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Собор Парижской богоматери / Notre-Dame de Paris
Виктор Мари Гюго
Легко читаем по-английски
«Собор Парижской Богоматери» – величайший исторический роман, действие которого происходит в средневековом Париже. Это невероятная драма о цыганской танцовщице Эсмеральде, горбуне Квазимодо и священнике Клоде Фролло. Книга содержит грамматический комментарий и словарь, облегчающие чтение. Предназначается для продолжающих изучать английский язык высшей ступени (уровень 4 – UpperIntermediate).
Виктор Гюго / Victor Hugo
Собор Парижской богоматери / Notre-Dame de Paris
© Дубиковская И. Г., адаптация текста и словарь, 2019
© ООО «Издательство АСТ», 2019
Volume I
Book First
Chapter I
The Grand Hall
On the sixth of January, 1482, the Parisians awoke to the sound of the bells.
What put the whole population of Paris in commotion, were the two events happening at once: the Epiphany and the Feast of Fools.
On that day, there was to be a bonfire on the Place de Gr?ve, a maypole at the Chapelle de Braque, and a mystery at the Palais de Justice. So the citizens, male and female, having closed their houses and shops, walked from every direction, towards one of the three spots designated.
The people knew knew that the Flemish ambassadors, who had arrived two days previously, intended to be present at the representation of the mystery, and at the election of the Pope of the Fools, which was also to take place in the grand hall. So it was no easy matter on that day, to force one’s way into that grand hall. Thousands of faces were at the windows, the doors, the dormer windows, the roofs, gazing at the palace, gazing at the populace, and asking nothing more; for many Parisians that was enough.
The piece was only to begin at midday. It was very late, no doubt, for a theatrical representation, but it was necessary to suit the convenience of the ambassadors.
Now, the crowd had been waiting since morning. People had been shivering since daybreak before the grand staircase of the palace; some even spent the night across the threshold of the great door, in order to make sure that they were the first to go in. The crowd grew more dense every moment. People were impatient and weary.
Midday sounded.
Each person arranged himself and assumed his post. Then came a great silence; all necks remained outstretched, all mouths remained open, all glances were directed towards the marble table in the middle. Nothing made its appearance there. All eyes turned to the places reserved for the Flemish envoys. The door remained closed, the platform empty. No one had arrived on time.
On this occasion, it was too much.
They waited one, two, three, five minutes, a quarter of an hour; nothing came. The impatience turned to wrath. “The mystery! The mystery!” they murmured, in hollow voices. Just when the crowd’s impatience was about to turn violent, the tapestry of the dressing-room was raised, and a person stepped in. The mere sight of him suddenly stopped the crowd, and changed its wrath into curiosity.
“Silence! silence!”
The person advanced to the edge of the marble table with a vast amount of bows.
Tranquillity had gradually been restored.
“Messieurs and Mesdemoiselles, we shall have the honor of declaiming and representing, before his eminence, the cardinal, a very beautiful morality which has for its title, ‘The Good Judgment of Madame the Virgin Mary.’ I am to play Jupiter. His eminence is, at this moment, escorting the very honorable embassy of the Duke of Austria; which is detained, at present, listening to the rector of the university, at the gate Baudets. As soon as the cardinal arrives, we will begin.”
Chapter II
Pierre Gringoire
The satisfaction and admiration unanimously excited by his appearance were dissipated by his words.
“Begin instantly! The mystery! The mystery immediately!” shrieked the people.
Poor Jupiter, frightened, bowed and trembled and stammered: “His eminence—the ambassadors—Madame Marguerite of Flanders—” He did not know what to say.
Luckily, some one came to rescue him from his embarrassment, and assume the responsibility.
An individual who was standing beyond the railing, in the free space around the marble table, tall, gaunt, blond, still young, with brilliant eyes and a smiling mouth, clad in garments of black serge, made a sign to the poor sufferer.
“Jupiter,” said he, “my dear Jupiter!”
“Who calls me?” said Jupiter, as though awakened with a start.
“I,” replied the person clad in black. “Begin at once. Satisfy the populace; I will take care of the cardinal.”
Jupiter breathed once more.
“Messeigneurs the bourgeois,” he cried, at the top of his lungs, “we are going to begin at once.”
“Good, good,” shouted the people.
The hand clapping was deafening, and Jupiter had withdrawn.
In the meanwhile, the person who had so magically turned the tempest into calm, had retreated into the crowd. His name was Pierre Gringoire, and he was the author of the mystery that was about to take place.
Suddenly, the music of high and low instruments became audible from the interior of the stage and the tapestry was raised. Four personages emerged from it and climbed upon the upper platform. The symphony ceased.
The mystery was about to begin.
The four personages began. All four were dressed in robes of yellow and white. The first was of gold and silver brocade; the second, of silk; the third, of wool; the fourth, of linen. The first of these personages carried a sword in his right hand; the second, two golden keys; the third, a pair of scales; the fourth, a spade. They were Nobility, Clergy, Merchandise and Labor. Labor was wedded to Merchandise, and Clergy to Nobility, and the two happy couples possessed in common a magnificent golden dolphin, which they desired to adjudge to the fairest only. So they were roaming about the world seeking and searching for this beauty.
There was no ear more attentive, no heart that palpitated more, no neck more outstretched, than the ear, the neck, and the heart of the author, that brave Pierre Gringoire. He listened, looked, enjoyed. The amiable applause which had greeted the beginning of his prologue was still echoing in his chest.
Sadly, this first ecstasy was speedily disturbed.
A tattered mendicant, who could not collect any coins, decided to perch himself higher up, in order to attract looks and alms. He had hoisted himself to the cornice which ran round the balustrade at its lower edge; and there he had seated himself, soliciting the attention and the pity of the multitude.
Eventually, that caught the attention of the scholar Joanne, who started laughing and, without caring that he was interrupting the spectacle, shouted—
“Look! He’s asking alms[1 - He’s asking alms! – Он просит милостыню!]!”
Any one who has thrown a stone into a frog pond can form an idea of the effect produced by these words. The prologue stopped short, and all heads turned tumultuously towards the beggar, who saw this a good opportunity and began to whine—“Charity, please!”
Gringoire was highly displeased. He shouted to the four personages on the stage, “Go on! What the devil!—go on!”
The actors had obeyed, and the public, seeing that they were beginning to speak again, began once more to listen.
The mystery was, in fact, a very fine work. The exposition was simple. The four allegorical personages were somewhat weary with having traversed the three sections of the world, without having found suitable opportunity for getting rid of their golden dolphin. The crowd listened patiently. In the very middle of a quarrel between Merchandise and Nobility, at the moment when Monsieur Labor was saying this wonderful line,—
In forest ne’er was seen a more triumphant beast; the door of the reserved gallery opened; and the voice of the usher announced abruptly, “His eminence, Monseigneur the Cardinal de Bourbon.”
Chapter III
Monsieur еhe Cardinal
The entrance of his eminence upset the audience. All heads turned towards the gallery. “The cardinal! The cardinal!” repeated all mouths. The unhappy prologue stopped short for the second time.
The cardinal halted for a moment. Each person wished to get a better view of him.
He was, in fact, an exalted personage. Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon, Archbishop and Comte of Lyon, Primate of the Gauls, was allied both to Louis XI, through his brother, and to Charles the Bold through his mother. He was a fine man; he led a joyous cardinal’s life, and was very agreeable to the populace of Paris.
It was this popularity, no doubt, which preserved him from any bad reception at the hands of the mob.
He entered, and bowed with a smile, and and then slowly made his way towards his scarlet velvet arm-chair. His cortege—what we should nowadays call his staff—of bishops and abbеs went in after him.
Then arrived, with gravity, the eight and forty ambassadors of Maximilian of Austria, with the reverend Father in God, Jehan, Abbot of Saint-Bertin, at the head, and Jacques de Goy, Sieur Dauby, Grand Bailiff of Ghent. A deep silence settled over the assembly, accompanied by stifled laughter at the preposterous names. There were bailiffs, aldermen, burgomasters;—all stiff, formal, dressed out in velvet and damask.
There was one exception, however. It was a subtle, intelligent man, before whom the cardinal made three steps and a profound bow. His name was only “Guillaume Rym, counsellor and pensioner of the City of Ghent.”
Few persons were then aware who Guillaume Rym was. A rare genius who in a time of revolution would have made a brilliant appearance on the surface of events, but who in the fifteenth century was reduced to cavernous intrigues, and to “living in mines,” as the Duc de Saint-Simon expresses it.
Chapter IV
Master Jacques Coppenole
A man of lofty stature, with a large face and broad shoulders, entered along with Guillaume Rym. The usher stopped him.
“Hold, my friend, you cannot pass!”
The man shouldered him aside.
“Don’t you see that I am one of them?”
“Your name?” demanded the usher.
“Jacques Coppenole.”
“Your titles?”
“Hosier at the sign of the ‘Three Little Chains,’ of Ghent.”
The usher recoiled. One might bring one’s self to announce aldermen and burgomasters, but a hosier was too much.
Guillaume Rym, with his polished smile, approached the usher.
“Announce Master Jacques Coppenole, clerk of the aldermen of the city of Ghent,” he whispered, very low.
“Usher,” interposed the cardinal, aloud, “announce Master Jacques Coppenole, clerk of the aldermen of the illustrious city of Ghent.”
Coppenole proudly saluted his eminence, who returned the salute. Then each sought his place.
The reader has, probably, not forgotten the beggar who had been clinging to the fringes of the cardinal’s gallery ever since the beginning of the prologue. The arrival of the guests had by no means caused him to relax his hold, even though he was remarkably close to them now. The Flemish ambassador, bestow a friendly tap on his ragged shoulder. The beggar turned round; there was surprise, recognition, a lighting up of the two countenances, and so forth; then the two began to converse in a low tone, holding each other’s hands.
Now, one thing was completely forgotten by the crowd. Pierre Gringoire and his prologue.
This was precisely what he feared.
From the moment of the cardinal’s entrance, Gringoire was worried for the safety of his prologue. At first he had asked the actors to continue, and to raise their voices; then, seeing that no one was listening, he had stopped them; all in vain.
Nevertheless, our poet decided what to do next.
“Monsieur,” he said, turning towards one of his neighbors, a fine, big man, with a patient face, “suppose we begin again.”
“What?” said his neighbor.
“The Mystery,” said Gringoire.
“As you like,” returned his neighbor.
This sufficed for Gringoire, and he began to shout: “Begin the mystery again! Begin again!”
The bailiff approached the cardinal, and awkwardly explained to him that noonday had arrived before his eminence, and that the comedians had been forced to begin without waiting for his eminence.
The cardinal burst into a laugh.
“Monseigneur,” said Guillaume Rym, “let us be content with having escaped half of the comedy. There is at least that much gained.”
“Can these rascals continue their farce?” asked the bailiff.
“Continue, continue,” said the cardinal, “it’s all the same to me.”
The personages on the stage took up their parts, and Gringoire hoped that the rest of his work, at least, would be listened to. This hope soon faded; silence had indeed, been restored; but Gringoire did not realise that at the moment, the gallery was far from full, and that the important personages were still being announced.
“Master Jacques Charmolue, procurator to the king in the Ecclesiastical Courts!”
“Messire Galiot de Genoilhac, chevalier, seigneur de Brussac, master of the king’s artillery!”
“Master Denis le Mercier, guardian of the house of the blind at Paris!” etc., etc., etc.
This was becoming unbearable.
And still, nothing could turn the audience from the cardinal; all eyes remained fixed there. No one listened, no one looked at the poor, deserted morality. Gringoire saw only profiles.
The usher’s brutal monologue came to an end; every one had arrived, and Gringoire breathed freely once more; the actors continued bravely. But Master Coppenole, all of a sudden rose and proclaimed:
