Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

“The does not concern us.”
“The plague it doesn’t!”
“She saved your life. It is a debt you ought to pay.”
“There is many another I don’t pay.”
“Maitre Pierre, this must be done.” The Archdeacon spoke imperiously.
“Hark you, Dom Claude,” returned the poet in consternation. “You cling to that idea, but you are
wrong. I see no reason why I should hang instead of another.”
“What is there to attract you so firmly to life?”
“Ah, a thousand things!”
“What, pray?”
“What?—why, the air, the sky, the morning, the evening, moonlight, my good friends the vagabonds,
our pranks with the women, the fine architecture of Paris to study, three important books to write—one
of them against the bishop and his mills; oh, more than I can say. Anaxagoras said that he was in the
world merely to admire the sun. And besides, I enjoy the felicity of passing the whole of my days, from
morning till night, in the company of a man of genius—myself, to wit—and that is very agreeable.”
“Oh, empty rattle-pate!” growled the Archdeacon. “And who, prithee, preserved to thee that life thou
deemest so pleasant? Whose gift is it that thou art breathing the air, looking at the sky, hast still the
power to divert thy feather-brained spirit with folly and nonsense? But for her, where wouldst thou be?
Thou wouldst let her die, then—her through whom thou lives? Let her die—that being so lovely, so sweet,
so adorable—a creature necessary to the light of the world, more divine than God himself! whilst thou,
half philosopher, half fool—mere outline of something, a species of vegetable that imagines it walks and
thinks—thou wilt go on living with the life thou hats stolen from her, useless as a torch at noon day?
Come, Grainier, a little pity! be generous in thy turn; ’taws she that showed thee the way.”
The priest spoke vehemently. Grainier listened at first with an air of indecision; presently he was
touched, and ended by making a tragic grimace which made his wan visage like that of a new-born infant
with the colic.
“You are in truth most pathetic,” said he, wiping away a tear. “Well, I’ll think on it—’tis an odd idea of
yours, that. After all,” he pursued, after a moment’s silence, “who knows; may-be they would not hang
me—’tis not every betrothal that ends in marriage. When they find me in my hiding-place thus
grotesquely disguised in coif and kirtle, it is very possible they will burst out laughing. On the other
hand, even if they do hang me—well, the rope is a death like any other—nay, rather it is not death like
any other—it is a death worthy of a sage who has swung gently all his life between the extremes—a death
which, like the mind of the true sceptic, is neither flesh nor fish; a death thoroughly expressive of
Pyrrhonism and hesitation, which holds the mean between heaven and earth, which holds you in
suspension. ’Tis the death of a philosopher and to which mayhap I was predestined. It is magnificent to
die as one has lived!”
The priest interrupted him. “So it is a bargain, then?”