Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

“And I,” she faintly murmured.
“Do not interrupt me— Yes, I was happy, or at least judged myself to be so. I was pure—my soul was
filled with limpid light. No head was lifted so high, so radiantly as mine. Priests consulted me upon
chastity, ecclesiastics upon doctrine. Yes, learning was all in all to me—it was a sister, and a sister
sufficed me. Not but what, in time, other thoughts came to me. More than once my flesh stirred at the
passing of some female form. The power of sex and of a man’s blood that, foolish adolescent, I had
thought stifled forever, had more than once shaken convulsively the iron chain of the vows that rivet me,
hapless wretch, to the cold stones of the altar. But fasting, prayer, study, the mortifications of the cloister
again restored the empire of the soul over the body. Also I strenuously avoided women. Besides, I had
but to open a book, and all the impure vapours of my brain were dissipated by the splendid beams of
learning; the gross things of this earth fled from before me, and I found myself once more calm, serene,
and joyous in the presence of the steady radiance of eternal truth. So long as the foul fiend only sent
against me indefinite shadows of women passing here and there before my eyes, in the church, in the
streets, in the fields, and which scarce returned to me in my dreams, I vanquished him easily. Alas! if it
stayed not with me, the fault lies with God, who made not man and the demon of equal strength. Listen.
One day——”
Here the priest stopped, and the prisoner heard sighs issuing from his breast which seemed to tear and
rend him.
He resumed. “One day I was leaning at the window of my cell. What book was I reading? Oh, all is
confusion in my mind—I was reading. The window overlooked an open square. I heard a sound of a
tambourine and of music. Vexed at being thus disturbed in my meditation, I looked into the square. What
I saw, there were others who saw it too, and yet it was no spectacle meet for mortal eyes. There, in the
middle of the open space—it was noon—a burning sun—a girl was dancing—but a creature so beautiful
that God would have preferred her before the Virgin—would have chosen her to be His mother—if she
had existed when He became man. Her eyes were dark and radiant; amid her raven tresses where the
sun shone through were strands that glistened like threads of gold. Her feet were invisible in the rapidity
of their movement, as are the spokes of a wheel when it turns at high speed. Round her head, among her
ebon tresses, were discs of metal that glittered in the sun and formed about her brows a diadem of stars.
Her kirtle, thick-set in spangles, twinkled all blue and studded with sparks like a summer’s night. Her
brown and supple arms twined and untwined themselves about her waist like two scarfs. Her form was of
bewildering beauty. Oh, the dazzling figure that stood out luminous against the very sunlight itself! Alas,
girl, it was thou! Astounded, intoxicated, enchanted, I suffered myself to gaze upon thee. I watched thee
long till suddenly I trembled with horror—I felt that Fate was laying hold on me.”
Gasping for breath, the priest ceased speaking for a moment, then he went on:
“Already half-fascinated, I strove to cling to something, to keep myself from slipping farther. I recalled
the snares which Satan had already laid for me. The creature before me had such supernatural beauty as
could only be of heaven or hell. That was no mere human girl fashioned out of particles of common clay
and feebly illumined from within by the flickering ray of a woman’s soul. It was an angel!—but of
darkness—of flame, not of light. At the same moment of thinking thus, I saw near thee a goat—a beast of
the witches’ Sabbath, that looked at me and grinned. The midday sun gilded its horns with fire. ’Twas
then I caught sight of the devil’s snare, and I no longer doubted that thou camest from hell, and that thou
wast sent from thence for my perdition. I believed it.”