Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

that form such quaint angles over there, just underneath that mass of low-hanging gray cloud, through
which the moon looks all crushed and spread abroad like the yolk of an egg when the shell is broken.
’Tis a very fine mansion. It has a chapel crowned by a small dome which is wholly lined with admirably
carved enrichments. Just above it, you can see the bell-tower, very delicately perforated. It also
possesses a pleasant garden comprising a pond, an aviary, an echo, a mall, a labyrinth, and wild beast
house, and many bosky paths very agreeable to Venus. Besides, there’s a very naughty tree which they
call the ‘pander,’ because it cloaked the pleasures of a notorious princess and a certain Constable of
France—a man of wit and gallantry. Alas! we poor philosophers are to a Constable of France as the
cabbage or radish-bed to the garden of the Louvre. Well, what matters it after all? Life is a mixture of
good and evil for the great even as for us. Sorrow is ever by the side of joy, the spondee beside the
dactyl. Master, I must tell you that story of the Logis Barbeau some day; it had a tragical ending. It
happened in 1319, in the reign of Philippe V, the longest reign of all the kings of France. The moral of
the story is that the temptations of the flesh are pernicious and malign. Let our eyes not linger too long
upon our neighbour’s wife, however much our senses may be excited by her beauty. Fornication is a very
libertine thought. Adultery, a prying into the pleasant delights of another. Ohé! the noise grows louder
over there!”
In truth, the uproar was increasing round Notre Dame. They listened. They were plainly shouts of
victory. Suddenly a hundred torches, their light flashing upon the helmets of men-at-arms, spread
themselves rapidly over the church at every height, over the towers, the galleries, under the buttresses,
appearing to be searching for something; and soon the distant shouts reached the ears of the fugitives:
“The gipsy! the witch! Death to the Egyptian!”
The unhappy girl dropped her face in her hands, and the unknown began rowing furiously towards the
bank. Meanwhile our philosopher cogitated rapidly. He clasped the goat in his arms, and edged gently
away from the gipsy, who pressed closer and closer to his side as her only remaining protection.
Certainly Gringoire was on the horns of a cruel dilemma. He reflected that the goat too, by the existing
legislation, was bound to be hanged if retaken, which would be a sad pity, poor little Djali! that two
condemned females thus clinging on to him were more than he could manage, and that finally his
companion asked for nothing better than to take charge of the gipsy girl. Nevertheless, a violent struggle
went on in his mind, during which, like the Jupiter of the Iliad, he weighed the gipsy and the goat by
turns in the balance, looking first at one and then at the other, his eyes moist with tears, while he
muttered between his teeth, “And yet I cannot save both of you!”
The bumping of the boat against the landing-place shook him out of his musings. The sinister hubbub
still resounded through the city. The unknown rose, advanced to the girl, and made as if to help her
ashore; but she evaded him, and laid hold of Gringoire’s sleeve; whereat he, in turn, being fully
occupied with the goat, almost repulsed her. She accordingly sprang ashore by herself, but in such a
state of fear and bewilderment that she knew not what she did or whither she was going. She stood thus a
moment, stupefied, gazing down at the swift flowing water. When she somewhat recovered her senses,
she found herself alone on the landing-stage with the unknown man. Gringoire had apparently availed
himself of the moment of their going ashore to vanish with the goat among the labyrinth of houses of the
Rue Grenier sur l’Eau.
The poor little gipsy shuddered to find herself alone with this man. She strove to speak, to cry out, to
call to Gringoire, but her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, and no sound issued from her lips.