Ananke — The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

On Saint Eustache's day in that same March, Jehan Frollo du Moulin finds his purse empty. Dice, beer, and Venus have taken the last black liard. He goes to his brother at Notre-Dame, sure of a sermon and doubtful of a crown. A beadle says the archdeacon is in his secret cell and should not be disturbed. Jehan climbs the spiral of Saint-Gilles anyway.

The cell is cold and dusty: alembics, skulls, a dead furnace, and walls scrawled with Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. Dom Claude sits turned away, talking of fire and gold, until a name snaps off at la Esmeral. He tries the hammer of Zéchiélé and a curse on any man named Phœbus, then engraves a Greek word on the wall. Jehan has watched unseen. He pretends to arrive. Claude, who had unlocked the door for Master Jacques, turns severe. Jehan begs for money, is scolded for brawls and lost books, and reads the carved word as FATE. Below it, he says, a second Greek word means impurity. Refused, he must hide under the furnace and not breathe. Claude flings him the purse. The door opens.