Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

out upon an evil path, one should go the whole way—’tis madness to stop midway in the monstrous! The
extremity of crime has its delirium of joy. A priest and a witch may taste of all delights in one another’s
arms on the straw pallet of a dungeon.
“So I denounced thee. ’Twas then I began to terrify thee whenever I met thee. The plot which I was
weaving against thee, the storm which I was brewing over thy head, burst from me in muttered threats
and lightning glances. And yet I hesitated. My project had appalling aspects from which I shrank.
“It may be that I would have renounced it—that my hideous thought would have withered in my brain
without bearing fruit. I thought it would always depend on myself either to follow up or set aside this
prosecution. But every evil thought is inexorable and will become an act; and there, where I thought
myself all-powerful, Fate was more powerful than I. Alas! alas! ’tis Fate has laid hold on thee and cast
thee in among the dread wheels of the machinery I had constructed in secret! Listen. I have almost done.
“One day—it was again a day of sunshine—a man passes me who speaks thy name and laughs with the
gleam of lust in his eyes. Damnation! I followed him. Thou knowest the rest——”
He ceased.
The girl could find but one word—“Oh, my Phœbus!”
“Not that name!” exclaimed the priest, grasping her arm with violence. “Utter not that name! Oh,
wretched that we are, ’tis that name has undone us! Nay, rather we have all undone one another through
the inexplicable play of Fate! Thou art suffering, art thou not? Thou art cold; the darkness blinds thee,
the dungeon wraps thee round; but mayhap thou hast still more light shining within thee—were it only
thy childish love for the fatuous being who was trifling with thy heart! while I—I bear the dungeon within
me; within, my heart is winter, ice, despair—black night reigns in my soul! Knowest thou all that I have
suffered? I was present at the trial. I was seated among the members of the Office. Yes, one of those
priestly cowls hid the contortions of the damned. When they led thee in, I was there; while they
questioned thee, I was there. Oh, den of wolves! It was my own crime—my own gibbet that I saw slowly
rising above thy head. At each deposition, each proof, each pleading, I was present—I could count thy
every step along that dolorous path. was there, too, when that wild beast—oh, I had not foreseen the
torture! Listen. I followed thee in the chamber of anguish; I saw thee disrobed and half-naked under the
vile hands of the torturer; saw thy foot—that foot I would have given an empire to press one kiss upon
and die; that foot which I would have rejoiced to feel crushing my head—that foot I saw put into the
horrible boot that turns the limbs of a human being into gory pulp. Oh, miserable that I am! while I
lacerated my at this, I had a poniard under my gown with which I lacerated my breast. At thy cry I
plunged it into my flesh—a second cry from thee and it should have pierced my heart. Look—I believe it
still bleeds.”
He opened his cassock. His breast was indeed scored as by a tiger’s claws, and in his side was a large,
badly healed wound.
The prisoner recoiled in horror.
“Oh, girl!” cried the priest, “have pity on me! Thou deemest thyself miserable—alas! alas! thou
knowest not what misery is. Oh, to love a woman—to be a priest—to be hated—to love her with all the
fury of one’s soul, to feel that for the least of her smiles one would give one’s blood, one’s vitals, fame,
salvation, immortality, and eternity—this life and the life to come; to regret not being a king, a genius, an