The Hunchback of Notre Dame (38 page)

CHAPTER VII

The Spectre Monk

T
he famous tavern known as the Pomme d‘Eve was situated in the University, at the corner of the Rue de la Rondelle and the Rue du Batonnier. It was a large, low room on the ground-floor, with an arched roof, the central spring of which rested on a huge wooden pillar painted yellow; there were tables in every direction, shining pewter jugs hung on the wall; there were always plenty of topers, lots of girls, a window looking on the street, a vine at the door, and over the door a creaking piece of sheet iron, on which were painted a woman and an apple, rusted by the rain and swinging in the wind on an iron rod. This kind of weathercock, which overlooked the pavement, was the sign.

Night was falling; the streets were dark. The tavern full of candles, flared from a distance like a forge in the gloom; a noise of glasses, of feasting, of oaths, and of quarrels escaped from the broken window-panes. Through the mist with which the heat of the room covered the glazed casement in front of the inn swarmed a myriad confused figures, and from time to time a ringing burst of laughter was heard. People passing, intent on their own affairs, hastened by that noisy window without a glance; but now and then some little ragged boy would raise himself on tiptoe to the window-sill, and scream into the tavern the old mocking cry with which drunkards were often greeted at this period:—

“Back to your glasses,
Ye drunken, drunken asses.”

One man, however, marched imperturbably up and down in front of the noisy tavern, looking continually, and never stirring farther away from it than a pikeman from his sentry-box. His cloak was pulled up to his very nose. This cloak he had just bought from the old-clothes man who lived hard by the Pomme d‘Eve, doubtless to shield himself from the chill of the March evening, perhaps to hide his dress. From time to time he paused before the dim panes set in lead, listened, looked, and stamped his feet impatiently.

At last the tavern door opened. This seemed to be what he was waiting for. Two tipplers came out. The ray of light which escaped through the door, for a moment reddened their jovial faces. The man with the cloak took up his position under a porch on the other side of the street.

“Thunder and guns!” said one of the two drinkers. “It will strike seven directly. It is the hour for my appointment.”

“I tell you,” resumed his companion, with a thick utterance, “that I do not live in the Rue des Mauvaises-Paroles,
indignus qui inter mala verba habitat.
^cx
My lodgings are in the Rue Jean-Pain-Mollet,
in vico Johannis-Pain-Mollet.
You are more unreasonable than a unicorn, if you say to the contrary. Everybody knows that he who has once climbed upon a bear’s back is never afraid; but you’ve a fine nose for scenting out dainty bits like Saint-Jacques de l‘Hôpital.”

“Jehan, my friend, you are drunk,” said the other.

He replied, staggering, “So it pleases you to say, Phœbus; but it is well proven that Plato had the profile of a hunting-dog.”

The reader has undoubtedly recognized our two worthy friends, the captain and the student. It seems that the man lurking in the shadow had also recognized them; for he followed with slow steps all the zig-zags which the student forced the captain to describe, the latter, a more hardened drinker, having preserved entire self-possession. By listening carefully, the man with the cloak was able to catch the whole of the following interesting conversation:—

“Body of Bacchus! do try to walk straight, Master Bachelor. You know that I shall have to leave you. Here it is seven o‘clock. I have an appointment with a woman.”

“Leave me then, do. I see fiery stars and spears. You are like the Château-de-Dampmartin, which burst with laughter.”

“By my grandmother’s warts, Jehan! your nonsense is rather too desperate. By-the-bye, Jehan, haven’t you any money left?”

“Mr. Rector, there’s no mistake: the little butcher’s shop,
parva boucheria.”

“Jehan, friend Jehan! you know that I made an appointment to meet that little girl at the end of the Pont Saint-Michel; that I can’t take her anywhere but to La Falourdel.—the old hag on the bridge; and that I must pay for the room; the white-whiskered old jade gives no credit. Jehan, for pity’s sake, have we drunk up the priest’s whole purse? Haven’t you a penny left?”

“The consciousness that you have spent the rest of your time well is a good and savoury table-sauce.”

“Thunder and blazes! A truce to your nonsense! Tell me, Jehan, you devil! have you any money left? Give it to me, by Heaven! or I will rob you, were you as leprous as Job and as mangy as Caesar!”

“Sir, the Rue Galiache is a street which runs from the Rue de la Verrerie to the Rue da la Tixeranderie.”

“Yes, yes, good friend Jehan, my poor comrade, the Rue Galiache, —that’s all right, quite right, but in Heaven’s name, come to your senses! I want only a few pence, and my appointment is for seven o‘clock.”

“Silence all around, and pay attention to my song:

‘When the rats have eaten every case,
The king shall be lord of Arras’ race.
When the sea, so deep and wide,
Is frozen o’er at Saint John’s tide,
Across the ice we then shall see
The Arras men their city flee.‘”

“There, then, scholar of Antichrist, the foul fiend fly away with you!” cried Phoebus; and he gave the tipsy student a violent push, which sent him reeling against the wall, whence he fell gently to the pavement of Philip Augustus. With a remnant of that brotherly compassion which never quite forsakes the heart of a toper, Phoebus rolled Jehan with his foot over upon one of those pillows of the poor which Providence keeps in readiness at every street corner in Paris, and which the rich scornfully stigmatize as dunghills. The captain arranged Jehan’s head on an inclined plane of cabbage-stalks, and the student instantly began to snore in a magnificent bass. However, all rancor was not yet dead in the captain’s heart. “So much the worse for you if the devil’s cart picks you up as it passes!” said he to the poor sleeping scholar; and he went his way.

The man in the cloak, who had not ceased following him, paused for a moment beside the prostrate student, as if uncertain; then, heaving a deep sigh, he also departed in the captain’s wake.

Like them, we will leave Jehan to sleep under the friendly watch of the bright stars, and we too will follow them, if it so please the reader.

As he emerged into the Rue Saint-André-des-Arcs, Captain Phoebus discovered that some one was following him. As he accidentally glanced behind him, he saw a kind of shadow creeping behind him along the walls. He stopped, it stopped; he walked on again, the shadow also walked on. This troubled him but very little. “Pooh!” said he to himself, “I have not a penny about me.”

In front of the College d‘Autun, he came to a halt. It was at this college that he had passed through what he was pleased to call his studies, and from a habit learned in his student days he never passed the statue of Cardinal Pierre Bertrand without stopping to mock at it. He therefore paused before the statue as usual. The street was deserted, save for the shadow approaching slowly,—so slowly that he had ample time to observe that it wore a cloak and a hat. Coming close up to him, it stopped, and stood more motionless than the statue of Cardinal Bertrand itself; but it fastened upon Phoebus a pair of eyes full of that vague light seen at night in the pupil of a cat’s eye.

The captain was brave, and would not have cared a farthing for a thief with a bludgeon in his hand; but this walking statue, this petrified man, froze his very blood. At that time there were current in society strange stories of the spectral monk, who prowled the streets of Paris by night. These tales now came confusedly to his mind, and for some moments he stood stupefied; at last he broke the silence with a forced laugh, saying,—

“Sir, if you are a robber, as I hope, you remind me of a heron attacking a nutshell; I am the son of a ruined family, my dear fellow. You’ve come to the wrong shop; you’d better go next door. In the chapel of that college there is a piece of the true cross set in silver.”

The hand of the shadow was stretched from under the cloak, and swooped down upon Phœbus’s arm with the grip of an eagle’s talons. At the same time the shadow spoke:—

“Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers!”

“What! the devil!” said Phoebus; “do you know my name?”

“I not only know your name,” replied the man in the cloak, with his sepulchral voice, “but I know that you have a rendezvous this evening!”

“Yes,” answered the astonished Phœbus.

“At seven o‘clock.”

“In fifteen minutes.”

“At La Falourdel’s.”

“Exactly so.”

“The old hag of the Pont Saint-Michel.”

“Saint Michel the archangel, as the Pater Noster says.”

“Impious wretch!” muttered the spectre. “With a woman?”

“Confiteor.”

“Whose name is—”

“Esmeralda,” said Phoebus, cheerfully. He had gradually recovered all his unconcern.

At this name the shadow’s claws shook the captain’s arm furiously.

“Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers, you lie!”

Any one who could at this moment have seen the captain’s flaming face, his backward bound, so violent that it released him from the vise-like grasp that held him, the haughty air with which he clapped his hand to his sword-hilt, and the gloomy immobility of the man in the cloak in the presence of this rage,—any one who saw all this would have trembled with fear. It was something like the fight between Don Juan and the statue.

“Christ and Satan!” cried the captain; “that is a word which seldom greets the ears of a Châteaupers! You dare not repeat it!”

“You lie!” said the shadow, coldly.

The captain gnashed his teeth. Spectre monk, phantom, superstitions, all were forgotten at this instant. He saw nothing but a man and an insult.

“Ha! it is well!” he stammered in a voice stifled by rage. He drew his sword; then, stuttering,—for anger makes a man tremble as well as fear, “Here! on the spot! Now then! swords! swords! Blood upon these stones!”

But the other never stirred. When he saw his adversary on his guard, and ready to burst with wrath, he said,—

“Captain Phœbus,”—and his voice quivered with bitterness,—“you forget your rendezvous.”

The fits of passion of such men as Phoebus are like boiling milk,—a drop of cold water is enough to check their fury. At these simple words the sword which glittered in the captain’s hand was lowered.

“Captain,” continued the man, “tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, in a month, in ten years, you will find me ready to cut your throat; but keep your rendezvous first.”

“Indeed,” said Phoebus, as if trying to compound with his conscience, “a sword and a girl are both charming things to encounter by appointment; but I do not see why I should miss one for the sake of the other, when I might have both.”

He replaced his sword in his scabbard.

“Go to your rendezvous,” replied the stranger.

“Sir,” answered Phœbus with some embarrassment, “many thanks for your courtesy. You are right in saying that tomorrow will be time enough for us to cut slashes and button-holes in Father Adam’s doublet. I am obliged to you for allowing me to pass another agreeable quarter of an hour. I did indeed hope to put you to bed in the gutter, and yet be in time for my fair one,—the more so that it is genteel to keep the women waiting a little in such cases. But you look to me like a determined dog, and it is safer to put the party off until tomorrow. I will therefore go to my appointment; it is for seven o‘clock, as you know.” Here Phoebus scratched his ear. “Ah, by my halidom! I forgot; I have not a penny to pay the toll for the use of the garret, and the old hag must be paid in advance. She won’t trust me.”

“Here is money to pay her.”

Phœbus felt the stranger’s cold hand slip a large piece of money into his. He could not help taking the money and squeezing the hand.

“By God!” he exclaimed, “you’re a good fellow!”

“One condition,” said the man. “Prove to me that I was wrong, and that you spoke the truth. Hide me in some corner where I can see whether this woman be really she whose name you mentioned.”

“Oh,” answered Phœbus, “with all my heart! We will take Saint Martha’s room; you can look in very easily from the kennel beside it.”

“Come on, then!” said the shadow.

“At your service,” replied the captain. “I don’t know whether or no you are Master Diabolus in
propria persona:
but let us be good friends for tonight; tomorrow I will pay you all my debts, of purse and sword.”

They set forth at a rapid pace. In a few moments the sound of the river warned them that they stood on Pont Saint-Michel, then covered with houses.

“I will first get you in,” said Phoebus to his companion; “then I will go and fetch my charmer, who was to wait for me near the Petit-Châtelet.”

His comrade made no answer; since they had walked side by side he had not said a word. Phœbus stopped before a low door and knocked loudly; a light appeared through the chinks of the door.

“Who is there?” cried a mumbling voice.

“By Saint Luke’s face! By God’s passion! By the Rood!” answered the captain.

The door opened instantly, and revealed to the new-comers an old woman and an old lamp, both in a very shaky state. The old woman was bent double, dressed in rags; her head shook; she had very small eyes, wore a kerchief on her head, and her hands, face, and neck were covered with wrinkles; her lips retreated under her gums, and she had tufts of white hair all around her mouth, which gave her the demure look of a cat.

The interior of the hovel was as dilapidated as its mistress; there were whitewashed walls, black beams running across the ceiling, a dismantled fireplace, cobwebs in every corner; in the middle of the room stood a rickety collection of tables and chairs; a dirty child played in the ashes; and in the background a staircase, or rather a wooden ladder, led to a trapdoor in the ceiling.

On entering this den Phoebus’s mysterious companion pulled his cloak up to his eyes. But the captain, swearing all the time like a Turk, hastened “to make the sun flash from a crown-piece,” as our all-accomplished Régnier says.