Page:Victor Hugo - The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (tr. Shoberl, 1833).djvu/29

 THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE-DAME. 7

the mystery was to be performed. Arrangements for this purpose had been made early in the morning. The rich marble floor, scratched all over by the heels of the clerks of the Bazoche, supported a cage of woodwork of considerable height, the upper floor of which, exposed to view from every part of the hall, was to serve for the stage, while the lower, masked by hangings of tapestry, formed a sort of dressing-room for the actors. A ladder, undisguisedly placed outside, was to be the channel of communication between the two, and its rude steps were to furnish the only medium as well for entrances as for exits. There was no movement, however abrupt and unexpected, no piece of stage-effect so sudden, but had to be executed by the intervention of this ladder. Innocent and venerable infancy of the art of machinery!

Four sergeants of the bailiff of Paris, whose duty it was to superintend all the amusements of the people, as well on festivals as on days of execution, were stationed one at each corner of the marble table.

It was not till the great clock of the palace had struck the hour of twelve that the performance was to begin a late hour, to be sure, for a theatrical representation, but it had been found necessary to suit it to the convenience of the ambassadors.

Now, the whole assembled multitude had been waiting ever since the morning. Many of these honest sightloving folks had, indeed, been shivering from daybreak before the steps of the palace; nay, some declared that they had passed the night under the great porch, to make sure of getting in. The crowd increased every moment, and, like water that rises above its level, began to mount along the walls, to swell about the pillars, to cover the entablatures, the cornices, all the salient points of the architecture, all the rilievos of the sculpture. Accordingly, the weariness, the impatience, the freedom of a day of licence, the quarrels occasioned every moment by a sharp elbow or a hob-nailed shoe, and the tediousness of long waiting, gave, long before the hour at which the ambassadors were to arrive, a sharp, sour tone to the clamour of the populace, B