Victor Hugo: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

BOOK ELEVENTH. CHAPTER 1. THE LITTLE SHOE. (continued)

What was to be seen of Paris on all sides wavered before the eye in a gloom mingled with light. Rembrandt has such backgrounds to his pictures.

The man with the lantern walked straight to the point of the Terrain. There, at the very brink of the water, stood the wormeaten remains of a fence of posts latticed with laths, whereon a low vine spread out a few thin branches like the fingers of an outspread hand. Behind, in the shadow cast by this trellis, a little boat lay concealed. The man made a sign to Gringoire and his companion to enter. The goat followed them. The man was the last to step in. Then he cut the boat's moorings, pushed it from the shore with a long boat- hook, and, seizing two oars, seated himself in the bow, rowing with all his might towards midstream. The Seine is very rapid at this point, and he had a good deal of trouble in leaving the point of the island.

Gringoire's first care on entering the boat was to place the goat on his knees. He took a position in the stern; and the young girl, whom the stranger inspired with an indefinable uneasiness, seated herself close to the poet.

When our philosopher felt the boat sway, he clapped his hands and kissed Djali between the horns.

"Oh!" said he, "now we are safe, all four of us."

He added with the air of a profound thinker, "One is indebted sometimes to fortune, sometimes to ruse, for the happy issue of great enterprises."

The boat made its way slowly towards the right shore. The young girl watched the unknown man with secret terror. He had carefully turned off the light of his dark lantern. A glimpse could be caught of him in the obscurity, in the bow of the boat, like a spectre. His cowl, which was still lowered, formed a sort of mask; and every time that he spread his arms, upon which hung large black sleeves, as he rowed, one would have said they were two huge bat's wings. Moreover, he had not yet uttered a word or breathed a syllable. No other noise was heard in the boat than the splashing of the oars, mingled with the rippling of the water along her sides.