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第139章 BOOK Ⅸ(6)

She hastened to clothe herself in the white robe and the white veil supplied to her.It was the habit of a novice of the Htel-Dieu.

She had scarcely finished when she saw Quasimodo returning,carrying a basket under one arm and a mattress under the other.The basket contained a bottle and bread and a few other provisions.He set the basket on the ground and said,'Eat.'He spread the mattress on the stone floor—'Sleep,'he said.

It was his own food,his own bed,that the poor bell-ringer had been to fetch.

The gipsy raised her eyes to him to thank him,but she could not bring herself to utter a word.The poor devil was in truth too frightful.She dropped her head with a shudder.

'I frighten you,'said he.'I am very ugly I know.Do not look upon me.Listen to what I have to say.In the daytime you must remain here,but at night you may go where you will about the church.But go not one step outside the church by day or night.You would be lost.They would kill you,and I should die.'

Touched by his words,she raised her head to answer him.He had disappeared.She found herself alone,musing upon the strange words of this almost monster and struck by the tone of his voice—so harsh,and yet so gentle.

She presently examined her cell.It was a chamber some six feet square,with a small window and a door following the slight incline of the roofing of flat stones outside.Several gargoyles with animal heads seemed bending down and stretching their necks to look in at her window.Beyond the roof she caught a glimpse of a thousand chimney–tops from which rose the smoke of the many hearths of Paris—a sad sight to the poor gipsy—a foundling,under sentence of death,an unhappy outcast without country,or kindred,or home!

At the moment when the thought of her friendless plight assailed her more poignantly than ever before,she was startled—everything frightened her now—by a shaggy,bearded head rubbing against her knees.It was the poor little goat,the nimble Djali,which had made its escape and followed her at the moment when Quasimodo scattered Charmolue's men,and had been lavishing its caresses in vain at her feet for nearly an hour without obtaining a single glance from her.Its mistress covered it with kisses.

'Oh,Djali!'she exclaimed,'how could I have forgotten thee thus?And dost thou still love me?Oh,thou—thou art not ungrateful!'

And then,as if some invisible hand had lifted the weight which had lain so long upon her heart and kept back her tears,she began to weep,and as the tears flowed all that was harshest and most bitter in her grief and pain was washed away.

When night fell she found the air so sweet,the moonlight so soothing,that she ventured to make the round of the high gallery that surrounds the church;and it brought her some relief,so calm and distant did earth seem to her from that height.

Chapter 3-Deaf

On waking the next morning,she discovered to her surprise that she had slept—poor girl,she had so long been a stranger to sleep.A cheerful ray from the rising sun streamed through her window and fell upon her face.But with the sun something else looked in at her window that frightened her—the unfortunate countenance of Quasimodo.Involuntarily she closed her eyes to shut out the sight,but in vain;she still seemed to see through her rosy eye–lids that goblin face—one–eyed,broken–toothed,mask–like.Then,while she continued to keep her eyes shut,she heard a grating voice say in gentlest accents:

'Be not afraid.I am a friend.I did but come to watch you sleeping.That cannot hurt you,can it,that I should come and look at you asleep?What can it matter to you if I am here so long as your eyes are shut?Now I will go.There,I am behind the wall—you may open your eyes again.'

There was something more plaintive still than his words,and that was the tone in which they were spoken.Much touched,the gipsy opened her eyes.It was true,he was no longer at the window.She ran to it and saw the poor hunchback crouching against a corner of the wall in an attitude of sorrow and resignation.Overcoming with an effort the repulsion he inspired in her,'Come back,'she said softly.From the movement of her lips,Quasimodo understood that she was driving him away;he therefore rose and hobbled off slowly,with hanging head,not venturing to lift even his despairing glance to the girl.

'Come hither!'she called,but he kept on his way.At this she hastened out of the cell,ran after him,and put her hand on his arm.At her touch Quasimodo thrilled from head to foot.He lifted a suppliant eye,and perceiving that she was drawing him towards her,his whole face lit up with tenderness and delight.She would have had him enter her cell,but he remained firmly on the threshold.'No,no,'said he;'the owl goes not into the nest of the lark.'

She proceeded,therefore,to nestle down prettily on her couch,with the goat asleep at her feet,and both remained thus for some time motionless,gazing in silence—he at so much beauty,she at so much ugliness.Each moment revealed to her some fresh deformity.Her eyes wandered from the bowed knees to the humped back,from the humped back to the cyclops eye.She could not imagine how so misshapen a being could carry on existence.And yet there was diffused over the whole such an air of melancholy and gentleness that she began to be reconciled to it.

He was the first to break the silence.

'You were telling me to come back?'

She nodded in affirmation and said,'Yes.'

He understood the motion of her head.'Alas!'he said,and hesitated as if reluctant to finish the sentence;'you see,I am deaf.'

'Poor soul!'exclaimed the gipsy with a look of kindly pity.

He smiled sorrowfully.'Ah!you think I was bad enough without that?Yes,I am deaf.That is the way I am made!'Tis horrible,in truth.And you—you are so beautiful.'

In the poor creature's tone there was so profound a consciousness of his pitiable state,that she had not the resolution to utter a word of comfort.Besides,he would not have heard it.He continued:

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