Victor Hugo: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

BOOK NINTH. CHAPTER 4. EARTHENWARE AND CRYSTAL. (continued)

She flew to meet him as far off as she could see him. "Alone!" she cried, clasping her beautiful hands sorrowfully.

"I could not find him," said Quasimodo coldly.

"You should have waited all night," she said angrily.

He saw her gesture of wrath, and understood the reproach.

"I will lie in wait for him better another time," he said, dropping his head.

"Begone!" she said to him.

He left her. She was displeased with him. He preferred to have her abuse him rather than to have afflicted her. He had kept all the pain to himself.

From that day forth, the gypsy no longer saw him. He ceased to come to her cell. At the most she occasionally caught a glimpse at the summit of the towers, of the bellringer's face turned sadly to her. But as soon as she perceived him, he disappeared.

We must admit that she was not much grieved by this voluntary absence on the part of the poor hunchback. At the bottom of her heart she was grateful to him for it. Moreover, Quasimodo did not deceive himself on this point.

She no longer saw him, but she felt the presence of a good genius about her. Her provisions were replenished by an invisible hand during her slumbers. One morning she found a cage of birds on her window. There was a piece of sculpture above her window which frightened her. She had shown this more than once in Quasimodo's presence. One morning, for all these things happened at night, she no longer saw it, it had been broken. The person who had climbed up to that carving must have risked his life.

Sometimes, in the evening, she heard a voice, concealed beneath the wind screen of the bell tower, singing a sad, strange song, as though to lull her to sleep. The lines were unrhymed, such as a deaf person can make.