Page:Victor Hugo - Notre-Dame de Paris (tr. Hapgood, 1888).djvu/564

288 the cellar, and had placed herself once more at the window with both hands resting on the angle of the sill like two claws. In this attitude she was seen to cast upon all those soldiers her glance which had become wild and frantic once more. At the moment when Henriet Cousin approached her cell, she showed him so savage a face that he shrank back.

"Monseigneur," he said, returning to the provost, "which am I to take?"

"The young one."

"So much the better, for the old one seemeth difficult."

"Poor little dancer with the goat!" said the old sergeant of the watch.

Henriet Cousin approached the window again. The mother's eyes made his own droop. He said with a good deal of timidity,—

"Madam"—

She interrupted him in a very low but furious voice,—

"What do you ask?"

"It is not you," he said, "it is the other."

"What other?"

"The young one."

She began to shake her head, crying,—

"There is no one! there is no one! there is no one!"

"Yes, there is!" retorted the hangman, "and you know it well. Let me take the young one. I have no wish to harm you."

She said, with a strange sneer,—

"Ah! so you have no wish to harm me!"

"Let me have the other, madam; 'tis monsieur the provost who wills it."

She repeated with a look of madness,—

"There is no one here."

"I tell you that there is!" replied the executioner. "We have all seen that there are two of you."

"Look then!" said the recluse, with a sneer. "Thrust your head through the window."

The executioner observed the mother's finger-nails and dared not.