Victor Hugo: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

BOOK SEVENTH. CHAPTER 7. THE MYSTERIOUS MONK. (continued)

"Jehau! my friend Jehan! You know that I made an appointment with that little girl at the end of the Pont Saint- Michel, and I can only take her to the Falourdel's, the old crone of the bridge, and that I must pay for a chamber. The old witch with a white moustache would not trust me. Jehan! for pity's sake! Have we drunk up the whole of the curé's purse? Have you not a single parisis left?"

"The consciousness of having spent the other hours well is a just and savory condiment for the table."

"Belly and guts! a truce to your whimsical nonsense! Tell me, Jehan of the devil! have you any money left? Give it to me, bédieu!" or I will search you, were you as leprous as Job, and as scabby as Caesar!"

"Monsieur, the Rue Galiache is a street which hath at one end the Rue de la Verrerie, and at the other the Rue de la Tixeranderie."

"Well, yes! my good friend Jehan, my poor comrade, the Rue Galiache is good, very good. But in the name of heaven collect your wits. I must have a sou parisis, and the appointment is for seven o'clock."

"Silence for the rondo, and attention to the refrain,--

          "Quand les rats mangeront les cas,
          Le roi sera seigneur d'Arras;
          Quand la mer, qui est grande et le(e
          Sera a la Saint-Jean gele(e,
          On verra, par-dessus la glace,
          Sortir ceux d'Arras de leur place*."

* When the rats eat the cats, the king will be lord of Arras; when the sea which is great and wide, is frozen over at St. John's tide, men will see across the ice, those who dwell in Arras quit their place.