that a question had been addressed to him, continued to stare intently at the judge, and made no reply. The judge, being deaf, and not knowing the accused was deaf, thought that the latter had answered,—
“Very well. And your age?”
Again Quasimodo made no reply to this question. The judge supposed that it had been replied to, and continued,—
“Now, your profession?”
Still the same silence. The spectators had begun, meanwhile, to whisper together, and to exchange glances.
“That will do,” went on the auditor, when he supposed that the accused had finished his third reply. “You are accused before us of nocturnal disturbance, of a dishonorable act of violence upon the person of a foolish woman, and of rebellion and disloyalty towards the archers of the police of our lord, the king. Explain yourself upon all these points.—Clerk, have you written down what the prisoner has said thus far?”
At this unlucky question, a burst of laughter rose from the clerk’s table. It was caught by the audience and became so contagious that the two deaf men were forced to perceive it. Quasimodo turned round, shrugging his hump with disdain, while Master Florian, supposing that the laughter of the spectators had been provoked by some irreverent reply from the accused, rendered visible to him by that shrug of the shoulders, said,—
“You have uttered a reply, knave, which deserves the halter. Do you know to whom you are speaking?”
That reply made the laughter even louder. Quasimodo alone preserved his seriousness, for the good reason that he understood nothing of what was going on around him. The judge, more and more irritated, thought it his duty to continue in the same tone, hoping to bring the audience back to respect. We don’t know where Master Florian would have landed, if the door at the end of the room had not suddenly opened, and given entrance to the provost in person. At his entrance Master Florian said,—
“Monseigneur,” said he, “I demand such penalty as you shall deem fitting against the prisoner here present, for grave and aggravated offence against the court.”
And he seated himself, utterly breathless. Messire Robert d’Estouteville frowned and made a gesture so imperious and significant to Quasimodo, that the deaf man understood it.
The provost addressed him with severity, “What have you done that you have been brought hither, knave?”
The poor fellow, supposing that the provost was asking his name, broke the silence.
“Quasimodo.”
The reply matched the question so little that the wild laugh began to circulate once more, and Messire Robert exclaimed, red with wrath,—
“Are you mocking me also, you arrant knave?”
“Bellringer of Notre-Dame,” replied Quasimodo, supposing that what was required of him was to explain to the judge who he was.
“Bellringer!” interpolated the provost, who had waked up early enough to be in a sufficiently bad temper. “Bellringer! I’ll play you a chime of rods on your back through the squares of Paris! Do you hear, knave? Messieurs the sergeants of the mace, you will take me this knave to the pillory, you will flog him, and turn him for an hour.”
The clerk set to work to draw up the account of the sentence.
“’tis well adjudged!” cried the little scholar, Jehan Frollo du Moulin, from his corner.
In a few minutes the sentence was drawn up. Its tenor was simple and brief. The clerk presented it to the provost, who affixed his seal to it. Quasimodo gazed on the whole [9]with an indifferent and astonished air.
However, at the moment when Master Florian was reading the sentence, before signing it, the clerk felt himself moved with pity for the poor wretch of a prisoner, and, in the hope of softening the penalty, he approached as near the auditor’s ear as possible, and said, pointing to Quasimodo, “That man is deaf.”
He hoped that this would awaken Master Florian’s interest in behalf of the condemned man. But he was so hard of hearing that he did not catch a single word of what the clerk said to him; nevertheless, he wished to have the appearance of hearing, and replied, “Ah! ah! that is different; I did not know that. An hour more of the pillory, in that case.”
And he signed the sentence.
Chapter II
History of a Leavened Cake of Maize
Three women were gossiping, coming up along the water’s edge from the Châtelet, towards the Grève.
Two of these women were dressed like good bourgeoises of Paris. Their fine white ruffs; their petticoats of linsey-woolsey, striped red and blue; their white knitted stockings, with clocks embroidered in colors. They wore neither rings nor gold crosses, simply from fear of being fined. Their companion was attired in very much the same manner; but there was that indescribable something about her dress and bearing which suggested the wife of a provincial notary. One could see that she had not been long in Paris. She was dragging a boy by his hand.
“Let us make haste, Demoiselle Mahiette,” said the youngest of the three, who was also the largest, to the provincial, “I greatly fear that we shall arrive too late; they told us at the Châtelet that they were going to take him directly to the pillory.”
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