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第104章 BOOK Ⅶ(13)

The scholar watched his brother with surprise.He had no conception—he who always wore his heart upon his sleeve,who observed no laws but the good old laws of nature,who allowed his passions to flow according to their natural tendencies,and in whom the lake of strong emotions was always dry,so many fresh channels did he open for it daily—he had no conception with what fury that sea of human passions ferments and boils when it is refused all egress;how it gathers strength,swells,and overflows;how it wears away the heart;how it breaks forth in inward sobs and stifled convulsions,until it has rent its banks and overflowed its bed.The austere and icy exterior of Claude Frollo,that cold surface of rugged and inaccessible virtue,had always deceived Jehan.The light-hearted scholar had never dreamed of the lava,deep,boiling,furious,beneath the snow o na.

We do not know whether any sudden perception of this kind crossed Jehan's mind;but,scatter-brained as he was,he understood that he had witnessed something he ought never to have seen;that he had surprised the soul of his elder brother in one of its most secret attitudes,and that Claude must not discover it.Perceiving that the Archdeacon had fallen back into his previous immobility,he withdrew his head very softly and made a slight shuffling of feet behind the door,as of some one approaching and giving warning of the fact.

'Come in!'cried the Archdeacon,from within his cell.'I was expecting you,and left the key in the door on purpose.Come in,M re Jacques!'

The scholar entered boldly.The Archdeacon much embarrassed by such a visitor in this particular place started violently in his arm-chair.

'What!it is you,Jehan?'

'A J at any rate,'said the scholar,with his rosy,smiling,impudent face.

The countenance of Dom Claude had resumed its severe expression.'What are you doing here?'

'Brother,'answered the scholar,endeavouring to assume a sober,downcast,and modest demeanour,and twisting his cap in his hands with an appearance of artlessness,'I have come to beg of you.'

'What?'

'A moral lesson of which I have great need,'he had not the courage to add—'and a little money of which my need is still greater.'The last half of his sentence remained unspoken.

'Sir,'said the Archdeacon coldly,'I am greatly displeased with you.'

'Alas!'sighed the scholar.

Dom Claude described a quarter of a circle with his chair,and regarded Jehan sternly.'I am very glad to see you.'

This was a formidable exordium.Jehan prepared for a sharp encounter.

'Jehan,every day they bring me complaints of you.What is this about a scuffle in which you belaboured a certain little vicomte,Albert de Ramonchamp?'

'Oh,'said Jehan,'a mere trifle!An ill-conditioned page,who amused himself with splashing the scholars by galloping his horse through the mud.'

'And what is this about Mahiet Fargel,whose gown you have torn?'Tunicam dechiraverunt,'says the charge.'

'Pah!a shabby Montaigu cape.What's there to make such a coil about?'

'The complaint says tunicam,not cappettam.Do you understand Latin?'

Jehan did not reply.

'Yes,'went on the priest shaking his head,'this is what study and letters have come to now!The Latin tongue is scarcely understood,Syriac unknown,the Greek so abhorred that it is not accounted ignorance in the most learned to miss over a Greek word when reading,and to say,G um est non legitur.'

The scholar raised his eyes boldly.'Brother,shall I tell you in good French the meaning of that Greek word over there upon the wall?'

'Which word?'

''ANáGKH.'

A faint flush crept into the parchment cheeks of the Archdeacon,like a puff of smoke giving warning of the unseen commotions of a volcano.The scholar hardly noted it.

'Well,Jehan,'faltered the elder brother with an effort,'what does the word mean?'

'Fatality.'

Dom Claude grew pale again,and the scholar went on heedlessly:

'And the word underneath it,inscribed by the same hand,Anagneia signifies'impurity.'You see,we know our Greek.'

The Archdeacon was silent.This lesson in Greek had set him musing.

Little Jehan,who had all the cunning of a spoilt child,judged the moment favourable for hazarding his request.Adopting,therefore,his most insinuating tones,he began:

'Do you hate me so much,good brother,as to look thus grim on account of a few poor scufflings and blows dealt all in fair fight with a pack of boys and young monkeys—quibusdam marmosetis?You see,good brother Claude,we know our Latin.'

But this caressing hypocrisy failed in its customary effect on the severe elder brother.Cerberus would not take the honeyed sop.Not a furrow in the Archdeacon's brow was smoothed.'What are you aiming at?'he asked dryly.

'Well,then,to be plain,it is this,'answered Jehan stoutly,'I want money.'

At this piece of effrontery the Archdeacon at once became the school-master,the stern parent.

'You are aware,Monsieur Jehan,that our fief of Tirechappe,counting together both the ground rents and the rents of the twenty-one houses,only brings in twenty-nine livres,eleven sous,six deniers parisis.That is half as much again as in the time of the brothers Paclet,but it is not much.'

'I want some money,'repeated Jehan stolidly.

'You know that the Ecclesiastical Court decided that our twenty-one houses were held in full fee of the bishopric,and that we could only redeem this tribute by paying to his Reverence the Bishop two marks silver gilt of the value of six livres parisis.Now,I have not yet been able to collect these two marks,and you know it.'

'I know that I want money,'repeated Jehan for the third time.

'And what do you want it for?'

This question brought a ray of hope to Jehan's eyes.He assumed his coaxing,demure air once more.

'Look you,dear brother Claude,I do not come to you with any bad intent.I do not purpose to squander your money in a tavern,or ruffle it through the streets of Paris in gold brocade and with my lackey behind me—cum meo laquasio.No,brother,'tis for a good work.'

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