Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

The Archdeacon regarded him gravely. “Jehan,” said he, “you have no soul.”
“In that case, according to Epicurus, I lack an unknown something made of another something without
a name.”
“Jehan, you must think seriously of amending your ways.”
“Ah ça!” cried the scholar, looking from his brother to the alembics on the furnaces, “everything seems
awry here—tempers as well as bottles!”
“Jehan, you are on a slippery downward path. Know you whither you are going?”
“To the tavern,” answered Jehan promptly.
“The tavern leads to the pillory.”
“’Tis as good a lantern as any other, and one, may-be, with which Diogenes would have found his
man.”
“The pillory leads to the gibbet.”
“The gibbet is a balance with a man at one end and the whole world at the other. It is good to be the
man.”
“The gibbet leads to hell.”
“That’s a good big fire.”
“Jehan, Jehan! all this will have a bad end!”
“It will have had a good beginning.”
At this moment there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs.
“Silence!” said the Archdeacon, his finger on his lips, “here is Maître Jacques. Hark you, Jehan,” he
added in a low voice, “beware of ever breathing a word of what you have seen or heard here. Hide
yourself quickly under this furnace, and do not make a sound.”
The scholar was creeping under the furnace when a happy thought struck him.
“Brother Claude, a florin for keeping still!”
“Silence! I promise it you!”
“No, give it me now.”
“Take it, then!” said the Archdeacon, flinging him his whole pouch angrily. Jehan crept under the
furnace, and the door opened.