Part 25

The archdeacon did not hear him. "Oh! madman!" he resumed, without taking his eyes from the skylight. "And if you could have broken that dreadful web with your gnat's wings, do you think you could have reached the light! Alas! that pane which is farther off, that transparent obstacle, that wall of crystal harder than bronze which separates all philosophies from the truth, how would you have crossed it? O vanity of science! how many wise men, coming from afar, have fluttered against it and broken their brows! how many systems, pell-mell, buzz and clash against that eternal pane!"

He fell silent. These last ideas, which had insensibly led him back from himself to science, seemed to have calmed him. Jacques Charmolue brought him wholly back to the sense of reality by addressing him this question: "Now then, master, when will you come help me make gold? I am eager to succeed."

The archdeacon shook his head with a bitter smile. "Master Jacques, read Michael Psellus, _Dialogus de energia et operatione dæmonum_[99]. What we do is not quite innocent."

"Lower, master! I suspect as much," said Charmolue. "But one must needs practice a little hermeticism when one is but king's attorney in ecclesiastical court, at thirty Tournais crowns a year. Only let us speak low."

At that moment a noise of jaws and mastication coming from beneath the stove struck the uneasy ear of Charmolue.

"What is that?" he asked.

It was the student, who, much cramped and bored in his hiding-place, had managed to discover there an old crust and a triangle of mouldy cheese, and had begun to eat the whole without ceremony, by way of consolation and breakfast. As he was very hungry, he made a great noise, and accentuated each mouthful strongly, which had aroused and alarmed the attorney.

"It is a cat of mine," said the archdeacon quickly, "who is feasting down there on some mouse."

This explanation satisfied Charmolue.

"Indeed, master," he answered with a respectful smile, "all great philosophers have had their familiar beast. You know what Servius says: _Nullus enim locus sine genio est_."

Meanwhile Dom Claude, who feared some new outburst from Jehan, reminded his worthy disciple that they had some figures of the portal to study together, and both left the cell, to the great _ouf_! of the student, who had begun seriously to fear lest his knee should take the imprint of his chin.

VI

EFFECT THAT SEVEN OATHS CAN PRODUCE IN THE OPEN AIR

"_Te Deum laudamus_[100]!" cried Master Jehan as he came out of his hole, "there go the two screech-owls! Och! och! Hax! pax! max! fleas! mad dogs! the devil! I have had enough of their conversation! My head buzzes like a belfry. Mouldy cheese to boot! Come! let us go down, take the big brother's purse, and convert all that coin into bottles!"

He cast a glance of tenderness and admiration into the interior of the precious purse, readjusted his attire, rubbed his boots, dusted his poor grey sleeve-ends all covered with ashes, whistled a tune, pirouetted a caper, examined whether anything remained to be taken in the cell, pilfered here and there on the stove some glass trinkets good to give as a jewel to Isabeau la Thierrye, and finally opened the door, which his brother had left open through a last indulgence, and which he left open in his turn through a last mischief, and descended the circular staircase hopping like a bird.

In the darkness of the turret he jostled something which drew aside growling; he presumed it was Quasimodo, and it seemed so funny to him that he descended the rest of the stairs holding his sides with laughter. When he emerged upon the square, he was still laughing.

He stamped his foot when he found himself on the ground. "Oh!" said he, "good and honourable pavement of Paris! accursed staircase to wind the angels of Jacob's ladder! What was I thinking of, to go and bury myself in that stone auger which pierces the sky, all to eat bearded cheese, and to see the steeples of Paris through a skylight!"

He took a few steps, and caught sight of the two screech-owls, that is to say Dom Claude and Master Jacques Charmolue, in contemplation before a sculpture of the portal. He approached them on tiptoe, and heard the archdeacon saying softly to Charmolue: "It is William of Paris who caused a Job to be graven on this lapis-lazuli coloured stone, gilded at the edges. Job figures on the philosophical stone, which must be tried and martyred also to become perfect, as Raymond Lulle says: _Sub conservatione formæ specificæ salva anima_[101]."

"That is all one to me," said Jehan, "it is I who have the purse."

At that moment he heard a loud and sonorous voice articulate behind him a formidable series of oaths. "Blood of God! belly of God! by God! body of God! navel of Beelzebub! name of a pope! horn and thunder!

"Upon my soul," cried Jehan, "that can be none but my friend Captain Phoebus!"

This name of Phoebus reached the ears of the archdeacon at the moment when he was explaining to the king's attorney the dragon which hides its tail in a bath whence issues smoke and a king's head. Dom Claude started, broke off, to the great stupefaction of Charmolue, turned round, and saw his brother Jehan accosting a tall officer at the door of the Gondelaurier house.

It was in fact Monsieur the Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers. He was leaning against the angle of his betrothed's house, and swearing like a pagan.

"'Fore God, Captain Phoebus," said Jehan, taking his hand, "you swear with admirable verve."

"Horn and thunder!" answered the captain.

"Horn and thunder to you!" replied the student. "Now then, gentle captain, whence comes this outpouring of fine words?"

"Pardon, good comrade Jehan," cried Phoebus, shaking his hand, "a horse at full speed does not stop short. Now, I was swearing at full gallop. I come from those prudes, and when I leave them my throat is always full of oaths; I must spit them out or I should suffocate, belly and thunder!"

"Will you come and drink?" asked the student.

This proposal calmed the captain.

"Willingly, but I have no money."

"I have some!"

"Bah! let us see?"

Jehan displayed the purse before the captain's eyes, with majesty and simplicity. Meanwhile the archdeacon, who had left there the astounded Charmolue, had come up to them and stopped a few paces off, observing both without their taking heed of him, so much did the contemplation of the purse absorb them.

Phoebus cried: "A purse in your pocket, Jehan, is the moon in a pail of water. One sees it there, but it is not there. There is but its shadow. 'Sblood! I wager these are pebbles!"

Jehan answered coldly: "These are the pebbles with which I pelt my pouch."

And, without adding a word, he emptied the purse upon a neighbouring stone block, with the air of a Roman saving his country.

"True God!" muttered Phoebus, "targes, white crowns, small whites, two-denier Tournais mailles, Parisian deniers, real eagle-liards! It is dazzling!"

Jehan remained dignified and impassive. Some liards had rolled into the mud; the captain, in his enthusiasm, stooped to pick them up. Jehan restrained him:

"Fie, Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers!"

Phoebus counted the money and, turning with solemnity towards Jehan: "Do you know, Jehan, that there are three-and-twenty Parisian sous? Whom did you rob then this night, in the Rue Coupe-Gueule?"

Jehan tossed back his blond curled head, and said, half closing his disdainful eyes: "One has a brother archdeacon and fool."

"Horn of God!" cried Phoebus, "the worthy man!"

"Let us go and drink," said Jehan.

"Where shall we go?" said Phoebus. "_At the Apple of Eve_?"

"No, captain. Let us go to _The Old Science_. An old woman sawing a handle. It is a rebus. I love that."

"Fie on rebuses, Jehan! the wine is better at _The Apple of Eve_. And besides, by the door there is a vine in the sun which cheers me when I drink."

"Well! be it for Eve and her apple," said the student; and, taking Phoebus' arm: "By the way, dear captain, you said just now the Rue Coupe-Gueule. That is very ill spoken. One is no longer so barbarous nowadays. One says the Rue Coupe-Gorge."

The two friends set out towards _The Apple of Eve_. It is useless to say that they had first picked up the money, and that the archdeacon followed them.

The archdeacon followed them, gloomy and haggard. Was this the Phoebus whose accursed name, since his interview with Gringoire, had mingled with all his thoughts? He knew not, but, in short, it was a Phoebus, and that magic name sufficed for the archdeacon to follow at a wolf's pace the two careless companions, listening to their words and observing their slightest gestures with anxious attention. Besides, nothing was easier than to hear all they said, so loud did they talk, little embarrassed to let the passers-by share in their confidences. They spoke of duels, girls, pots, follies.

At a turning of a street, the sound of a tambourine came to them from a neighbouring crossway. Dom Claude heard the officer say to the student:

"Thunder! let us double our pace."

"Why, Phoebus?"

"I am afraid the gypsy should see me."

"What gypsy?"

"The little one with a goat."

"La Smeralda?"

"Exactly, Jehan. I always forget her devil of a name. Make haste, she would recognise me. I will not have that girl accost me in the street."

"Do you know her, Phoebus?"

Here the archdeacon saw Phoebus snigger, bend to Jehan's ear, and say a few words very low. Then Phoebus burst out laughing and shook his head with a triumphant air.

"In truth?" said Jehan.

"Upon my soul!" said Phoebus.

"This evening?"

"This evening."

"Are you sure she will come?"

"But are you mad, Jehan? does one doubt such things?"

"Captain Phoebus, you are a lucky man-at-arms!"

The archdeacon heard all this conversation. His teeth chattered. A shudder, visible to the eye, ran through his whole body. He stopped a moment, leaned against a stone block like a drunken man, then took up the track of the two merry knaves.

When he rejoined them, they had changed the conversation. He heard them singing at the top of their lungs the old refrain:

The children of the Petits-Carreaux Are hanged like calves.

VII

THE SURLY MONK

The illustrious tavern of _The Apple of Eve_ was situated in the University, at the corner of the Rue de la Rondelle and the Rue du Bâtonnier. It was a room on the ground floor, rather large and very low, with a vault whose central springing rested on a big wooden pillar painted yellow; tables everywhere, shining pewter mugs hung on the wall, always plenty of drinkers, girls in profusion, a glazed window on the street, a vine at the door, and above that door a shrill sheet of tin, illuminated with an apple and a woman, rusted by the rain and turning in the wind on an iron spit. This kind of weathercock looking down on the pavement was the sign.

Night was falling. The crossway was black. The tavern full of candles flared from afar like a forge in the shadow. One heard the noise of glasses, of feasting, of oaths, of quarrels, which escaped through the broken panes. Through the mist which the heat of the room spread over the glazed front, one saw a hundred confused faces swarming, and from time to time a loud burst of laughter detached itself from it. The passers-by who went about their business passed without casting a glance at this tumultuous window. Only, at intervals, some little ragged boy raised himself on tiptoe to the sill of the front and threw into the tavern the old mocking hoot with which drunkards were then pursued: "To the Houls, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk!"

A man, however, walked imperturbably before the noisy tavern, ever looking at it, and not withdrawing from it more than a pikeman from his sentry-box. He had a cloak up to his nose. This cloak he had just bought of the old-clothes dealer neighbouring _The Apple of Eve_, doubtless to protect himself from the cold of the March evenings, perhaps to hide his dress. From time to time he stopped before the dim lead-meshed glazing, he listened, looked, and stamped his foot.

At length the tavern door opened. That is what he seemed to be waiting for. Two drinkers came out. The ray of light which escaped from the door empurpled for a moment their jovial faces. The man with the cloak went to place himself in observation under a porch on the other side of the street.

"Horn and thunder!" said one of the two drinkers. "Seven o'clock is about to strike. It is the hour of my appointment."

"I tell you," resumed his companion with a thick tongue, "that I dwell not in the Rue des Mauvaises-Paroles, _indignus qui inter mala verba habitat_[102]. I lodge in the Rue Jean-Pain-Mollet, _in vico Johannis-Pain-Mollet_.—You are more horned than a unicorn, if you say the contrary. Every one knows that who once mounts a bear never fears, but you have your nose turned to dainties, like Saint James of the Hospital."

"Jehan, my friend, you are drunk," said the other.

The other answered, staggering: "That pleases you to say, Phoebus, but it is proved that Plato had the profile of a hound."

The reader has no doubt already recognised our two brave friends, the captain and the student. It appears that the man who watched them in the shadow had recognised them also, for he followed at slow steps all the zigzags which the student made the captain describe, the latter, a more seasoned drinker, having kept all his coolness. In listening attentively, the man with the cloak was able to catch in full the interesting conversation which follows:

"Crowbait! do try to walk straight, Mr Bachelor. You know I must leave you. There goes seven o'clock. I have an appointment with a woman."

"Leave me alone, you! I see stars and fiery lances. You are like the castle of Dampmartin bursting with laughter."

"By the warts of my grandmother, Jehan, that is reasoning with too much fury.—By the way, Jehan, have you no money left?"

"Mr Rector, there is no mistake, the little shambles, _parva boucheria_."

"Jehan, my friend Jehan! you know I have given this little one a rendezvous at the end of the Pont Saint-Michel, that I can take her only to Falourdel's, the bawd of the bridge, and that we shall have to pay for the room. The old ribald with white moustaches will give me no credit. Jehan! I beseech you! have we drunk up the curate's whole purse? have you not a Parisian left?"

"The conscience of having well spent the other hours is a just and savoury condiment of the table."

"Belly and guts! enough of trifles! Tell me, Jehan of the devil, have you some coin left? Give, by God! or I will search you, were you leprous as Job and scabby as Caesar!"

"Sir, the Rue Galiache is a street which has one end in the Rue de la Verrerie, and the other in the Rue de la Tixeranderie."

"Well yes, my good friend Jehan, my poor comrade; the Rue Galiache, that is well, that is very well. But, in the name of heaven, come to yourself. I need but one Parisian sou, and that for seven o'clock."

"Silence round, and attention to the refrain:

_When the rats shall eat the cheeses,_ _The law shall be lord of Arras;_ _When the sea, which is great and broad,_ _Shall be frozen at Saint John,_ _One shall see, above the ice,_ _Those of Arras issue from their place._

"Well, scholar of Antichrist, may you be strangled with your mother's entrails!" cried Phoebus; and he pushed the drunken student roughly, who slipped against the wall and fell softly upon the pavement of Philippe-Auguste. By a remnant of that fraternal pity which never abandons a drinker's heart, Phoebus rolled Jehan with his foot upon one of those pillows of the poor which providence holds ready at the corner of all the stone blocks of Paris, and which the rich flout disdainfully under the name of _heap of offal_. The captain arranged Jehan's head on an inclined plane of cabbage-stumps, and instantly the student began to snore with a magnificent bass.

Meanwhile all rancour was not extinguished in the captain's heart. "Too bad if the devil's cart picks you up as it passes!" said he to the sleeping clerk, and went away.

The man with the cloak, who had not ceased to follow him, stopped a moment before the prostrate student, as if an indecision agitated him; then, uttering a deep sigh, he also withdrew in the captain's wake.

We shall leave, like them, Jehan sleeping under the kindly gaze of the fair star, and we shall follow them also, if it please the reader.

On issuing into the Rue Saint-André-des-Arcs, Captain Phoebus perceived that some one was following him. He saw, by chance turning his eyes, a sort of shadow which crept behind him along the walls. He stopped, it stopped. He set out again, the shadow set out again. This troubled him but very moderately. "Ah bah!" said he to himself, "I have not a sou."

Before the façade of the College of Autun he made a halt. It is at this college that he had sketched what he called his studies, and, by a habit of teasing student which had remained with him, he never passed before the façade without subjecting the statue of Cardinal Pierre Bertrand, sculptured to the right of the portal, to the kind of affront of which Priapus complains so bitterly in Horace's satire _Olim truncus eram ficulnus_[103]. He had put so much fury into it that the inscription _Eduensis episcopus_ was almost effaced. He stopped therefore before the statue as was his wont. The street was quite deserted. At the moment when he was nonchalantly retying his points, nose to the wind, he saw the shadow approach him with slow steps, so slow that he had full time to observe that this shadow had a cloak and a hat. Arrived near him, it stopped and remained more motionless than the statue of Cardinal Bertrand. Meanwhile it fixed upon Phoebus two staring eyes full of that vague light which issues at night from a cat's pupil.

The captain was brave and would have cared very little for a thief with a sword in his fist. But this statue which walked, this petrified man, froze him. There then ran through the world I know not what tales of the surly monk, night-prowler of the streets of Paris, which came confusedly back to his memory. He remained some minutes stupefied, and at length broke the silence, striving to laugh.

"Sir, if you are a thief, as I hope, you have the air of a heron attacking a nutshell. I am a ruined gentleman's son, my dear. Apply next door. There is in the chapel of this college some wood of the true cross, which is in silver plate."

The shadow's hand came out from under its cloak and fell upon Phoebus' arm with the weight of an eagle's talon. At the same time the shadow spoke: "Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers!"

"How the devil!" said Phoebus, "you know my name!"

"I do not so much as know your name," resumed the man with the cloak with his sepulchral voice. "You have an appointment this evening."

"Yes," answered Phoebus, stupefied.

"At seven o'clock."

"In a quarter of an hour."

"At Falourdel's."

"Precisely."

"The bawd of the Pont Saint-Michel."

"Of Saint Michael the archangel, as the paternoster says."

"Impious!" muttered the spectre. "With a woman?"

"_Confiteor_."

"Who is called..."

"La Smeralda," said Phoebus gaily. All his carelessness had returned to him by degrees.

At this name, the shadow's talon shook Phoebus' arm furiously.

"Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers, you lie!"

Whoever could have seen at that moment the captain's inflamed face, the bound he made backwards, so violent that he disengaged himself from the pincer which had seized him, the proud air with which he threw his hand to the hilt of his sword, and before this anger the dreary immobility of the man with the cloak, whoever had seen that would have been affrighted. It was something of the combat of Don Juan and the statue.

"Christ and Satan!" cried the captain. "There is a word which rarely attacks a Châteaupers' ear! you would not dare repeat it."

"You lie!" said the shadow coldly.

The captain gnashed his teeth. Surly monk, phantom, superstitions, he had forgotten all that at this moment. He saw no longer but a man and an insult.

"Ah! this is well!" he stammered with a voice stifled by rage. He drew his sword, then faltered, for anger makes one tremble like fear: "Here! at once! come on! swords! swords! blood upon these pavements!"

Meanwhile the other moved not. When he saw his adversary on guard and ready to lunge: "Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers," said he, and his accent vibrated with bitterness, "you forget your appointment."

The fits of men like Phoebus are curds which a drop of cold water makes subside. This simple word made the sword fall which glittered in the captain's hand.

"Captain," pursued the man, "to-morrow, the day after, in a month, in ten years, you will find me ready to cut your throat; but go first to your appointment."

"In truth," said Phoebus, as if he sought to capitulate with himself, "these are two charming things to meet at a rendezvous, a sword and a girl; but I do not see why I should miss one for the other, when I may have both."

He returned his sword to the scabbard.

"Go to your appointment," resumed the unknown.

"Sir," answered Phoebus with some embarrassment, "great thanks for your courtesy. In fact it will always be time to-morrow to slash and buttonhole each other the doublet of Father Adam. I am grateful to you for letting me pass yet a quarter of an hour agreeable. I counted well on laying you in the gutter and arriving still in time for the fair one, the rather because it is good air to make women wait a little in such case. But you look to me a brave fellow, and it is safer to put off the bout till to-morrow. I go then to my appointment. It is for seven o'clock, as you know." Here Phoebus scratched his ear. "Ah! horn of God! I forgot! I have not a sou to pay the rent of the garret, and the old crone will want to be paid in advance. She mistrusts me."

"Here is wherewith to pay."

Phoebus felt the unknown's cold hand glide into his a large coin. He could not help taking this money and pressing that hand.

"True God!" cried he, "you are a good fellow!"

"One condition," said the man. "Prove to me that I was wrong and that you spoke true. Hide me in some corner whence I may see whether this woman is indeed she whose name you said."

"Oh!" answered Phoebus, "that is all one to me. We will take the chamber of Sainte-Marthe. You may see at your ease from the kennel which is beside it."

"Come then," said the shadow.

"At your service," said the captain. "I know not if you are not Master Diabolus in his own person. But let us be good friends this evening. To-morrow I will pay you all my debts, of purse and of sword."

They set out again to walk rapidly. At the end of some minutes, the noise of the river announced to them that they were on the Pont Saint-Michel, then loaded with houses. "I will first introduce you," said Phoebus to his companion, "I will then go seek the fair one, who must be waiting for me near the Petit-Châtelet."

The companion answered nothing. Since they had walked side by side, he had not said a word. Phoebus stopped before a low door and knocked roughly. A light appeared at the chinks of the door.

"Who is there?" cried a toothless voice.

"Body of God! head of God! belly of God!" answered the captain.

The door opened forthwith, and showed to the comers an old woman and an old lamp, both trembling. The old woman was bent double, clad in rags, shaky of head, pinched of eye, coifed with a cloth, wrinkled everywhere, in hands, face, neck; her lips drew in under her gums, and she had all around her mouth little brushes of white hairs which gave her the baboon-like look of a cat.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”