“The gipsy girl!” he exclaimed, almost terrified: “pray, do you come from the other world?”
And he placed his hand on the hilt of his dagger.
“Quick! quick!” said the deaf man, striving to urge on the horse; “this way!”
Phoebus dealt him a vigorous kick.
Quasimodo’s eye flashed. He made a movement to attack the captain. Then drawing himself up, he said,— “Oh, how fortunate it is for you that there is some one who loves you!”
He emphasized the words some one, and releasing the horse’s bridle, added,— “Begone!”
Phoebus clapped spurs to his horse, with an oath. Quasimodo saw him plunge down the street and disappear in the darkness.
“Oh,” murmured the poor deaf man, “to refuse that!”
He returned to Notre-Dame, lighted his lamp, and climbed the tower. As he had supposed, the gipsy was still in the same place.
As soon as she caught sight of him, she ran to meet him.
“Alone!” she cried mournfully, clasping her lovely hands.
“I could not find him,” said Quasimodo, coldly.
“You should have waited all night,” she replied indignantly.
He saw her angry gesture, and understood the reproach.
“I will watch better another time,” said he, hanging his head.
“Go!” said she.
He left her. She was offended with him. He would rather be maltreated by her than distress her. He kept all the pain for himself.
From that day forth the gipsy saw him no more. He ceased to visit her cell. At most, she sometimes caught a glimpse of the ringer on the top of a tower, gazing sadly at her. But as soon as she saw him, he disappeared.
We must own that she was but little troubled by this willful absence of the poor hunchback. In her secret heart she thanked him for it. However, Quasimodo did not lie under any delusion on this point.
She no longer saw him, but she felt the presence of a good genius around her. Her provisions were renewed by an invisible hand while she slept. One morning she found a cage of birds on her window-sill. Over her cell there was a piece of carving which alarmed her. She had more than once shown this feeling before Quasimodo. One morning （for all these things occurred at night） she no longer saw it; it was broken off. Any one who had climbed up to it must have risked his life.
Sometimes in the evening she heard a voice, hidden behind the wind-screen of the belfry, sing, as if to lull her to sleep, a weird, sad song, verses without rhyme, such as a deaf person might make:— “Heed not the face,
Maiden, heed the heart.
The heart of a fine young man is oft deformed.
There are hearts where Love finds no abiding
place.
“Maiden, the pine-tree is not fair,
Not fair as is the poplar-tree
But its leaves are green in winter bare.
“Alas! why do I tell you this?
Beauty alone has right to live;
Beauty can only beauty love,
April her back doth turn on January.
“Beauty is perfect,
Beauty wins all,
Beauty alone is lord of all.
“The raven only flies by day,
The owl by night alone doth fly,
The swan by day and night alike may fly.”
One morning, on waking, she saw at her window two vases full of flowers. One was a very beautiful and brilliant but cracked crystal vase. It had let the water with which it was filled escape, and the flowers which it held were withered. The other was an earthen jug, coarse and common; but it had retained all its water, and the flowers were fresh and rosy.
I do not know whether it was done purposely, but Esmeralda took the withered nosegay, and wore it all day in her bosom.
That day she did not hear the voice from the tower singing.
She cared but little. She passed her days in fondling Djali, in watching the door of the Gondelaurier house, in talking to herself about Ph?bus, and in scattering crumbs of bread to the swallows.
She had entirely ceased to see or hear Quasimodo; the poor ringer seemed to have vanished from the church. But one night, when she could not sleep, and was thinking of her handsome captain, she heard a sigh close by her cell. Terrified, she rose, and saw by the light of the moon a shapeless mass lying outside across her door. It was Quasimodo sleeping there upon the stones.
CHAPTER V
The Key to the Porte-Rouge
Meantime, public rumor had informed the archdeacon of the miraculous manner in which the gipsy had been saved. When he learned of it, he knew not what he felt. He had accepted the fact of Esmeralda’s death. In this way, he made himself perfectly easy; he had sounded the utmost depths of grief. The human heart （Dom Claude had mused upon these matters） can hold but a certain quantity of despair. When the sponge is thoroughly soaked, the sea may pass over it without adding another drop to it.