Собор Парижской богоматери / Notre-Dame de Paris

“Accursed festival!” exclaimed Gringoire, “will it pursue me everywhere?”

Then he looked at the Seine at his feet, and a horrible temptation took possession of him:

“Oh!” said he, “I would gladly drown myself, were the water not so cold!”

Chapter II

The Place de Gr?ve

Place de Gr?ve was bordered on one side by the quay, and on the other three by a series of narrow and gloomy houses. By day, one could admire the variety of its edifices, all sculptured in stone or wood, presenting complete specimens of the different domestic architectures of the Middle Ages, running back from the fifteenth to the eleventh century.

At night, one could distinguish nothing of all that mass of buildings, except the black indentation of the roofs, unrolling their chain of acute angles round the place.

When Pierre Gringoire arrived on the Place de Gr?ve, he was paralyzed. He had directed his course across the Pont aux Meuniers, in order to avoid the crowd; but the wheels of all the bishop’s mills had splashed him as he passed, and he was drenched.

Hence he went to draw near the bonfire, which was burning magnificently in the middle of the Place. But a considerable crowd formed a circle around it.

“Accursed Parisians!” he said to imself, “there they are obstructing my fire! Nevertheless, I am greatly in need of warmth. Move aside! I’d like to know what they are doing there!”

On looking more closely, he saw that the circle was much larger than was required simply for the purpose of getting warm.

In a vast space between the crowd and the fire, a young girl was dancing.

Gringoire was fascinated.

She was not tall. Her skin possessed a beautiful golden tone of the Andalusians and the Roman women. She danced, she turned, she whirled rapidly about on an old Persian rug, and each time her radiant face passed before you, as she whirled, her great black eyes darted a flash of lightning at you.

She was a supernatural creature.

“In truth,” said Gringoire to himself, “she is a nymph, she is a goddess!”

At that moment, one of girl’s braids of hair became unfastened, and a piece of yellow copper which was attached to it, rolled to the ground.

“No!” said he, “she is a gypsy!”

All illusions had disappeared.

Disenchanted though Gringoire was, the whole picture was not without its charm and its magic; the bonfire illuminated, with a red flaring light, which trembled, all alive, over the circle of faces in the crowd and on the young girl.