know what they are doing
there! They are warming themselves, much pleasure may it give them! They
are watching a hundred fagots burn; a fine spectacle!"

On looking more closely, he perceived that the circle was much larger
than was required simply for the purpose of getting warm at the king's
fire, and that this concourse of people had not been attracted solely by
the beauty of the hundred fagots which were burning.

In a vast space left free between the crowd and the fire, a young girl
was dancing.

Whether this young girl was a human being, a fairy, or an angel, is what
Gringoire, sceptical philosopher and ironical poet that he was, could
not decide at the first moment, so fascinated was he by this dazzling
vision.

She was not tall, though she seemed so, so boldly did her slender form
dart about. She was swarthy of complexion, but one divined that, by day,
her skin must possess that beautiful golden tone of the Andalusians and
the Roman women. Her little foot, too, was Andalusian, for it was both
pinched and at ease in its graceful shoe. She danced, she turned, she
whirled rapidly about on an old Persian rug, spread negligently under
her feet; and each time that her radiant face passed before you, as she
whirled, her great black eyes darted a flash of lightning at you.

All around her, all glances were riveted, all mouths open; and, in fact,
when she danced thus, to the humming of the Basque tambourine, which
her two pure, rounded arms raised above her head, slender, frail and
vivacious as a wasp, with her corsage of gold without a fold, her
variegated gown puffing out, her bare shoulders, her delicate limbs,
which her petticoat revealed at times, her black hair, her eyes of
flame, she was a supernatural creature.

"In truth," said Gringoire to himself, "she is a salamander, she is a
nymph, she is a goddess, she is a bacchante of the Menelean Mount!"

At that moment, one of the salamander's braids of hair became
unfastened, and a piece of yellow copper which was attached to it,
rolled to the ground.

"He, no!" said he, "she is a gypsy!"

All illusions had disappeared.

She began her dance once more; she took from the ground two swords,
whose points she rested against her brow, and which she made to turn
in one direction, while she turned in the other; it was a purely gypsy
effect. But, disenchanted though Gringoire was, the whole effect of
this picture was not without its charm and its magic; the bonfir