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Updated: June 16, 2025
A group of children, those little bare-footed savages who have always roamed the pavements of Paris under the eternal name of gamins, and who, when we were also children ourselves, threw stones at all of us in the afternoon, when we came out of school, because our trousers were not torn a swarm of these young scamps rushed towards the square where Gringoire lay, with shouts and laughter which seemed to pay but little heed to the sleep of the neighbors.
"What the deuce is she thinking of?" thought Gringoire, staring at what she was gazing at; "'tis impossible that it can be that stone dwarf carved in the keystone of that arch, which thus absorbs her attention. What the deuce! I can bear the comparison!" He raised his voice, "Mademoiselle!" She seemed not to hear him. He repeated, still more loudly, "Mademoiselle Esmeralda!" Trouble wasted.
Nevertheless, Gringoire continued, "What must one be then, in order to please you?" "A man." "And I " said he, "what, then, am I?" "A man has a hemlet on his head, a sword in his hand, and golden spurs on his heels." "Good," said Gringoire, "without a horse, no man. Do you love any one?" "As a lover? "Yes."
But, disenchanted though Gringoire was, the whole effect of this picture was not without its charm and its magic; the bonfire illuminated, with a red flaring light, which trembled, all alive, over the circle of faces in the crowd, on the brow of the young girl, and at the background of the Place cast a pallid reflection, on one side upon the ancient, black, and wrinkled facade of the House of Pillars, on the other, upon the old stone gibbet.
You know, master, that the secret of keeping well, according to Hippocrates; id est: cibi, potus, somni, venus, omnia moderata sint." "So you have no care, Master Pierre?" resumed the archdeacon, gazing intently at Gringoire. "None, i' faith!" "And what are you doing now?" "You see, master. I am examining the chiselling of these stones, and the manner in which yonder bas-relief is thrown out."
"Alas! sir," said Gringoire, "I would that I could lend you some, but, my breeches are worn to holes, and 'tis not crowns which have done it." He dared not tell the young man that he was acquainted with his brother the archdeacon, to whom he had not returned after the scene in the church; a negligence which embarrassed him.
"The trade is but a rough one for a philosopher." "'Tis still equilibrium," said Gringoire. "When one has an idea, one encounters it in everything." "I know that," replied the archdeacon. After a silence, the priest resumed, "You are, nevertheless, tolerably poor?" "Poor, yes; unhappy, no."
With this idea in his head and in his eyes, he stepped up to the young girl in a manner so military and so gallant that she drew back. "What do you want of me?" said she. "Can you ask me, adorable Esmeralda?" replied Gringoire, with so passionate an accent that he was himself astonished at it on hearing himself speak. The gypsy opened her great eyes. "I don't know what you mean."
Some one having asked Cercidas, the Megalopolitan, if he were willing to die: 'Why not? he replied; 'for after my death I shall see those great men, Pythagoras among the philosophers, Hecataeus among historians, Homer among poets, Olympus among musicians." The archdeacon gave him his hand: "It is settled, then? You will come to-morrow?" This gesture recalled Gringoire to reality.
Only the great rose window of the facade, whose thousand colors were steeped in a ray of horizontal sunlight, glittered in the gloom like a mass of diamonds, and threw its dazzling reflection to the other end of the nave. When they had advanced a few paces, Dom Claude placed his back against a pillar, and gazed intently at Gringoire.
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