Victor Hugo: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

BOOK SEVENTH. CHAPTER 8. THE UTILITY OF WINDOWS WHICH OPEN ON THE RIVER. (continued)

But Dom Claude saw everything. The door was made of thoroughly rotten cask staves, which left large apertures for the passage of his hawklike gaze. This brown-skinned, broad- shouldered priest, hitherto condemned to the austere virginity of the cloister, was quivering and boiling in the presence of this night scene of love and voluptuousness. This young and beautiful girl given over in disarray to the ardent young man, made melted lead flow in his-veins; his eyes darted with sensual jealousy beneath all those loosened pins. Any one who could, at that moment, have seen the face of the unhappy man glued to the wormeaten bars, would have thought that he beheld the face of a tiger glaring from the depths of a cage at some jackal devouring a gazelle. His eye shone like a candle through the cracks of the door.

All at once, Phoebus, with a rapid gesture, removed the gypsy's gorgerette. The poor child, who had remained pale and dreamy, awoke with a start; she recoiled hastily from the enterprising officer, and, casting a glance at her bare neck and shoulders, red, confused, mute with shame, she crossed her two beautiful arms on her breast to conceal it. Had it not been for the flame which burned in her cheeks, at the sight of her so silent and motionless, one would have. declared her a statue of Modesty. Her eyes were lowered.

But the captain's gesture had revealed the mysterious amulet which she wore about her neck.

"What is that?" he said, seizing this pretext to approach once more the beautiful creature whom he had just alarmed.

"Don't touch it!" she replied, quickly, "'tis my guardian. It will make me find my family again, if I remain worthy to do so. Oh, leave me, monsieur le capitaine! My mother! My poor mother! My mother! Where art thou? Come to my rescue! Have pity, Monsieur Phoebus, give me back my gorgerette!"

Phoebus retreated amid said in a cold tone,--

"Oh, mademoiselle! I see plainly that you do not love me!"