PHOEBUS: You ran away rather quickly last night, my pretty! Did I frighten you?
ESMERALDA: Oh no!
PHOEBUS (turning on his heels in a low voice): She’s ravishing.
FLEUR-DE-LYS: But dressed like a savage.
DIANE: Her skirt’s short enough to make you quiver.
PHOEBUS (aside): All the bitches are snapping at the doe.
ESMERALDA (aside): They make fun of me–before him! Why did I come up here? (to Mme de Gondelaurier) Will that be all, Madame?
MADAME DE GONDELAURIER: No. What possesses you, girl, to run in the streets dressed this way, without a proper shirt or slip?
PHOEBUS (aside, impatiently): Aren’t they going to leave her alone! (aloud) Bah! Let them talk, girl. Your dress is a bit wild and outlandish, but why should a delightful girl like you care?
ESMERALDA (aside): He’s defending me.
MADAME DE GONDELAURIER (rising): Phoebus!
(Suddenly, the goat ambles in, following its mistress.)
MADAME DE GONDELAURIER: Holy Virgin! What have we here? Ah, the ugly creature! Spare me that hideous beast.
ESMERALDA: It’s only Djali, Madame.
(She takes it and puts it on her knees to caress it.)
BERANGERE: This little goat has horns of gold.
DIANE (low, to Fleur-de-Lys): They say this Bohemian is a witch and her goat performs miracles.
FLEUR-DE-LYS: Gypsy, make your goat perform a miracle!
ESMERALDA (uneasily): I don’t know what you mean.
DIANE: A miracle, magic, sorcery.
FLEUR-DE-LYS (pointing to a little pouch worn by the goat): What’s that it’s got on its neck?
ESMERALDA (rising): That’s my secret.
FLEUR-DE-LYS (aside): I’d really like to know what it is.
BERANGERE (aside): If I could only see what’s inside that pouch!
MADAME DE GONDELAURIER (irritated): Look here, girl, if you and your goat aren’t going to dance for us, what are you doing here?
ESMERALDA (insulted): Nothing, indeed. Madame is right.
(She starts to leave.)
PHOEBUS (stopping her): By the Cross! You can’t go like this. Dance something for us, my pretty.
FLEUR-DE-LYS: Why don’t you call her by her name, Phoebus. Surely you must know her name?
MADAME DE GONDELAURIER: Yes, what’s your name, girl?
ESMERALDA: Esmeralda.
(The women laugh.)
DIANE: Now there’s a dreadful name for a girl.
MADAME DE GONDELAURIER: Your parents obviously didn’t fish that name out of the baptismal font, my dear.
(Meanwhile, young Berangere has led the goat into a corner of the room, opened the pouch and pulled out an alphabet of letters which she has spread on the floor. Suddenly, she lets out a scream.)
BERANGERE: Ah! Mother! Fleur-de-Lys! See what the goat just wrote.
DIANE: A word written by a goat!
MADAME DE GONDELAURIER: A word!
FLEUR-DE-LYS (reading): “Phoebus.”
(Esmeralda retrieves Djali.)
ESMERALDA: Ah! Djali, you’ve betrayed me!
PHOEBUS (aside, delighted): My name!
FLEUR-DE-LYS (weeping): So that’s her secret! Ah, mother, she’s a witch!
MADAME DE GONDELAURIER: What’s the matter with you? That’s no reason to weep.
FLEUR-DE-LYS (low to her mother): She’s my rival! She’s bewitched him!
(She staggers and faints.)
MADAME DE GONDELAURIER: My daughter! She’s fainted. (to Esmeralda) Get out!
PHOEBUS (low to Esmeralda): At nightfall. At the foot of Pont Saint-Michel.
ESMERALDA (low): What are you saying?
PHOEBUS (low): I’ll be there.
MADAME DE GONDELAURIER (chasing Esmeralda out, furiously): Get out of my house! Get out! Bohemian from Hell!
CURTAIN
Scene VI
The Pillory
The Place de Greve. To the left is a house on pillars, seen from the side. In the back, we see the Seine and the Island of La Cité with Notre-Dame in the distance. To the right, is the Tour Roland; on the first floor, there is a barred window with the inscription Tu Ora. Center stage is the pillory.
Enter Gervaise and Oudarde with Mahiette holding a big boy, Eustache, by the hand. In his other hand, Eustache has a large cake.
GERVAISE: This is the Place de Greve, Mahiette.
MAHIETTE: Where is Sachette’s cell?
OUDARDE (pointing to the barred window): There it is.
MAHIETTE (to the boy): Eustache, I see you nibbling on the cake. You know we’re bringing it to the Recluse. She lives in the Rat-Hole of the Tour Roland. And that’s the pillory, right?
GERVAISE: Yes. Have you ever seen someone pilloried, Mahiette.
MAHIETTE: Yes, in Reims. Many times.
GERVAISE: Ah! Bah! But I bet that your pillory in Reims is but a harmless cage where they only whip a few peasants.
MAHIETTE: Not so! We’ve had some very famous criminals. Folks who killed both their mothers and fathers. The man they’ll be whipping today is nothing to write home about.
GERVAISE: Well, yes, today is only an ordinary whipping. The punishment of that bell-ringing monster who tried to carry off a woman.
MAHIETTE: Not even a woman, a Gypsy!
OUDARDE: You don’t like Gypsies, do you, Mahiette?
MAHIETTE: They frighten me. Especially when I have my boy with me.
OUDARDE: Why?
MAHIETTE: Because they steal children.
OUDARDE: What is odd is that Sachette shares the same notion about Gypsies. No one knows where this comes from. She especially detests Esmeralda who isn’t even bad. Whenever the dancer passes through the Place, she shouts all kinds of curses and insults at her.
MAHIETTE (seizing Eustache’s head with both her hands): My Eustache–I don’t want to happen to me what happened to Paquette Chantefleurie.
GERVAISE: Who’s that?
MAHIETTE: It’s a story from Reims.
GERVAISE: Tell me anyway.
MAHIETTE: Indeed, you should hear it before we talk to the Recluse. Well, 15 years ago, Paquette Chantefleurie was a pretty girl living with us. Her life was far from ordinary, but we took pity on her because she had been orphaned quite young and was very poor. One day, she had a child, a little baby girl whom she adored, and who was so pretty that people came from afar just to see her. Eustache! I told you not to nibble on the cake! For sure, that baby girl was given more linens and embroidery than any Kings on Earth. Among other things, she received a pair of slippers that even King Louis XI would have been jealous of. They were the two prettiest little red slippers I’ve ever seen. Just about the length of my thumb–you had to see the child’s feet come out of them to believe they could have gotten inside them. She was a darling! Her mother became more and more crazy about her every day. She hugged her, covered her with kisses, ate her up. She lost her head over her. She thanked God everyday for that baby.
GERVAISE: So far the story’s good and beautiful but where are the Gypsies in all this?
MAHIETTE: Wait. One day some very peculiar folks came to Reims–beggars, vagabonds who came straight from Egypt by way of Poland, telling fortunes in the name of the King of Algiers. They would look in your hand and make prophecies to astonish a Cardinal. The poor Chantefleurie was filled with curiosity. She wanted to know her daughter’s fate and took her to the Gypsies. And the Gypsy women admired the child and kissed her and marveled over her little hand. They made a show of her pretty feet and pretty slippers. They told the mother her child would become a beauty, a lady, a queen. Paquette Chantefleurie returned proudly to her garret. The next day, while her child was napping, she ran to tell a neighbor that her baby would one day dine at the same table as the King of England, the Archduke of Ethiopia and a hundred other wonders. She left the door slightly ajar. On her return, she found it wide open. She ran to the bedroom. It was empty. The child was there no more.
OUDARDE: Ah! My God!
GERVAISE: Nothing else?
MAHIETTE: Yes. They found one of the little red slippers. The mother rushed outside, screaming: “My child! Who has my child? Who took my child?” She went through the town, ferreted out all the streets, ran around madly the whole day, in a terrible state, peering at doors and windows, behaving like a wild beast who has lost its curs. She stopped passers-by, screaming: “My daughter. Who has my daughter?” She met the Abbot of St. Remy and said to him: “Father, I will plough the Earth with my very finger for the Church, but please, ask God to return my child to me.” It was all heart-breaking. Suddenly, she started screaming: “The Gypsies! The Gypsies did it! Call the soldiers! Burn the witches!” But the Gypsies had already gone. It was a very dark night. They couldn’t pursue them. The next day, Chantefleurie’s hair had gone grey. And the day after that, she disappeared.
GERVAISE: And the little slipper?
MAHIETTE: The little slipper disappeared with her.
GERVAISE: Poor Chantefleurie. It’s a terrible story. And I’m no longer surprised, Mahiette, that you have such fear of Gypsies.
EUSTACHE: Mother, can I eat the cake now?
MAHIETTE: No! We’re going now to give it to the Recluse.
EUSTACHE: But it’s my cake!
GERVAISE: We shouldn’t look into the hole all at the same time for fear of startling Sachette. She knows me a little. I am going to see how she is.
(She goes softly and looks through the window.)
MAHIETTE: Well?
GERVAISE: She’s crouching motionless on the flagstones, her arms crossed, her knees pulled against her chest. You would think she’s made of stone. She’s looking fixedly at something in the corner.
MAHIETTE: Can you see what she’s looking at?
GERVAISE: No, I can’t.
OUDARDE: Speak to her. Try to get her to come to the window.
GERVAISE (calling): Sachette! You must be cold; would you like a little fire?
OUDARDE: She doesn’t reply.
GERVAISE: She’s making a negative sign. Well, at least take this corn pancake. And have a drink. It’ll refresh you.
SACHETTE (without being seen): Yes. Some water.
MAHIETTE: Was it she who spoke?
GERVAISE: Yes. She’s getting up. (to Sachette) Here, take this cake.
SACHETTE: Corn bread!
GERVAISE (giving her an item of clothing): Here’s a chale against the cold. Put it over your shoulders.
SACHETTE: A chale!
EUSTACHE: She ate my cake! (Oudarde grabs him and shakes him) Er, bonjour, madame.
SACHETTE (appearing at the window): Ah, don’t show me other people’s children.
GERVAISE: You lost a child then?
SACHETTE: Yes. My daughter. The Gypsies stole her from me.
OUDARDE: Ah! That’s why you hate them so much?
SACHETTE: Oh, yes, I hate them. One especially. The young one who’s about the same age as my daughter would be, if her mother hadn’t killed her. Each time that young viper passes in front of my cell, she makes my blood boil.
MAHIETTE (to Gervaise and Oudarde): Do you know this woman’s real name?
GERVAISE: No. Just Sachette.
OUDARDE: Or the Recluse.
MAHIETTE: Well, me, I’d give her another name.
OUDARDE: Which one?
MAHIETTE: Watch! (leaning towards the window and calling) Paquette! Paquette Chantefleurie!
SACHETTE (rushing to the window wildly): Who’s calling me? Is that you, Gypsy? Oh, take away that child. The Gypsy is going to pass! (she disappears again).
GERVAISE: A fortunate guess! How did you recognize her, Mahiette?
MAHIETTE: Do you know what she was looking at, so intently, in the corner? What I really thought I saw when I first arrived?
GERVAISE: What was it?
MAHIETTE: The little slippers!
GERVAISE: Ah! Poor woman!
MAHIETTE (hugging Eustache): Poor mother!
(A crowd comes in, singing.)
CROWD SINGING: A rope for the gallows bird, a birch for the monkey.
GERVAISE: Ah! They’re bringing in the condemned.
(Jehan Frollo enters, his arms linked with Robin Poussepain’s and two other students.)
JEHAN FROLLO: Make way! Make way! For our old Pope has fallen from triumph to torture.
(The Guards push back the crowd and lead Quasimodo, who walks in wearing a sleeveless chemise, his arms tied behind his back. Tristan L’Hermite, the Provost of the King’s Guards, and Pierrat Torterue, the official Torturer and Executioner of Paris, follow him, the latter a whip with long thongs in his hand. There are hoots and laughter from the crowd.)
QUASIMODO: What do they want from me?
(The Guards make him mount the pillory platform.)
JEHAN FROLLO: What a boorish dolt. He understands his fate no more than a beetle locked in a box.
MAHIETTE (to Gervaise): Who’s that man in the red uniform?
GERVAISE: That’s Messire Tristan l’Hermitte, the Provost of the King’s Guards. And with him is Master Pierrat Torterue, the official Torturer and Executioner of Paris.
MAHIETTE: What is the Provost putting there, by the stake?
GERVAISE: An hourglass. After having been whipped, the condemned must remain exposed in the pillory for an hour.
(The Guards force Quasimodo to his knees. They remove his shirt and doublet, baring his upper body, and secure him to a circular plank; meanwhile, the Hunchback offers no resistance.)
JEHAN FROLLO: Bourgeois and peasants, come and see. They are going to peremptorily whip Quasimodo, the bell-ringer of my brother, the Archdeacon. A comedian built like oriental architectural, with a domed back and two twisted columns for legs.
(Laughter from the crowd. The Torturer stamps his foot. The wheel-like device to which Quasimodo is attached begins to turn. When it reaches Torterue, he applies the whip to Quasimodo’s back.)
QUASIMODO (with a scream of pain and rage): I don’t want it! (at the second turn and the second blow, he makes a violent but useless effort) Why? Why?
JEHAN FROLLO (clapping his hands around his mouth and shouting): Because you tried to carry off a woman, stupid brute.
(At the third blow, Quasimodo lowers his head, closes his eyes and thereafter remains totally impassive.)
MAHIETTE: Let’s get out of here! I can’t watch this; it makes me sick.
GERVAISE: Wait! The Provost is holding out his baton. The scourging’s over.
(At a sign from the Provost, the Torturer, who was about to strike again, lowers his arm. The wheel stops. A soldier throws a yellow cloth over Quasimodo’s shoulders.)
JEHAN FROLLO: Only three blows. He was just starting to enjoy it.
ROBIN POUSSEPAIN: Here, take that, you evil monster! (he throws a stone at Quasimodo)
CROWD SINGING: A rope for the gallows bird, a birch for the monkey.
(Gringoire enters from the left.)
GRINGOIRE: Ah! It’s that frightful Hunchback who almost killed me the other night. They’re whipping him. I’m comfortable with that. (noticing the cake in Eustache’s hands) O what a delightful cake. Why don’t you eat your cake, my little friend?
EUSTACHE: Mother doesn’t want me to.
GRINGOIRE (breaking off a big piece of the cake): You must always obey your mother.
EUSTACHE: Mother! Someone else’s eating my cake! Mother! She’s not paying any attention. Good! Then, I’ll eat the rest!
QUASIMODO (in a pitiful tone): Water!
ROBIN POUSSEPAIN: Would you like me to wet a sponge for you in the gutter?
JEHAN FROLLO (to Robin): Shut up! Dom Claude Frollo’s here! My brother!
WOMEN: The Archdeacon.
QUASIMODO (seeing Claude Frollo, uttering a scream of joy): Ah! Master! My good Master! Ah! He’s come to free me!
(Claude Frollo enters.)
QUASIMODO: Bless you, Master! I love you. You well know, you most of all, that I’m not guilty. Come, free me! Save me!
QUASIMODO: Don’t you hear me? Master! Please, don’t leave! Help me!
JEHAN FROLLO: You heard your bell-ringer, my good brother?
CLAUDE FROLLO: What have I in common with this wretch?
(He leaves.)
QUASIMODO: Mercy!
AN OLD WOMAN: It’s well done! You are a repugnant demon from Hell!
GERVAISE (To Mahiette, who’s overcome with pity): What do you expect? He’s been bad to all, all are bad to him.
QUASIMODO: Water!
ROBIN POUSSEPAIN: Here's a drinking cup! (he flings a broken jug at the Hunchback’s breast.)
(Enter Esmeralda, holding her goat.)
CROWD: Esmeralda! Esmeralda!
QUASIMODO (with a heart-rending scream): Water!
(Esmeralda stops and looks at Quasimodo.)
QUASIMODO: The Gypsy girl! It’s because of you that I’m here, you evil girl. I hate you. What have you come here to do? To avenge yourself, to add your blows to the crowd’s? Water!
(Esmeralda starts to go up the steps to the pillory.)
QUASIMODO: Don’t come near! Don’t come near! I’ll bite you.
(Esmeralda approaches Quasimodo who is snarling and grinding his teeth. She takes a gourd from her belt and presents it to the Hunchback’s lips.)
ESMERALDA: Drink.
(Quasimodo, stupefied, recoils.)
ESMERALDA: Come on, drink!
(Quasimodo drinks in huge gulps.)
Frankenstein vs The Hunchback of Notre-Dame Page 10
