When this species of cyclops appeared on the threshold of the chapel, motionless, squat, and almost as broad as he was tall; squared on the base, as a great man says; with his doublet half red, half violet, sown with silver bells, and, above all, in the perfection of his ugliness, the populace recognized him on the instant, and shouted with one voice,--"'Tis Quasimodo, the bellringer! 'tis Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre-Dame! Quasimodo, the one-eyed! Quasimodo, the bandy-legged! Noel! Noel!"It will be seen that the poor fellow had a choice of surnames.
"Let the women with child beware!" shouted the scholars.
"Or those who wish to be," resumed Joannes.
The women did, in fact, hide their faces.
"Oh! the horrible monkey!" said one of them.
"As wicked as he is ugly," retorted another.
"He's the devil," added a third.
"I have the misfortune to live near Notre-Dame; I hear him prowling round the eaves by night.""With the cats."
"He's always on our roofs."
"He throws spells down our chimneys."
"The other evening, he came and made a grimace at me through my attic window. I thought that it was a man.
Such a fright as I had!"
"I'm sure that he goes to the witches' sabbath. Once he left a broom on my leads.""Oh! what a displeasing hunchback's face!"
"Oh! what an ill-favored soul!"
"Whew!"
The men, on the contrary, were delighted and applauded.
Quasimodo, the object of the tumult, still stood on the threshold of the chapel, sombre and grave, and allowed them to admire him.
One scholar (Robin Poussepain, I think), came and laughed in his face, and too close. Quasimodo contented himself with taking him by the girdle, and hurling him ten paces off amid the crowd; all without uttering a word.
Master Coppenole, in amazement, approached him.
"Cross of God! Holy Father! you possess the handsomest ugliness that I have ever beheld in my life. You would deserve to be pope at Rome, as well as at Paris."So saying, he placed his hand gayly on his shoulder. Quasimodo did not stir. Coppenole went on,--"You are a rogue with whom I have a fancy for carousing, were it to cost me a new dozen of twelve livres of Tours.
How does it strike you?"
Quasimodo made no reply.
"Cross of God!" said the hosier, "are you deaf?"He was, in truth, deaf.
Nevertheless, he began to grow impatient with Coppenole's behavior, and suddenly turned towards him with so formidable a gnashing of teeth, that the Flemish giant recoiled, like a bull-dog before a cat.
Then there was created around that strange personage, a circle of terror and respect, whose radius was at least fifteen geometrical feet. An old woman explained to Coppenole that Quasimodo was deaf.
"Deaf!" said the hosier, with his great Flemish laugh.
"Cross of God! He's a perfect pope!"
"He! I recognize him," exclaimed Jehan, who had, at last, descended from his capital, in order to see Quasimodo at closer quarters, "he's the bellringer of my brother, the archdeacon.
Good-day, Quasimodo!"
"What a devil of a man!" said Robin Poussepain still all bruised with his fall. "He shows himself; he's a hunchback.
He walks; he's bandy-legged. He looks at you; he's one-eyed.
You speak to him; he's deaf. And what does this Polyphemus do with his tongue?""He speaks when he chooses," said the old woman; "he became deaf through ringing the bells. He is not dumb.""That he lacks," remarks Jehan.
"And he has one eye too many," added Robin Poussepain.
"Not at all," said Jehan wisely. "A one-eyed man is far less complete than a blind man. He knows what he lacks."In the meantime, all the beggars, all the lackeys, all the cutpurses, joined with the scholars, had gone in procession to seek, in the cupboard of the law clerks' company, the cardboard tiara, and the derisive robe of the Pope of the Fools. Quasimodo allowed them to array him in them without wincing, and with a sort of proud docility. Then they made him seat himself on a motley litter. Twelve officers of the fraternity of fools raised him on their shoulders; and a sort of bitter and disdainful joy lighted up the morose face of the cyclops, when he beheld beneath his deformed feet all those heads of handsome, straight, well-made men. Then the ragged and howling procession set out on its march, according to custom, around the inner galleries of the Courts, before making the circuit of the streets and squares.
