DELIRIUM.
Claude Frollo was no longer in Notre-Dame when his son so cut the in which the and the were entangled. On returning to the he had off his alb, cope, and stole, had all into the hands of the beadle, had his through the private door of the cloister, had ordered a of the Terrain to transport him to the left bank of the Seine, and had into the of the University, not he was going, at every step groups of men and who were the Pont Saint-Michel, in the of still in time to see the there,—pale, wild, more troubled, more and more than a night bird let and by a of children in daylight. He no longer where he was, what he thought, or he were dreaming. He forward, walking, running, taking any at haphazard, making no choice, only away from the Grève, the Grève, which he confusedly, to be him.
In this manner he Mount Sainte-Geneviève, and from the town by the Porte Saint-Victor. He his as long as he see, when he round, the of the University, and the houses of the suburb; but, when, at length, a of ground had from him that Paris, when he himself to be a hundred from it, in the fields, in the desert, he halted, and it to him that he more freely.
Then ideas his mind. Once more he see into his soul, and he shuddered. He of that girl who had him, and he had destroyed. He a over the double, way which had their two to up to their point of intersection, where it had them against each other without mercy. He on the of vows, on the of chastity, of science, of religion, of virtue, on the of God. He to his heart’s in thoughts, and in as he deeper, he a Satanic laugh him.
And as he thus his to the bottom, when he how large a space nature had prepared there for the passions, he still more bitterly. He up in the of his all his hatred, all his malevolence; and, with the cold of a physician who a patient, he the that this was nothing but love; that love, that of every in man, to in the of a priest, and that a man like himself, in making himself a priest, himself a demon. Then he laughed frightfully, and again, when he the most of his passion, of that corrosive, malignant, love, which had ended only in the for one of them and in for the other; for her, for him.
And then his came again, when he that Phœbus was alive; that after all, the captain lived, was and happy, had than ever, and a new he was to see the old one hanged. His its when he that out of the beings death he had desired, the gypsy, the only he did not hate, was the only one who had not him.
Then from the captain, his passed to the people, and there came to him a of an sort. He that the people also, the entire populace, had had their the woman he loved almost naked. He his arms with as he that the woman form, by him alone in the would have been happiness, had been delivered up in at full noonday, to a whole people, as for a night of voluptuousness. He with over all these of love, profaned, soiled, bare, forever. He with as he pictured to himself how many looks had been at the of that shift, and that this girl, this lily, this cup of and delight, to which he would have to place his only trembling, had just been into a of public bowl, the of Paris, thieves, beggars, lackeys, had come to in common an audacious, impure, and pleasure.
And when he to picture to himself the which he might have upon earth, if she had not been a gypsy, and if he had not been a priest, if Phœbus had not and if she had loved him; when he pictured to himself that a life of and love would have been possible to him also, to him; that there were at that very moment, here and there upon the earth, happy the hours in sweet orange trees, on the banks of brooks, in the presence of a setting sun, of a night; and that if God had so willed, he might have with her one of those couples,—his melted in and despair.
Oh! she! still she! It was this idea which returned incessantly, which him, which ate into his brain, and rent his vitals. He did not regret, he did not repent; all that he had done he was to do again; he to her in the hands of the than in the arms of the captain. But he suffered; he so that at he out of his to see it were not white.
Among other moments there came one, when it to him that it was the very minute when the which he had that morning, was pressing its iron closer about that and neck. This the to start from every pore.
There was another moment when, while laughing at himself, he to himself la Esmeralda as he had her on that day, lively, careless, joyous, attired, dancing, winged, harmonious, and la Esmeralda of the last day, in her shift, with a rope about her neck, slowly with her feet, the of the gallows; he to himself this picture in such a manner that he gave to a terrible cry.
While this of overturned, broke, up, bent, in his soul, he at nature around him. At his feet, some were the and pecking, ran about in the sun; overhead, some groups of clouds were across the sky; on the horizon, the of the Abbey Saint-Victor the of the hill with its obelisk; and the of the Copeaue was as he the of his turning. All this active, organized, life, around him under a thousand forms, him. He his flight.
He thus across the until evening. This from nature, life, himself, man, God, everything, all day long. Sometimes he himself on the earth, and up the of with his nails. Sometimes he in the of a village, and his were so that he his in hands and to tear it from his in order to it upon the pavement.
Towards the hour of sunset, he himself again, and himself nearly mad. The which had him since the when he had the and the will to save the gypsy,—that had not left in his a single healthy idea, a single which its position. His there almost destroyed. There but two images in his mind, la Esmeralda and the gallows; all the was blank. Those two images united, presented to him a group; and the more he what attention and was left to him, the more he them grow, in with a progression, the one in grace, in charm, in beauty, in light, the other in and horror; so that at last la Esmeralda appeared to him like a star, the like an enormous, arm.
One is, that the whole of this torture, the idea of did not to him. The was so. He to life. Perhaps he saw it.
Meanwhile, the day to decline. The being which still in him on its steps. He himself to be away from Paris; on taking his bearings, he that he had only the of the University. The of Saint-Sulpice, and the three of Saint Germain-des-Prés, rose above the on his right. He his steps in that direction. When he the challenge of the men-at-arms of the abbey, around the crenelated, of Saint-Germain, he aside, took a path which presented itself the and the lazar-house of the bourg, and at the of a minutes himself on the of the Pré-aux-Clercs. This was by of the which on there night and day; it was the of the of Saint-Germain: Sancti-Germaini fuit, suscitantibus. The was of meeting some one there; he every countenance; he had just the University and the Bourg Saint-Germain; he to re-enter the as late as possible. He the Pré-aux-Clercs, took the path which it from the Dieu-Neuf, and at last the water’s edge. There Dom Claude a boatman, who, for a in Parisian coinage, him up the Seine as as the point of the city, and him on that of land where the reader has already Gringoire dreaming, and which was the king’s gardens, to the Ile du Passeur-aux-Vaches.
The of the and the of the water had, in some sort, the Claude. When the had taken his departure, he on the strand, him and objects only through which a of to him. The of a great not produces this on the mind.
The sun had set the Tour-de-Nesle. It was the hour. The sky was white, the water of the river was white. Between these two white expanses, the left bank of the Seine, on which his were fixed, its and, and by perspective, it into the of the like a black spire. It was with houses, of which only the be distinguished, out in against the light of the sky and the water. Here and there to gleam, like the in a brazier. That black thus the two white of the sky and the river, which was very at this point, produced upon Dom Claude a effect, to that which would be by a man who, on his at the of the tower of Strasbourg, should at the into the of the above his head. Only, in this case, it was Claude who was and the which was down; but, as the river, the sky, the him, the to be as into space as any spire; and the was the same. This had one and more point about it, that it was the tower of Strasbourg, but the tower of Strasbourg two in height; something of, gigantic, immeasurable; an such as no has seen; a tower of Babel. The of the houses, the of the walls, the of the roofs, the of the Augustines, the tower of Nesle, all these which the profile of the added to the by in fashion to the the of a and sculpture.
Claude, in the of in which he himself, that he saw, that he saw with his eyes, the tower of hell; the thousand lights over the whole of the terrible tower to him so many of the furnace; the voices and which from it so many shrieks, so many death groans. Then he alarmed, he put his hands on his ears that he might no longer hear, his that he might no longer see, and from the with strides.
But the was in himself.
When he re-entered the streets, the passers-by each other by the light of the shop-fronts, produced upon him the of a going and of about him. There were in his ears; his brain. He saw neither houses, pavements, chariots, men and women, but a of objects melted into each other. At the of the Rue de la Barillerie, there was a grocer’s shop was all about, according to custom, with of from which a circle of candles, which came in with each other in the wind, and like castanets. He he a of at Montfaucon together in the gloom.
“Oh!” he muttered, “the night them against each other, and the noise of their with the of their bones! Perhaps she is there among them!”
In his of frenzy, he not he was going. After a he himself on the Pont Saint-Michel. There was a light in the window of a ground-floor room; he approached. Through a window he a which some memory to his mind. In that room, by a lamp, there was a fresh, light-haired man, with a face, who loud of was a very girl; and near the lamp sat an old and in a voice. As the man did not laugh constantly, of the old woman’s the priest; it was something yet frightful,—
“Grève, aboie, Grève, grouille!
File, file, ma quenouille,
File sa au bourreau,
Qui le préau,
Grève, aboie, Grève, grouille!
“La de chanvre!
Semez d’Issy jusqu’à Vanvre
Du et du blé.
Le n’a volé
La de chanvre.
“Grève, grouille, Grève, aboie!
Pour la de joie,
Prendre au chassieux,
Les fenêtres yeux.
Grève, grouille, Grève, aboie!”[51]
Thereupon the man laughed and the wench. The was la Falourdel; the girl was a courtesan; the man was his Jehan.
He to gaze. That was as good as any other.
He saw Jehan go to a window at the end of the room, open it, a on the quay, where in the a thousand casements, and he him say as he closed the sash,—
“’Pon my soul! How dark it is; the people are their candles, and the good God his stars.”
Then Jehan came to the hag, a bottle on the table, exclaiming,—
“Already empty, cor-bœuf! and I have no more money! Isabeau, my dear, I shall not be satisfied with Jupiter until he has your two white into two black bottles, where I may of Beaune day and night.”
This the laugh, and Jehan left the room.
Dom Claude had time to himself on the ground in order that he might not be met, in the and by his brother. Luckily, the was dark, and the was tipsy. Nevertheless, he of the upon the earth in the mud.
“Oh! oh!” said he; “here’s a who has been leading a life, to-day.”
He up Dom Claude with his foot, and the his breath.
“Dead drunk,” Jehan. “Come, he’s full. A regular from a hogshead. He’s bald,” he added, down, “’tis an old man! Fortunate senex!”
Then Dom Claude him retreat, saying,—
“’Tis all the same, is a thing, and my the is very happy in that he is wise and has money.”
Then the rose to his feet, and ran without halting, Notre-Dame, towers he above the houses through the gloom.
At the when he arrived, panting, on the Place du Parvis, he and not his to the edifice.
“Oh!” he said, in a low voice, “is it true that such a thing took place here, to-day, this very morning?”
Still, he to at the church. The was sombre; the sky was with stars. The of the moon, in her from the horizon, had paused at the moment, on the of the light hand tower, and to have itself, like a bird, on the of the balustrade, cut out in black trefoils.
The door was shut; but the always with him the key of the tower in which his laboratory was situated. He use of it to enter the church.
In the church he the and of a cavern. By the which in from all directions, he the that the for the of the had not yet been removed. The great from the of the gloom, with some points, like the milky way of that night. The long of the the upper of their above the black draperies, and their painted panes, by a of moonlight had no longer any but the colors of night, a of violet, white and blue, is only on the of the dead. The archdeacon, on these all around the choir, he the of bishops. He his eyes, and when he opened them again, he they were a circle of at him.
He started to across the church. Then it to him that the church also was shaking, moving, with animation, that it was alive; that each of the great was into an paw, which was the earth with its big spatula, and that the was no longer anything but a of elephant, which was and with its for feet, its two towers for and the black cloth for its housings.
This or had such a of that the world was no longer anything more for the man than a of Apocalypse,—visible, palpable, terrible.
For one moment, he was relieved. As he into the aisles, he a light a of pillars. He ran it as to a star. It was the lamp which the public of Notre-Dame night and day, its iron grating. He himself upon the book in the of some consolation, or some there. The open at this passage of Job, over which his glanced,—
“And a passed my face, and I a small voice, and the of my up.”
On reading these words, he that which a man when he himself by the staff which he has up. His gave way him, and he upon the pavement, of her who had died that day. He so many pass and themselves in his brain, that it to him that his had one of the of hell.
It would appear that he a long time in this attitude, no longer thinking, and the hand of the demon. At length some returned to him; it to him to take in his tower his Quasimodo. He rose; and, as he was afraid, he took the lamp from the to light his way. It was a sacrilege; but he had got such a now.
He slowly the stairs of the towers, with a which must have been to the passers-by in the Place du Parvis by the light of his lamp, so late from to of the tower.
All at once, he a on his face, and himself at the door of the gallery. The air was cold; the sky was with clouds, large, white one upon another like the up of river ice after the winter. The of the moon, in the of the clouds, a in the ice-cakes of the air.
He his gaze, and for a moment, through the of which the two towers, away, through a of and smoke, the of the of Paris, pointed, innumerable, and small like the of a sea on a sum-mer night.
The moon a ray, which to earth and an hue.
At that moment the clock its shrill, voice. Midnight out. The of midday; twelve o’clock had come again.
“Oh!” he said in a very low tone, “she must be cold now.”
All at once, a of wind his lamp, and almost at the same instant, he a shade, a whiteness, a form, a woman, appear from the opposite of the tower. He started. Beside this woman was a little goat, which its with the last of the clock.
He had to look. It was she.
She was pale, she was gloomy. Her over her as in the morning; but there was no longer a rope on her neck, her hands were no longer bound; she was free, she was dead.
She was in white and had a white on her head.
She came him, slowly, with her on the sky. The her. He as though of and too to flee. At every step which she took in advance, he took one backwards, and that was all. In this way he once more the of the stairway. He was by the that she might enter there also; had she done so, he would have died of terror.
She did arrive, in fact, in of the door to the stairway, and paused there for minutes, into the darkness, but without appearing to see the priest, and passed on. She to him than when she had been alive; he saw the moon through her white robe; he her breath.
When she had passed on, he to the again, with the slowness which he had in the spectre, himself to be a too, haggard, with on end, his lamp still in his hand; and as he the steps, he in his ear a voice laughing and repeating,—
“A passed my face, and I a small voice, and the of my up.”
