In his state of frenzy, he knew not whither he was going. After a few strides he found himself on the Pont Saint-Michel. There was a light in the window of a ground-floor room; he approached. Through a cracked window he beheld a mean chamber which recalled some confused memory to his mind. In that room, badly lighted by a meagre lamp, there was a fresh, light-haired young man, with a merry face, who amid loud bursts of laughter was embracing a very audaciously attired young girl; and near the lamp sat an old crone spinning and singing in a quavering voice. As the young man did not laugh constantly, fragments of the old woman's ditty reached the priest; it was something unintelligible yet frightful,—
"Grève, aboie, Grève, grouille!
File, file, ma quenouille,
File sa corde au bourreau,
Qui siffle dans le pre au,
Grève, aboie, Grève, grouille!
"La belle corde de chanvre!
Semez d'Issy jusqu'á Vanvre
Du chanvre et non pas du bleu.
Le voleur n'a pas vole
La belle corde de chanvre.
"Grève, grouille, Grève, aboie!
Pour voir la fille de joie,
Prendre au gibet chassieux,
Les fenêtres sont des yeux.
Grève, grouille, Grève, aboie!"*
* Bark, Grève, grumble, Grève! Spin, spin, my distaff, spin
her rope for the hangman, who is whistling in the meadow. What a
beautiful hempen rope! Sow hemp, not wheat, from Issy to Vanvre. The
thief hath not stolen the beautiful hempen rope. Grumble, Grève, bark,
Grève! To see the dissolute wench hang on the blear-eyed gibbet, windows
are eyes.
Thereupon the young man laughed and caressed the wench. The crone was la Falourdel; the girl was a courtesan; the young man was his brother Jehan.
He continued to gaze. That spectacle was as good as any other.
He saw Jehan go to a window at the end of the room, open it, cast a glance on the quay, where in the distance blazed a thousand lighted casements, and he heard him say as he closed the sash,—
"'Pon my soul! How dark it is; the people are lighting their candles, and the good God his stars."
Then Jehan came back to the hag, smashed a bottle standing on the table, exclaiming,—
"Already empty,?cor-boeuf! and I have no more money! Isabeau, my dear, I shall not be satisfied with Jupiter until he has changed your two white nipples into two black bottles, where I may suck wine of Beaune day and night."
This fine pleasantry made the courtesan laugh, and Jehan left the room.
Dom Claude had barely time to fling himself on the ground in order that he might not be met, stared in the face and recognized by his brother. Luckily, the street was dark, and the scholar was tipsy. Nevertheless, he caught sight of the archdeacon prone upon the earth in the mud.
"Oh! oh!" said he; "here's a fellow who has been leading a jolly life, to-day."
He stirred up Dom Claude with his foot, and the latter held his breath.
"Dead drunk," resumed Jehan. "Come, he's full. A regular leech detached from a hogshead. He's bald," he added, bending down, "'tis an old man!?Fortunate senex!"
Then Dom Claude heard him retreat, saying,—
"'Tis all the same, reason is a fine thing, and my brother the archdeacon is very happy in that he is wise and has money."
Then the archdeacon rose to his feet, and ran without halting, towards Notre-Dame, whose enormous towers he beheld rising above the houses through the gloom.