Chapter 28 Notre Dame de Paris (2) Volume 4 Kind People (6)

It was also true that the Archdeacon was often spotted walking along the Rue Lombard, slipping into a house on the corner of the Rue des Authors and Rue Mariveau.The house was built by Nicolas Flamel, who died here about 1417, and has been empty since then, and has begun to decay, because alchemists and alchemists of all nations People came here one after another, just engraving their names on the walls as a souvenir is enough to wear down the walls of the house.The house has two cellars, with numerous verses and hieroglyphs written on the buttresses by Nicolas Flamel himself.Some people in the neighborhood even affirmed that they had once seen from the transom the archdeacon Claude digging in the two cellars.It is guessed that Flamel's Philosopher's Stone was buried in these two cellars, so for two centuries, from Magisterry to Father Peace, all the alchemists tossed the land inside one by one, wishing they could find their own way. The house was searched and turned upside down, until at last it gradually crumbled to dust under their trampling.

Something else is also certain: the archdeacon had a strange passion for the symbolic porch of Notre-Dame.This porch is a page of magic books written on stone by Bishop Guillaume of Paris.The rest of the building has been sung throughout the ages with sacred psalms, and he added a title page so vicious that he must have been tormented in hell.It is said that Vicar Claude also delved into the mysteries of the Colossus of St. Christopher. This enigmatic colossus was erected at the entrance of the church square at that time, and the people jokingly called it Lord Gray.However, all you can see is that Claude used to sit on the parapet of the square for hours without end, gazing at the many statues on the church porch, and watching the madmen with upside-down lamps. Virgins, suddenly staring at the holy virgins holding up the lamps; sometimes, silently calculating the angle of view of the crow on the left doorway, this crow is always looking at a mysterious point in the church, Nicolas Flamel's alchemy If the stone is not in the cellar, it must be hidden where the crows see it.By the way, Claude and Quasimodo, two completely different people, loved Notre Dame so sincerely on different levels. The fate of this church at that time is strange enough.Quasimodo, who is half-human and half-beast by instinct, loves Notre-Dame from its magnificence, magnificence and harmony as a whole; The symbols scattered on the facade beneath the various carvings are like the first written words in a parchment hidden under the second;

Lastly, it is also true that the archdeacon had a little secret room for himself in the bell-tower overlooking the Strand, next to the bell-cage, into which no one was allowed to enter, it was said, without his help. Permitted, not even bishops.Almost at the top of the belfry, this chamber, full of crows' nests, had been installed earlier by Bishop Hugo of Besançon, who sometimes used his spells in it.No one knows what is hidden in this secret room; but every night, from the river beach square, it can often be seen from a small window at the back of the clock tower, showing a red light, intermittently, flickering, The intervals were short and even, oddly, as if panting with one's breath, and the red light was more of a flame than a light.In the dark, at such a high place, it was very strange, so the gossiping women said, "Look, there's the archdeacon breathing, and there's the flames of hell shining. "

① Hugo II de Besancon (1326-1332). —— Hugo original note After all, all this is not enough to prove that there is witchcraft.But the smoke was so great that it was no wonder that a fire was suspected, and the archdeacon was notorious for it.We must say that the Egyptians of witchcraft, spiritualism, magic, and the like, even the most innocent of them, had no more formidable enemy than the archdeacon, when brought before the lords of the Inquisition of Notre-Dame, More ruthless whistleblowers.Whether he is genuinely terrified, or playing the game of thieves and thieves, in the eyes of the learned priests of Notre Dame, the archdeacon is always a daring man, whose soul has broken into the gates of hell and lost in the mysticism. In the magic cave, groping forward in the darkness of heresy.The people were not mistaken about this, and anyone with any insight believed that Quasimodo was a devil and Claude Frollo a wizard.It was obvious that the ringer had to serve the archdeacon for a certain period of time, and when the time was up, the archdeacon would take his soul as payment.Therefore, although the vicar lived an extremely hard life, he had a very bad reputation in the eyes of good people.No religious person, however inexperienced, could fail to detect that he was a wizard.It is true that, as he grew older, abysses appeared in his learning, and indeed abysses also appeared in the depths of his soul.One had only to look at his face, and see through the thick clouds the soul that gleamed in it, and one at least had reason to think so.His broad forehead was bald, his head was always drooping, and his chest was always heaving with sighs. What is the cause of all this?There is often a very bitter smile on the corner of his mouth, and at the same time, his brows are furrowed, like two bulls about to meet their horns. What ulterior thoughts are turning in his mind?The rest of his hair is gray, why?Sometimes his eyes shone with an inner fire, eyes like holes in the furnace wall, and what kind of fire was that?

① Semantic pun, not only refers to Claude's witchcraft and smoke and fire, but also "there is no fire without smoke"-it means that things happen for a reason. These symptoms of violent inner activity, especially at the period in which this story takes place, have attained their most intense intensity.More than once, the choir boys found him alone in church, with strange, bright eyes, and ran away in fright.More than once, during the chorus, the priest seated next to him heard him singing "In Praise of the Power of Thunder," with many incomprehensible interjections.More than once, the river beach washerwoman who washes clothes for priests was not without horror to find that the white cassock of Joza's vicar had creases from nails and fingers.

On the other hand, he was more and more sanctimonious on weekdays, more exemplary than ever.Considering his status and personality, he has always stayed away from women, and now he seems to hate women even more than before.As soon as he heard the rustle of a woman's silk dress, he immediately pulled down his hood to cover his eyes.On this point, he is restrained and strict with himself in every possible way, no matter how harsh he is, he is afraid that he will not be able to do it. When Princess Lian Boge came to visit the Notre-Dame Abbey in December 1481, he solemnly opposed her entry and asked The bishop cited as reason the provisions of the Black Book, issued the day before St. Barthelemy's Day in 1334, which expressly forbade all women, "whether young or old, high or low," to enter the monastery.In this regard, the bishop had to quote to him the order of the Pope's envoy Odo: exceptions can be made for certain wives, "for certain noble ladies, unless there is scandal, they must not be refused." This decree was issued in 1207, a hundred and twenty-seven years before the Black Book, and was therefore de facto repealed by the latter.As a result he refused to show his face to the princess.

① August 24th. In addition, people have also noticed that recently he seems to hate Egyptian women and Gypsy women even more, and even asked the bishop to issue an order to expressly prohibit Gypsy women from coming to the church square to dance and beat the tambourine; at the same time, he also consulted the moldy files of the Inquisition Collect cases where witches and witches were sentenced to be burned or hanged for conspiring with a he-goat, sow or she-goat for witchcraft. Six unpopular We have already said that the archdeacon and the bell ringer were very unpopular among the people large and small around Notre-Dame.Whenever Claude and Quasimodo went out together—as was often the case—as soon as people saw their servants following their master, they walked together through the cool, narrow, dark spaces between the houses around Notre-Dame. On the streets, they will be abused and ridiculed along the way.Unless Claude Frollo walked with head held high, with a stern, even majestic expression on his face, the jeers were too intimidated to make a sound, which was rarely the case.In their neighbourhood, the two men were like what Rainier called the two "poets": all kinds of people followed the poets, like the orioles twittering after the owls.

① Rainier (1573-1613): French poet. Now there is a naughty little rascal, who, for the sake of being poor and happy, is willing to risk his life and property to drive a pin into Quasimodo's hunchback; It was thick enough, and deliberately approached to wipe Priest Claude's black robe with his body, and hummed a mocking tune at him: Hide, hide, the devil has caught him.Sometimes a group of sharp-toothed old women, squatting on the steps of a dark porch, saw the archdeacon and the bell-ringer pass by, and would clamor, grunt, and express nonsense. Welcome: "Well! Here are two men: the soul of the one is as queer as the body of the other!" Or else, a gang of schoolboys and foot soldiers playing hopscotch, standing together and saluting them in the traditional way, To taunt in Latin: Alas!Hey!Claude and the Cripple.

However, nine times out of ten, the priest and clock husband could not hear this kind of scolding. Quasimodo was too deaf, and Claude was too brooding to hear these beautiful words. ① The original text is Latin.