Page:Victor Hugo - The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (tr. Shoberl, 1833).djvu/30

 8 THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE-DAME

kicked, cuffed, jostled, squeezed, and wedged together almost to suffocation. Nothing was to be heard but complaints and imprecations against the Flemings, the provost of the merchants, the cardinal of Bourbon, the bailiff of the palace, Madame Margaret of Austria, the sergeant- vergers, the cold, the heat, the bad weather, the bishop of Paris, the Pope of Fools, the pillars, the statues, this closed door, that open window all to the great amusement of the groups of scholars and serving-men distributed through the crowd, who mingled with all this discontent their sarcasms and mischievous sallies, which, like pins thrust into a wound, produced no small aggravation of the general illhumour.

There was among others a knot of these merry wights, who, after knocking the glass out of one of the windows, had boldly seated themselves on the entablature, and thence cast their eyes and their jokes alternately within and without, among the crowd in the hall and the crowd in the Place, From their mimickries, their peals of laughter, and the jeers which they exchanged from one end of the hall to the other with their comrades, it was evident that these young clerks felt none o the weariness and ennui which overpowered the rest of the assembly, and that they well knew how to extract from the scene before them sufficient amusement to enable them to wait patiently for the promised spectacle.

" Why, 'pon my soul, 't is you, Joannes Frollo de Molendino! " cried one of them, a youth with a fair complexion, handsome face, and arch look, perched on the acanthi of a capital; " you are rightly named, Jehan du Moulin, for your arms and legs are exactly like the four sails of a windmill. How long have you been here?"

" By the devil's mercy," replied Joannes Frollo, " more than four hours, and I hope they will be counted into my time of purgatory. I heard the king of Sicily's eight chanters strike up the first verse of high mass at seven o'clock in the Holy Chapel."

" Rare chanters, forsooth! " rejoined the other, " with voices sharper than their pointed caps! The king, before he founded a mass to Monsieur St. John, ought to have