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《BOOK TENTH CHAPTER IV.AN AWKWARD FRIEND. Page 1》
That night, Quasimodo did not sleep.He had just made his last round of the church.He had not noticed, that at the moment when he was closing the doors, the archdeacon had passed close to him and betrayed some displeasure on seeing him bolting and barring with care the enormous iron locks which gave to their large leaves the solidity of a wall.Dom Claude's air was even more preoccupied than usual.Moreover, since the nocturnal adventure in the cell, he had constantly abused Quasimodo, but in vain did he ill treat, and even beat him occasionally, nothing disturbed the submission, patience, the devoted resignation of the faithful bellringer.He endured everything on the part of the archdeacon, insults, threats, blows, without murmuring a complaint.At the most, he gazed uneasily after Dom Claude when the latter ascended the staircase of the tower; but the archdeacon had abstained from presenting himself again before the gypsy's eyes.
On that night, accordingly, Quasimodo, after having cast a glance at his poor bells which he so neglected now, Jacqueline, Marie, and Thibauld, mounted to the summit of the Northern tower, and there setting his dark lanturn, well closed, upon the leads, he began to gaze at paris.The night, as we have already said, was very dark.paris which, so to speak was not lighted at that epoch, presented to the eye a confused collection of black masses, cut here and there by the whitish curve of the Seine.Quasimodo no longer saw any light with the exception of one window in a distant edifice, whose vague and sombre profile was outlined well above the roofs, in the direction of the porte Sainte-Antoine. There also, there was some one awake.
As the only eye of the bellringer peered into that horizon of mist and night, he felt within him an inexpressible uneasiness.For several days he had been upon his guard.He had perceived men of sinister mien, who never took their eyes from the young girl's asylum, prowling constantly about the church.He fancied that some plot might be in process of formation against the unhappy refugee.He imagined that there existed a popular hatred against her, as against himself, and that it was very possible that something might happen soon.Hence he remained upon his tower on the watch, "dreaming in his dream-place," as Rabelais says, with his eye directed alternately on the cell and on paris, keeping faithful guard, like a good dog, with a thousand suspicions in his mind.
All at once, while he was scrutinizing the great city with that eye which nature, by a sort of compensation, had made so piercing that it could almost supply the other organs which Quasimodo lacked, it seemed to him that there was something singular about the Quay de la Vieille-pelleterie, that there was a movement at that point, that the line of the parapet, standing out blackly against the whiteness of the water was not straight and tranquil, like that of the other quays, but that it undulated to the eye, like the waves of a river, or like the heads of a crowd in motion.
This struck him as strange.He redoubled his attention. The movement seemed to be advancing towards the City. There was no light.It lasted for some time on the quay; then it gradually ceased, as though that which was passing were entering the interior of the island; then it stopped altogether, and the line of the quay became straight and motionless again.
At the moment when Quasimodo was lost in conjectures, it seemed to him that the movement had re-appeared in the Rue du parvis, which is prolonged into the city perpendicularly to the fa?ade of Notre-Dame.At length, dense as was the darkness, he beheld the head of a column debouch from that street, and in an instant a crowd--of which nothing could be distinguished in the gloom except that it was a crowd--spread over the place.
This spectacle had a terror of its own.It is probable that this singular procession, which seemed so desirous of concealing itself under profound darkness, maintained a silence no less profound.Nevertheless, some noise must have escaped it, were it only a trampling.But this noise did not even reach our deaf man, and this great multitude, of which he saw hardly anything, and of which he heard nothing, though it was marching and moving so near him, produced upon him the effect of a rabble of dead men, mute, impalpable, lost in a smoke.It seemed to him, that he beheld advancing towards him a fog of men, and that he saw shadows moving in the shadow.
Then his fears returned to him, the idea of an attempt against the gypsy presented itself once more to his mind. He was conscious, in a confused way, that a violent crisis was approaching.At that critical moment he took counsel with himself, with better and prompter reasoning than one would have expected from so badly organized a brain.Ought he to awaken the gypsy? to make her escape?Whither?The streets were invested, the church backed on the river.No boat, no issue!--There was but one thing to be done; to allow himself to be killed on the threshold of Notre-Dame, to resist at least until succor arrived, if it should arrive, and not to trouble la Esmeralda's sleep.This resolution once taken, he set to examining the enemy with more tranquillity.
The throng seemed to increase every moment in the church square.Only, he presumed that it must be making very little noise, since the windows on the place remained closed. All at once, a flame flashed up, and in an instant seven or eight lighted torches passed over the heads of the crowd, shaking their tufts of flame in the deep shade.Quasimodo then beheld distinctly surging in the parvis a frightful herd of men and women in rags, armed with scythes, pikes, billhooks and partisans, whose thousand points glittered.Here and there black pitchforks formed horns to the hideous faces. He vaguely recalled this populace, and thought that he recognized all the heads who had saluted him as pope of the Fools some months previously.One man who held a torch in one hand and a club in the other, mounted a stone post and seemed to be haranguing them.At the same time the strange army executed several evolutions, as though it were taking up its post around the church.Quasimodo picked up his lantern and descended to the platform between the towers, in order to get a nearer view, and to spy out a means of defence.
Clopin Trouillefou, on arriving in front of the lofty portal of Notre-Dame had, in fact, ranged his troops in order of battle.Although he expected no resistance, he wished, like a prudent general, to preserve an order which would permit him to face, at need, a sudden attack of the watch or the police.He had accordingly stationed his brigade in such a manner that, viewed from above and from a distance, one would have pronounced it the Roman triangle of the battle of Ecnomus, the boar's head of Alexander or the famous wedge of Gustavus Adolphus.The base of this triangle rested on the back of the place in such a manner as to bar the entrance of the Rue du parvis; one of its sides faced H?tel-Dieu, the other the Rue Saint-pierre-aux-Boeufs.Clopin Trouillefou had placed himself at the apex with the Duke of Egypt, our friend Jehan, and the most daring of the scavengers.
An enterprise like that which the vagabonds were now undertaking against Notre-Dame was not a very rare thing in the cities of the Middle Ages.What we now call the "police" did not exist then.In populous cities, especially in capitals, there existed no single, central, regulating power.Feudalism had constructed these great communities in a singular manner.A city was an assembly of a thousand seigneuries, which divided it into compartments of all shapes and sizes.Hence, a thousand conflicting establishments of police; that is to say, no police at all.In paris, for example, independently of the hundred and forty-one lords who laid claim to a manor, there were five and twenty who laid claim to a manor and to administering justice, from the Bishop of paris, who had five hundred streets, to the prior of Notre- Dame des Champs, who had four.All these feudal justices recognized the suzerain authority of the king only in name. All possessed the right of control over the roads.All were at home.Louis XI., that indefatigable worker, who so largely began the demolition of the feudal edifice, continued by Richelieu and Louis XIV.for the profit of royalty, and finished by Mirabeau for the benefit of the people,--Louis XI. had certainly made an effort to break this network of seignories which covered paris, by throwing violently across them all two or three troops of general police.Thus, in 1465, an order to the inhabitants to light candles in their windows at nightfall, and to shut up their dogs under penalty of death; in the same year, an order to close the streets in the evening with iron chains, and a prohibition to wear daggers or weapons of offence in the streets at night.But in a very short time, all these efforts at communal legislation fell into abeyance. The bourgeois permitted the wind to blow out their candles in the windows, and their dogs to stray; the iron chains were stretched only in a state of siege; the prohibition to wear daggers wrought no other changes than from the name of the Rue Coupe-Gueule to the name of the Rue-Coupe-Gorge* which is an evident progress.The old scaffolding of feudal jurisdictions remained standing; an immense aggregation of bailiwicks and seignories crossing each other all over the city, interfering with each other, entangled in one another, enmeshing each other, trespassing on each other; a useless thicket of watches, sub-watches and counter-watches, over which, with armed force, passed brigandage, rapine, and sedition.Hence, in this disorder, deeds of violence on the part of the populace directed against a palace, a hotel, or house in the most thickly populated quarters, were not unheard-of occurrences.In the majority of such cases, the neighbors did not meddle with the matter unless the pillaging extended to themselves. They stopped up their ears to the musket shots, closed their shutters, barricaded their doors, allowed the matter to be concluded with or without the watch, and the next day it was said in paris, "Etienne Barbette was broken open last night. The Marshal de Clermont was seized last night, etc."Hence, not only the royal habitations, the Louvre, the palace, the Bastille, the Tournelles, but simply seignorial residences, the petit-Bourbon, the H?tel de Sens, the H?tel d' Angoulême, etc., had battlements on their walls, and machicolations over their doors.Churches were guarded by their sanctity.Some, among the number Notre-Dame, were fortified.The Abbey of Saint-German-des-pres was castellated like a baronial mansion, and more brass expended about it in bombards than in bells.Its fortress was still to be seen in 1610.To-day, barely its church remains.
*Cut-throat.Coupe-gueule being the vulgar word for cut-weazand.
Let us return to Notre-Dame.
When the first arrangements were completed, and we must say, to the honor of vagabond discipline, that Clopin's orders were executed in silence, and with admirable precision, the worthy chief of the band, mounted on the parapet of the church square, and raised his hoarse and surly voice, turning towards Notre-Dame, and brandishing his torch whose light, tossed by the wind, and veiled every moment by its own smoke, made the reddish fa?ade of the church appear and disappear before the eye.
"To you, Louis de Beaumont, bishop of paris, counsellor in the Court of parliament, I, Clopin Trouillefou, king of Thunes, grand Co?sre, prince of Argot, bishop of fools, I say: Our sister, falsely condemned for magic, hath taken refuge in your church, you owe her asylum and safety.Now the Court of parliament wishes to seize her once more there, and you consent to it; so that she would be hanged to-morrow in the Grève, if God and the outcasts were not here.If your church is sacred, so is our sister; if our sister is not sacred, neither is your church.That is why we call upon you to return the girl if you wish to save your church, or we will take possession of the girl again and pillage the church, which will be a good thing.In token of which I here plant my banner, and may God preserve you, bishop of paris,"
Quasimodo could not, unfortunately, hear these words uttered with a sort of sombre and savage majesty.A vagabond presented his banner to Clopin, who planted it solemnly between two paving-stones.It was a pitchfork from whose points hung a bleeding quarter of carrion meat.
That done, the King of Thunes turned round and cast his eyes over his army, a fierce multitude whose glances flashed almost equally with their pikes.After a momentary pause,--"Forward, my Sons!" he cried; "to work, locksmiths!"
Thirty bold men, square shouldered, and with pick-lock faces, stepped from the ranks, with hammers, pincers, and bars of iron on their shoulders.They betook themselves to the principal door of the church, ascended the steps, and were soon to be seen squatting under the arch, working at the door with pincers and levers; a throng of vagabonds followed them to help or look on.The eleven steps before the portal were covered with them.
But the door stood firm."The devil! 'tis hard and obstinate!" said one."It is old, and its gristles have become bony," said another."Courage, comrades!" resumed Clopin. "I wager my head against a dipper that you will have opened the door, rescued the girl, and despoiled the chief altar before a single beadle is awake.Stay!I think I hear the lock breaking up."
Clopin was interrupted by a frightful uproar which re- sounded behind him at that moment.He wheeled round. An enormous beam had just fallen from above; it had crushed a dozen vagabonds on the pavement with the sound of a cannon, breaking in addition, legs here and there in the crowd of beggars, who sprang aside with cries of terror.In a twinkling, the narrow precincts of the church parvis were cleared.The locksmiths, although protected by the deep vaults of the portal, abandoned the door and Clopin himself retired to a respectful distance from the church.
"I had a narrow escape!" cried Jehan."I felt the wind, of it, ~tête-de-boeuf~! but pierre the Slaughterer is slaughtered!"
It is impossible to describe the astonishment mingled with fright which fell upon the ruffians in company with this beam.
They remained for several minutes with their eyes in the air, more dismayed by that piece of wood than by the king's twenty thousand archers.
"Satan!" muttered the Duke of Egypt, "this smacks of magic!"
"'Tis the moon which threw this log at us," said Andry the Red.
"Call the moon the friend of the Virgin, after that!" went on Francois Chanteprune.
"A thousand popes!" exclaimed Clopin, "you are all fools!"But he did not know how to explain the fall of the beam.
Meanwhile, nothing could be distinguished on the fa?ade, to whose summit the light of the torches did not reach.The heavy beam lay in the middle of the enclosure, and groans were heard from the poor wretches who had received its first shock, and who had been almost cut in twain, on the angle of the stone steps.
The King of Thunes, his first amazement passed, finally found an explanation which appeared plausible to his companions.
"Throat of God! are the canons defending themselves? To the sack, then! to the sack!"
"To the sack!" repeated the rabble, with a furious hurrah. A discharge of crossbows and hackbuts against the front of the church followed.
At this detonation, the peaceable inhabitants of the surrounding houses woke up; many windows were seen to open, and nightcaps and hands holding candles appeared at the casements.
"Fire at the windows," shouted Clopin.The windows were immediately closed, and the poor bourgeois, who had hardly had time to cast a frightened glance on this scene of gleams and tumult, returned, perspiring with fear to their wives, asking themselves whether the witches' sabbath was now being held in the parvis of Notre-Dame, or whether there was an assault of Burgundians, as in '64.Then the husbands thought of theft; the wives, of rape; and all trembled.
"To the sack!" repeated the thieves' crew; but they dared not approach.They stared at the beam, they stared at the church.The beam did not stir, the edifice preserved its calm and deserted air; but something chilled the outcasts.
"To work, locksmiths!" shouted Trouillefou."Let the door be forced!"
No one took a step.
"Beard and belly!" said Clopin, "here be men afraid of a beam."
An old locksmith addressed him--
"Captain, 'tis not the beam which bothers us, 'tis the door, which is all covered with iron bars.Our pincers are powerless against it."
"What more do you want to break it in?" demanded Clopin.
"Ah! we ought to have a battering ram."
The King of Thunes ran boldly to the formidable beam, and placed his foot upon it: "Here is one!" he exclaimed; "'tis the canons who send it to you."And, making a mocking salute in the direction of the church, "Thanks, canons!"
This piece of bravado produced its effects,--the spell of the beam was broken.The vagabonds recovered their courage; soon the heavy joist, raised like a feather by two hundred vigorous arms, was flung with fury against the great door which they had tried to batter down.At the sight of that long beam, in the half-light which the infrequent torches of the brigands spread over the place, thus borne by that crowd of men who dashed it at a run against the church, one would have thought that he beheld a monstrous beast with a thousand feet attacking with lowered head the giant of stone.
At the shock of the beam, the half metallic door sounded like an immense drum; it was not burst in, but the whole cathedral trembled, and the deepest cavities of the edifice were heard to echo.
At the same moment, a shower of large stones began to fall from the top of the fa?ade on the assailants.
"The devil!" cried Jehan, "are the towers shaking their balustrades down on our heads?"
But the impulse had been given, the King of Thunes had set the example.Evidently, the bishop was defending himself, and they only battered the door with the more rage, in spite of the stones which cracked skulls right and left.
It was remarkable that all these stones fell one by one; but they followed each other closely.The thieves always felt two at a time, one on their legs and one on their heads.There were few which did not deal their blow, and a large layer of dead and wounded lay bleeding and panting beneath the feet of the assailants who, now grown furious, replaced each other without intermission.The long beam continued to belabor the door, at regular intervals, like the clapper of a bell, the stones to rain down, the door to groan.
The reader has no doubt divined that this unexpected resistance which had exasperated the outcasts came from Quasimodo.
Chance had, unfortunately, favored the brave deaf man.
When he had descended to the platform between the towers, his ideas were all in confusion.He had run up and down along the gallery for several minutes like a madman, surveying from above, the compact mass of vagabonds ready to hurl itself on the church, demanding the safety of the gypsy from the devil or from God.The thought had occurred to him of ascending to the southern belfry and sounding the alarm, but before he could have set the bell in motion, before Marie's voice could have uttered a single clamor, was there not time to burst in the door of the church ten times over? It was precisely the moment when the locksmiths were advancing upon it with their tools.What was to be done?
《BOOK TENTH CHAPTER IV.AN AWKWARD FRIEND. Page 2》
All at once, he remembered that some masons had been at work all day repairing the wall, the timber-work, and the roof of the south tower.This was a flash of light.The wall was of stone, the roof of lead, the timber-work of wood.(That prodigious timber-work, so dense that it was called "the forest.")
Quasimodo hastened to that tower.The lower chambers were, in fact, full of materials.There were piles of rough blocks of stone, sheets of lead in rolls, bundles of laths, heavy beams already notched with the saw, heaps of plaster.
Time was pressing, The pikes and hammers were at work below.With a strength which the sense of danger increased tenfold, he seized one of the beams--the longest and heaviest; he pushed it out through a loophole, then, grasping it again outside of the tower, he made it slide along the angle of the balustrade which surrounds the platform, and let it fly into the abyss.The enormous timber, during that fall of a hundred and sixty feet, scraping the wall, breaking the carvings, turned many times on its centre, like the arm of a windmill flying off alone through space.At last it reached the ground, the horrible cry arose, and the black beam, as it rebounded from the pavement, resembled a serpent leaping.
Quasimodo beheld the outcasts scatter at the fall of the beam, like ashes at the breath of a child.He took advantage of their fright, and while they were fixing a superstitious glance on the club which had fallen from heaven, and while they were putting out the eyes of the stone saints on the front with a discharge of arrows and buckshot, Quasimodo was silently piling up plaster, stones, and rough blocks of stone, even the sacks of tools belonging to the masons, on the edge of the balustrade from which the beam had already been hurled.
Thus, as soon as they began to batter the grand door, the shower of rough blocks of stone began to fall, and it seemed to them that the church itself was being demolished over their heads.
Any one who could have beheld Quasimodo at that moment would have been frightened.Independently of the projectiles which he had piled upon the balustrade, he had collected a heap of stones on the platform itself.As fast as the blocks on the exterior edge were exhausted, he drew on the heap. Then he stooped and rose, stooped and rose again with incredible activity.His huge gnome's head bent over the balustrade, then an enormous stone fell, then another, then another. From time to time, he followed a fine stone with his eye, and when it did good execution, he said, "Hum!"
Meanwhile, the beggars did not grow discouraged.The thick door on which they were venting their fury had already trembled more than twenty times beneath the weight of their oaken battering-ram, multiplied by the strength of a hundred men.The panels cracked, the carved work flew into splinters, the hinges, at every blow, leaped from their pins, the planks yawned, the wood crumbled to powder, ground between the iron sheathing.Fortunately for Quasimodo, there was more iron than wood.
Nevertheless, he felt that the great door was yielding. Although he did not hear it, every blow of the ram reverberated simultaneously in the vaults of the church and within it. From above he beheld the vagabonds, filled with triumph and rage, shaking their fists at the gloomy fa?ade; and both on the gypsy's account and his own he envied the wings of the owls which flitted away above his head in flocks.
His shower of stone blocks was not sufficient to repel the assailants.
At this moment of anguish, he noticed, a little lower down than the balustrade whence he was crushing the thieves, two long stone gutters which discharged immediately over the great door; the internal orifice of these gutters terminated on the pavement of the platform.An idea occurred to him; he ran in search of a fagot in his bellringer's den, placed on this fagot a great many bundles of laths, and many rolls of lead, munitions which he had not employed so far, and having arranged this pile in front of the hole to the two gutters, he set it on fire with his lantern.
During this time, since the stones no longer fell, the outcasts ceased to gaze into the air.The bandits, panting like a pack of hounds who are forcing a boar into his lair, pressed tumultuously round the great door, all disfigured by the battering ram, but still standing.They were waiting with a quiver for the great blow which should split it open.They vied with each other in pressing as close as possible, in order to dash among the first, when it should open, into that opulent cathedral, a vast reservoir where the wealth of three centuries had been piled up.They reminded each other with roars of exultation and greedy lust, of the beautiful silver crosses, the fine copes of brocade, the beautiful tombs of silver gilt, the great magnificences of the choir, the dazzling festivals, the Christmasses sparkling with torches, the Easters sparkling with sunshine,--all those splendid solemneties wherein chandeliers, ciboriums, tabernacles, and reliquaries, studded the altars with a crust of gold and diamonds.Certainly, at that fine moment, thieves and pseudo sufferers, doctors in stealing, and vagabonds, were thinking much less of delivering the gypsy than of pillaging Notre-Dame.We could even easily believe that for a goodly number among them la Esmeralda was only a pretext, if thieves needed pretexts.
All at once, at the moment when they were grouping themselves round the ram for a last effort, each one holding his breath and stiffening his muscles in order to communicate all his force to the decisive blow, a howl more frightful still than that which had burst forth and expired beneath the beam, rose among them.Those who did not cry out, those who were still alive, looked.Two streams of melted lead were falling from the summit of the edifice into the thickest of the rabble. That sea of men had just sunk down beneath the boiling metal, which had made, at the two points where it fell, two black and smoking holes in the crowd, such as hot water would make in snow.Dying men, half consumed and groaning with anguish, could be seen writhing there.Around these two principal streams there were drops of that horrible rain, which scattered over the assailants and entered their skulls like gimlets of fire.It was a heavy fire which overwhelmed these wretches with a thousand hailstones.
The outcry was heartrending.They fled pell-mell, hurling the beam upon the bodies, the boldest as well as the most timid, and the parvis was cleared a second time.
All eyes were raised to the top of the church.They beheld there an extraordinary sight.On the crest of the highest gallery, higher than the central rose window, there was a great flame rising between the two towers with whirlwinds of sparks, a vast, disordered, and furious flame, a tongue of which was borne into the smoke by the wind, from time to time.Below that fire, below the gloomy balustrade with its trefoils showing darkly against its glare, two spouts with monster throats were vomiting forth unceasingly that burning rain, whose silvery stream stood out against the shadows of the lower fa?ade.As they approached the earth, these two jets of liquid lead spread out in sheaves, like water springing from the thousand holes of a watering-pot.Above the flame, the enormous towers, two sides of each of which were visible in sharp outline, the one wholly black, the other wholly red, seemed still more vast with all the immensity of the shadow which they cast even to the sky.
Their innumerable sculptures of demons and dragons assumed a lugubrious aspect.The restless light of the flame made them move to the eye.There were griffins which had the air of laughing, gargoyles which one fancied one heard yelping, salamanders which puffed at the fire, tarasques* which sneezed in the smoke.And among the monsters thus roused from their sleep of stone by this flame, by this noise, there was one who walked about, and who was seen, from time to time, to pass across the glowing face of the pile, like a bat in front of a candle.
*The representation of a monstrous animal solemnly drawn about in Tarascon and other French towns.
Without doubt, this strange beacon light would awaken far away, the woodcutter of the hills of Bicêtre, terrified to behold the gigantic shadow of the towers of Notre-Dame quivering over his heaths.
A terrified silence ensued among the outcasts, during which nothing was heard, but the cries of alarm of the canons shut up in their cloister, and more uneasy than horses in a burning stable, the furtive sound of windows hastily opened and still more hastily closed, the internal hurly-burly of the houses and of the H?tel-Dieu, the wind in the flame, the last death-rattle of the dying, and the continued crackling of the rain of lead upon the pavement.
In the meanwhile, the principal vagabonds had retired beneath the porch of the Gondelaurier mansion, and were holding a council of war.
The Duke of Egypt, seated on a stone post, contemplated the phantasmagorical bonfire, glowing at a height of two hundred feet in the air, with religious terror.Clopin Trouillefou bit his huge fists with rage.
"Impossible to get in!" he muttered between his teeth.
"An old, enchanted church!" grumbled the aged Bohemian, Mathias Hungadi Spicali.
"By the pope's whiskers!" went on a sham soldier, who had once been in service, "here are church gutters spitting melted lead at you better than the machicolations of Lectoure."
"Do you see that demon passing and repassing in front of the fire?" exclaimed the Duke of Egypt.
"pardieu, 'tis that damned bellringer, 'tis Quasimodo," said Clopin.
The Bohemian tossed his head."I tell you, that 'tis the spirit Sabnac, the grand marquis, the demon of fortifications. He has the form of an armed soldier, the head of a lion. Sometimes he rides a hideous horse.He changes men into stones, of which he builds towers.He commands fifty legions 'Tis he indeed; I recognize him.Sometimes he is clad in a handsome golden robe, figured after the Turkish fashion."
"Where is Bellevigne de l'Etoile?" demanded Clopin.
"He is dead."
Andry the Red laughed in an idiotic way: "Notre-Dame is making work for the hospital," said he.
"Is there, then, no way of forcing this door," exclaimed the King of Thunes, stamping his foot.
The Duke of Egypt pointed sadly to the two streams of boiling lead which did not cease to streak the black facade, like two long distaffs of phosphorus.
"Churches have been known to defend themselves thus all by themselves," he remarked with a sigh."Saint-Sophia at Constantinople, forty years ago, hurled to the earth three times in succession, the crescent of Mahom, by shaking her domes, which are her heads.Guillaume de paris, who built this one was a magician."
"Must we then retreat in pitiful fashion, like highwaymen?" said Clopin."Must we leave our sister here, whom those hooded wolves will hang to-morrow."
"And the sacristy, where there are wagon-loads of gold!" added a vagabond, whose name, we regret to say, we do not know.
"Beard of Mahom!" cried Trouillefou.
"Let us make another trial," resumed the vagabond.
Mathias Hungadi shook his head.
"We shall never get in by the door.We must find the defect in the armor of the old fairy; a hole, a false postern, some joint or other."
"Who will go with me?" said Clopin."I shall go at it again.By the way, where is the little scholar Jehan, who is so encased in iron?"
"He is dead, no doubt," some one replied; "we no longer hear his laugh."
The King of Thunes frowned: "So much the worse.There was a brave heart under that ironmongery.And Master pierre Gringoire?"
"Captain Clopin," said Andry the Red, "he slipped away before we reached the pont-aux-Changeurs,"
Clopin stamped his foot."Gueule-Dieu! 'twas he who pushed us on hither, and he has deserted us in the very middle of the job!Cowardly chatterer, with a slipper for a helmet!"
"Captain Clopin," said Andry the Red, who was gazing down Rue du parvis, "yonder is the little scholar."
"praised be pluto!" said Clopin."But what the devil is he dragging after him?"
It was, in fact, Jehan, who was running as fast as his heavy outfit of a paladin, and a long ladder which trailed on the pavement, would permit, more breathless than an ant harnessed to a blade of grass twenty times longer than itself.
"Victory!~Te Deum~!" cried the scholar."Here is the ladder of the longshoremen of port Saint-Landry."
Clopin approached him.
"Child, what do you mean to do, ~corne-dieu~!with this ladder?"
"I have it," replied Jehan, panting."I knew where it was under the shed of the lieutenant's house.There's a wench there whom I know, who thinks me as handsome as Cupido. I made use of her to get the ladder, and I have the ladder, ~pasque-Mahom~!The poor girl came to open the door to me in her shift."
"Yes," said Clopin, "but what are you going to do with that ladder?"
Jehan gazed at him with a malicious, knowing look, and cracked his fingers like castanets.At that moment he was sublime.On his head he wore one of those overloaded helmets of the fifteenth century, which frightened the enemy with their fanciful crests.His bristled with ten iron beaks, so that Jehan could have disputed with Nestor's Homeric vessel the redoubtable title of ~dexeubolos~.
"What do I mean to do with it, august king of Thunes? Do you see that row of statues which have such idiotic expressions, yonder, above the three portals?"
"Yes.Well?"
"'Tis the gallery of the kings of France."
"What is that to me?" said Clopin.
"Wait!At the end of that gallery there is a door which is never fastened otherwise than with a latch, and with this ladder I ascend, and I am in the church."
"Child let me be the first to ascend."
"No, comrade, the ladder is mine.Come, you shall be the second."
"May Beelzebub strangle you!" said surly Clopin, "I won't be second to anybody."
"Then find a ladder, Clopin!"
Jehan set out on a run across the place, dragging his ladder and shouting: "Follow me, lads!"
In an instant the ladder was raised, and propped against the balustrade of the lower gallery, above one of the lateral doors.The throng of vagabonds, uttering loud acclamations, crowded to its foot to ascend.But Jehan maintained his right, and was the first to set foot on the rungs.The passage was tolerably long.The gallery of the kings of France is to-day about sixty feet above the pavement.The eleven steps of the flight before the door, made it still higher. Jehan mounted slowly, a good deal incommoded by his heavy armor, holding his crossbow in one hand, and clinging to a rung with the other.When he reached the middle of the ladder, he cast a melancholy glance at the poor dead outcasts, with which the steps were strewn."Alas!" said he, "here is a heap of bodies worthy of the fifth book of the Iliad!"Then he continued his ascent.The vagabonds followed him.There was one on every rung.At the sight of this line of cuirassed backs, undulating as they rose through the gloom, one would have pronounced it a serpent with steel scales, which was raising itself erect in front of the church. Jehan who formed the head, and who was whistling, completed the illusion.
The scholar finally reached the balcony of the gallery, and climbed over it nimbly, to the applause of the whole vagabond tribe.Thus master of the citadel, he uttered a shout of joy, and suddenly halted, petrified.He had just caught sight of Quasimodo concealed in the dark, with flashing eye, behind one of the statues of the kings.
Before a second assailant could gain a foothold on the gallery, the formidable hunchback leaped to the head of the ladder, without uttering a word, seized the ends of the two uprights with his powerful hands, raised them, pushed them out from the wall, balanced the long and pliant ladder, loaded with vagabonds from top to bottom for a moment, in the midst of shrieks of anguish, then suddenly, with superhuman force, hurled this cluster of men backward into the place. There was a moment when even the most resolute trembled. The ladder, launched backwards, remained erect and standing for an instant, and seemed to hesitate, then wavered, then suddenly, describing a frightful arc of a circle eighty feet in radius, crashed upon the pavement with its load of ruffians, more rapidly than a drawbridge when its chains break. There arose an immense imprecation, then all was still, and a few mutilated wretches were seen, crawling over the heap of dead.
A sound of wrath and grief followed the first cries of triumph among the besiegers.Quasimodo, impassive, with both elbows propped on the balustrade, looked on.He had the air of an old, bushy-headed king at his window.
As for Jehan Frollo, he was in a critical position.He found himself in the gallery with the formidable bellringer, alone, separated from his companions by a vertical wall eighty feet high.While Quasimodo was dealing with the ladder, the scholar had run to the postern which he believed to be open.It was not.The deaf man had closed it behind him when he entered the gallery.Jehan had then concealed himself behind a stone king, not daring to breathe, and fixing upon the monstrous hunchback a frightened gaze, like the man, who, when courting the wife of the guardian of a menagerie, went one evening to a love rendezvous, mistook the wall which he was to climb, and suddenly found himself face to face with a white bear.
For the first few moments, the deaf man paid no heed to him; but at last he turned his head, and suddenly straightened up.He had just caught sight of the scholar.
Jehan prepared himself for a rough shock, but the deaf man remained motionless; only he had turned towards the scholar and was looking at him.
"Ho ho!" said Jehan, "what do you mean by staring at me with that solitary and melancholy eye?"
As he spoke thus, the young scamp stealthily adjusted his crossbow.
"Quasimodo!" he cried, "I am going to change your surname: you shall be called the blind man."
The shot sped.The feathered vireton* whizzed and entered the hunchback's left arm.Quasimodo appeared no more moved by it than by a scratch to King pharamond.He laid his hand on the arrow, tore it from his arm, and tranquilly broke it across his big knee; then he let the two pieces drop on the floor, rather than threw them down.But Jehan had no opportunity to fire a second time.The arrow broken, Quasimodo breathing heavily, bounded like a grasshopper, and he fell upon the scholar, whose armor was flattened against the wall by the blow.
*An arrow with a pyramidal head of iron and copper spiral wings by which a rotatory motion was communicated,
Then in that gloom, wherein wavered the light of the torches, a terrible thing was seen.
Quasimodo had grasped with his left hand the two arms of Jehan, who did not offer any resistance, so thoroughly did he feel that he was lost.With his right hand, the deaf man detached one by one, in silence, with sinister slowness, all the pieces of his armor, the sword, the daggers, the helmet, the cuirass, the leg pieces.One would have said that it was a monkey taking the shell from a nut.Quasimodo flung the scholar's iron shell at his feet, piece by piece. When the scholar beheld himself disarmed, stripped, weak, and naked in those terrible hands, he made no attempt to speak to the deaf man, but began to laugh audaciously in his face, and to sing with his intrepid heedlessness of a child of sixteen, the then popular ditty:-
"~Elle est bien habillée, La ville de Cambrai; Marafin l'a pillée~..."*
* The city of Cambrai is well dressed.Marafin plundered it.
He did not finish.Quasimodo was seen on the parapet of the gallery, holding the scholar by the feet with one hand and whirling him over the abyss like a sling; then a sound like that of a bony structure in contact with a wall was heard, and something was seen to fall which halted a third of the way down in its fall, on a projection in the architecture.It was a dead body which remained hanging there, bent double, its loins broken, its skull empty.
A cry of horror rose among the vagabonds.
"Vengeance!" shouted Clopin."To the sack!" replied the multitude."Assault! assault!"
There came a tremendous howl, in which were mingled all tongues, all dialects, all accents.The death of the poor scholar imparted a furious ardor to that crowd.It was seized with shame, and the wrath of having been held so long in check before a church by a hunchback.Rage found ladders, multiplied the torches, and, at the expiration of a few minutes, Quasimodo, in despair, beheld that terrible ant heap mount on all sides to the assault of Notre-Dame.Those who had no ladders had knotted ropes; those who had no ropes climbed by the projections of the carvings.They hung from each other's rags.There were no means of resisting that rising tide of frightful faces; rage made these fierce countenances ruddy; their clayey brows were dripping with sweat; their eyes darted lightnings; all these grimaces, all these horrors laid siege to Quasimodo.One would have said that some other church had despatched to the assault of Notre-Dame its gorgons, its dogs, its drées, its demons, its most fantastic sculptures.It was like a layer of living monsters on the stone monsters of the fa?ade.
Meanwhile, the place was studded with a thousand torches. This scene of confusion, till now hid in darkness, was suddenly flooded with light.The parvis was resplendent, and cast a radiance on the sky; the bonfire lighted on the lofty platform was still burning, and illuminated the city far away. The enormous silhouette of the two towers, projected afar on the roofs of paris, and formed a large notch of black in this light.The city seemed to be aroused.Alarm bells wailed in the distance.The vagabonds howled, panted, swore, climbed; and Quasimodo, powerless against so many enemies, shuddering for the gypsy, beholding the furious faces approaching ever nearer and nearer to his gallery, entreated heaven for a miracle, and wrung his arms in despair.
《第十卷 四 一个帮倒忙的朋友》
这天夜里,卡齐莫多没有睡.他刚刚在教堂里巡视了最后一圈.然后就在他关上教堂各道大门的时候,没有注意到副主教看见他小心翼翼地插上巨大铁杠门栓,锁上挂锁,几扇大门好似铜墙铁壁般坚固,脸上所流露出来的一丝不快神情.堂.克洛德看起来比平常更加心事重重.再说,自从那天夜间摸进爱斯梅拉达的小屋经受那场遭遇一后,他时常拿卡齐莫多出气,但不管怎样粗暴对待他,甚至好几次动手揍他,丝毫也改变不了这忠心耿耿的敲钟人那种百般忍耐.俯首贴耳和逆来顺受的脾性.侮辱也罢.威胁也罢.拳打脚踢也罢,凡是来自副主教的一切他都忍受了,没有一声责难,也没有半句怨言.顶多是看见副主教爬上钟楼楼梯时,心神不定地密切注视着他的举动.不过,副主教倒是主动不再在埃及少女眼前露面.
且说到这天夜里,卡齐莫多朝玛丽亚.雅克琳.蒂博德这些被遗弃的可怜大钟瞅上一眼,随后一直登上北边钟楼的顶上,把密不通风的手提灯搁在檐边水溜口上,眺望起巴黎城来.那天夜晚,我们上文已经交代过,天黑得伸手不见五指.在那些的里,巴黎可以说是还没有路灯照明的.呈现在眼前的是一大堆模糊的黑影,这里那里,被塞纳河那微白色的弧线形河道把这黑影割裂开来.卡齐莫多在楼顶只看见圣安东桥那边,远处有座建筑物阴暗模糊的侧影高踞在所有的屋顶之上,那座建筑物有扇窗户发出光亮.那里也有个人彻夜不眠.
敲钟人任凭自己的独眼随意扫视这雾茫茫和夜沉沉的天际,内心里却感到有一种难以言传的不安.几天来他一直警惕着.他不断看见教堂周围有一些面目可憎的人在游荡着,目不转睛地注视着那少女避难的小屋.心里想到,多半是在策划什么阴谋以危害那避难的不幸姑娘.他想,民众都仇恨她,如同憎恨他一样,很可能马上就要发生什么事.所以,他坚守在钟楼上,虎视眈眈,如拉伯雷所说,在梦中左顾右盼,一会儿看看姑娘的小屋,一会儿望望巴黎,像一只忠实的狗,疑心重重,以保万无一失.
他那只独眼,大自然仿佛要对他的丑陋作为一种报偿,使之能洞察秋毫,几乎可以代替卡齐莫多所缺的其他一切器官.正当他用这只独眼仔细察看巴黎这座大都市,忽然看见老皮货沿河街的侧影有些异常,似乎有什么动静.堤岸栏杆衬映在泛白的河水上的乌黑剪影的线条,而不像别处的堤岸那么笔直而平静,看起来像在波动,犹如河水的起伏波涛,又像一群一群的人走动时脑袋的攒动.
他觉得这有些蹊跷,于是倍加注意.那运动的方向似乎是朝老城走来.不过没有一点亮光.移动在堤岸持续了一阵,随即像流水似地渐渐流过去,好像那流经过去的什么东西进了城岛里面,随后完全停止了,堤岸的轮廓又恢复笔直静止了.
在卡齐莫多绞尽脑汁百思不得其解的时候,他觉得那动着的东西又在教堂前庭街上出现了,这条街在老城垂直地一直延伸到圣母院的正面.最后,尽管夜色浓重,他还是看见有一支纵队的前列从这条街涌出,只一转眼的功夫,一群人在广场上四处散开,当然在黑暗中什么也分不清,只见黑压压的一群.
这一场景真是惊心动魄.这支奇特的行列似乎最关注的是躲藏在最阴暗的地方,并尽可能保持肃静.但是,总会弄出一点声响来,纵然只是轻微的脚步声.不过,这种声响甚至还未传到我们这个聋子耳中就消失了.这一大群人,他几乎看不见,压根儿也听不见,却在他鼻子底下攒动行进,他觉得那仿佛是一群人,无声无息,不可触摸,消失在雾霭之中.他仿佛看见一阵浓雾朝他扑来.浓雾中人影憧憧,又似乎看见一群鬼影在黑暗中移动.
他顿时心里又害怕起来,心里于是又想起有人善意要谋害埃及姑娘.他隐约地感到一场风暴迫在眉睫.在这危急关头,他自己打着主意,其推理又快又准,人们根本不会想到这个如此不健全的脑袋瓜所能想得出来的一切.该不该叫醒埃及姑娘呢!该不该叫她逃跑呢?从哪里逃呢?街道被堵住,教堂陷于背水的绝境.没有渡船!没有出路!......只有一种办法,就是死守圣母院大门,至少抵抗一阵,直到救兵到来,如果真有救兵来的话,就不要去打扰爱斯梅拉达的睡眠.不幸的姑娘非死不可的话,什么时候醒来也不会迟的.这个主意一定,他便更加冷静地观察起敌军来了.
教堂广场的人群似乎时时刻刻都在增多.只不过卡齐莫多推测,他们一是只发出他轻微的声响,因为街上和广场四周人家的窗户仍然紧闭着.突然,一道亮光闪耀,转瞬之间,七八支点燃的火炬在众人头顶上晃动,在暗影中团团火焰摇曳不定.卡齐莫多这下子明明白白地看见教堂广场上宛如波浪起伏,一大群可怕的男男女女,全是衣衫褴褛,手执长镰.梭标.柴刀.槊,其千百个尖头闪闪发光.这里那里,高举着乌黑的钢叉,远望过去,他们一张张丑恶的脸上都仿佛长了角一般.他隐约想起这群乌合之众,相信认出了几个月前拥护他为狂人教皇的所有那些面孔.有个男人一手执火把,一手执砍刀,爬上一块界碑,好像在发表什么演说.与此同时,这支奇怪的大军进行了几次调动,仿佛在占领教堂周围的阵地.卡齐莫多捡起灯往下走,来到两座钟塔之间的平台上,就近进行观察,并琢磨防御的办法.
克洛潘.特鲁伊甫已经部署手下的部队做好了战斗准备,他来到圣母院的高轩大门前.尽管他预料不会遭到任何抵抗,但作为谨慎的将领,他还是想保持队伍的秩序,以便一旦急需,随时可以抵抗巡逻队或220个弓弩手的突然袭击.他于是把部队排列成梯队.如此一来,从高处和远处看,您会说是埃克诺姆战役的罗马人三角阵,亚历山大大帝的猪头阵或居斯塔夫—阿道尔夫的著名楔形阵.这个三角形的底边正是广场的尽头,正好堵住教堂前庭街;一个斜边朝着主宫医院,另一斜边对着牛市圣彼得街.克洛潘.特鲁伊甫和埃及公爵.我们的朋友约翰以及那些最胆大的乞丐恰好站在这三角形的顶点.
类似流浪汉们此刻试图攻打圣母院这样的举动,在中世纪的城市里,并不是什么罕见的事儿.今日所称的警察当时还没有.在人口众多的城市,尤其在各国京都,并不存在着一个起控制作用的中央政权.封建制度把这些大市镇建造得离奇古怪.一个城市就是千百个领主政权的集合体,把城市分割成形形色色.大小不一的格子般的藩地.由此出现了千百个互相有矛盾中突的治安机构,也就没有治安可言了.譬如,在巴黎,除了141个领主声称有权收贡税之外,还有25个自称做拥有司法权和征收贡税的领主,其中大至拥有105条街的巴黎主教,小至拥有4条街的田园圣母院的住持.所有这些拥有司法权的封建领主,仅仅在名义上承认国王的君主权.这些领主人人都有权征收路捐,个个各行其是.对这座封建制度的大厦,路易十一恰是个不知疲倦的工匠,广泛着手地加以拆除,继而黎希留和路易十一为了王权的利益又进一步加以拆毁,最后米拉波才加以彻底完成以便利于人民的利益.路易十一煞费苦心,试图撕破覆盖巴黎的这张封建领主网,曾采取激烈的措施,下了二三道谕旨,推行全面的治安,比如1465年,命令居民入夜之后要用蜡烛照亮窗户,并把狗关起来,违者处以绞刑;就在这一年,又下令晚上用铁链封锁街道,并禁止夜间携带匕首或攻击性武器上街.可是不知什么时候,所有这些市镇立法的尝试都行不通了,市民们听任夜风吹灭窗台上的蜡烛,听任他们的狗四处游荡;铁链只在戒严时才拉起来的;禁止携带凶器也没有带来什么变化,只不过将割嘴街改名为割喉街,这倒是一个明显的进步.封建司法机构这一古老的脚手架依然屹立;典吏裁判权和领主裁判权庞大的堆积,在城市形成相互交叉,互相妨碍,相互纠缠,相互嵌套,相互遮掩;巡逻队.巡逻分队.巡逻检查队如丛林密布,却毫无用处,明火执仗进行抢劫.掠夺和骚乱,依然横行无阻.在这种混乱之中,一部分贱民在人口最稠密的街区抢劫宫殿.住宅.府邸,并不是什么稀罕的事件.在大多数情况下,邻居是不管这种事情的,除非抢劫殃及他们家里,他们对火熗声充耳不闻,关闭自家的百页窗,堵住自家的门户,听凭打劫自行了结,管它有没有巡逻队干预.第二天,巴黎人互相传告说:"昨天夜里,埃蒂安纳.巴贝特被抢劫了","克莱蒙元帅被捉走了",等等.这样一来,不仅诸如司法宫.卢浮宫.巴士底宫.小塔宫这类王室的府邸,就是小波旁宫.桑斯公馆.昂古莱姆府邸等等领主住宅,围墙上都筑有雉堞,大门上都设有门垛子.教堂于是神圣,是幸免于劫的,不过其中也有一些教堂是设防的,圣母院不在此列.圣日耳曼—德—普瑞修道院如同男爵府邸也筑有雉堞,用于造臼炮的铜比用于铸钟的还要多,1610年还可以看见这座要塞,今天差不多只剩下教堂本身了.
言归正传,再说一说巴黎圣母院吧.
克洛潘的命令丝毫不爽,挨个悄悄得到了执行,这帮流浪汉纪律之严明,真应表彰.当初步部署一完毕,这个名不虚传的丐帮首领就登上前庭广场的矮墙,面向圣母院,提高沙哑的粗嗓门,挥着火把,只能看光焰被风吹得摇曳不定,时刻隐没在烟柱里,圣母院被映红的正面也随之时显时隐.克洛潘提高嗓门说道:
"告诉你,巴黎主教,大理院法庭的推事路易.德.波蒙,我,狄纳王,克洛潘.特鲁伊甫,丐帮大王,狂人的主教,黑帮亲王,我告诉你:我们的姐妹,因莫须有的行妖罪名而受到判决,躲进了你的教堂,你必须给予庇护;然而,大理院法庭要从你的教堂里把她重新逮捕,你居然同意,致使她明天就会在河滩广场被绞死,要是上帝和流浪汉不在那里的话.所以我们特来找你,主教.假如你的教堂是神圣的,那么我们的姐妹也是神圣的;如果我们的姐妹不神圣,那么你的教堂也不神圣.所以责令你把那姑娘还给我们,如果你想拯救教堂的话;否则,我们要把姑娘抢走,并洗劫你的教堂.那就太好了.为了这件事,我在这里立旗为誓.愿上帝保佑你吧,巴黎主教!"
这些话带有某种隐沉.粗犷的威严口吻,可惜卡齐莫多听不见.一个流浪汉于是把手中的旗帜献给克洛潘,克洛潘立即庄严地将它插在两块铺路的石板中间,其实这就是在一杆长柄叉齿上吊着的一块滴着血的腐肉.
插好旗帜,狄纳王转身环视他的军队.这一群人凶神恶煞,个个目光炯炯,几乎和长矛一样光芒四射.他停顿了片刻,随又大声嚷道:"前进,孩子们!干吧,好汉们!"
30个壮汉,膀大臂粗,一付锁匠的长相,应声出列,肩扛铁钳和撬杠.大锤.只见他们奔向教堂的正门,爬上石阶,随即在尖形穹窿下蹲下来.用铁钳和杠子撬那道大门.一群流浪汉也跟着过去,有的观望,有的帮忙.大门前11级台阶挤得水泄不通.
但是,大门巍然不动.一个说:"活见鬼!还挺坚实而顽固的!"另个说:"它老了,骨头也变硬了.""伙计们,加油!我敢拿我的脑袋赌一只拖鞋:还没等到教堂执事醒过来,你们早就打开大门,抢出姑娘,把主坛洗劫一空.干吧!我相信,大锁撬开啦."
正在这时,他身后突然发出一声可怕的巨响,打断了他的话.他回头一看,原来是一根巨大的屋梁从空中坠下来,砸烂了教堂台阶上十来个流浪汉,并在地面石板上滚跳着,发出炮弹般的轰响,还把乞丐群中一些人的腿压断了.叫花子们惊恐万状,呼天抢地,四处逃散.转瞬间,前庭围墙之内空无一人.撬锁的硬汉们虽然有大门的拱护住,还是放弃大门逃走了,克洛潘本人也立刻退到离教堂很远的地方.
"我差一点送了命!"约翰大声说道,"我感到有阵风刮下来,牛的头!可是酒馆老板皮埃尔被砸死了!"
这根大梁落在这帮强盗的身上所引起的惊恐,现在真是难以言表.他们直愣愣地傻站在那里,目光定定地望着天空,足有好几分钟之久,这根木头,比二万王家弓手更叫他们胆战心惊.埃及公爵嘟哝着:"撒旦!这里头一定有妖法!"红脸安德里说:"是月亮朝我们扔下这根柴火棍的."弗朗索瓦.香特勃吕纳接过话头道:"这么说来,月亮是圣母的知交啦!"克洛潘大声吼道:"胡说八道!你们个个都是大傻瓜!"但是,他也无法解释这根巨梁坠落的缘由.
这时,教堂的里面什么也看不清,火把的亮光照不到它的顶部.那一根沉重的厚梁横在前庭中间,只听见最先被击中,腹部在石阶角上被拦腰截为两段的那些不幸者的呻吟声.
狄纳王惊慌初定,终于找到一种解释,听起来倒十分有道理:"上帝的鸟嘴!难道是议事司铎们在抵抗不成?那就放手洗劫吧!洗劫!"
"洗劫!洗劫!"嘈杂的人群发出愤怒的欢呼声,叫道.弓弩.火炮随即全部同时向教堂正面发射.
这阵爆炸声,把邻近住宅的居民都惊醒过来了.好些窗户打开了,窗口上出现了戴睡帽的头和持蜡烛的手."朝窗子射击!"克洛潘叫道.窗子立刻又被关上了,可怜的市民还没来得及朝这个火光闪烁.喧闹震天的场面投去恐惧的一瞥,就连忙缩了回去,吓了一身冷汗回到妻子的身旁,寻思着此刻圣母院广场上是不是在举行巫魔夜会,或像64年那样勃艮第人又打进来了.于是,做丈夫的想着会遭抢劫,做妻子的想着会遭强奸,个个都被吓得直发抖.
"洗劫!"黑帮一再喊道.可是谁也不敢靠近.他们望望教堂,望望木梁.木梁一动不动.建筑物看起来依然十分宁静,没有一个人影,却有什么东西使流浪汉们手脚冰凉.
"动手吧,硬汉们!"特鲁伊甫叫道:"强行攻门!"
但谁也不敢朝前走一步.
"酒囊饭袋!"克洛潘嚷着."瞧这些家伙,连一根椽子也害怕!"
一个老硬汉对他发话了:"头领,叫我们棘手的不是木椽,而是大门,全被铁条封得死死的,铁钳根本不顶用."
"那你需要什么才能攻破大门呢?"克洛潘问.
"嗯!要一根攻城锤."
狄纳王真是好样的,跑到那根可怕的木梁跟前,一只脚踩在上面,喊道:"这里正好有一根.是议事司铎给你们送来的."说着朝教堂那边怪模怪样地鞠了一躬,说:"多谢了,议事司铎!"
这种胆大包天的行为即刻立竿见影,大梁的魔力解除了.流浪汉们重新鼓起勇气;刚过一阵子,200只粗壮有力的臂膀把那根沉重的大梁像托羽毛一样抬起来,猛烈地对着人们曾经试图撼动而未能奏效的教堂大门撞去.流浪汉手中疏疏落落的火把把广场照得半暗半明,这群汉子抬着这根长大梁飞奔,迅速向教堂撞去,见此情景,还以为是一头千足怪兽埋着头向那石头巨人发起攻击.
在木梁的撞击下,那道半金属的教堂大门犹如巨鼓发出巨响.可是大门一点也没有裂开,整座教堂却抖动了,只听得建筑物幽深的内部轰隆直响.就在这时,许多大石头从教堂正面的高处像雨点般向攻击者身纷纷上落下来.约翰叫道:"活见鬼!一定得钟楼摇晃得连栏杆都倒塌了,石头才砸在我们头上不成."可是,此时士气方兴,气可鼓而不可泄,狄纳王以身作则,说有定是主教在抵抗,遂更加凶猛地攻打大门,顾不得左右两边落下的石头,砸得脑袋开花.
这些石头尽管是一个一个落下来,却又十分紧密,这可真是了不得.黑帮几乎个个同时挨二块石头,一块落在腿上,一块砸在头上.很少有人没有挨砸的,被砸死的和砸伤的已倒了一大片,在攻击者的脚下流着血,喘着气.进攻者现在怒不可遏,前仆后继.长长的大梁仍然撞门不止,一下下均匀的撞击,好似钟锤撞钟一般.石如雨下,大门怒吼不已.
读者大概万万没有料到,这激起流浪汉们怒不可遏的意料不到的抵抗竟来自卡齐莫多!
说来也真是晦气,由于偶然的原因,倒帮了这个正直聋子的大忙.
且说卡齐莫多刚才来到两座钟楼中间的平台,脑子里乱成一团乱麻,不知该怎么办.从平台上看到下面成群的流浪汉密密麻麻,正准备向教堂猛冲过来,急得他发疯似地沿着柱廊来回狂奔了一阵子,祈求魔鬼或上帝能拯救埃及姑娘的性命.他先是想爬上南面钟楼去敲响警钟,可是他转念一想,等他摇动大钟,等那口玛丽大钟的洪亮的大嗓门发出一声怒吼,教堂的大门恐怕早被攻破十次都不止呢?因为那时正是硬汉们带着撬锁的器械向大门冲过来的时刻.他如何是好呢?
突然,他想起,泥水匠白天忙了一整天,修葺南面钟楼的墙壁.屋架和屋顶.这可是一线光明.墙壁是石头的,屋顶是皮铅的,屋架是木头的.那奇异的屋架,木头那么密集,故被人称作森林.
卡齐莫多于是向这座塔楼跑去.塔楼下面的那些房间里果然堆满了建筑材料:有成堆的砾石.成筒的铅皮.成捆的板条.已锯好的粗大桁条,一堆堆瓦砾.真是一个应有尽有的武器库.
刻不容缓.下面流浪汉用铁钳和锤子正在撬门.卡齐莫多感到危在旦夕,陡然间力气猛增十倍,抱起一根最重最长的木梁,从一个老虎窗伸出去,随后从钟楼外抓住,搁在平台栏杆的角上让它往下滑,猛然一松手由它坠下深渊去.这根巨大的屋梁,从160尺高空往下坠落,不仅撞坏了墙壁,打碎了雕像,在空中翻转了几个来回,犹如风车的一翼,自由自在穿空而降.最后,它撞到地面,一阵可怕的尖叫随之而起,而这根乌黑的木梁在石板地上蹦跳着,宛若一条蟒蛇在游动.
卡齐莫多看到流浪汉在巨梁坠落时,向四处散开来,活像小孩子吹灰一般到处都是.当他们惊魂未定,用迷信的目光盯着这自天而降的大棒,当他们乱箭齐发,乱扔霰弹,毁坏门廊上诸圣石像的眼睛的时候,卡齐莫多乘机在掷下大梁的栏杆边上,悄悄堆积碎石.瓦砾.石头,甚至瓦工一袋袋的工具.
所以,他们一开始攻打大门,石头就像冰雹般纷纷落下.仿佛觉得教堂自行崩溃而砸在他们头顶上.
谁要是此时看见卡齐莫多,谁都会被吓坏的.他除了在栏杆上堆积投掷物,在平台上也堆了一大堆石头.栏杆外缘上的石头一用完,随即从平台上去取.他不断弯腰.直起.再弯腰.再直起,其行动之敏捷简直不可思议.他那侏儒的大脑袋从栏杆上一伸,一块大石头立即落下,随后又是一块,紧接着又是一块.他不时用那只独眼目送着一块巨石落下,每当击中了,嘴里就哼一声.
但是,乞丐们并没有灰心丧气.他们继续奋力攻击那道厚厚的大门.百把来人齐心协力,增强了橡木羊角铜锤的冲力,大门已经被震憾了20多次了.门上的镶板破裂了,镂刻炸成碎片四处飞溅,每震动一次,户枢就在羊角螺钉上跳动一次.门板摇晃了,铁筋之间的木头也被撞成碎末纷纷掉落下来.对卡齐莫多来说,幸运的是大门的构造铁筋比木头还多得多.
然而,他还是感到大门在摇晃.尽管他耳聋听不见,但撞锤每撞击一次,教堂的腔孔和五脏六腑都一齐发出强烈的回响.他从高处往俯视,看见流浪汉们得意洋洋,怒气冲天,对着教堂昏暗的正面挥舞着拳头,他真是恨不得为了埃及姑娘和自己,也能像从他头顶上空飞走的猫头鹰那样长出两支翅膀来.
尽管石如雨下,但并不能击退流浪汉的进攻.
正在这万分焦急的关头,他突然发现就在他扔下石头砸黑话帮的栏杆下一点点,就立即会有两道石头雨溜,槽口直泻教堂大门的上方,内孔通向石板的平台上面.他不由灵机一动,计上心来,于是跑到他那敲钟人的窝里去找来一个柴禾,又在柴禾上放上他从没使用过的大量"弹药",即许许多多捆板条和许许多多卷铅皮,把这样一大堆柴火在两道雨溜的入口放好以后,便就着灯笼把火点燃了.
在这段时间内,石头不再落下了,流浪汉们也不再仰天张望了.那班盗贼气喘吁吁,好似一群猎犬逼近野猪藏身的洞穴,乱哄哄紧紧围着教堂的大门,大门虽然被撞得完全走了形,却仍然不动.盗贼们兴奋得直颤抖,正等待着最后一次重撞,等待着大门被开膛破腹.他们个个争先恐后挨近大门,都想等大门一旦打开,抢先冲进这座富足的大教堂,冲进这个聚积三个世纪财富的巨大宝库.他们欣喜若狂,馋涎欲滴,狼嚎虎啸,鬼哭狼嚎相互提醒教堂里有精美的银十字架,有华丽的锦锻道袍,有漂亮的镀金墓碑,还有唱诗班各种贵重的璀灿物品,以及各个使人眼花缭乱的节日,诸如烛台高照的圣诞节,阳光灿烂的复活节,所有这些辉煌的盛大庆典上堆满祭坛上各种各样圣物盒,烛台.圣礼盒.圣体盒.圣柜,形成一层黄金和钻石的表面.诚然,在这样美好的时刻,叫花子和假伤残者也好,穷凶极恶的坏蛋和假装烧伤者也好,心里盘算的是如何洗劫圣母院而不是如何搭救那位埃及少女.我们甚而至于宁愿认为,他们当中许多人来搭救爱斯梅拉达只不过是一个借口,如果盗贼打家劫舍也需要什么借口的话.
他们聚集起来,围着攻城槌,个个屏住呼吸,绷紧肌肉,使出浑身力气,正要对教堂大门进行决定性的一次撞击.就在这时候,猛然听见了他们当中的一些人发出一片嚎叫声,比原先木梁砸下时脑袋开花.灵魂出窍的那种惨叫声还更凄厉可怖.没喊叫的人,还活命的人,睁眼一看,只见两道熔化的铅水从教堂高处倾泻下来,落在这帮乌合之众最稠密的人堆里.沸腾的金属直泻而下,这片汹涌的人海顿时像潮水般退下,两道铅水落下之处,在人群中造成两个黑洞,直冒浓烟,宛如滚烫的开水泼在雪地上一般.那几乎被烧焦的垂死的人蠕动着,痛苦万分,惨叫不迭.在这两道喷泉般的溶液四周,可怕的雨滴飞溅着洒落在进攻者的头上,火焰就像锐利的钻子,锥进他们的头壳.正是这沉重的地燃之火,洒落无数的霰粒,在这些苦难者身上打千百个窟窿.
吼叫声撕心裂肺.不论是最胆大的还是最胆小的,都纷纷逃散,把那根巨梁扔在了尸体上,教堂前庭再次空无一人了.
所有的眼睛都望着教堂的高处,呈现在大家眼前的是一片十分奇异的景象.只见在最高柱廊的顶上,在中央玫瑰花形的圆窗上端,熊熊烈火从两座钟楼中间腾起来,火星飞溅.这狂乱的烈火被风一刮,不时有一团火焰化成浓烟,随风飘散.在这烈焰下面,在那被烧得乌黑的梅花形的石栏杆下面,两道承溜形如妖怪巨口,不断地喷出炽烈的铅水,银白色的铅液衬托着教堂下方十分昏暗正面墙壁,显得格外分明.两道铅液越是接近地面,越是扩展开来,形成一条条束状的细流,俨若从喷壶的千百个细孔中喷射出来.两座巨大钟楼的正面,一座红彤彤,一座黑黝黝,反差生硬而分明.在烈焰的上方,这两座钟楼庞大的阴影直投向天空,显得更加巍峨.钟楼上那无数鬼怪和巨龙的雕刻,面目狰狞,映着闪烁不定的火光看上去全活动起来了.吞婴蛇怪好象正在哈哈大笑,檐槽口的鬼怪好象在汪汪吠叫,蝾螈好象在吹火,怪龙好象在浓烟中打喷嚏.冲天的烈焰,鼎沸的喧嚣,把这些妖魔鬼怪从沉睡石头中全惊醒了.而在这些鬼怪当中,有一个在不停地走动,只见其身影不时从柴堆烈焰前闪过,就好像一只蝙蝠从烛台前掠过一般.
这座离奇古怪的灯塔,可能连远处比塞特山岗的樵夫也会被惊醒的,当他睁眼看见圣母院两座钟楼的巨大影子在山岭的灌木丛上面晃动,准会吓得魂飞魄散.
流浪汉全都惊呆了,顿时一片死寂.在这寂静中只听见各种响声;也有被关在修道院里,比马厩里着了火的马还更惊慌的司铎们呼天唤地的惊叫声;有附近窗户*息声;还有那铅液落在石板上持续不断的劈啪声.
此时,流浪汉的头目已经退到贡德洛里埃府邸的门廊下,共商对策.埃及公爵坐在一块界石上,诚惶诚恐地仰望着二百尺高空中那火光闪耀的幻景般的柴堆;克洛潘.特鲁伊甫怒发冲冠,咬着自己粗大的拳头,低声嘟哝道:"我们冲不过去!"
"简直是一座具有魔法的老教堂!"老吉卜赛人马西亚.恩加迪.斯皮卡里嘟哝着.
"教皇的胡子!"一个曾经服过兵役.头发花白的老滑头接过话头说道:"瞧这些教堂沟檐铅水直喷,真比莱克图尔的城墙突堞的弹雨还要厉害得多."
"那个在火堆前走来走去的魔鬼,你们看见了吗?"埃及公爵大吼.
"天啊,是那个该死的敲钟人,是卡齐莫多."克洛潘说道.
那个吉卜赛人摇了摇头,说:"我可要告诉你们,那是塞纳克的阴魂.大侯爵.主管城堡要塞的恶魔.他的形体像全副武装的士兵,长着狮子的脑袋.有时候他骑上一匹丑马.他会将人变成建造钟楼的石头.他统帅50个军团.那正是他.我一看就认出来了.有时候他身着一件华丽的饰金袍子,花纹是土耳其式样的."
"星星贝尔维尼在什么地方?"克洛潘问道.
"他死了."一个女乞丐应道.
红脸安德里傻笑地说:"这下子可叫主宫医院有得忙啦."
"真的没有办法攻破这道门啦?"狄纳王跺着脚直嚷道.
埃及公爵伤心地向他指着两道滚滚铅水,就好像两只长纺锤,纺出磷来,把教堂黑黝黝的正面划满横七竖八的线条.
"这样自我保护的教堂倒是见过啦."他叹气说道,"40年前君士坦丁堡的圣索非亚教堂,摇晃着其圆顶脑袋,曾连续三次把穆罕默德的新月旗打倒在地.这座教堂是巴黎的纪约姆建造的,他可是个魔法师呀."
"难道真该象大路上的仆役那样,可怜巴巴地四处逃命?难道就这样把我们的妹子丢在这儿一点儿不管,让那些披着人皮的恶狼抓去明天绞死吗?"克洛德说道.
"圣器室还有几大车黄金呢!"一个流浪汉插嘴说道,可惜我们不知其名字.
"穆罕默德的胡子呀!"特鲁伊甫嚷道.
"再试一试吧."那个流浪汉接着说.
马西亚.恩加迪摇了摇头,说:"从大门是进去不了的.必须找到教堂这妖婆中的防卫弱点,比如一个洞,一条暗道,一个随便什么接合处都行."
"谁去找呢?"克洛潘说."还是我去摸一下底细吧.......对啦,那个浑身披挂的小个学子约翰到什么地方去了."
"大概死了."有人应道."不再听到他笑了."
狄纳王皱了皱他的眉头.
"那就算了吧.在他那副披挂下面却是一颗勇敢的心呀.......皮埃尔.格兰古瓦君呢?"
"克洛潘队长,我们刚走到兑换所桥,他就溜走了."红脸安德里说道.
克洛潘跺脚道:"上帝的鸟嘴!是他唆使我们来到这里的,而他半道上就扔开我们不管啦!......专讲大话的胆小鬼!用拖鞋当头盔的可怜虫!"
"克洛潘队长,"红脸安德里叫道,他正望着教堂前庭街,"瞧,那个小个学子在那儿."
"赞美冥王普鲁托!"克洛潘说道,"可是他身后拖着什么鬼东西?"
果真是约翰,一身游侠的沉甸行头,好样地在石板地上拖着一架长梯,尽力奔跑,气喘吁吁,就是一只蚂蚁拖着一株比它长20倍的草儿,也不像他那样子会喘吁吁.
"胜利!赞美神恩!"学子嚷道,"看,圣朗德里码头卸货工的梯子."
克洛潘朝他走过去.
"孩子!用这个梯子,你想干啥,上帝的角!"
"我弄到了梯子,"约翰上气不接下气地应道,"我知道它放在哪儿.......就在司法长官府邸的库棚下面.......那儿有个我认识的姑娘,她觉得我像朱庇特一样俊美.......为了弄到梯子,我利用了她一下,梯子就到手了.天啊!......可怜的姑娘只穿内衣就过来给我开了门."
"干得好."克洛潘道,"可你拿这梯子有什么用呢?"
约翰流露出一副顽皮而又精明的神情,望了望他,手指弹得像响板一样叭嗒直响.他此刻真是气吞万世.只见他头戴15世纪那种装饰过度的头盔.盔顶各种稀奇古怪的饰物就足以吓敌人得魂飞魄散.他这顶头盔还竖起十个铁尖角,这样一来,约翰完全可以跟荷马笔下的内斯托尔战舰争夺十个冲角这一可怕的称号了.
"你问我要做什么事情,显赫的狄纳王?你没有看见那边三道大门上方,那一排傻瓜似的雕像吗?"
"看见的,那又怎的?"
"那是法兰西列王的柱廊."
"这跟我有何相干?"克洛潘说道.
"且慢!这长廊的尽头有一道门,从来只插着门闩,用这个梯子我就能爬上去,进到教堂里去了."
"孩子,让我先上."
"不,好伙计,梯子是我的.来,您上第二个."
"让鬼王别西卜把你掐死才好!"性情粗暴的克洛潘道,"我绝不在任何人后面."
"那好,克洛潘,你自己去找个梯子吧!"
约翰拖着梯子,拔腿跑过广场,一边叫道:"小的们,跟我来!"
倾刻之间,梯子竖了起来,靠在一道侧门上端的下层长廊的栏杆上.那群流浪汉欢声雷动,纷纷挤到梯子下面准备登梯.但是约翰不让,第一个将脚踩上梯档.从下往上爬,距离相当长.法国列王长廊如今距离地面约莫60尺.当时还有11级台阶,高度更增加了.约翰穿着沉重的盔甲,一手持弩,一手扶梯,相当难爬,上得很慢.爬到梯子中间,他悲伤地朝遍布石阶上的那些可怜巴巴的黑话帮死者瞥了一眼,说:"唉!这一大堆尸体真值得载入《伊利亚特》第五篇章呀!"话音一落,接着向上攀登.流浪汉紧跟其后.每一梯级上都有一个人.看到这一行披肩戴甲的背影在阴暗中涌动着往上升,仿佛是一条钢鳞的蟒蛇贴着教堂昂首竖立.约翰排在最前头,打着唿哨,使得这种幻象更加逼真了.
学子终于触到了柱廊的阳台,在全体流浪汉的喝采声中颇为麻利地一步跨了上去.就这样他成了这要塞的主人,高兴得喊叫起来,可是突然又停住,呆若木鸡.原来他发现了在一座国王雕像后面,卡齐莫多躲在黑暗中,那只独眼中闪闪发光.
还没等第二位围攻者能踩上长廊,那令人生畏的驼背一下子跳到梯顶上端,一声不吭,忽然伸出那双有力的大手,一把抓住两根梯梃的一头,把梯子掀离墙壁,在一阵焦虑的喊叫声中,从高到低,把上上下下爬满流浪汉的无可依傍的长梯摇晃了一阵子,猛然,他用一种超凡的力量一推,把这串人扔下广场去.有片刻功夫,即使最果敢的人,也心怦怦直跳.梯子被往后一推,直挺挺地竖立一会儿,似乎犹豫不绝,随后晃了晃,紧接着突然画了一个半径为80尺的可怕圆弧,满载着那班强盗向地面倒下去,比铁索断了的吊桥还更急速.只听见一阵震天价响的咒骂声,随后一切无声无息了,只有几个断臂残腿的可怜虫爬出了死人堆.
围攻者中间先是一阵胜利的欢呼,接踵而至的却是一阵痛苦和愤怒的叫骂声.卡齐莫多却无动于衷,两肘撑在栏杆上,注视着下面.那副神态就像一个长发的老国王在凭窗眺望.
约翰.弗罗洛,他正处在千钧一发的情势之中.他孑然一身,在长廊里正面对着那凶神恶煞的敲钟人,脚下是一堵80尺高的陡墙,将他和他的同伴们隔绝开来.就在卡齐莫多拿梯子作耍时,学子冲向那道他以为开着的暗门.其实不然.聋子走进柱廊时把身后的门关死了.约翰于是躲藏在一座国王石像的后面,大气都不敢出,盯着那魔鬼似的驼背,吓得魂不附体,仿佛有个人向动物园看守人的妻子求爱,有天晚上去赴幽会,爬错了墙,突然发现正与一只白熊撞了个正着.
一开头,聋子并没有注意到他.可是末了,一回头,猛然挺起身子.原来他瞅见了那学子.
约翰准备遭受到猛烈的打击,可是聋子却纹丝不动,不过转身盯着学子.
"嗬!嗬!"约翰说道,"你干吗用这种忧伤的独眼看着我呢?"
这样说着,小滑头暗中准备着他的弩.
"卡齐莫多!"他嚷道,"我要给你改个浑名,以后你就叫瞎子吧."
箭射了出去.羽箭呼啸,直射驼子的左臂.卡齐莫多无动于衷,就好像法拉蒙国王石像被蹭破了点皮.他伸手抓住箭杆,把箭从手臂上拔出来,不动声色地往那粗壮的膝盖上磕,折成了两断丢下,确切地说,是把两段扔到地上.可是,约翰来不及射第二次箭了.箭一折断,卡齐莫多喘了口粗气,蚱蜢般一蹦,一下子扑到学子身上,学子被一拳去中,护胸甲碰到墙上撞扁了.
于是,在火炬光飘忽不定.若明若暗的映照下,隐约可以看见一件可怕的事情发生了.
卡齐莫多用左手一把揪住约翰的两只手臂.约翰觉得已经完蛋了,不再作挣扎.聋子又伸出右手,不声不响,慢悠悠,凶狠狠,把学子的全身披挂,剑啦,匕首啦,头盔啦,护胸甲啦,臂铠啦,一件一件剥了下来,俨如猴子剥核桃那般.卡齐莫多把学子的铁外壳,一块一块地扔在脚下.
学子看到自己落在这双可怕的手掌中,被解除武装,剥去衣服,自己软弱无力,赤身裸体,便不想与这个聋子说什么,只是厚着脸皮冲着聋子的脸孔大笑起来,并且以他16岁少年那种百折不挠和无忧无虑的精神,唱起当时广为流传的一支歌曲.康布雷城市她穿戴整齐马拉分将她劫洗......
他未唱完.只见卡齐莫多站在长廊的栏杆上,用一只手抓住学子的双脚,把他向投石那样,在深渊上凌空旋转.随后传来一种声响,就象一只骨制的盒子碰在墙上爆裂一般,看到有什么东西坠落下来,在中途下坠三分之一时,被建筑物一个凸角挂住了.原来是一具死尸挂在那个地方,身子折成两截,腰部摔断,脑袋开花.
流浪汉群中响起一阵恐惧的喊叫.克洛潘叫道:"要报仇!"群应众声答道:"抢呀!冲啊!冲啊!"于是人群中爆发出一阵奇妙的咆哮,其中交织着各种语言,各种口音,各种方言.可怜学子的死在这人群中激起一阵愤怒的狂热.一驼子竟把他们阻挡在教堂门前这么久,束手无策,他们不由感到又羞耻又恼怒.狂怒的人群找来一架架梯子,增加一支支火把,不一会儿,疯狂的卡齐莫多看见这可怕人群,蚂蚁般从四面八方一齐涌上,向圣母院发起猛攻.没有梯子的人就用打结的绳索,没有绳索的人就攀附在雕像的突出部分往上爬.他们前后彼此攥着破衣裳.这一张张十分可怕的脸孔,有如上涨的潮水,汹涌而上,势不可挡.由于愤怒,这些狂野的脸膛红光焕发,泥污的脑门汗如雨注,眼睛闪耀着光芒.所有这些丑类,所有这些鬼脸,都一起围攻卡齐莫多,好像某一其他的教堂把它的蛇发女妖.山怪.猛犬.最荒堂古怪的雕像,一股脑儿都派来攻打圣母院了.这真是在教堂正面那些石雕的鬼怪上面又加上了一层活生生的鬼怪.
这时广场上千盏火把星罗棋布.这一混乱的场景在此之前一直隐没于黑暗中,突然间被火光照得通亮,仿佛着了火一般.教堂广场火光闪耀,一道光辉直射天空.高高的平台上点燃的柴堆一直熊熊燃烧,远远地照亮了城市.两座塔楼的巨大剪影,远远地投射到巴黎屋顶上,在这片亮光上打开了一个庞大的阴影缺口.城市似乎骚动起来了.远方的警钟悲鸣.流浪汉们吼叫着,喘息着,攀登着,咒骂着,而卡齐莫多无力对付这么多敌人,只是为埃及姑娘担惊受怕,眼见那一张张狂怒的脸孔越来越靠近他所在的长廊,不由得祈求上天显现一个奇迹,他绝望地扭着双臂.
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