GRINGOIRE HAS MANY GOOD IDEAS IN SUCCESSION.—RUE DES BERNARDINS.
As soon as Pierre Gringoire had how this whole was turning, and that there would be the rope, hanging, and other for the in this comedy, he had not to identify himself with the further. The with he had remained, that, after all, it was the best company in Paris,—the had to themselves in of the gypsy. He had it very on the part of people who had, like herself, nothing else in but Charmolue and Torterue, and who, himself, did not through the regions of the of Pegasus. From their remarks, he had learned that his wife of the had taken in Notre-Dame, and he was very of it. But he no to go and see her there. He occasionally on the little goat, and that was all. Moreover, he was of the day for his living, and at night he was in a against the Bishop of Paris, for he having been by the of his mills, and he a against him for it. He also himself with the work of Baudry-le-Rouge, Bishop of Noyon and Tournay, De Cupa Petrarum, which had him a for architecture, an which had replaced in his his for hermeticism, of which it was, moreover, only a natural corollary, since there is an relation and masonry. Gringoire had passed from the love of an idea to the love of the of that idea.
One day he had near Saint Germain-l’Auxerrois, at the of a called “For-l’Évêque” (the Bishop’s Tribunal), which opposite another called “For-le-Roi” (the King’s Tribunal). At this For-l’Évêque, there was a of the century, was on the street. Gringoire was its sculptures. He was in one of those moments of egotistical, exclusive, supreme, when the artist nothing in the world but art, and the world in art. All at once he a hand on his shoulder. He round. It was his old friend, his master, the archdeacon.
He was stupefied. It was a long time since he had the archdeacon, and Dom Claude was one of those and men, a meeting with always the of a philosopher.
The for minutes, which Gringoire had time to him. He Dom Claude changed; as a winter’s morning, with eyes, and almost white. The the at length, by saying, in a but tone,—
“How do you do, Master Pierre?”
“My health?” Gringoire. “Eh! eh! one can say one thing and another on that score. Still, it is good, on the whole. I take not too much of anything. You know, master, that the of well, according to Hippocrates; id est: cibi, potus, somni, venus, sint.”
“So you have no care, Master Pierre?” the archdeacon, at Gringoire.
“None, i’ faith!”
“And what are you doing now?”
“You see, master. I am the of these stones, and the manner in which bas-relief is out.”
The to with that which only one of the mouth.
“And that you?”
“’Tis paradise!” Gringoire. And over the with the air of a of phenomena: “Do you not think, for instance, that in bas-relief is with much adroitness, and patience? Observe that column. Around what have you more and by the chisel. Here are three of Jean Maillevin. They are not the of this great master. Nevertheless, the naïvete, the of the faces, the of the and draperies, and that which is with all the defects, the little very and delicate, perchance, too much so. You think that it is not diverting?”
“Yes, certainly!” said the priest.
“And if you were to see the of the chapel!” the poet, with his enthusiasm. “Carvings everywhere. ’Tis as as the of a cabbage! The is of a very devout, and so a fashion that I have anything like it elsewhere!”
Dom Claude him,—
“You are happy, then?”
Gringoire warmly;—
“On my honor, yes! First I loved women, then animals. Now I love stones. They are as as and animals, and less treacherous.”
The his hand on his brow. It was his gesture.
“Really?”
“Stay!” said Gringoire, “one has one’s pleasures!” He took the arm of the priest, who let him have his way, and him enter the of For-l’Évêque. “Here is a staircase! every time that I see it I am happy. It is of the and manner of steps in Paris. All the steps are underneath. Its and in the of both, being a or more wide, which are interlaced, interlocked, together, enchased, one upon another, and bite into each other in a manner that is and graceful.”
“And you nothing?”
“No.”
“And you nothing?”
“Neither desire. I have my mode of life.”
“What men arrange,” said Claude, “things disarrange.”
“I am a Pyrrhonian philosopher,” Gringoire, “and I all in equilibrium.”
“And how do you earn your living?”
“I still make and now and then; but that which me in most is the with which you are acquainted, master; of chairs in my teeth.”
“The is but a one for a philosopher.”
“’Tis still equilibrium,” said Gringoire. “When one has an idea, one it in everything.”
“I know that,” the archdeacon.
After a silence, the resumed,—
“You are, nevertheless, poor?”
“Poor, yes; unhappy, no.”
At that moment, a of was heard, and our two at the end of the street, a company of the king’s archers, their high, an officer at their head. The was brilliant, and its on the pavement.
“How you at that officer!” said Gringoire, to the archdeacon.
“Because I think I him.”
“What do you call him?”
“I think,” said Claude, “that his name is Phœbus de Châteaupers.”
“Phœbus! A name! There is also a Phœbus, Comte de Foix. I having a who only by the name of Phœbus.”
“Come away from here,” said the priest. “I have something to say to you.”
From the moment of that troop’s passing, some had through the archdeacon’s envelope. He walked on. Gringoire him, being to him, like all who had once approached that man so full of ascendency. They in the Rue Bernardins, which was nearly deserted. Here Dom Claude paused.
“What have you to say to me, master?” Gringoire asked him.
“Do you not think that the dress of those we have just is than yours and mine?”
Gringoire his head.
“I’ faith! I love my red and yellow jerkin, than those of iron and steel. A to produce, when you walk, the same noise as the Quay of Old Iron, in an earthquake!”
“So, Gringoire, you have for those in their doublets?”
“Envy for what, the archdeacon? their strength, their armor, their discipline? Better and in rags. I to be the of a than the of a lion.”
“That is singular,” said the dreamily. “Yet a is a thing.”
Gringoire, that he was in a mood, him to go and the of a house. He came his hands.
“If you were less with the of men of war, the archdeacon, I would you to come and see this door. I have always said that the house of the Sieur Aubry had the most superb entrance in the world.”
“Pierre Gringoire,” said the archdeacon, “What have you done with that little dancer?”
“La Esmeralda? You the very abruptly.”
“Was she not your wife?”
“Yes, by of a crock. We were to have four years of it. By the way,” added Gringoire, looking at the in a way, “are you still of her?”
“And you think of her no longer?”
“Very little. I have so many things. Good heavens, how that little was!”
“Had she not saved your life?”
“’Tis true, pardieu!”
“Well, what has of her? What have you done with her?”
“I cannot tell you. I that they have her.”
“You so?”
“I am not sure. When I saw that they wanted to people, I retired from the game.”
“That is all you know of it?”
“Wait a bit. I was told that she had taken in Notre-Dame, and that she was safe there, and I am to it, and I have not been able to the was saved with her, and that is all I know.”
“I will tell you more,” Dom Claude; and his voice, low, slow, and almost indistinct, to thunder. “She has in fact, taken in Notre-Dame. But in three days will her, and she will be on the Grève. There is a of parliament.”
“That’s annoying,” said Gringoire.
The priest, in an instant, cold and again.
“And who the devil,” the poet, “has himself with a of reintegration? Why couldn’t they in peace? What it do if a girl takes under the of Notre-Dame, the swallows’ nests?”
“There are in this world,” the archdeacon.
“’Tis done,” Gringoire.
The after a silence,—
“So, she saved your life?”
“Among my good friends the outcasts. A little more or a little less and I should have been hanged. They would have been sorry for it to-day.”
“Would not you like to do something for her?”
“I ask nothing better, Dom Claude; but what if I myself in some affair?”
“What it?”
“Bah! what it? You are good, master, that you are! I have two great already begun.”
The his brow. In of the which he affected, a his from time to time.
“How is she to be saved?”
Gringoire said to him; “Master, I will reply to you; Il padelt, which means in Turkish, ‘God is our hope.’”
“How is she to be saved?” Claude dreamily.
Gringoire his in his turn.
“Listen, master. I have imagination; I will for you. What if one were to ask her from the king?”
“Of Louis XI.! A pardon!”
“Why not?”
“To take the tiger’s from him!”
Gringoire to fresh expedients.
“Well, stay! Shall I address to the a by the that the girl is with child!”
This the priest’s flash.
“With child! knave! do you know anything of this?”
Gringoire was by his air. He to say, “Oh, no, not I! Our marriage was a forismaritagium. I outside. But one might obtain a respite, all the same.”
“Madness! Infamy! Hold your tongue!”
“You do to angry,” Gringoire. “One a respite; that no to any one, and the midwives, who are women, to earn parisis.”
The was not to him!
“But she must that place, nevertheless!” he murmured, “the is to be three days. Moreover, there will be no decree; that Quasimodo! Women have very tastes!” He his voice: “Master Pierre, I have well; there is but one means of safety for her.”
“What? I see none myself.”
“Listen, Master Pierre, that you your life to her. I will tell you my idea frankly. The church is night and day; only those are allowed to come out, who have been to enter. Hence you can enter. You will come. I will lead you to her. You will with her. She will take your doublet; you will take her petticoat.”
“So far, it goes well,” the philosopher, “and then?”
“And then? she will go in your garments; you will with hers. You will be hanged, perhaps, but she will be saved.”
Gringoire his ear, with a very air. “Stay!” said he, “that is an idea which would have to me unaided.”
At Dom Claude’s proposition, the open and of the had over, like a Italian landscape, when an unlucky comes up and a cloud across the sun.
“Well! Gringoire, what say you to the means?”
“I say, master, that I shall not be hanged, perchance, but that I shall be indubitably.
“That us not.”
“The deuce!” said Gringoire.
“She has saved your life. ’Tis a that you are discharging.”
“There are a great many others which I do not discharge.”
“Master Pierre, it is necessary.”
The spoke imperiously.
“Listen, Dom Claude,” the in consternation. “You to that idea, and you are wrong. I do not see why I should myself in some one else’s place.”
“What have you, then, which you so to life?”
“Oh! a thousand reasons!”
“What reasons, if you please?”
“What? The air, the sky, the morning, the evening, the moonlight, my good friends the thieves, our with the old of go-betweens, the of Paris to study, three great books to make, one of them being against the and his mills; and how can I tell all? Anaxagoras said that he was in the world to the sun. And then, from till night, I have the of all my days with a man of genius, who is myself, which is very agreeable.”
“A fit for a bell!” the archdeacon. “Oh! tell me who for you that life which you so to yourself? To do you it that you breathe that air, that sky, and can still your lark’s mind with your nonsense and madness? Where would you be, had it not been for her? Do you then that she through you are alive, should die? that she should die, that beautiful, sweet, creature, who is necessary to the light of the world and more than God, while you, wise, and fool, a sketch of something, a of vegetable, which thinks that it walks, and thinks that it thinks, you will continue to live with the life which you have from her, as as a in daylight? Come, have a little pity, Gringoire; be in your turn; it was she who set the example.”
The was vehement. Gringoire to him at with an air, then he touched, and up with a which his that of a new-born with an attack of the colic.
“You are pathetic!” said he, away a tear. “Well! I will think about it. That’s a idea of yours.—After all,” he after a pause, “who knows? they will not me. He who not always marry. When they me in that little so in and coif, they will with laughter. And then, if they do me,—well! the is as good a death as any. ’Tis a death of a who has all his life; a death which is neither fish, like the mind of a sceptic; a death all with Pyrrhonism and hesitation, which the middle station and earth, which you in suspense. ’Tis a philosopher’s death, and I was thereto, perchance. It is to die as one has lived.”
The him: “Is it agreed.”
“What is death, after all?” Gringoire with exaltation. “A moment, a toll-gate, the passage of little to nothingness. Some one having asked Cercidas, the Megalopolitan, if he were to die: ‘Why not?’ he replied; ‘for after my death I shall see those great men, Pythagoras among the philosophers, Hecatæus among historians, Homer among poets, Olympus among musicians.’”
The gave him his hand: “It is settled, then? You will come to-morrow?”
This Gringoire to reality.
“Ah! i’ no!” he said in the of a man just up. “Be hanged! ’tis too absurd. I will not.”
“Farewell, then!” and the added his teeth: “I’ll you again!”
“I do not want that of a man to me,” Gringoire; and he ran after Dom Claude. “Stay, the archdeacon, no ill-feeling old friends! You take an in that girl, my wife, I mean, and ’tis well. You have a to her out of Notre-Dame, but your way is to me, Gringoire. If I had only another one myself! I to say that a has just to me. If I an for her from a dilemma, without my own to the of a single knot, what would you say to it? Will not that you? Is it necessary that I should be hanged, in order that you may be content?”
The out the of his with impatience: “Stream of words! What is your plan?”
“Yes,” Gringoire, talking to himself and his nose with his in of meditation,—“that’s it!—The are fellows!—The of Egypt love her!—They will at the word!—Nothing easier!—A stroke.—Under of the disorder, they will easily her off!—Beginning to-morrow evening. They will ask nothing better.
“The plan! speak,” the him.
Gringoire him: “Leave me! You see that I am composing.” He for a moments more, then to clap his hands over his thought, crying: “Admirable! success is sure!”
“The plan!” Claude in wrath.
Gringoire was radiant.
“Come, that I may tell you that very softly. ’Tis a counter-plot, which will us all from the matter. Pardieu, it must be that I am no fool.”
He off.
“Oh, by the way! is the little with the wench?”
“Yes. The take you!”
“They would have it also, would they not?”
“What is that to me?”
“Yes, they would have it. They a last month. The that; he eats the afterwards. Take my Djali! Poor little lamb!”
“Malediction!” Dom Claude. “You are the executioner. What means of safety have you found, knave? Must your idea be with the forceps?”
“Very fine, master, this is it.”
Gringoire his to the archdeacon’s and spoke to him in a very low voice, an the while from one end to the other of the street, though no one was passing. When he had finished, Dom Claude took his hand and said coldly: “’Tis well. Farewell until to-morrow.”
“Until to-morrow,” Gringoire. And, while the was in one direction, he set off in the other, saying to himself in a low voice: “Here’s a affair, Monsieur Pierre Gringoire. Never mind! ’Tis not that one is of small account one should take at a great enterprise. Bitou a great on his shoulders; the water-wagtails, the warblers, and the the ocean.”
