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But the girl, remembering the violent attempt of the previous night, and not quite free from distrust, withdrew her hand quickly. Quasimodo fixed upon her a look of reproach and unspeakable sorrow. The sight of this beautiful girl succouring a man in the pillory so deformed and wretched seemed sublime, and the people were immediately affected by it. They clapped their hands, and shouted, "Noël!
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.
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!
On arriving in the lofty bell chamber, Quasimodo gazed for some time at the six bells and shook his head sadly, as though groaning over some foreign element which had interposed itself in his heart between them and him.
"Chaldea is being painted as Esmeralda to the Quasimodo of her lover, a Servian gypsy called Kara, as I have been informed, Mr. Silver. But what has all this to do with me?" "Don't be in a hurry, Lady Agnes. It will take time to explain." "How dare you take this tone with me?" demanded the widow, clenching her hands. "Leave the room, sir, or I shall have you turned out."
The priest, on his side, with outstretched neck and eyes starting from his head, contemplated this horrible group of the man and the young girl, the spider and the fly. At the moment when it was most horrible, the laugh of a demon, a laugh which one can only give vent to when one is no longer human, burst forth on the priest's livid face. Quasimodo did not hear that laugh, but he saw it.
Quasimodo beheld many people enter, but no one come out. He cast a glance towards the roof from time to time; the gypsy did not stir any more than himself. A groom came and unhitched the horse and led it to the stable of the house. The entire day passed thus, Quasimodo at his post, la Esmeralda on the roof, Phoebus, no doubt, at the feet of Fleur-de-Lys.
Quasimodo, motionless and attentive, beheld a throng of lively, dancing shadows pass athwart the many-colored painted panes. Had he not been deaf, he would have heard more and more distinctly, in proportion as the noise of sleeping Paris died away, a sound of feasting, laughter, and music in the Gondelaurier mansion. Towards one o'clock in the morning, the guests began to take their leave.
The marriage accordingly took place at the Hotel de Lorges, on the 8th of April, 1695, which I have always regarded, and with good reason, as the happiest day of my life. My mother treated me like the best mother in the world. On the Thursday before Quasimodo the contract was signed; a grand repast followed; at midnight the cure of Saint Roch said mass, and married us in the chapel of the house.
To me D'Artagnan is rather more vital than Richelieu. Hugo's imps and Balzac's bullies dance down the stage and shut from the view the tax-collectors and the court favorites. The mousquetaires crowd the field marshals off the scene. There is something real in Quasimodo, in Caesar de Birotteau, in Robert Macaire, something mythical in Mazarin, in the Regent and in Jean Lass.
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