You are radiant with the most beautiful mildness; you are wholly sweet, good, pitiful, and charming. Alas! You cherish no ill will for any one but me alone! Oh! what a fatality!"
He hid his face in his hands. The young girl heard him weeping. It was for the first time. Thus erect and shaken by sobs, he was more miserable and more suppliant than when on his knees. He wept thus for a considerable time.
"Come!" he said, these first tears pa.s.sed, "I have no more words. I had, however, thought well as to what you would say. Now I tremble and shiver and break down at the decisive moment, I feel conscious of something supreme enveloping us, and I stammer. Oh! I shall fall upon the pavement if you do not take pity on me, pity on yourself. Do not condemn us both.
If you only knew how much I love you! What a heart is mine! Oh! what desertion of all virtue! What desperate abandonment of myself! A doctor, I mock at science; a gentleman, I tarnish my own name; a priest, I make of the missal a pillow of sensuality, I spit in the face of my G.o.d! all this for thee, enchantress! to be more worthy of thy h.e.l.l! And you will not have the apostate! Oh! let me tell you all! more still, something more horrible, oh! Yet more horrible!...."
As he uttered these last words, his air became utterly distracted. He was silent for a moment, and resumed, as though speaking to himself, and in a strong voice,--
"Cain, what hast thou done with thy brother?"
There was another silence, and he went on--
"What have I done with him, Lord? I received him, I reared him, I nourished him, I loved him, I idolized him, and I have slain him! Yes, Lord, they have just dashed his head before my eyes on the stone of thine house, and it is because of me, because of this woman, because of her."
His eye was wild. His voice grew ever weaker; he repeated many times, yet, mechanically, at tolerably long intervals, like a bell prolonging its last vibration: "Because of her.--Because of her."
Then his tongue no longer articulated any perceptible sound; but his lips still moved. All at once he sank together, like something crumbling, and lay motionless on the earth, with his head on his knees.
A touch from the young girl, as she drew her foot from under him, brought him to himself. He pa.s.sed his hand slowly over his hollow cheeks, and gazed for several moments at his fingers, which were wet, "What!" he murmured, "I have wept!"
And turning suddenly to the gypsy with unspeakable anguish,--
"Alas! you have looked coldly on at my tears! Child, do you know that those tears are of lava? Is it indeed true? Nothing touches when it comes from the man whom one does not love. If you were to see me die, you would laugh. Oh! I do not wish to see you die! One word! A single word of pardon! Say not that you love me, say only that you will do it; that will suffice; I will save you. If not--oh! the hour is pa.s.sing. I entreat you by all that is sacred, do not wait until I shall have turned to stone again, like that gibbet which also claims you! Reflect that I hold the destinies of both of us in my hand, that I am mad,--it is terrible,--that I may let all go to destruction, and that there is beneath us a bottomless abyss, unhappy girl, whither my fall will follow yours to all eternity! One word of kindness! Say one word! only one word!"
She opened her mouth to answer him. He flung himself on his knees to receive with adoration the word, possibly a tender one, which was on the point of issuing from her lips. She said to him, "You are an a.s.sa.s.sin!"
The priest clasped her in his arms with fury, and began to laugh with an abominable laugh.
"Well, yes, an a.s.sa.s.sin!" he said, "and I will have you. You will not have me for your slave, you shall have me for your master. I will have you! I have a den, whither I will drag you. You will follow me, you will be obliged to follow me, or I will deliver you up! You must die, my beauty, or be mine! belong to the priest! belong to the apostate! belong to the a.s.sa.s.sin! this very night, do you hear? Come! joy; kiss me, mad girl! The tomb or my bed!"
His eyes sparkled with impurity and rage. His lewd lips reddened the young girl"s neck. She struggled in his arms. He covered her with furious kisses.
"Do not bite me, monster!" she cried. "Oh! the foul, odious monk! leave me! I will tear out thy ugly gray hair and fling it in thy face by the handful!"
He reddened, turned pale, then released her and gazed at her with a gloomy air. She thought herself victorious, and continued,--
"I tell you that I belong to my Phoebus, that "tis Phoebus whom I love, that "tis Phoebus who is handsome! you are old, priest! you are ugly!
Begone!"
He gave vent to a horrible cry, like the wretch to whom a hot iron is applied. "Die, then!" he said, gnashing his teeth. She saw his terrible look and tried to fly. He caught her once more, he shook her, he flung her on the ground, and walked with rapid strides towards the corner of the Tour-Roland, dragging her after him along the pavement by her beautiful hands.
On arriving there, he turned to her,--
"For the last time, will you be mine?"
She replied with emphasis,--
"No!"
Then he cried in a loud voice,--
"Gudule! Gudule! here is the gypsy! take your vengeance!"
The young girl felt herself seized suddenly by the elbow. She looked.
A fleshless arm was stretched from an opening in the wall, and held her like a hand of iron.
"Hold her well," said the priest; ""tis the gypsy escaped. Release her not. I will go in search of the sergeants. You shall see her hanged."
A guttural laugh replied from the interior of the wall to these b.l.o.o.d.y words--"Hah! hah! hah!"--The gypsy watched the priest retire in the direction of the Pont Notre-Dame. A cavalcade was heard in that direction.
The young girl had recognized the spiteful recluse. Panting with terror, she tried to disengage herself. She writhed, she made many starts of agony and despair, but the other held her with incredible strength. The lean and bony fingers which bruised her, clenched on her flesh and met around it. One would have said that this hand was riveted to her arm. It was more than a chain, more than a fetter, more than a ring of iron, it was a living pair of pincers endowed with intelligence, which emerged from the wall.
She fell back against the wall exhausted, and then the fear of death took possession of her. She thought of the beauty of life, of youth, of the view of heaven, the aspects of nature, of her love for Phoebus, of all that was vanishing and all that was approaching, of the priest who was denouncing her, of the headsman who was to come, of the gallows which was there. Then she felt terror mount to the very roots of her hair and she heard the mocking laugh of the recluse, saying to her in a very low tone: "Hah! hah! hah! you are going to be hanged!"
She turned a dying look towards the window, and she beheld the fierce face of the sacked nun through the bars.
"What have I done to you?" she said, almost lifeless.
The recluse did not reply, but began to mumble with a singsong irritated, mocking intonation: "Daughter of Egypt! daughter of Egypt!
daughter of Egypt!"
The unhappy Esmeralda dropped her head beneath her flowing hair, comprehending that it was no human being she had to deal with.
All at once the recluse exclaimed, as though the gypsy"s question had taken all this time to reach her brain,--""What have you done to me?"
you say! Ah! what have you done to me, gypsy! Well! listen.--I had a child! you see! I had a child! a child, I tell you!--a pretty little girl!--my Agnes!" she went on wildly, kissing something in the dark.--"Well! do you see, daughter of Egypt? they took my child from me; they stole my child; they ate my child. That is what you have done to me."
The young girl replied like a lamb,--
"Alas! perchance I was not born then!"
"Oh! yes!" returned the recluse, "you must have been born. You were among them. She would be the same age as you! so!--I have been here fifteen years; fifteen years have I suffered; fifteen years have I prayed; fifteen years have I beat my head against these four walls--I tell you that "twas the gypsies who stole her from me, do you hear that?
and who ate her with their teeth.--Have you a heart? imagine a child playing, a child sucking; a child sleeping. It is so innocent a thing!--Well! that, that is what they took from me, what they killed.
The good G.o.d knows it well! To-day, it is my turn; I am going to eat the gypsy.--Oh! I would bite you well, if the bars did not prevent me! My head is too large!--Poor little one! while she was asleep! And if they woke her up when they took her, in vain she might cry; I was not there!--Ah! gypsy mothers, you devoured my child! come see your own."
Then she began to laugh or to gnash her teeth, for the two things resembled each other in that furious face. The day was beginning to dawn. An ashy gleam dimly lighted this scene, and the gallows grew more and more distinct in the square. On the other side, in the direction of the bridge of Notre-Dame, the poor condemned girl fancied that she heard the sound of cavalry approaching.
"Madam," she cried, clasping her hands and falling on her knees, dishevelled, distracted, mad with fright; "madam! have pity! They are coming. I have done nothing to you. Would you wish to see me die in this horrible fashion before your very eyes? You are pitiful, I am sure. It is too frightful. Let me make my escape. Release me! Mercy. I do not wish to die like that!"
"Give me back my child!" said the recluse.
"Mercy! Mercy!"
"Give me back my child!"
"Release me, in the name of heaven!"
"Give me back my child!"
Again the young girl fell; exhausted, broken, and having already the gla.s.sy eye of a person in the grave.