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Updated: June 16, 2025
The matter was simple; Claude Frollo had taken him in, had adopted him, had nourished him, had reared him. When a little lad, it was between Claude Frollo's legs that he was accustomed to seek refuge, when the dogs and the children barked after him. Claude Frollo had taught him to talk, to read, to write. Claude Frollo had finally made him the bellringer.
She often reproached herself for not feeling a gratitude 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.
Nobody entered the church, which had been damaged in various ways, and no one ascended the northern tower, for the bells hung in the southern one. There the watchman's duty was regarded more seriously, for on all extraordinary occasions the alarm-bell had to sound. The watchman kept up a sort of telegraphic communication with the bellringer in the southern tower.
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!
Bellringer of Notre-Dame at the age of fourteen, a new infirmity had come to complete his misfortunes: the bells had broken the drums of his ears; he had become deaf. The only gate which nature had left wide open for him had been abruptly closed, and forever. In closing, it had cut off the only ray of joy and of light which still made its way into the soul of Quasimodo.
I ran down to the sitting-room, to ask my landlady where it was, and told her, in my new hopefulness, that I had heard of a situation in France. Bellringer Street was less than a mile away, she said. I could be there before seven o'clock, not too late perhaps for Mrs. Wilkinson to give me an interview.
To ascend the Campanile and get the near view over the village, was obviously one of the first duties of a visitor; so, finding the door open and the old bellringer inside, we mounted laboriously to the top nearly a hundred feet higher than the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Standing here upon the outer gallery above the level of the great bells, we had the village and valley at our feet.
"Shall I leave him the lamp?" asked the bellringer; "he may beguile the time by reading the names of former prisoners scratched on the walls and in the embrasures." "No; he shall not even have that miserable satisfaction," returned the Duke of Shoreditch. "He shall be left in the darkness to his own bad and bitter thoughts."
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!"
Upon inquiry I found that the place was two miles away; and, as our old friend Simmons was still on the cab-stand, I jumped into his cab, and bade him drive me as fast as he could to No. 19 Bellringer Street. I wanted a sense of motion, and a chance of scene. If I had been in Guernsey, I should have mounted Madam, and had another midnight ride round the island.
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