you make the very least noise, What are those brazen beaks about yonder, that they seem to yawn when they should be singing? There, work away! ‘Tis the Feast of the Annunciation. The sun shines bright; we want a fine peal of bells. Poor Guillaume! you’re quite out of breath, my fat lad.”
He was wholly absorbed in urging on his bells, all six of which bounded to and fro as best they could, and shook their shining sides, like a noisy team of Spanish mules goaded by the sharp voice of their driver.
All at once, as his gaze fell between the broad slate scales which covered the steep belfry wall up to a certain height, he saw in the square below a young girl quaintly attired, who paused, spread a carpet on the ground, upon which a little goat took its place, and a group of spectators formed about them. This sight suddenly changed the course of his ideas, and chilled his musical enthusiasm as a blast of wind chills melted resin. He stopped, turned his back on the chime of bells, and crouched behind the slated eaves, fixing on the dancing-girl that dreamy, tender, gentle look which had once before astonished the archdeacon. The neglected bells ceased suddenly and all at once, to the great disappointment of the lovers of chimes, who were eagerly listening to the peal from the Pont au Change, and who now went away as much amazed as a dog that has been shown a bone and then receives a stone.
CHAPTER IV
’Anátkh
It happened that on a fine morning in that same month of March,—I believe it was Saturday, the 29th,—Saint Eustache’s Day, our young friend the student, Jehan Frollo du Moulin, noticed while dressing that his breeches, which contained his purse, gave forth no clink of metal. “Poor purse!” said he, pulling it from his pocket; “what! not the smallest coin! How cruelly have the dice, Venus, and mugs of beer gutted thee! How empty, wrinkled, and flat you are! You look like the breast of a Fury! I just ask you, Master Cicero and Master Seneca, whose dog‘s-eared works I see scattered over the floor, what does it avail me to know, better than any governor of the Mint or any Jew from the Pont au Change, that one golden crown-piece is worth thirty-five unzains at twenty-five pence and eight Paris farthings each, and that another is worth thirty-six unzains at twenty-six pence and six Tours farthings each, if I have not a paltry copper to stake upon the double-six? Oh, Consul Cicero! that is not a calamity to be overcome by periphrases,—by quemadmodum and verum enim vero.”ci
He dressed himself sadly. A thought struck him as he laced his shoes, but he at first rejected it; however, it recurred to him, and he put on his waistcoat wrong side out,—an evident sign of some violent mental conflict. At last he dashed down his cap, exclaimed, “So much the worse! Come what will, I will go to my brother. I shall catch a lecture, but I shall also catch a crown piece.”