The Key to the Red Door — The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Public rumour tells the archdeacon that the gypsy has been saved. He had accepted her death, his despair already full, like a sponge that the sea cannot soak any further. To learn that she lives, and Phœbus too, starts the torment again. For weeks he shuts himself in his cloister cell, missing chapter and services, closed even to the bishop. Jehan knocks, swears, and calls his name. Claude does not open.

From the window he watches her with the goat and with Quasimodo. The deaf man’s small cares look tender from far away, and jealousy reddens him: the captain might be excused, but not this man. At night the tomb leaves his thoughts and desire returns. He pictures her with the wounded captain, in the torturer’s boot, and nearly bare under the rope. One night he bites his pillow, throws a surplice over his shirt, and goes out half naked, lamp in hand. He knows the key of the red door between cloister and church, and he carries the key of the tower stairs.