Turn Vagabond — The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Re-entering the cloister, Dom Claude finds Jehan du Moulin at the cell door, drawing in charcoal a profile of his brother with a monstrous nose. Claude hardly looks at him. The merry face that once lightened the priest cannot touch that stagnant soul. Jehan repeats the old lessons: be wise, be learned, keep to the college at night, do not cudgel the Picards, sing to the Virgin. Then he confesses he has trampled them. The money is gone, the linen sold, the women mock him, and creditors press him. He claims a vocation at the college of Torchi, and asks for money for ink, paper, and books.

Claude says he has none. Jehan grows resolute. Fine offers are being made elsewhere; if his brother will not pay, he will become a professional vagabond. He waits like Ajax for the lightning. Coldly, the archdeacon tells him to become one. Jehan bows and goes whistling down the stairs. From the window Claude cries that he may go to the devil, and throws a purse, the last money Jehan will have from him. It strikes the scholar on the forehead. He goes off vexed and content, like a dog stoned with marrow bones.