Victor Hugo: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

BOOK FIFTH. CHAPTER 1. ABBAS BEATI MARTINI. (continued)

The fiery archdeacon did not allow him to finish: "And I have studied medicine, astrology, and hermetics. Here alone is the truth." (As he spoke thus, he took from the top of the coffer a phial filled with the powder which we have mentioned above), "here alone is light! Hippocrates is a dream; Urania is a dream; Hermes, a thought. Gold is the sun; to make gold is to be God. Herein lies the one and only science. I have sounded the depths of medicine and astrology, I tell you! Naught, nothingness! The human body, shadows! the planets, shadows!"

And he fell back in his armchair in a commanding and inspired attitude. Gossip Touraugeau watched him in silence. Coictier tried to grin, shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly, and repeated in a low voice,--

"A madman!"

"And," said Tourangeau suddenly, "the wondrous result,-- have you attained it, have you made gold?"

"If I had made it," replied the archdeacon, articulating his words slowly, like a man who is reflecting, "the king of France would be named Claude and not Louis."

The stranger frowned.

"What am I saying?" resumed Dom Claude, with a smile of disdain. "What would the throne of France be to me when I could rebuild the empire of the Orient?"

"Very good!" said the stranger.

"Oh, the poor fool!" murmured Coictier.

The archdeacon went on, appearing to reply now only to his thoughts,--

"But no, I am still crawling; I am scratching my face and knees against the pebbles of the subterranean pathway. I catch a glimpse, I do not contemplate! I do not read, I spell out!"

"And when you know how to read!" demanded the stranger, "will you make gold?"

"Who doubts it?" said the archdeacon.