Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

etreat and was preparing to insert in the lock the small and intricate key he always carried about with
him in the pouch hanging at his side, the jingle of a tambourine and of castanets suddenly smote on his
ear, rising up from the Place du Parvis. The cell, as we have said, had but one window looking over the
transept roof. Claude Frollo hastily withdrew the key, and in another moment was on the summit of the
tower, in that gloomy and intent attitude in which he had been observed by the group of girls.
There he stood, grave, motionless, absorbed in one object, one thought. All Paris was spread out at his
feet, with her thousand turrets, her undulating horizon, her river winding under the bridges, her stream of
people flowing to and fro in the streets; with the cloud of smoke rising from her many chimneys; with
her chain of crested roofs pressing in ever tightening coils round about Notre Dame. But in all that great
city the Archdeacon beheld but one spot—the Place du Parvis; and in that crowd but one figure—that of
the gipsy girl.
It would have been difficult to analyze the nature of that gaze, or to say whence sprang the flame that
blazed in it. His eyes were fixed and yet full of anguish and unrest; and from the profound immobility of
his whole body, only faintly agitated now and then by an involuntary tremor, like a tree shaken by the
wind; from his rigid arms, more stony than the balustrade on which they leaned, and the petrified smile
that distorted his countenance, you would have said that nothing of Claude Frollo was alive save his
eyes.
The gipsy girl was dancing and twirling her tambourine on the tip of her finger, throwing it aloft in the
air while she danced the Provençal saraband; agile, airy, joyous, wholly unconscious of the sinister gaze
falling directly on her head.
The crowd swarmed round her; from time to time, a man tricked out in a long red and yellow coat, went
round to keep the circle clear, and then returned to a seat a few paces from the dancer, and took the head
of the goat upon his knee. This man appeared to be the companion of the gipsy girl. Claude Frollo, from
his elevated position, could not distinguish his features.
No sooner had the Archdeacon caught sight of this individual, than his attention seemed divided
between him and the dancer, and his face became more and more overcast. Suddenly he drew himself up,
and a tremor ran through his whole frame. “Who can that man be?” he muttered between his teeth; “I
have always seen her alone hitherto.”
He then vanished under the winding roof of the spiral staircase, and proceeded to descend. As he passed
the half-open door of the belfry, he saw something which made him pause. It was Quasimodo, leaning
out of an opening in one of the great projecting slate eaves and likewise looking down into the Place, but
so profoundly absorbed in contemplation that he was unaware of the passing of his adopted father. His
savage eye had a singular expression—a mingled look of fondness and delight.
“How strange!” murmured Claude. “Can he too be looking at the Egyptian?” He continued his descent,
and in a few moments the troubled Archdeacon entered the Place by the door at the bottom of the tower.
“What has become of the gipsy?” said he, as he mingled with the crowd which the sound of the
tambourine had drawn together.
“I know not,” answered a bystander; “she has just disappeared. They called to her from the house
opposite, and so I think she must have gone to dance some fandango there.”