Chapter 15 Notre Dame de Paris (1) Vol. 2 Dangerous and Dangerous (7)

seven wedding nights A little later our poet was sitting in a tight, warm, pointed-vaulted little room at a table that looked as if he would have liked to borrow something from a hanging pantry nearby. , and a conceivably comfortable bed, and alone with a pretty maiden.Such adventures were like magic.He couldn't help but take himself seriously as a mythical figure.From time to time he looked around, as if looking for the flaming chariot pulled by the two flame-breathing beasts, because only this flaming chariot could have taken him from the Tartars to heaven with such speed.Sometimes he stared at the holes in his blouse too, in order to cling to reality so that his feet would not be completely unsteady.His rationality, drifting in this imaginary space, is now only held together by this thread.

The girl didn't seem to care much about him, and walked up and down, sometimes tripping over a little stool, sometimes talking to her kid, sometimes pouting here and there.At last she came and sat down at the table, and Gringoire was now free to look at her. Judge, you were a child in the past, and perhaps you are happy to still be.You may have more than once (I myself have spent all day and all day like that, and it was the best time of my life), on a sunny day, by the rapids of the water, from bush to bush, Chase the beautiful green or blue dragonfly as it dances, whirls and kisses every twig.Do you remember with what love and curiosity you gazed upon its rustling, softly whirling vermilion and azure wings; It is because of the extremely fast flight that the whole body looks like it is covered with tulle.The ethereal creature, vaguely sketched through the quivering of its wings, seems to you an illusion, pure imagination, intangible, intangible, and invisible.However, once the dragonfly perches on the tip of the reed, you can hold your breath to see the tulle wings, the stained robe, and the two crystal eyeballs, how can you not be amazed!How can we not worry that this form will turn into a shadow again, and this creature will turn into a hallucination again!Please recall these impressions, and it is not difficult to understand how Gringoire felt when he stared at Esmeralda at this time.Heretofore he had only glimpsed this Esmeralda through the vortex of song and dance and tumult, and now, before his eyes, her visible and tangible form fascinated him.

He was more and more immersed in reverie and meditation, watching her with blurred eyes, and muttering to himself: "So this is the so-called Esmeraldaro? A fairy who descended from the world! A street dancer! Both noble and beautiful." And lowly! She was the one who finally ruined my miracle drama this morning! It was she who saved my life tonight! She is my death star! And my good angel!--I dare say, a handsome one Girl! And you must love me so much that you want me like that.” Thinking of this, with the kind of true feelings that have always been the cornerstone of his character and philosophy, he suddenly stood up and said, “Oh, yes Yes! I don't know what it is, but I'm her man!"

This kind of thought flashed in his mind and eyes, so he approached the girl, his appearance was so majestic and lustful, it scared her back and shouted: "What do you want to do?" "Do you need to ask me, lovely Esmeralda?" replied Gringoire with such enthusiasm that even he himself was surprised. The Egyptian girl stared at a pair of big eyes: "I don't understand what you want to say?" "Why!" continued Gringoire, feeling more and more feverish, thinking that what he had to deal with was, after all, a chaste woman in the court of miracles. "Am I not yours, sweet one? Aren't you mine?"

Now that he said it out, he simply hugged her by the waist. The gypsy girl's corset slipped from his grasp like eel skin.She jumped across the room, lowered herself, and then rose again, holding a dagger in her hand, from which Gringoire had not had time to discover where it had come from.She was angry and proud, her lips were pouty, her nostrils were puffed out, her cheeks were as red as red apples, and her eyes were shining like lightning.At the same time, the white goat ran over and stood in front of her, leaning against its two beautiful golden horns, posing for a showdown.All this in the blink of an eye.

The dragonfly has turned into a wasp, eager to sting people. Our philosopher was stunned, his eyes glazed over, now at the goat, now at the girl. "Holy Mother! Look at these two savage wives!" he said at last when he was able to speak from the shock. The gypsy girl also broke the silence. "I didn't expect you to be such a presumptuous person!" "I'm sorry, madam!" said Gringoire with a smile on his face. "But, in that case, why do you want me to be your husband?" "Is it necessary to watch you be hanged?" "So, you married me just to save my life, and you didn't have any other ideas?" The poet was originally full of love, but now he was a little disappointed.

"What else do you want me to think?" Gringoire bit his lip, and said again: "Well, I have not been as successful in playing Cupid as I thought. But why break that poor crock?" However, the dagger in Esmeralda's hand and the horns of the kid are always ready. "Miss Esmeralda, let us compromise!" said the poet. "I'm not Xiaobao's clerk. I won't pick on you and sue you for flouting the orders and prohibitions of the Lord Governor, and holding a dagger in Paris like this. You don't know that a week ago, Nuo El Lecrevan was fined ten Paris soles for carrying a dagger. Then again, that has nothing to do with me, so I'll get back to business. I'm pawning my ascension to heaven. , I swear to you that I will never come near you without your permission and permission. But give me supper quickly."

In fact, Gringoire, like M. de Preaud, was "very lewd."He was not the kind of knight and musketeer who attacked girls.In love, as in everything else, I am as willing to insist on spontaneity and compromise.To him, a good meal and a lovely company, especially when he was hungry, seemed like a marvelous intermission between the prologue and the end of a love affair. ① Qiu Bide: Little Cupid.The image is a naked little boy holding a bow and arrow.Legend has it that those who are shot by his arrows will fall in love with the object he designates. ② Depreo, the famous French writer Nicolas Povallo (1636-1711).In 1694, he published "The Criticism of Women". Hugo may not agree with his point of view, so he said this.

The Egyptian girl didn't answer.She pouted with a contemptuous expression on her face, raised her head like a bird, and laughed loudly, and then the small and exquisite dagger disappeared as suddenly as it appeared. , Gringoire failed to see where the bee hid its sting. After a while there lay on the table a loaf of brown bread, a thin slice of lard, some wrinkled apples, and a pitcher of straw ale.Gringoire began to eat voraciously, and the iron fork and china plate rattled, as if all his love had turned into appetite. The girl sat in front of him, watching him eat silently, obviously she was thinking of something else, with a smile on her face from time to time, gently stroking the smart head of the goat nestled lazily between her knees with her gentle little hands.

A yellow candle lit this scene of gobbling and brooding. At this moment, Gringoire felt a little ashamed to see that there was only one apple left on the table after his first groaning stomach. "Won't you eat, Mademoiselle Esmeralda?" She shook her head, staring thoughtfully at the cupola of the small room. "What the hell is she thinking?" thought Gringoire, following her gaze: "It's not the dwarf carved in stone on the vault who is making faces so much. Damn it! Can I match it!" He raised his voice and called out, "Miss!" She didn't seem to hear.

He shouted even louder: "Miss Esmeralda!" In vain.The girl's mind was elsewhere, and Gringoire's voice was not powerful enough to call her back.Fortunately the goat intervened, tugging gently on the sleeve of the hostess.The Egyptian girl hurriedly asked, "What's the matter, Belle?" "It's hungry," replied Gringoire, glad to be able to talk to her. The beauty Esmeralda broke the bread with her hands, and Belle ate it in the palm of her hand, very coquettishly. However, Gringoire did not let her have time to dream again, so he boldly asked her a delicate question: "You really don't want me to be your husband?" The girl glared at him and replied, "No." "What about being your lover?" Gringoire continued. She pouted and replied, "No." "To be your friend?" asked Gringoire again.She glared at him again, thought for a while, and replied, "Maybe." Perhaps this word has always been precious to philosophers. When Gringoire heard it, he became more courageous. "Do you know what friendship is?" he asked. "I know." The Egyptian girl replied. "Friendship is like two brothers and sisters. The souls of the two touch each other without mixing, and it is like two fingers of one hand." "What about love?" asked Gringoire again. "Oh! love," she said, her voice trembling, her eyes bright. "That's two people and only one. A man and a woman fused into one angel. That's heaven!" When the street dancer said this, she was so charming and beautiful, which deeply shocked Gringoire's heart, and he felt that this beauty matched the almost oriental flavor of her words very well.Two chaste rose-coloured lips parted in a smile; an innocent and clear brow, sometimes clouded by thought, as if breathed in a mirror; long black eyelashes drooping down, From time to time there was an indescribable brilliance which gave her countenance a perfumed beauty, that perfection which Raphael later found in the mysterious intersection of chastity, motherhood, and nature. Gringoire did not stop there. "Then what kind of man must be to please you?" "Must be a real man." "What about me, how am I?" "My idea of ​​a man is to wear an iron helmet, carry a sword, and have golden spurs on the heels of his boots." "Well, according to you, you can't be a man without a horse," said Gringoire. "Could it be that you love someone?" "Are you in love?" "in love." She pondered for a while, and then said with a strange expression: "I will know soon." "Why can't it be tonight?" The poet asked affectionately again. "Why can't it be me?" She gave him a serious look. "I can only love a man who can protect me." Gringoire blushed instantly, but he had no choice but to admit it.Obviously, what the girl was alluding to was that at that critical moment two hours ago, he didn't do much to rescue her.This night, there were too many other kinds of adventures, so he forgot the above incident, and then he remembered it again, then patted his forehead and said: "Well, madam, I should have started with that, but I babbled a lot of nonsense. How on earth did you escape Quasimodo's clutches?" When the gypsy girl heard this, she couldn't help shivering. "Oh! that dreadful hump!" she said, covering her face with her hands; and shivering all over, as if shivering with cold. "It's really scary!" Gringoire was unrelenting, and wanted to break the casserole and ask the end: "But how on earth did you get away?" Esmeralda smiled, sighed, and remained silent. "Do you know why he followed you?" Gringoire tried to return to his original question by a devious way. "I don't know." The girl replied, and then said: "But you also followed me, why did you follow?" "To tell you the truth, I don't know either." There was a silence.Gringoire scratched the table with his knife.The girl smiled, as if looking at something through the wall.Suddenly, she sang in an inarticulate voice: as a feathered bird Weary, and the earth... ② She stopped abruptly and stroked Belle up. ① She suddenly changed to "you" to address him, expressing emotional estrangement here. ② The original text is in Spanish. "You have a handsome goat," said Gringoire. "This is my sister," she replied. "Why do people call you Esmeralda?" asked the poet. "I don't know at all." "really?" From her breast she drew a small rectangular sachet, which was hung around her neck by a necklace of rosary-tree fruit.The little sachet exudes a strong camphor smell.It was wrapped in green silk, and in the center was a large green glass bead imitating an emerald. "Perhaps it's because of that," she said. Gringoire stretched out her hand to take the little sachet, and she stepped back hastily, saying: "Don't touch it! It's an amulet. If you touch it, its power will be broken, or else its power will enchant you." The poet became more and more curious. "Who gave it to you?" She pressed a finger to her lips, then tucked the amulet back into her breast. Tried to ask other questions, but she hardly answered. "What does Esmeralda mean?" "I don't know," she replied. "What language is it?" ① Esmeralda (Esmeralda) is based on the inflection of the French word emeraude (emerald, emerald).There is a definite article in front of it, which means unique. If it is translated freely, it means "emerald girl" and "emerald girl".Because Gringoire repeatedly inquired about the meaning of the name, if it was paraphrased, it would lose its sense of mystery, and Gringoire would no longer doubt that it was an Egyptian spell. "Egyptian, I suppose." "I had expected it," said Gringoire. "You are not French?" "I don't know anything." "Do you have parents?" She hummed an old song: my father is a male bird My mother is a female bird, I don't need a boat to cross the river, I don't need a big boat to cross the river, My mother is a female bird, My father is a male bird. "It's very nice," said Gringoire. "How old were you when you came to France?" "A tiny bit big," "And to Paris?" "Last year. As we entered the city by the Pope's Gate, I saw the oriole fly up through the reeds; it was the end of August; and I said: 'It's going to be very cold this winter.'" "It was really cold last winter," said Gringoire, glad to be talking again. "I breathe on my fingers all winter. So you're born to see things?" She was indifferent again. "No." "That man you call the Duke of Egypt, is he the chief of your tribe?" "yes." "That's what he married us for." The poet was very embarrassed and deliberately pointed out this point. She pouted out of habit again, and said, "I don't even know your name yet!" "My name? If you want to know it, here it is: Pierre Gringoire." "I know it's more beautiful to have a name," she said. "You are wicked!" went on the poet. "But it doesn't matter, I won't be angry with you. Hey, you know me better in the future, maybe you will fall in love with me. Also, you trust me so much and tell me your life experience, I will I must tell you a little about me. I am Pierre Gringoire, son of a tenant farmer at the Notary de Gonesse, if you understand. My father was killed by the Burgundians during the siege of Paris twenty years ago. Hanged, my mother was disembowelled by the Picards. I was orphaned at the age of six, and I only had the gravel roads of Paris as my shoes all year round. How did I survive from the age of six to sixteen? Yes, I don't know myself. Wandering about, here a fruit seller gives me an apricot, there a pastry seller throws me a piece of dry bread to eat; at night I try to get the patrol to catch me in a prison , in the prison you can find a bundle of straw to sleep on. Nevertheless, I am grown up and bony, as you see here. I hide in the sun under the porch of the Sens mansion in winter; I thought it absurd that St. John's Church had to wait until the dog days to light the fire! When I was sixteen, I made up my mind to find a job. I tried three hundred and sixty lines, one after another. First I was a soldier. But I was not brave; then I was a monk, but I was not pious enough; besides, I was not good at drinking. I had no way out, so I went to the big carpentry workshop and became an apprentice to a master carpenter, but I was weak and weak. To be a primary school teacher, of course, I was illiterate at the time, that's true, but that's not a reason to bother me. After a while, I finally found that I lacked something in everything I did; seeing that I had nothing I am willing to be a poet and write rhymes. This kind of occupation, as long as you are a vagabond, anyone can do it anytime and anywhere. It is better than stealing things. To tell you the truth, some of my friends are The robber boy really advised me to block the road and rob. One day, I was so lucky that I met Don Claude Frollo, the respected abbot of Notre Dame. Thanks to his care and careful cultivation, I have become a real person today. literati, who know Latin, from the speeches of Cicero to the lamentations of the priests of the Celestine Church, unless they are barbaric writings such as scholasticism, poetics, rhythm, or sophistry such as alchemy. Sophistry, I know everything. Today in the hall of the Palace of Justice, the Miracle Play was performed. The audience was huge and the audience was unprecedented. I am the author of this play. I also wrote a book, which has six hundred pages in print. About that great comet that came out in 1465 that drove a man mad. I had some other accomplishments. As I was more or less a gunsmith, I took part in the making of John Mog's cannon, You know, on the day of the trial, there was an explosion on the Pont de Charenton, killing twenty-four spectators at once. You see, I'm not bad for a marriage partner. I can do a lot of interesting tricks , you can teach your goat, for example, to imitate the Bishop of Paris, that damned hypocrite whose water mills splash anyone who passes the Mill Bridge. Besides, my miracle play can Make me a lot of cash, they willpaid me.Finally, I, myself, my mind, my knowledge, my literary talents, are all at your command, and I am ready to live with you, faithfully or rejoicing I am happy to live with you, miss, as you please, if you think it is good, we will be husband and wife; if you think it is more appropriate to be brothers and sisters, then we will be brothers and sisters. " ① Cicero (106 BC-43 BC), Latin statesman and famous orator.The Celestine Church was founded in 1254 by Celestine V (approximately 1215-1296) and believed in the Benedictine canon. Gringoire stopped here to see how this high-spirited talk would affect the girl.I saw her eyes fixed on the ground. "Phoebus," she whispered.Then turning to the poet, he asked: "What does this mean, Phoebus?" Gringoire did not understand the connection between his rhetoric and this question, but he would not be displeased to show off his erudition, so he replied with dignity: "It is a Latin word that means sun." "Sun!" she went on. "This is the name of a very handsome archer and a god." Gringoire added. "God!" The Egyptian girl repeated, with a tone of longing and enthusiasm. Just at this moment, one of her bracelets fell off, and Gringoire hurriedly bent over to pick it up.When he straightened up, the girl and the goat had long since disappeared.He heard the sound of the latch. It was the small door that probably led to the next room being locked from the outside. "She must leave at least a bed?" said our philosopher. He walked around the room. There was no sleeping furniture, only a rather long wooden box with a carved lid.Gringoire lay down, and the feeling was similar to that of Mikromegas lying stretched out on the top of the Alps. ① Micromegas (also known as Little Giant) is the protagonist of Voltaire's philosophical novel of the same name.In the novel, this little giant roams the space and finally comes to the earth, and finds that human beings are both arrogant and extremely small.The little giant lying on the Alps is just a metaphor, not a plot in the novel. "Forget it!" he said, trying to be as easy as possible. "Bear it if you can. But it was a queer wedding night. What a pity! There's something austere about being married, and I'm glad I did."