Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo (e reader for manga txt) 📕

had put into my head again, and then the beautiful girl was rather strangely decked out. All at once, I hear a cry upstairs, and something falls on the floor and the window opens. I run to mine which is beneath it, and I behold a black mass pass before my eyes and fall into the water. It was a phantom clad like a priest. It was a moonlight night. I saw him quite plainly. He was swimming in the direction of the city. Then, all of a tremble, I call the watch. The gentlemen of the police enter, and not knowing just at the first moment what the matter was, and being merry, they beat me. I explain to them. We go upstairs, and what do we find? my poor chamber all blood, the captain stretched out at full length with a dagger in his neck, the girl pretending to be dead, and the goat all in a fright. ‘Pretty work!’ I say, ‘I shall have to wash that floor for more than a fortnight. It will have to be scraped; it will be a terrible job.’ They carried off the officer, poor young man, and the wench with her bosom all bare. But wait, the worst is that on the next day, when I wanted to take the crown to buy tripe, I found a dead leaf in its place.”

The old woman ceased. A murmur of horror ran through the audience.

“That phantom, that goat⁠—all smacks of magic,” said one of Gringoire’s neighbors.

“And that dry leaf!” added another.

“No doubt about it,” joined in a third, “she is a witch who has dealings with the surly monk, for the purpose of plundering officers.”

Gringoire himself was not disinclined to regard this as altogether alarming and probable.

“Goody Falourdel,” said the president majestically, “have you nothing more to communicate to the court?”

“No, monseigneur,” replied the crone, “except that the report has described my house as a hovel and stinking; which is an outrageous fashion of speaking. The houses on the bridge are not imposing, because there are such multitudes of people; but, nevertheless, the butchers continue to dwell there, who are wealthy folk, and married to very proper and handsome women.”

The magistrate who had reminded Gringoire of a crocodile rose⁠—

“Silence!” said he. “I pray the gentlemen not to lose sight of the fact that a dagger was found on the person of the accused. Goody Falourdel, have you brought that leaf into which the crown which the demon gave you was transformed?”

“Yes, monseigneur,” she replied; “I found it again. Here it is.”

A bailiff handed the dead leaf to the crocodile, who made a doleful shake of the head, and passed it on to the president, who gave it to the procurator of the king in the ecclesiastical court, and thus it made the circuit of the hall.

“It is a birch leaf,” said Master Jacques Charmolue. “A fresh proof of magic.”

A counsellor took up the word.

“Witness, two men went upstairs together in your house: the black man, whom you first saw disappear and afterwards swimming in the Seine, with his priestly garments, and the officer. Which of the two handed you the crown?” The old woman pondered for a moment and then said⁠—

“The officer.”

A murmur ran through the crowd.

“Ah!” thought Gringoire, “this makes some doubt in my mind.”

But Master Philippe Lheulier, advocate extraordinary to the king, interposed once more.

“I will recall to these gentlemen, that in the deposition taken at his bedside, the assassinated officer, while declaring that he had a vague idea when the black man accosted him that the latter might be the surly monk, added that the phantom had pressed him eagerly to go and make acquaintance with the accused; and upon his, the captain’s, remarking that he had no money, he had given him the crown which the said officer paid to la Falourdel. Hence, that crown is the money of hell.”

This conclusive observation appeared to dissipate all the doubts of Gringoire and the other sceptics in the audience.

“You have the documents, gentlemen,” added the king’s advocate, as he took his seat; “you can consult the testimony of Phoebus de Châteaupers.”

At that name, the accused sprang up, her head rose above the throng. Gringoire with horror recognized la Esmeralda.

She was pale; her tresses, formerly so gracefully braided and spangled with sequins, hung in disorder; her lips were blue, her hollow eyes were terrible. Alas!

“Phoebus!” she said, in bewilderment; “where is he? O messeigneurs! before you kill me, tell me, for pity sake, whether he still lives?”

“Hold your tongue, woman,” replied the president, “that is no affair of ours.”

“Oh! for mercy’s sake, tell me if he is alive!” she repeated, clasping her beautiful emaciated hands; and the sound of her chains in contact with her dress, was heard.

“Well!” said the king’s advocate roughly, “he is dying. Are you satisfied?”

The unhappy girl fell back on her criminal’s seat, speechless, tearless, white as a wax figure.

The president bent down to a man at his feet, who wore a gold cap and a black gown, a chain on his neck and a wand in his hand.

“Bailiff, bring in the second accused.”

All eyes turned towards a small door, which opened, and, to the great agitation of Gringoire, gave passage to a pretty goat with horns and hoofs of gold. The elegant beast halted for a moment on the threshold, stretching out its neck as though, perched on the summit of a rock, it had before its eyes an immense horizon. Suddenly it caught sight of the gypsy girl, and leaping over the table and the head of a clerk, in two bounds it was at her knees; then it rolled gracefully on its mistress’s feet, soliciting a word or a caress; but the accused remained motionless, and poor Djali himself obtained not a glance.

“Eh, why⁠—’tis my villanous beast,” said old Falourdel, “I recognize the two perfectly!”

Jacques Charmolue interfered.

“If the gentlemen please, we will proceed to the examination of the goat.” He was, in fact, the