Notre-Dame de Paris
Mademoiselle de Gondelaurier knew how her mother’s antiquated
mode of speech shocked the captain. In fact, he began to sneer,
and muttered between his teeth: “Porte Gibard! Porte Gibard! ’Tis
enough to make King Charles VI. pass by.”
“Godmother!” exclaimed Bérangère, whose eyes, incessantly in
motion, had suddenly been raised to the summit of the towers of
Notre-Dame, “who is that black man up yonder?”
All the young girls raised their eyes. A man was, in truth,
leaning on the balustrade which surmounted the northern tower,
looking on the Grève. He was a priest. His costume could be
plainly discerned, and his face resting on both his hands. But he
stirred no more than if he had been a statue. His eyes, intently
fixed, gazed into the Place.
It was something like the immobility of a bird of prey, who has
just discovered a nest of sparrows, and is gazing at it.
“’Tis monsieur the archdeacon of Josas,” said Fleur-de-Lys.
“You have good eyes if you can recognize him from here,” said the
Gaillefontaine.
“How he is staring at the little dancer!” went on Diane de
Christeuil.
“Let the gypsy beware!” said Fleur-de-Lys, “for he loves not
Egypt.”
“’Tis a great shame for that man to look upon her thus,” added
Amelotte de Montmichel, “for she dances delightfully.”
“Fair cousin Phœbus,” said Fleur-de-Lys suddenly, “Since you know
this little gypsy, make her a sign to come up here. It will amuse
us.”
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed all the young girls, clapping their hands.
“Why! ’tis not worth while,” replied Phœbus. “She has forgotten
me, no doubt, and I know not so much as her name. Nevertheless,
as you wish it, young ladies, I will make the trial.” And leaning
over the balustrade of the balcony, he began to shout, “Little
one!”
The dancer was not beating her tambourine at the moment. She
turned her head towards the point whence this call proceeded, her
brilliant eyes rested on Phœbus, and she stopped short.
“Little one!” repeated the captain; and he beckoned her to
approach.
The young girl looked at him again, then she blushed as though a
flame had mounted into her cheeks, and, taking her tambourine
under her arm, she made her way through the astonished spectators
towards the door of the house where Phœbus was calling her, with
slow, tottering steps, and with the troubled look of a bird which
is yielding to the fascination of a serpent.
A moment later, the tapestry portière was raised, and the gypsy
appeared on the threshold of the chamber, blushing, confused,
breathless, her large eyes drooping, and not daring to advance
another step.
Bérangère clapped her hands.
Meanwhile, the dancer remained motionless upon the threshold. Her
appearance had produced a singular effect upon these young girls.
It is certain that a vague and indistinct desire to please the
handsome officer animated them all, that his splendid uniform was
the target of all their coquetries, and that from the moment he
presented himself, there existed among them a secret, suppressed
rivalry, which they hardly acknowledged even to themselves, but
which broke forth, none the less, every instant, in their
gestures and remarks. Nevertheless, as they were all very nearly
equal in beauty, they contended with equal arms, and each could
hope for the victory. The arrival of the gypsy suddenly destroyed
this equilibrium. Her beauty was so rare, that, at the moment
when she appeared at the entrance of the apartment, it seemed as
though she diffused a sort of light which was peculiar to
herself. In that narrow chamber, surrounded by that sombre frame
of hangings and woodwork, she was incomparably more beautiful and
more radiant than on the public square. She was like a torch
which has suddenly been brought from broad daylight into the
dark. The noble damsels were dazzled by her in spite of
themselves. Each one felt herself, in some sort, wounded in her
beauty. Hence, their battle front (may we be allowed the
expression,) was immediately altered, although they exchanged not
a single word. But they understood each other perfectly. Women’s
instincts comprehend and respond to each other more quickly than
the intelligences of men. An enemy had just arrived; all felt
it—all rallied together. One drop of wine is sufficient to tinge
a glass of water red; to diffuse a certain degree of ill temper
throughout a whole assembly of pretty women, the arrival of a
prettier woman suffices, especially when there is but one man
present.
Hence the welcome accorded to the gypsy was marvellously glacial.
They surveyed her from head to foot, then exchanged glances, and
all was said; they understood each other. Meanwhile, the young
girl was waiting to be spoken to, in such emotion that she dared
not raise her eyelids.
The captain was the first to break the silence. “Upon my word,”
said he, in his tone of intrepid fatuity, “here is a charming
creature! What think you of her, fair cousin?”
This remark, which a more delicate admirer would have uttered in
a lower tone, at least was not of a nature to dissipate the
feminine jealousies which were on the alert before the gypsy.
Fleur-de-Lys replied to the captain with a bland affectation of
disdain;—“Not bad.”
The others whispered.
At length, Madame Aloïse, who was not the less jealous because
she was so for her daughter, addressed the dancer,—“Approach,
little one.”
“Approach, little one!” repeated, with comical dignity, little
Bérangère, who would have reached about as high as her hips.
The gypsy advanced towards the noble dame.
“Fair child,” said Phœbus, with emphasis, taking several steps
towards her, “I do not know whether I have the supreme honor of
being recognized by you.”
She interrupted him, with a smile and a look full of infinite
sweetness,—
“Oh! yes,” said she.
“She has a good memory,” remarked Fleur-de-Lys.
“Come, now,” resumed Phœbus, “you escaped nimbly the other
evening. Did I frighten you!”
“Oh! no,” said the gypsy.
There was in the intonation of that “Oh! no,” uttered after that
“Oh! yes,” an ineffable something which wounded Fleur-de-Lys.
“You left me in your stead, my beauty,” pursued the captain,
whose tongue was unloosed when speaking to a girl out of the
street, “a crabbed knave, one-eyed and hunchbacked, the bishop’s
bellringer, I believe. I have been told that by birth he is the
bastard of an archdeacon and a devil. He has a pleasant name: he
is called _Quatre-Temps_ (Ember Days), _Pâques-Fleuries_ (Palm
Sunday), _Mardi-Gras_ (Shrove Tuesday), I know not what! The name
of some festival when the bells are pealed! So he took the
liberty of carrying you off, as though you were made for beadles!
’Tis too much. What the devil did that screech-owl want with you?
Hey, tell me!”
“I do not know,” she replied.
“The inconceivable impudence! A bellringer carrying off a wench,
like a vicomte! a lout poaching on the game of gentlemen! that is
a rare piece of assurance. However, he paid dearly for it. Master
Pierrat Torterue is the harshest groom that ever curried a knave;
and I can tell you, if it will be agreeable to you, that your
bellringer’s hide got a thorough dressing at his hands.”
“Poor man!” said the gypsy, in whom these words revived the
memory of the pillory.
The captain burst out laughing.
“Corne-de-bœuf! here’s pity as well placed as a feather in a
pig’s tail! May I have as big a belly as a pope, if—”
He stopped short. “Pardon me, ladies; I believe that I was on the
point of saying something foolish.”
“Fie, sir” said la Gaillefontaine.
“He talks to that creature in her own tongue!” added
Fleur-de-Lys, in a low tone, her irritation increasing every
moment. This irritation was not diminished when she beheld the
captain, enchanted with the gypsy, and, most of all, with
himself, execute a pirouette on his heel, repeating with coarse,
naïve, and soldierly gallantry,—
“A handsome wench, upon my soul!”
“Rather savagely dressed,” said Diane de Christeuil, laughing to
show her fine teeth.
This remark was a flash of light to the others. Not being able to
impugn her beauty, they attacked her costume.
“That is true,” said la Montmichel; “what makes you run about the
streets thus, without guimpe or ruff?”
“That petticoat is so short that it makes one tremble,” added la
Gaillefontaine.
“My dear,” continued Fleur-de-Lys, with decided sharpness, “You
will get yourself taken up by the sumptuary police for your
gilded girdle.”
“Little one, little one;” resumed la Christeuil, with an
implacable smile, “if you were to put respectable sleeves upon
your arms they would get less sunburned.”
It was, in truth, a spectacle worthy of a more intelligent
spectator than Phœbus, to see how these beautiful maidens, with
their envenomed and angry tongues, wound, serpent-like, and
glided and writhed around the street dancer. They were cruel and
graceful; they searched and rummaged maliciously in her poor and
silly toilet of spangles and tinsel. There was no end to their
laughter, irony, and humiliation. Sarcasms rained down upon the
gypsy, and haughty condescension and malevolent looks. One would
have thought they were young Roman dames thrusting golden pins
into the breast of a beautiful slave. One would have pronounced
them elegant grayhounds, circling, with inflated nostrils, round
a poor woodland fawn, whom the glance of their master forbade
them to devour.
After all, what was a miserable dancer on the public squares in
the presence of these high-born maidens? They seemed to take no
heed of her presence, and talked of her aloud, to her face, as of
something unclean, abject, and yet, at the same time, passably
pretty.
The gypsy was not insensible to these pin-pricks. From time to
time a flush of shame, a flash of anger inflamed her eyes or her
cheeks; with disdain she made that little grimace with which the
reader is already familiar, but she remained motionless; she
fixed on Phœbus a sad, sweet, resigned look. There was also
happiness and tenderness in that gaze. One would have said that
she endured for fear of being expelled.
Phœbus laughed, and took the gypsy’s part with a mixture of
impertinence and pity.
“Let them talk, little one!” he repeated, jingling his golden
spurs. “No doubt your toilet is a little extravagant and wild,
but what difference does that make with such a charming damsel as
yourself?”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed the blonde Gaillefontaine, drawing up
her swan-like throat, with a bitter smile. “I see that messieurs
the archers of the king’s police easily take fire at the handsome
eyes of gypsies!”
“Why not?” said Phœbus.