Delirium — The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Claude Frollo is already gone when his adopted son cuts the fatal web. He tears off his vestments, crosses by boat to the left bank, and runs through the University, away from the Grève. Beyond the Porte Saint-Victor he sees his love turned to malice. He does not repent. He would rather see her with the executioner than in the captain’s arms. Phœbus is alive and merry, and the crowd has looked on her almost bare. Two images remain: la Esmeralda, and the gibbet.

At sunset he has only circled the University. A boatman sets him down at the point of the city. The dark bank looks like a tower of hell. In the Rue de la Barillerie he sees Jehan laughing with a courtesan at la Falourdel’s, and lies in the mud to hide. Jehan prods him and takes him for a drunken old man. Claude takes the lamp from the public breviary and climbs the tower. At midnight a white figure with a goat appears. He takes her for the dead girl. She passes without seeing him. On the stairs a voice says that a spirit passed before his face.