Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

noticeable disturbance have occurred if, as luck would have it, the scholar Jehan had not, from his own
high perch, espied the beggar and his antics. A wild fit of laughter seized the graceless young rascal, and,
unconcerned at interrupting the performance and distracting the attention of the audience, he cried
delightedly:
“Oh, look at that old fraud over there begging!”
Any one who has ever thrown a stone into a frog-pond, or fired into a covey of birds, will have some
idea of the effect of these incongruous words breaking in upon the all-pervading quiet. Gringoire started
as if he had received an electric shock. The prologue broke off short, and all heads turned suddenly
towards the beggar, who, far from being disconcerted, only saw in this incident an excellent opportunity
for gathering a harvest, and at once began whining in a piteous voice with half-closed eyes: “Charity, I
pray you!”
“Why, upon my soul!” cried Jehan, “if it isn’t Clopin Trouillefou! Holà! friend, so thy sore was
troublesome on thy leg that thou hast removed it to thine arm?” and so saying, with the dexterity of a
monkey he tossed a small silver piece into the greasy old beaver which the beggar held out with his
diseased arm. The man received both alms and sarcasm without wincing, and resumed his doleful
petition: “Charity, I pray you!”
This episode had distracted the audience not a little, and a good many of the spectators, Robin
Poussepain and the rest of the students at the head, delightedly applauded this absurd duet improvised in
the middle of the prologue between the scholar with his shrill, piping voice, and the beggar with his
imperturbable whine.
Gringoire was seriously put out. Recovering from his first stupefaction, he pulled himself together
hurriedly and shouted to the four actors on the stage: “Go on! que diable! go on!” without deigning even
a glance of reprobation at the two brawlers.
At that moment he felt a pluck at the edge of his surcoat, and turning round, not in the best of humours,
he forced an unwilling smile to his lips, for it was the pretty hand of Gisquette la Gencienne thrust
through the balustrade and thus soliciting his attention.
“Monsieur,” said the girl, “are they going on?”
“To be sure,” Gringoire replied, half offended by the question.
“In that case, messire,” she continued, “will you of your courtesy explain to me——”
“What they are going to say?” broke in Gringoire. “Well, listen.”
“No,” said Gisquette; “but what they have already said.”
Gringoire started violently like a man touched in an open wound. “A pestilence on the witless little
dunce!” he muttered between his teeth; and from that moment Gisquette was utterly lost in his
estimation.
Meanwhile the actors had obeyed his injunction, and the public, seeing that they were beginning to
speak, resettled itself to listen; not, however, without having lost many a beautiful phrase in the soldering
of the two parts of the piece which had so abruptly been cut asunder. Gringoire reflected bitterly on this