Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 144 — page 37: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Me HUNCHBACK Ut NOTRE-DAME, or OO et ree Oe -C— 37 reased by the warm aif of spring, and inundated with | he was roused from this contemplation ; but at length | lowed him with their eyes along the dusky nave. the sunlight, belonged to the mass for the dead. The | he turned about, and, at a sigh which he made, two populace listened devens)y. _ |men in yellow dresses, the executioner’s assistants, The terrified girl, fixing her eyes on the dark interior | approached the Egyptian to tie her hands again. of the church, séemed to lose both sight and thought.| ‘The unfortunate creature, at the moment tor reas- _descried at one of the extremities of the Her pale lips moved as ifin prayerj; and when the exe- | cending the fatal cart and setting out on her last stage, | i cutioner’s man went to assist her to alight from the was probably seized by some keen repining after life. cart, he heard her repeating in a faint voice the word She raised her dry but inflamed eyes toward heaven, Phebus. toward the sun, toward the silvery clouds, studded Her hands were unbound, and she alighted, accom- here and there with trapeziums andi triangles of azure. panied by her goat, which had also been untied, and | and then cast them down around her upon the earth, bleated tor joy on finding itself at liberty; and she was upon the crowd, upon the houses. then made to walk barefoot on the hard payement to | regretting that he had so soon withdrawn himself from their acclamations. All at once he was again gallery «1 the kings of France: he ran along it, like a mania‘, holding up his prize in his arms, and shouting— “Sanctuary !’’ The populace greeted him with fresh applause. Having traversed the gallery, he again penetrated into the interior of the church. Presently afterward he again appeared on the upper platform, still bearing the Egyptian in his arms, still running like one frantic, still shouting—" San¢tuary.” Again All at once, while the men in yellow were pivioning | the mob applauded. At length, he made his third ap- the foot of the steps leading to the porch. The rope | her arm, she gave a startling scream, a scream of joy. | pearance on the top of the tower of the great bell; which was fastened about her neck trailed bebind her; | In the balcony at the corner ot the Place she had de- | there he seemed to show proudly to the whole city ber you would have taken it for a snake that was following | scried jum, her friend, her lord, her Phebus, just as he | Whom he had sayed, and his thundering voice— that her. The chanting in the church ceased. A large gold crucifix and a file of tapers begam to move in the dusk. The sound of the halberts of the party-colored Swiss was heard; and in a few moments a long procession of priests in copes and deacons in dalmatics, slowly ad- vanced chanting toward the prisoner, and expanded itself before her eyés and those of the mob. But hers were riveted on him who walked at its head immedi- ately after the bearer of the crucifix. “Oh!’’ she mtr- mured to herself, shuddering, * there he is again! the riest |’’ ~ Tt was actually the archdeacon. On his left was the sub-chanter, and on his right the chanter bearing the staff of his office. He advanced, with head thrown back, and eyes fixed and open, chanting with a loud voice: ‘‘ De ventre inferi clamavit et exaudisti vocem meam. “Et projecisti me in profundum, in corde marig, et fumen circumdedit me.” At the moment when he papeses in the broad day- light beneath the lofty pointed arch of the portal, cov- ered with an ample cope of silver marked with ablack cross, he wae 60 pale that sundry of the crowd imagined it must be one of the marble bishops kneeling on the sepulchral monuments in the choir, who had risen and come to receive on the brink of the tomb her who was about to die. She, not less pale, not lessstatue-like, was scarcely aware that a heavy —— taper of yellow wax had been put into her hand; she had not heard the aqueak- ing voice of the clerk, reading the form of the penance; when told to tay Amen, she had said Amen, Neither did she recover any life or any strength till she saw the priest make a sign to those who had her in custody to retire, and advance alone toward her. She then felt the blood boil im her hea” anda spark of indigna- tion was rekindled in her soul, already cold, benumbed, stupefied. e archdeacon approached her slowly; even in this extremity she saw him survey her nearly naked form with an eye ~ me with pleasure, love, and jealousy. Im a loud voice he thus addressed her: “ Bohemian girl, have you prayed God to pardon your crimes and misdémeanors?’’ Then stooping—as the spectators imagined, to receive her last confession— he whispered, “ Wilt thou be mine? I can even yet save thee !”’ She eyed him steadfastly. “‘Go to the fiend, thy master, or I will inform of thee |” He per horribly a ghastly smile. “They will not believe thee,” he replied. “Thou wilt but add scandal to guilt, Answer quickly, wilt thou have me?” | : “What hast thou done with my Phebus?’ “ He is dead,” said thre priest. ~ At that moment the wretched archdeacon raised his head mechanically, and saw on the other side of the Place the captain, standing in the balcony with Fleur de Lys. He shuddered, passed his hand over his eyes, looked , uttered a malediction, and all his features were violently contracted. “Well, then, die!’ said he. “No one shall have thee.” Then lifting his hand over the Egyptian, he pronounced these words in a loud and solemn tone ; looked when alive. The judge had told her afalsehood | | voice which was heard so seldom, and which he him- the priest had told her a falsehood! ’twas he himself— | self never heard—made the air ring with the thrice she could not possibly doubt it. There he stood, liv- | repeated shout of “Sanctuary! sanctuary f sanctuary !’” ing; moving habited in his brilliant uniform, with the “ Huzza! huzza !"’ cried the populace on their part; plume on his head and the sword by his aide. and the prodigious acclamation was heard on the other “Phoebus !"" shé cried; “my Phebus!” and she | side of the river by the crowd collected in the Place de would have stretched out toward him her arms trem- | Greve, and by the recluse, who was still waiting with blin ‘v.th love and transport, but they were bound. her eyes riveted on the gallows. She then saw the captain knit his brow; a youn and handsome female who leant upon him looked a him with disdainful lip and angry eyc; Phebus then uttered a few words, which sho was too far off to hear ; both hastily retired from the balcony into the room, and phe hey oe Wee See eects “ . ‘ ‘*Phebus !” cried she wildly, “dost thou, too, be- lieve it!” A horrible idea had just flashed upon ‘her. ee ae : She.recoll.cted that she had been condemned for the| CLAUDE FROLLO was no longer in Notre-Dame, when murder of Captain Phebus de Chateaupers. She had | his foster-son cut thus abrupfly the fatal noose in borne wp thus far against everything, This last | Which the unhappy archdeucon had caught the Egyp- shoc: was too violent. She fell senseless upon the | tian, and was himeelf caught. On returning to the pavement. sacristy he had stripped off the alb, the cope, and the “Come |!’ said Charmolue, “ carry her to the cart, and | stole, throwa them all into the hands of the stupened let us mako au end of the business?” bedel, hurried out at the private door of the Ay ere, No person had yci observed in the gallery of the ordered a boatman of the Terrain to carry hifn across royal statues, immediately above the pointed arches of the river, and wandered among the hilly streets of the the porch, a strange-looking spectator, who liad till | University, meeting at every step parties of men and then. been ‘watching all that passed, with attitude women, hastening joyously toward the Pont St. 80 motionicas, Lead so out-stretched, visage so de- | Michel, “in hopes of beingin time to see the sor- formed, that, bui, for his apparel half red and half) coress hanged!” Pale and haggard, blinded and more purple, he might have been taken for one of those stone | bewildered than an owl let loose and pursued by a monsters, at whose mouths the long gutters of the | troop of boys in broad daylight, he knew not where he cathedral have for these six h d years disgorged | was, what he did, whether he was awake or dreaming. themselves, This spectator had not lost a single inci- He walked, he ran, heedlese whither, taking any street dent ot the tragedy that had been acting ever since st random, still driven onward by the Greye, which he boon. ban re Be batch ie eet eo > and Fx A: vaguely knew to be behind him. : very Arsé momen © had, ur-observed, securely In this manner he pursued his way.along the hill of to one of the small pillars of the gallery a knotted gt, Genevieve, and left the pararee Ss ot St. rope, the end of which reached the. Riedy ae: This Victor. Solong as he could see,on turning round, the hissing from ‘ime to time at the jackdaws as they flew | tered houses of thesuburb, he continued to fice; but past him. All at once, at the moment when the execu- | when, at] , the inequality of the ground ha tioner’s assistants were preparing to obey the phleg- compl tely shut out that hateful Paris fromhis view. matic order of Charmolue, he strode across the balus- | wh he could fancy himself a hundred Jeagues off, im trade of the gallery, seized the rope with fect, knees, | the country, in a desert, he paused, and felt as though. down 4 pane of glass; ran upto the two men with A crowd of frightful ideas ‘then rushed upon his the swiftness of a cat that has fallen from a roof; mind. He saw plainly into the recesses of his souk felled both of them tothe ground with his enormous /and shuddered. He thought of that unhappy girl who fists ; bore off the Egyptiam on one arm, as agirl would jad wndone him, and whom he had undone. With her doll, and at one bound he was in the church, hold- | haggard eye he tollowed the double winding way along ing up the young girl above his head and shouting which fatality had urged their two destinies to. the was all done with the rapidity of lightning. them against one anuther. He thou htiof the folly of ‘Sanctuary! sanctuary?’ repeated the mob, and | eternal vows, of the vauity of chastity, science, reli- the clapping of ten thousand hands caused Quasimodo’s | gion, and virtue. He willfully plunged into evil only eye to sparkle with joy and exultation. _ . | thoughts, and as heimmersed fin them, he felt This shock bronght La Esmeralda to her senses, | 4 Satanic laugh arising within him. She opened her eyes; looked at Quasimodo, and in-| And when, while thus ei into his soul, he. saw stantly closed them again, as if horror-stricken at the | how large a space Nature had there prepared for the'passions, he laughed still more bitterly. Hestirred up irom the bottom of his heart all its hatred and all its malignity; and he perceived, with the cold indiffer ence of a physician examining a patient, that this hatred and this malignity were but vitiated love, the suuree ofe er me in man, was transformed into horrid things im heart of a priest,and that one soe con- stituted as he in making himselfs priest made himself a BOOK VIIt. CHAPTER I. sight of her deliverer. Charmolue stood stupefied—so did the executioners and the whole escort. Within the walls of Notre-Dame the prisoner was secure from molestation. . The cathe- dral was a place of refuge. Human justice dared not cross its threshold. Quasimodo paused under the great porch. His large feet seemed as firmly rooted in the pavement of the seaman LL LLLLLL BBB RRRRABRRRRRRAA AA LLL LL LL CL LLL LLL CC ET “ I nunc anima anceps, et sit tibi Deus misericors !”’ church as the massive Roman pillars, Hishuge head, | demon, He then hed more usly than ever, This was the dreadful form with whieh it was cus-| with its profusé cove of hair, ap to be | and all at once he again turned pale on considering the tomary to conclude these gloomy ceremonies. It was | thrust down into his shew , like of the lion, | dark side of his fatal passion, that corroding, venomous the signal given by the priest to the executioner. The | which, too, has @ copious mane and no neck, He held | rancorous, implacable» love, which had consigned the populace fell on their knees, the damsel, palpitating all over, hanging from his | one tothe gallows, the otherto perdition, “Ki Eleison!’’ said the priests, who stopped be- | horny hands like a white drapery; but he carried her| And then he luughedagain on bethinking him that: neath the with as much care as if he was fearful of bruising or | Phebus was net dead; that he was stillalive, gay, and reh. “ Kyrie Bleison !"” repeated the crowd,with a murmur | disturbing her. He felt, you would have thought, that rose above their heads like the rumbling of an | that a thing ao delicate, so exquisite,so precious, was agitated sea. . | not made for such hands as his. At times he looked as “Amen!” said the archdeacon. though he dared not touch her even with his breath. He turned his back on the prisoner ; his head sank Then, all atonce, he would clasp her closely in his upon his bosom; his hands crogse:| each other; he arms, against his angular bosom, as his treasure, as rejoined the train of priests, and presently receded | his all, as the mother of that girl would herself have from sight with the cruCifix, the tapers, and the copes, done. His Cyclop eye bent down upon her, shed over beneath the dusky arches of the cathedral; and his hera flood of tenderness, of pity, of grief, and was sonorous voice expired by degrees in the choir, while suddenly raised flashing lightning. At this sight the chanting this verse of anguish: ““Ommnes gurgites tui et ' women laughed and cried; the crowd stamped with us tut me transierunt.”’ enthusiasm, for at that momeut Quasi O was really At the same time the intermitting stamp of the iron- | beautiful. Yes, he was beautiful—he, that orphan, shod shafte of the halberts ot the Switzers dying away | that foundling, that outcast; he felt himself august between the intercolumniations of the nave, produced | and strong; he looked in the face that society from the effect “ a clock-hammer striking the last hour of | which he was banished, and from which he had made the doomed one. 20 signal a conquest; thathuman justice from which. joyous ; that he hada smarter uniform than ever; and & new mistress whom he took to see the old one hanged. He laughed still more heartily on reflecting +: among all the living beings whose death he had wish tor, the Egyptian, the only creature whom he did pot hate, wae. also ihe only one who had not escaped . He bethought him of the plight in’ h the female whom he loved had been exposed to the gaze of the crowd, of the entire population of Paris. He wrung his hands on reacting how that female, thint Lepeo y girl, that virgin a at being all modesty and purity whom he durst not approach without trembling and a glimpse of whom to himself alone would have been supreme happiness, had ger ced in the broad face of day to the populace, to the vilest of the rabbie of Paris, to lackeys, vaga i, Taendicauts, thieves. H wept for rage at the mysteries of love exposed, pro Meanwhile the doors of Notre-Dame were left open, displaying to view the church, empty, Resteteds to mourning, taperless, and voiceless. rls motionless in her place, awaiting what was o be done with her. One of the vergers was obliged to intimate asanuch to Master Charmcelue, who, during | by a being £0 deformed to a being so unfortunate as the the whole of this scene, had been studying the basso- relisvo of the porch, representing, accerding to some, the of Abraham, according to ot hers, the alchemical operation, the angel being typified by the eun, the fire by the bundle of eticks, and the vperator by Abraham. It wae with some difficulty that condemned | meanest of the mean, had foiled with the force of wr Cte riEnees anid ee when he strove to picture to himself the felicit which he might have found upon earth if she had ict P been & Bohemian, and if he had not been a priest, if Phebus had not existed, and if she had not loved him; when he cohsidered that a life of serenity and affection a have been possible for him also, even to him ; that, at the very moment, there were here and there on the earth happy couples e in fond converse in orangeé-groves, on the banke of murmuring streams, in the presence of a setting sun, or of a starry sky ; and that, had it /pleased God, he might have formed with he had snatched its victim; those judyes, those ex- ecutioners, all that force of the king’s which he, the ! And then, how touching was that protection aflorded girl condemned to die and saved by Quasimodo! It was the two extreme miseries of Nature and society meeting and assisting each other. ; After a triumph of a few mifiutes, however, Quasi- modo hastened into the interior of the church with his burden. The people, fond of daring deeds, fol, elias Eboo