Page:Victor Hugo - Notre-Dame de Paris (tr. Hapgood, 1888).djvu/203

Rh on the front of the Sainte-Chapelle, and one of which holds in his hands a vase, the other, a cloud "

Here Jacques Coictier, who had been unhorsed by the archdeacon's impetuous replies, regained his saddle, and interrupted him with the triumphant tone of one learned man correcting another,—"Erras amice Claudi. The symbol is not the number. You take Orpheus for Hermes."

"'Tis you who are in error," replied the archdeacon, gravely.

"Dædalus is the base; Orpheus is the wall; Hermes is the edifice,—that is all. You shall come when you will," he continued, turning to Tourangeau, "I will show you the little parcels of gold which remained at the bottom of Nicholas Flamel's alembic, and you shall compare them with the gold of Guillaume de Paris. I will teach you the secret virtues of the Greek word, peristera. But, first of all, I will make you read, one after the other, the marble letters of the alpha bet, the granite pages of the book. We shall go to the portal of Bishop Guillaume and of Saint-Jean le Rond at the Sainte-Chapelle, then to the house of Nicholas Flamel, Rue Marivault, to his tomb, which is at the Saints-Innocents, to his two hospitals, Rue de Montmorency. I will make you read the hieroglyphics which cover the four great iron cramps on the portal of the hospital Saint-Gervais, and of the Rue de la Ferronnerie. We will spell out in company, also, the façade of Saint-Côme, of Sainte-Geneviéve-des-Ardents, of Saint Martin, of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie—."

For a long time, Gossip Tourangeau, intelligent as was his glance, had appeared not to understand Dom Claude. He interrupted.

"Pasque-dieu! what are your books, then?"

"Here is one of them," said the archdeacon.

And opening the window of his cell he pointed out with his finger the immense church of Notre-Dame, which, outlining against the starry sky the black silhouette of its two towers, its stone flanks, its monstrous haunches, seemed an enormous two-headed sphinx, seated in the middle of the city.

The archdeacon gazed at the gigantic edifice for some time in silence, then extending his right hand, with a sigh, towards