Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

of her hair, her gleaming eyes, she seemed a creature of some other world.
“In very truth,” thought Grainier, “it is a salamander—a nymph—’tis a goddess—a bacchante of Mount
Mæ nalus!”
At this moment a tress of the “salamander’s” hair became uncoiled, and a piece of brass attached to it
fell to the ground.
“Why, no,” said he, “ ’tis a gipsy!” and all illusion vanished.
She resumed her performance. Taking up two swords from the ground, she leaned the points against her
forehead, and twisted them in one direction while she herself turned in another.
True, she was simply a gipsy; but however disenchanted Grainier might feel, the scene was not without
its charm, nor a certain weird magic under the glaring red light of the bonfire which flared over the ring
of faces and the figure of the dancing girl and cast a pale glimmer among the wavering shadows at the far
end of the Place, flickering over the black and corrugated front of the old Maison-aux-Piliers, or the
stone arms of the gibbet opposite.
Among the many faces dyed crimson by this glow was one which, more than all the others, seemed
absorbed in contemplation of the dancer. It was the face of a man, austere, calm, and sombre. His
costume was hidden by the crowd pressing round him; but though he did not appear to be more than
thirty-five, he was bald, showing only a few sparse locks at the temples and they already gray. The broad,
high forehead was furrowed, but in the deep-set eyes there glowed an extraordinary youthfulness, a
fervid vitality, a consuming passion. Those eyes never moved from the gipsy, and the longer the girl
danced and bounded in all the unrestrained grace of her sixteen years, delighting the populace, the
gloomier did his thoughts seem to become. Ever and anon a smile and a sigh would meet upon his lips,
but the smile was the more grievous of the two.
At last, out of breath with her exertion, the girl stopped, and the people applauded with all their heart.
“Djali!” cried the gipsy.
At this there appeared a pretty little white goat, lively, intelligent, and glossy, with gilded horns and
hoofs and a gilt collar, which Grainier had not observed before, as it had been lying on a corner of the
carpet, watching its mistress dance.
“Djali,” said the dancing girl, “it is your turn now,” and seating herself, she gracefully held out her
tambourine to the goat.
“Now, Djali,” she continued, “which month of the year is it?”
The goat lifted its fore-foot and tapped once on the tambourine. It was in fact the first month. The
crowd applauded.
“Djali,” resumed the girl, reversing the tambourine, “what day of the month is it?”
Djali lifted her little golden hoof and gave six strokes on the tambourine.
“Djali,” continued the gipsy girl, again changing the position of the tambourine, “what hour of the day
is it?”