Page:Victor Hugo - Notre-Dame de Paris (tr. Hapgood, 1888).djvu/90

76 Moreover, for the purpose of thus following passers-by (and especially female passers-by) in the streets, which Gringoire was fond of doing, there is no better disposition than ignorance of where one is going to sleep.

So he walked along, very thoughtfully, behind the young girl, who hastened her pace and made her goat trot as she saw the bourgeois returning home and the taverns the only shops which had been open that day closing.

"After all," he half thought to himself, "she must lodge somewhere; gypsies have kindly hearts. Who knows?—"

And in the points of suspense which he placed after this re-reticence in his mind, there lay I know not what flattering ideas.

Meanwhile, from time to time, as he passed the last groups of bourgeois closing their doors, he caught some scraps of their conversation, which broke the thread of his pleasant hypotheses.

Now it was two old men accosting each other.

"Do you know that it is cold, Master Thibaut Fernicle?"

(Gringoire had been aware of this since the beginning of the winter.)

"Yes, indeed, Master Boniface Disome! Are we going to have a winter such as we had three years ago, in '80, when wood cost eight sous the measure?"

"Bah! that's nothing, Master Thibaut, compared with the winter of 1407, when it froze from St. Martin's Day until Candlemas! and so cold that the pen of the registrar of the parliament froze every three words, in the Grand Chamber! which interrupted the registration of justice."

Further on there were two female neighbors at their windows, holding candles, which the fog caused to sputter.

"Has your husband told you about the mishap, Mademoiselle la Boudraque?"

"No. What is it, Mademoiselle Turquant?"

"The horse of M. Gilles Godin, the notary at the Chatelet, took fright at the Flemings and their procession, and over-turned Master Philippe Avrillot, lay monk of the Celestins."

"Really?"

"Actually."