Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

and shaken by sobs, he made a more wretched and suppliant figure even than on his knees. He wept on
for a while.
“Enough,” he said presently, the first violence of his emotion spent. “I find no words. And yet I had
well pondered what I would say to you. And now I tremble and shiver, I grow faint-hearted at the
decisive moment. I feel that something transcendent wraps us round, and my tongue falters. Oh, I shall
fall to the ground if you will not take pity on me, pity on yourself! Condemn us not both to perdition.
Didst thou but know how much I love thee!—what a heart is mine! the desertion of all virtue, the
abandonment of myself! A doctor, I mock at science; a gentleman, I tarnish my name; a priest, I make of
my missal a pillow of wantonness—I spit in the face of my Redeemer! And all for thee, enchantress; to be
more worthy of thy hell! And yet thou rejectest the damned! Oh, let me tell thee all—more than this,
something still more horrible, more horrible——!”
With these last words his manner became utterly distraught. He was silent a moment, then, in a stern
voice and as if addressing himself:
“Cain!” he cried, “what has thou done with thy brother?”
There was a pause, and then he began again. “What have I done with him, Lord? I took him, I reared
him, I nourished him, loved him, idolized him, and—I killed him! Yes, Lord, before my very eyes they
dashed his head against the stones of thy house; and it was because of me, because of this woman,
because of her——”
Madness gleamed from his sunken eyes; his voice dropped away; two or three times he repeated
mechanically, and with long pauses between, like the last prolonged vibrations of the strokes of a bell,
“Because of her—because of her——” At last, though his lips still moved, no articulate sound came from
them, then suddenly he felt in a heap like a house crumbling to pieces, and remained motionless on the
ground, his head on his knees.
A faint movement of the girl, drawing away her foot from under him, brought him to himself. He slowly
swept his hand over his haggard cheeks, and gazed for some moments at his fingers, surprised to find
them wet. “What,” he murmured, “have I been weeping?”
He turned suddenly upon the gipsy with nameless anguish.
“Woe is me! thou canst see me weep unmoved! Child, knowest thou that such tears are molten lava? Is
it then indeed true, that in the man we hate nothing can melt us? Thou wouldst see me die and wouldst
laugh. Oh, I cannot see thee die! One word, one single word of kindness! I ask not that thou shouldst say
thou lovest me; tell me only that thou art willing I should save thee. That will suffice: I will save thee in
return for that. If not—oh, time flies! I entreat thee, by all that is sacred, wait not till I turn to stone again
like this gibbet, that yearns for thee also! Remember that I hold both our destinies in my hand; that I am
frenzied—it is terrible—that I may let everything go, and that there lies beneath us, unhappy girl, a
bottomless pit wherein my fall will follow thine to all eternity! One word of kindness! Say one word! but
one word!”
Her lips parted to answer him. He flung himself on his knees before her to receive with adoration the
words, perchance of relenting, that should fall from them.
“You are an assassin!” she said.