Notre-Dame de Paris Victor Hugo (mobile ebook reader .txt) 📖

his cell in the cloister. He appeared neither at the meetings of the chapter nor at the services. He closed his door against all, even against the bishop. He remained thus immured for several weeks. He was believed to be ill. And so he was, in fact.

What did he do while thus shut up? With what thoughts was the unfortunate man contending? Was he giving final battle to his formidable passion? Was he concocting a final plan of death for her and of perdition for himself?

His Jehan, his cherished brother, his spoiled child, came once to his door, knocked, swore, entreated, gave his name half a score of times. Claude did not open.

He passed whole days with his face close to the panes of his window. From that window, situated in the cloister, he could see la Esmeralda’s chamber. He often saw herself with her goat, sometimes with Quasimodo. He remarked the little attentions of the ugly deaf man, his obedience, his delicate and submissive ways with the gypsy. He recalled, for he had a good memory, and memory is the tormentor of the jealous, he recalled the singular look of the bellringer, bent on the dancer upon a certain evening. He asked himself what motive could have impelled Quasimodo to save her. He was the witness of a thousand little scenes between the gypsy and the deaf man, the pantomime of which, viewed from afar and commented on by his passion, appeared very tender to him. He distrusted the capriciousness of women. Then he felt a jealousy which he could never have believed possible awakening within him, a jealousy which made him redden with shame and indignation: “One might condone the captain, but this one!” This thought upset him.

His nights were frightful. As soon as he learned that the gypsy was alive, the cold ideas of spectre and tomb which had persecuted him for a whole day vanished, and the flesh returned to goad him. He turned and twisted on his couch at the thought that the dark-skinned maiden was so near him.

Every night his delirious imagination represented la Esmeralda to him in all the attitudes which had caused his blood to boil most. He beheld her outstretched upon the poniarded captain, her eyes closed, her beautiful bare throat covered with Phoebus’s blood, at that moment of bliss when the archdeacon had imprinted on her pale lips that kiss whose burn the unhappy girl, though half dead, had felt. He beheld her, again, stripped by the savage hands of the torturers, allowing them to bare and to enclose in the boot with its iron screw, her tiny foot, her delicate rounded leg, her white and supple knee. Again he beheld that ivory knee which alone remained outside of Torterue’s horrible apparatus. Lastly, he pictured the young girl in her shift, with the rope about her neck, shoulders bare, feet bare, almost nude, as he had seen her on that last day. These images of voluptuousness made him clench his fists, and a shiver run along his spine.

One night, among others, they heated so cruelly his virgin and priestly blood, that he bit his pillow, leaped from his bed, flung on a surplice over his shirt, and left his cell, lamp in hand, half naked, wild, his eyes aflame.

He knew where to find the key to the red door, which connected the cloister with the church, and he always had about him, as the reader knows, the key of the staircase leading to the towers.

VI Continuation of the Key to the Red Door

That night, la Esmeralda had fallen asleep in her cell, full of oblivion, of hope, and of sweet thoughts. She had already been asleep for some time, dreaming as always, of Phoebus, when it seemed to her that she heard a noise near her. She slept lightly and uneasily, the sleep of a bird; a mere nothing waked her. She opened her eyes. The night was very dark. Nevertheless, she saw a figure gazing at her through the window; a lamp lighted up this apparition. The moment that the figure saw that la Esmeralda had perceived it, it blew out the lamp. But the young girl had had time to catch a glimpse of it; her eyes closed again with terror.

“Oh!” she said in a faint voice, “the priest!”

All her past unhappiness came back to her like a flash of lightning. She fell back on her bed, chilled.

A moment later she felt a touch along her body which made her shudder so that she straightened herself up in a sitting posture, wide awake and furious.

The priest had just slipped in beside her. He encircled her with both arms.

She tried to scream and could not.

“Begone, monster! begone assassin!” she said, in a voice which was low and trembling with wrath and terror.

“Mercy! mercy!” murmured the priest, pressing his lips to her shoulder.

She seized his bald head by its remnant of hair and tried to thrust aside his kisses as though they had been bites.

“Mercy!” repeated the unfortunate man. “If you but knew what my love for you is! ’Tis fire, melted lead, a thousand daggers in my heart.”

She stopped his two arms with superhuman force.

“Let me go,” she said, “or I will spit in your face!”

He released her. “Vilify me, strike me, be malicious! Do what you will! But have mercy! love me!”

Then she struck him with the fury of a child. She made her beautiful hands stiff to bruise his face. “Begone, demon!”

“Love me! love me! pity!” cried the poor priest returning her blows with caresses.

All at once she felt him stronger than herself.

“There must be an end to this!” he said, gnashing his teeth.

She was conquered, palpitating in his arms, and in his power. She felt a wanton hand straying over her. She made a last effort, and began to cry: “Help! Help! A vampire! a vampire!”

Nothing came. Djali alone was awake and bleating with anguish.

“Hush!” said the panting priest.

All at once, as