by Hugo, Victor
‘It’s a cat of mine,’ the archdeacon said quickly, ‘treating himself to a mouse or something under there.’
This explanation satisfied Charmolue. ‘Indeed, master,’ he answered with a respectful smile, ‘all the great philosophers have had their familiar animal. You know what Servius says: Nullus enim locus sine genio est [For there is no place without its spirit].’
Meanwhile Dom Claude, fearing some new outburst from Jehan, reminded his worthy disciple that they had some figures on the portal to study together, and they both left the cell, to a loud ‘Whew!’ from the student, who had begun to be seriously afraid that his knee was going to take on the imprint of his chin.
VI
THE EFFECT THAT CAN BE PRODUCED BY SEVEN
OATHS UTTERED IN THE OPEN AIR
‘Te Deum laudamus!’ exclaimed Maître Jehan as he came out of his hole, ‘the two screech-owls have gone. Och! och! Hax! pax! max! Fleas! mad dogs! The devil! I have had enough of their conversation! My head is ringing like a belfry. Mouldy cheese into the bargain! Come on! let’s go on down, take our big brother’s wallet and convert all these coins into bottles!’
He cast an affectionate and admiring glance inside the precious wallet, straightened his clothes, rubbed his boots, dusted his poor padded sleeves, all grey with ash, whistled a tune, spun a caper, looked to see if there was anything else left in the cell for him to take, picked up here and there on the furnace some glass amulets good enough to present to Isabeau la Thierrye as jewellery, finally pushed the door, which his brother had left open as a final piece of indulgence, and which he left open in his turn as a final piece of mischief, and went hopping down the circular stairway like a bird.
In the darkness of the spiral stairs his elbow bumped into something which withdrew with a grunt; he presumed it was Quasimodo, and found that so funny that he went down the rest of the stairs holding his sides with laughter. He was still laughing as he emerged into the square.
He stamped his foot once he was back on the ground. ‘Oh!’ he said, ‘good honourable Paris paving! That cursed staircase would make the angels on Jacob’s ladder gasp for breath! What was I thinking of, sticking my nose into that stone gimlet that goes boring up into the sky; all to eat some whiskery cheese and see the steeples of Paris through a little window!’
He walked on a few steps, and noticed the two screech-owls, that is Dom Claude and Maître Jacques Charmolue, absorbed in contemplation before a sculpture in the portal. He approached them on tiptoe, and heard the archdeacon say in a very low voice to Charmolue: ‘It was Guillaume de Paris who had a Job carved on that lapis-lazuli coloured stone, with gilded edges. Job appears on the philosophers’ stone, which must also be tried and tormented to become perfect, as Raymond Lull* says: Sub conservatione formae specificae salva anima [under the conservation of the specific form the soul is safe].’
‘It’s all the same to me,’ said Jehan, ‘I’m the one who has the purse.’
At that moment he heard a loud, resonant voice behind him uttering a formidable string of oaths: ‘God’s blood! God’s belly! Bédieu! God’s body! Beelzebub’s navel! Name of a pope! Horn and thunder!’
‘Upon my soul,’ exclaimed Jehan, ‘that can only be my friend Captain Phoebus!’
This name ‘Phoebus’ reached the archdeacon’s ear just as he was explaining to the King’s attorney the dragon hiding its tail in a bath from whence smoke and a king’s head emerge. Dom Claude gave a start, broke off, to Charmolue’s great astonishment, turned round, and saw his brother Jehan accosting a tall officer at the door of the Gondelaurier residence.
It was indeed Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers. He was leaning against the corner of his fiancée’s house, swearing like a heathen.
‘My word, Captain Phoebus,’ said Jehan, taking him by the hand, ‘you swear with admirable vigour.’
‘Horn and thunder!’ replied the captain.
‘Horn and thunder yourself!’ retorted the student. ‘Well now, gentle captain, what has brought on such a spate of eloquence?’
‘Forgive me, good comrade Jehan,’ cried Phoebus, shaking his hand, ‘a horse doesn’t pull up short when it’s got the bit between its teeth, and I was swearing at full gallop. I have just left the company of those prudes, and when I come away from them my throat’s always full of oaths; I’ve got to spit them out or I’d choke, belly and thunder!’
‘Would you like to come for a drink?’ asked the student.
That proposal calmed the captain.
‘Gladly, but I don’t have any money.’
‘But I have.’
‘Bah! let’s see!’
Jehan displayed the wallet, simply and majestically, for the captain to see. Meanwhile the archdeacon, who had left Charmolue in utter amazement, had come close to them, stopping a short way off, and was observing the two of them without their being aware of him, so deeply absorbed were they in contemplation of the wallet.
Phoebus exclaimed: ‘A purse in your pocket, Jehan, is like the moon in a bucket of water. You can see it, but it isn’t there. There’s only its shadow. By God! let’s bet those are pebbles!’
Jehan coldly replied: ‘Here are the pebbles I pave my fob with.’
And without another word he emptied the wallet on to a marker-stone nearby with the air of a Roman saving his country.
‘God’s truth!’ muttered Phoebus, ‘targes, grands blancs, petits blancs, mailles at a tournois for two, deniers parisis, real liards with the eagle! It’s dazzling!’
Jehan remained dignified and impassive. A few liards had rolled into the mud; the captain, in his enthusiasm, stooped to pick them up. Jehan restrained him: ‘Shame on you, Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers!’
Phoebus counted the coins, and turning solemnly to Jehan: ‘Do you know, Jehan, there are 23 sols parisis there! Who did you rob last night in the rue Coupe-Gueule?’
Jehan threw back his fair, curly head and said disdainfully with eyes half closed: ‘We have a brother who is an archdeacon and an idiot.’
‘God’s horn!’ cried Phoebus, ‘the worthy man!’
‘Let’s go and drink,’ said Jehan.
‘Where shall we go?’ said Phoebus. ‘To the Pomme d’Ève?’
‘No, captain. Let’s go to the Vieille Science. An old woman [vieille] sawing a jug [scie-anse]. It’s a rebus. I like that.’
‘Blow rebuses, Jehan! The wine is better at the Pomme d’Ève. Anyway, beside the door there’s a vine in the sun that cheers me up when I’m drinking.’
‘All right! let’s settle for Eve and her apple,’ said the student; then, taking Phoebus by the arm: ‘By the way, my dear captain, a moment ago you mentioned the rue Coupe-Gueule. That’s a most improper way to speak. We are not so barbaric nowadays. We say rue Coupe-Gorge.’*
The two friends set off for the Pomme d’Ève. Needless to say, they picked up the money first, and the archdeacon followed them.
The archdeacon followed them, gloomy and haggard. Was this the Phoebus whose accursed name, ever since his interview with Gringoire, kept cropping up in his thoughts? He did not know, but at any rate he was a Phoebus, and that magical name was enough to make the archdeacon stealthily follow the two carefree friends, listening to what they said and watching their slightest gesture with anxious attention. However, it was only too easy to hear everything they said, they were talking so loudly, quite unconcerned about letting passers-by into half their secrets. They were talking about duels, girls, drink, wild pranks.
At a bend in the street the sound of a tambourine came to them from a crossroads nearby. Dom Claude heard the officer say to the student:
‘Thunder! let’s walk faster.’
‘Why, Phoebus?’
‘I’m afraid of the gypsy girl seeing me.’
‘What gypsy?’
‘The girl with the goat.’
‘La Smeralda?’
‘That’s right, Jehan. I always forget her infernal name. Let’s get a move on, she would recognize me. I don’t want tha
t girl accosting me in the street.’
‘Do you know her, Phoebus?’
At this, the archdeacon saw Phoebus snigger, bend over into Jehan’s ear, and whisper a few words. Then Phoebus roared with laughter and wagged his head with a triumphant look.
‘Really?’ said Jehan.
‘Upon my soul!’ said Phoebus.
‘This evening?’
‘This evening.’
‘Are you sure she’ll come?’
‘Are you crazy, Jehan? Does one doubt such things?’
‘Captain Phoebus, you’re a lucky soldier!’
The archdeacon heard the whole of this conversation. His teeth chattered. A visible shudder went right through his body. He stopped for a moment, leaned against a marker-stone like a drunken man, then again took up the trail of the two merry rascals.
Just as he caught up with them, they had changed the subject. He heard them bawling out the old refrain:
Children from the Petits-Carreaux*
Like calves to the gallows go.
VII
THE BOGEYMAN-MONK
THE illustrious tavern of the Pomme d’Ève was situated in the University, on the corner of the rue de la Rondelle and the rue du Bâtonnier. It was a room at street level, quite spacious and very low, with a vaulted ceiling whose central springing rested on a massive wooden pillar painted yellow. There were tables everywhere, gleaming pewter jugs hanging on the wall, always a crowd of drinkers, plenty of girls, a window on to the street, a vine by the door, and over the door a gaudy metal sheet, with an apple and a woman painted on it, rusted by rain and swinging in the wind on an iron shaft. This sort of weathercock overlooking the street was the inn-sign.
Night was falling. The crossroads were dark. The tavern, bright with countless candles, blazed from afar like a forge in the shadows. The sound of glasses, feasting, swearing, and quarrelling could be heard through the broken window panes. The warmth of the room had misted over the glass front, but through it could be seen scores of hazy figures milling about, and breaking out now and then with a burst of resounding laughter. Passers-by going about their business did not look in through this turbulent window. Only at intervals some ragged urchin would stretch up on tiptoe to reach the window sill and shout into the tavern the mocking old cry with which drunkards were then harried: ‘Aux Houls, drunk, drunk, drunk!’*
One man, however, was walking imperturbably up and down in front of the rowdy tavern, constantly looking inside and straying from it no further than a pikeman from his sentry-box. He had a cloak pulled up to his nose. He had just bought this cloak from the secondhand-clothes dealer near the Pomme d’Ève, no doubt as protection against the cold March evenings, perhaps to conceal his dress. From time to time he would stop in front of the clouded casement with its lead lattice, look, listen, and stamp his feet.
At length the tavern door opened. This seemed to be what he was waiting for. Two drinkers came out. The beam of light shining from the doorway glowed red for a moment over their merry faces. The man in the cloak went to take up an observation post beneath a porch on the other side of the street.
‘Horn and thunder,’ said one of the two drinkers. ‘It’s going to strike seven. That’s the time of my appointment.’
‘I tell you,’ his companion put in, slurring his words, ‘I don’t live in the rue des Mauvaises-Paroles, indignus qui inter mala verba habitat [unworthy the man who dwells amid evil words]. My lodgings are in the rue Jean-Pain-Mollet, in vico Johannis-Pain-Mollet—you are cornier than a unicorn if you say otherwise. Everyone knows that once you’ve ridden a bear you’re cured of fear, but you have a nose for a dainty morsel, like Saint-Jacques de l’Hôpital.’
‘Jehan, my friend, you’re drunk,’ the other said.
His friend replied, staggering along: ‘You like saying so, Phoebus, but it has been proved that Plato had the profile of a hunting-dog.’
The reader has doubtless already recognized our two fine friends, the captain and the student. The man spying on them from the shadows had also recognized them, apparently, for he slowly followed all the zigzags which the student imposed on the captain, who as a more seasoned drinker had kept a perfectly cool head. Listening to them attentively, the man in the cloak was able to pick up the whole of the following interesting conversation:
‘Corbacque! Try and walk straight, Monsieur the Bachelor of Arts. You know I’ve got to leave you. There’s seven o’clock. I have an appointment with a woman.’
‘Leave me alone then, will you! I’m seeing stars and fiery spears. You are like the château of Dampmartin falling apart with laughter.’
‘By my grandmother’s warts, Jehan, that’s pushing nonsense too far. By the way, Jehan, don’t you have any money left?’
‘Monsieur le Recteur, it’s no one’s fault, the small shambles, parva boucheria.’
‘Jehan, Jehan, my friend! you know I’ve arranged to meet this girl at the end of the Pont Saint-Michel. The only place I can take her is to la Falourdel’s, the bawd on the bridge., and I’ll have to pay for the room. The old trull with her white whiskers won’t give me credit. Jehan! for pity’s sake have we really drunk away all the reverend’s wallet? Haven’t you a single parisis left?’
‘The knowledge that the other hours have been well spent is a just and savoury condiment for the table.’*
‘Belly and bowels! give your nonsense a rest! Tell me, you devil’s own Jehan, have you any money left? Give it here, by God, or I’ll search you, be you as leprous as Job or scabby as Caesar!’
‘Monsieur, the rue Galiache* is a street running at one end into the rue de la Verrerie, and at the other into the rue de la Tixanderie.’
‘That’s right, my good friend Jehan, my poor comrade, the rue Galiache, that’s right, quite right. But in heaven’s name, get hold of yourself. I only need one sol parisis, and I need it for seven o’clock.’
‘Silence all round, and attend to the chorus:
When rats eat cats.
The king will rule in Arras;
When the sea, stretching far and wide,
is frozen hard at Midsummertide,
You will see upon the ice
The people fleeing from Arras.’
‘All right, student of Antichrist, may you be strangled with your mother’s guts!’ cried Phoebus, and roughly shoved the drunken student, who slid down the wall and fell limply on Philip-Augustus’s paving-stones. Moved by some remnant of that fellow-feeling which never forsakes a drinker’s heart, Phoebus rolled Jehan with his foot on to one of those poor men’s pillows which providence keeps ready at the corner of every marker-stone in Paris, and which the rich contemptuously brand with the name of muck-heaps. The captain arranged Jehan’s head on an inclined plane of cabbage stalks, and straight away the student began snoring in a magnificent bass-baritone. Some resentment, however, still smouldered in the captain’s heart: ‘Too bad if the devil’s muck-cart picks you up as it goes by!’ he said to the poor sleeping clerk, and went off.
The man in the cloak, who had never ceased to follow him, stopped for a moment before the recumbent student, as if in the throes of indecision; then, heaving a deep sigh, he too went off, after the captain.
Like them we shall leave Jehan sleeping under the kindly gaze of the stars, and will follow too, if it please the reader.
As he came out into the rue Saim-André-des-Arcs Captain Phoebus realized that he was being followed. He saw, as he chanced to look round, a kind of shadow creeping along the walls behind him. He stopped, the shadow stopped. He walked on, the shadow walked on. This caused him very little concern. ‘Bah!’ he said to himself, ‘I haven’t a sou.’
He halted before the façade of the Collège d’Autun. It was at this college that he had embarked on what he called his studies and from a habit acquired as an irreverent student and never given up, he never went by the façade without inflicting on the statue of Cardinal Pierre Bertrand, carved to the right of the gate, the kind of affront of which Priapus complains so b
itterly in Horace’s satire: Olim truncus enim ficulus [I was once the trunk of a fig tree]. He had gone about it with such enthusiasm that the inscription Eduensis episcopus [Bishop of Autun] had been almost obliterated. He stopped, then, in front of the statue as usual. The street was quite deserted. Just as he was casually tying up his laces* again, his head in the clouds, he saw the shadow approaching slowly, so slowly that he had plenty of time to observe that this shadow wore a cloak and a hat. When it had come up close to him, it stopped, and stayed as motionless as the statue of Cardinal Bertrand. Meanwhile it fixed on Phoebus two staring eyes full of that vague luminosity given off at night by the pupils of a cat’s eyes.
The captain was a brave man and would have been scarcely upset by a robber with a rapier in his hand. But this walking statue, this man turned to stone, made his blood run cold. At the time some kind of stories were circulating about a bogeyman-monk prowling the streets of Paris by night, and he vaguely recalled them. He remained dumbfounded for some moments, finally breaking the silence with an attempt at laughter.
‘Monsieur, if, as I hope, you are a thief, you make me think of a heron attacking a walnut-shell. I am the son of an impoverished family, my dear fellow. Try next door. In the college chapel there is a piece of the true cross, in a silver case.’
The shadow’s hand came out from beneath the cloak and fell upon Phoebus’ arm as heavily as an eagle’s talon. At the same time the shadow spoke: ‘Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers!’
‘What the devil!’ said Phoebus. ‘You know my name?’
‘I don’t just know your name,’ the man in the cloak went on in his sepulchral voice. ‘You have an appointment this evening.’
‘I have,’ answered Phoebus, quite astounded.
‘At seven o’clock.’
