Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

As they turned a corner, the sound of a tambourine came to them from a neighbouring side street. Dom
Claude heard the officer say to the scholar:
“Thunder! let’s quicken our pace!”
“Why, Phœbus?”
“I’m afraid the gipsy will see me.”
“What gipsy?”
“The girl with the goat.”
“Esmeralda?”
“That’s it, Jehan. I always forget her deuce of a name. Let us hurry past or she will recognise me, and I
don’t want the girl to accost me in the street.”
“Do you know her then, Phœbus?”
At first, the Archdeacon saw Phœ lean over with a grin and whisper something in Jehan’s ear. Phœbus
then burst out laughing, and threw up his head with a triumphant air.
“In very truth?” said Jehan.
“Upon my soul!”
“To-night?”
“To-night.”
“Are you sure she’ll come?”
“But you must be mad, Jehan. Is there ever any doubt about these things?”
“Captain Phœbus, you are a lucky warrior!”
The Archdeacon overheard all this conversation. His teeth chattered. A visible shudder ran through his
whole frame. He stopped a moment to lean against a post like a drunken man; then he followed the track
of the two boon companions.
When he came up with them again they had changed the subject. They were singing at the top of their
voices the refrain of an old song:
“The lads, the dice who merrily throw,
Merrily to the gallows go.”
VII. The Spectre-Monk
THE FAR-FAMED cabaret of the Pomme d’Eve was situated in the University, at the corner of the Rue
de la Rondelle and the Rue du Bâtonnier. It consisted of one spacious room on the ground floor, the
central arch of its very low ceiling supported by a heavy wooden pillar painted yellow. There were tables
all round, shining pewter pots hanging on the walls, a constant crowd of drinkers, and girls in