Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

poor mother! At night she returned to her home. During her absence, a neighbour had seen two Egyptian
women steal up her stair with a bundle in their arms, then come down again after closing the door, and
hasten away. Afterward she had heard something that sounded like a child’s cry from Paquette’s room.
The mother broke into mad laughter, sprang up the stair as if she had wings, burst open the door like an
explosion of artillery, and entered the room. Horrible to relate, Oudarde, instead of her sweet little
Agnès, so rosy and fresh, a gift from Heaven, a sort of hideous little monster, crippled, one-eyed, all
awry, was crawling and whimpering on the floor. She covered her eyes in horror.
“‘Ah!’ she cried, ‘can these sorceresses have changed my little girl into this frightful beast?’ They
removed the misshapen lump as quickly as possible out of her sight; it would have driven her mad. It was
a boy, the monstrous offspring of some Egyptian woman and the Foul Fiend, about four years old, and
speaking a language like no human tongue, impossible to understand. La Chantefleurie had thrown
herself upon the little shoe, all that remained to her of her heart’s delight, and lay so long motionless,
without a word or a breath, that we thought she was dead. But suddenly her whole body began to
tremble, and she fell to covering her relic with frantic kisses, sobbing the while as if her heart would
break. I do assure you, we were all weeping with her as she cried: ‘Oh, my little girl! my pretty little girl!
where art thou?’ It rent the very soul to hear her; I weep now when I think of it. Our children, look you,
are the very marrow of our bones.—My poor little Eustache, thou too art so beautiful!—Could you but
know how clever he is! It was but yesterday he said to me, ‘Mother, I want to be a soldier.’—Oh, my
Eustache, what if I were to lose thee!—Well, of a sudden, La Chantefleurie sprang to her feet and ran
through the streets of the town crying: ‘To the camp of the Egyptians! to the camp of the Egyptians!
Sergeants, to burn the witches!’ The Egyptians were gone—deep night had fallen, and they could not be
pursued. Next day, two leagues from Reims, on a heath between Gueux and Tilloy, were found the
remains of a great fire, some ribbons that had belonged to Paquette’s child, some drops of blood, and
goat’s dung. The night just past had been that of Saturday. Impossible to doubt that the gipsies had kept
their Sabbath on this heath, and had devoured the infant in company with Beelzebub, as is the custom
among the Mahometans. When La Chantefleurie heard of these horrible things she shed no tear, her lips
moved as if to speak, but no words came. On the morrow her hair was gray, and the day after that she
had disappeared.’
“A terrible story indeed,” said Oudarde, “and one that would draw tears from a Burgundian!”
“I do not wonder now,” added Gervaise, “that the fear of the Egyptians should pursue you.”
“And you were the better advised,” said Oudarde, “in running away with your Eustache, seeing that
these, too, are Egyptians from Poland.”
“No,” said Gervaise, “it is said they come from Spain and Catalonia.”
“Catalonia? Well, that may be,” answered Oudarde. “Polognia, Catalonia, Valonia—I always confound
those three provinces. The sure thing is that they’re Egyptians.”
“And as sure,” added Gervaise, “that they’ve teeth long enough to eat little children. And I would not be
surprised if La Esmeralda did a little of that eating, for all she purses up her mouth so small. That white
goat of hers knows too many cunning tricks that there should not be some devilry behind it.”
Mahiette pursued her way in silence, sunk in that kind of reverie which is in some sort a prolongation of
any pitiful tale, and does not cease till it has spread its emotion, wave upon wave, to the innermost
recesses of the heart.