Part 64 (1/2)
Thus every sunrise found her more calm, breathing better, less pale. In proportion as her inward wounds closed, her grace and beauty blossomed once more on her countenance, but more thoughtful, more reposeful. Her former character also returned to her, somewhat even of her gayety, her pretty pout, her love for her goat, her love for singing, her modesty.
She took care to dress herself in the morning in the corner of her cell for fear some inhabitants of the neighboring attics might see her through the window.
When the thought of Phoebus left her time, the gypsy sometimes thought of Quasimodo. He was the sole bond, the sole connection, the sole communication which remained to her with men, with the living.
Unfortunate girl! she was more outside the world than Quasimodo. She understood not in the least the strange friend whom chance had given her. She often reproached herself for not feeling a grat.i.tude which should close her eyes, but decidedly, she could not accustom herself to the poor bellringer. He was too ugly.
She had left the whistle which he had given her lying on the ground.
This did not prevent Quasimodo from making his appearance from time to time during the first few days. She did her best not to turn aside with too much repugnance when he came to bring her her basket of provisions or her jug of water, but he always perceived the slightest movement of this sort, and then he withdrew sadly.
Once he came at the moment when she was caressing Djali. He stood pensively for several minutes before this graceful group of the goat and the gypsy; at last he said, shaking his heavy and ill-formed head,--
”My misfortune is that I still resemble a man too much. I should like to be wholly a beast like that goat.”
She gazed at him in amazement.
He replied to the glance,--
”Oh! I well know why,” and he went away.
On another occasion he presented himself at the door of the cell (which he never entered) at the moment when la Esmeralda was singing an old Spanish ballad, the words of which she did not understand, but which had lingered in her ear because the gypsy women had lulled her to sleep with it when she was a little child. At the sight of that villanous form which made its appearance so abruptly in the middle of her song, the young girl paused with an involuntary gesture of alarm. The unhappy bellringer fell upon his knees on the threshold, and clasped his large, misshapen hands with a suppliant air. ”Oh!” he said, sorrowfully, ”continue, I implore you, and do not drive me away.” She did not wish to pain him, and resumed her lay, trembling all over. By degrees, however, her terror disappeared, and she yielded herself wholly to the slow and melancholy air which she was singing. He remained on his knees with hands clasped, as in prayer, attentive, hardly breathing, his gaze riveted upon the gypsy's brilliant eyes.
On another occasion, he came to her with an awkward and timid air.
”Listen,” he said, with an effort; ”I have something to say to you.”
She made him a sign that she was listening. Then he began to sigh, half opened his lips, appeared for a moment to be on the point of speaking, then he looked at her again, shook his head, and withdrew slowly, with his brow in his hand, leaving the gypsy stupefied. Among the grotesque personages sculptured on the wall, there was one to whom he was particularly attached, and with which he often seemed to exchange fraternal glances. Once the gypsy heard him saying to it,--
”Oh! why am not I of stone, like you!”
At last, one morning, la Esmeralda had advanced to the edge of the roof, and was looking into the Place over the pointed roof of Saint-Jean le Rond. Quasimodo was standing behind her. He had placed himself in that position in order to spare the young girl, as far as possible, the displeasure of seeing him. All at once the gypsy started, a tear and a flash of joy gleamed simultaneously in her eyes, she knelt on the brink of the roof and extended her arms towards the Place with anguish, exclaiming: ”Phoebus! come! come! a word, a single word in the name of heaven! Phoebus! Phoebus!” Her voice, her face, her gesture, her whole person bore the heartrending expression of a s.h.i.+pwrecked man who is making a signal of distress to the joyous vessel which is pa.s.sing afar off in a ray of sunlight on the horizon.
Quasimodo leaned over the Place, and saw that the object of this tender and agonizing prayer was a young man, a captain, a handsome cavalier all glittering with arms and decorations, prancing across the end of the Place, and saluting with his plume a beautiful lady who was smiling at him from her balcony. However, the officer did not hear the unhappy girl calling him; he was too far away.
But the poor deaf man heard. A profound sigh heaved his breast; he turned round; his heart was swollen with all the tears which he was swallowing; his convulsively-clenched fists struck against his head, and when he withdrew them there was a bunch of red hair in each hand.
The gypsy paid no heed to him. He said in a low voice as he gnashed his teeth,--
”d.a.m.nation! That is what one should be like! 'Tis only necessary to be handsome on the outside!”
Meanwhile, she remained kneeling, and cried with extraor-dinary agitation,--”Oh! there he is alighting from his horse! He is about to enter that house!--Phoebus!--He does not hear me! Phoebus!--How wicked that woman is to speak to him at the same time with me! Phoebus!
Phoebus!”
The deaf man gazed at her. He understood this pantomime. The poor bellringer's eye filled with tears, but he let none fall. All at once he pulled her gently by the border of her sleeve. She turned round. He had a.s.sumed a tranquil air; he said to her,--
”Would you like to have me bring him to you?”
She uttered a cry of joy.
”Oh! go! hasten! run! quick! that captain! that captain! bring him to me! I will love you for it!”
She clasped his knees. He could not refrain from shaking his head sadly.