登陆注册
3553900000025

第25章 BOOK Ⅱ(4)

'Djali,'resumed the girl,emboldened by her increasing success,'show us M re Jacques Charmolue,the King's Procurator in the Ecclesiastical Court,when he preaches.'

The goat sat up on its hind quarters and proceeded to bleat and wave its fore-feet in so comical a fashion that—excepting the bad French and worse Latin—it was Jacques Charmolue,gesture,accent,attitude,to the life.

The crowd applauded ecstatically.

'Sacrilege!profanation!'exclaimed the voice of the bald man once more.

The gipsy girl turned round again.'Ah,'said she,'it is that hateful man!'then,with a disdainful pout of her under lip,which seemed a familiar little grimace with her,she turned lightly on her heels and began collecting the contributions of the bystanders in her tambourine.

Grands blancs,petits blancs,targes,liards á l'aigle,every deion of small coin,were now showered upon her.Suddenly,just as she was passing Gringoire,he,in sheer absence of mind,thrust his hand into his pocket,so that the girl stopped in front of him.

'Diable!'exclaimed the poet,finding at the bottom of his pocket reality—in other words,nothing.And yet,here was this pretty girl,her great eyes fixed on him,holding out her tambourine expectantly.Gringoire broke out in a cold perspiration.If he had had all Peru in his pocket,he would most certainly have handed it to the dancing girl,but Gringoire did not possess Peru—and in any case America had not yet been discovered.

Fortunately an unexpected occurrence came to his relief.

'Get thee gone from here,locust of Egypt!'cried a harsh voice from the darkest corner of the Place.

The girl turned in alarm.This was not the voice of the bald man;it was the voice of a woman,one full of fanaticism and malice.However,the exclamation which startled the gipsy girl highly delighted a noisy band of children prowling about the Place.

''Tis the recluse of the Tour-Roland!'they cried with discordant shouts of laughter;''tis the sachette 2 scolding again.Has she not had any supper?Let's take her something from the public buffet!'and they rushed in a mass towards the Maison-aux-Piliers.

Meanwhile Gringoire had taken advantage of the dancing girl's perturbation to eclipse himself,and the children's mocking shouts reminded him that he too had had no supper.He hastened to the buffet,but the little rascals had been too quick for him,and by the time he arrived they had swept the board.There was not even a miserable piece of honey-bread at five sous the pound.Nothing was left against the wall but the slender fleur de lis and roses painted there in 1434 by Mathieu Biterne—in sooth,a poor kind of supper.

It is not exactly gay to have to go to bed supperless,but it is still less entertaining neither to have supped nor to know where you are going to get a bed.Yet this was Gringoire's plight—without a prospect of food or lodging.He found himself pressed on all sides by necessity,and he considered necessity extremely hard on him.He had long ago discovered this truth—that Jupiter created man during a fit of misanthropy,and throughout life the destiny of the wise man holds his philosophy in a state of siege.For his own part,Gringoire had never seen the blockade so complete.He heard his stomach sound a parley,and he thought it too bad that his evil fate should be enabled to take his philosophy by famine.

He was sinking deeper and deeper into this melancholy mood,when his attention was suddenly aroused by the sound of singing,most sweet but full of strange and fantastic modulations.It was the gipsy girl.

Her voice,like her dancing and her beauty,had some indefinable and charming quality—something pure and sonorous;something,so to speak,soaring,winged.Her singing was a ceaseless flow of melody,of unexpected cadences,of simple phrases dotted over with shrill and staccato notes,of liquid runs that would have taxed a nightingale,but in which the harmony was never lost,of soft octave undulations that rose and fell like the bosom of the fair singer.And all the while her beautiful face expressed with singular mobility all the varying emotions of her song,from the wildest inspiration to the most virginal dignity—one moment a maniac,the next a queen.

The words she sang were in a tongue unknown to Gringoire and apparently to herself,so little did the expression she put into her song fit the sense of the words.Thus,on her lips these four lines were full of sparkling gaiety:

'Un cofre de gran riqueza Halloran dentro un pilar;Dentro del,nuevas banderas Con figuras de espantar.'

And the next moment Gringoire's eyes filled with tears at the expression she put into this verse:

'Alarabes de cavallo Sin poderse menear,Con espadas,y a los cuellos Ballestas de buen echar.'

However,the prevailing note in her singing was joyousness,and,like the birds,she seemed to sing from pure serenity and lightness of heart.

The gipsy's song disturbed Gringoire's reverie,but only as a swan ruffles the water.He listened in a sort of trance,unconscious of all around him.It was the first moment for many hours that he forgot his woes.

The respite was short.The female voice which had interrupted the gipsy's dance now broke in upon her song:

'Silence,grasshopper of hell!'she cried out of the same dark corner of the Place.

The poor'cigale'stopped short.Gringoire clapped his hands to his ears.

'Oh!'he cried,'accursed,broken-toothed saw that comes to break the lyre!'

The rest of the audience agreed with him.'The foul fiend take the old sachette!'growled more than one of them,and the invisible spoil-sport might have had reason to repent of her attacks on the gipsy,if the attention of the crowd had not been distracted by the procession of the Pope of Fools,now pouring into the Place de Gréve,after making the tour of the streets with its blaze of torches and its deafening hubbub.

同类推荐
  • 佛说大乘方等要慧经

    佛说大乘方等要慧经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • RAMONA

    RAMONA

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • LORD JIM

    LORD JIM

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 十一面神咒心经

    十一面神咒心经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 大丹直指

    大丹直指

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 快穿之男神又精分了

    快穿之男神又精分了

    落音躺在桃花树上,垂下的指尖轻轻划着自己身边的云彩。云雾瞬间就在她指尖绕开。等清风吹来……
  • 边城

    边城

    《边城》是沈从文的代表作,是一部中篇小说,凭此书一举奠定了其在文学史上的重要地位。书中寄托着作者关于“美”与“爱”的美学理想,是较能表现人性美的一部作品。小说以20世纪30年代川湘交界的边城小镇茶峒为背景,以兼具抒情诗和小品文的优美笔触,描绘了湘西边城淳朴的世道民风和天然的生活状态。全书共二十一个章节,每个章节都似一幅或浓或淡的水墨画,以古朴清新的语言,表现出一种“优美、健康、自然而又不悖乎人性的人生形式”。
  • 曾经,我们是恋人

    曾经,我们是恋人

    作者的评价:四分搞笑三分纠葛两分痛苦一分罪建议大家先看下35章后的那些章节摘要,再决定是否应该继续看下去,这是我的初次,很多朋友对此都很是不屑,我也知道自己的文学功底压根就没有。但是决定写,就是一种追求,不图别的。就像爱上那么一个人,就会决定永远去爱。他一心只想在这所学校浑浑噩噩地混到大学,却总是会无意间邂逅上因自己而纠葛的女孩。他只想安安心心地做着小公务员和超市店长的儿子,无奈亲生父亲总是百般相求。一夜间,他平淡的生活不再平静,他成了几个女人暧昧的对象,他成了商业巨子司徒青的儿子。女人的纠缠、朋友的背叛、仇家的追杀,下面呢?当然不可能没了。额错了,额真的错了,前35章真的不该发的,那是我的历史性左倾路线错误。如果她能看到,我会对她三个字说:请永远陪着二五。貌似不止三个字了。。。。。
  • 梦里

    梦里

    梦里的他,她,它还是他们原来都只是我的假想?我会不会有那么一天迷失在这不真实的世界里再也回不去了。那么我也该明白:我,是不应该对着一切有所动情的。我,只是一个旁观者才对。
  • 送你一束洋桔梗

    送你一束洋桔梗

    纯纯获得了一种超能力,能够穿越书本,变成向往的角色。这次,她选择做女主
  • 重生之斗白莲

    重生之斗白莲

    她被心爱的人抛弃害死,全因她那个白莲花般的姐姐。重生一次,她怎能放过这对忘恩负义,不顾廉耻的男女?“霏儿,如若你肯嫁我,必用江山许你。”渣男信誓旦旦的保证道。她不过斜眼一瞧,如若没有她,这渣男有智慧走到那一步吗?“妹妹,我将来是进宫为妃的,怎么会与你抢心上人?”白莲花似的姐姐握住她的手。自信的姐姐啊,如果她的心上人当了皇上呢?前世之债,不必她化为厉鬼,也可叫他们血债血偿。--情节虚构,请勿模仿
  • 末世最强生存手册

    末世最强生存手册

    在茫茫宇宙中,人类在半人马星系找到了代号“陨落”的外星生物。但他们对人类似乎不太友好,全面对地球展开了进攻,地球陷入末世,而主角便是这末世中的一个普通人。
  • 夜空下终有你

    夜空下终有你

    笨拙的活着的我,因为你,我知道了我活着的意义
  • 太古战帝诀

    太古战帝诀

    【火爆畅销】“世间若无不朽法,此生便做无敌人!”轮回战帝君陌尘,历经九世轮回,在即将触碰到圣境之时却意外重生。这一世,他逆天修行,收绝色美人,势要万古长存而不灭!书友群:631714592
  • Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals

    Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。