Victor Hugo: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

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

We will not try to give an idea of her gestures, her tone, of the tears which she swallowed as she spoke, of the hands which she clasped and then wrung, of the heart-breaking smiles, of the swimming glances, of the groans, the sighs, the miserable and affecting cries which she mingled with her disordered, wild, and incoherent words. When she became silent Tristan l'Hermite frowned, but it was to conceal a tear which welled up in his tiger's eye. He conquered this weakness, however, and said in a curt tone,--

"The king wills it."

Then he bent down to the ear of Rennet Cousin, and said to him in a very low tone,--

"Make an end of it quickly!" Possibly, the redoubtable provost felt his heart also failing him.

The executioner and the sergeants entered the cell. The mother offered no resistance, only she dragged herself towards her daughter and threw herself bodily upon her. The gypsy beheld the soldiers approach. The horror of death reanimated her,--

"Mother!" she shrieked, in a tone of indescribable distress, "Mother! they are coming! defend me!"

"Yes, my love, I am defending you!" replied the mother, in a dying voice; and clasping her closely in her arms, she covered her with kisses. The two lying thus on the earth, the mother upon the daughter, presented a spectacle worthy of pity.

Rennet Cousin grasped the young girl by the middle of her body, beneath her beautiful shoulders. When she felt that hand, she cried, "Heuh!" and fainted. The executioner who was shedding large tears upon her, drop by drop, was about to bear her away in his arms. He tried to detach the mother, who had, so to speak, knotted her hands around her daughter's waist; but she clung so strongly to her child, that it was impossible to separate them. Then Rennet Cousin dragged the young girl outside the cell, and the mother after her. The mother's eyes were also closed.