This is my cage. These walls of old stone and granulated despair encase my demented solitude. Oh hail the lord! Oh curse the angels! Night and day are merged and the moon is no kinder than the sun. The stars burn frail in the sky and follow me through twilight and sunrise akin. They come with water and bread but what water drowns my soul in this well of sorrow. My tears have, like these eternal stones, made their tracks in my aging skin. I rip my matted hair and gnaw at my fickle bones. Oh curse my tomb! Oh curse my weathered womb which once held her and holds no more!
Could there have been anything more beautiful? So precious and so gorgeous. I held her willing with trembling hands. Her eyes so beautiful and oh so bold. Once blue, at first, then emerald green and her hair was like ebony. Her feet! Oh my little Agnes' feet were just so small and tiny, no other child had feet so pretty. My father once played music in the palace; he would have adored the notes from her cherub mouth. I clothed her in velvet for spring, silk for summer and before I could clothe my darling in furs, my little Agnes was stolen away. How I'd watch her play in the garden whilst I shelled peas. How I'd laugh to see her so merry; gurgling, rolling in the gutter. So I'd pick my darling angel and bathe her in petals, kiss away her pains and place her in her cradle where I'd sit, guarding, spinning wool for tiny slippers, by the fire…
Sister Gudule they call. I weep. Paquette la Chantefleurie they whisper. I scream.
What noise so bold? What noise so incongruous to disturb my solitude? What is this noise that so resembles a hysterical angel, dragged to the gallows of hell? Something within me burns… burns in my clawed chest. My heart now a lump of ice, or no better than a stone… it is consumed by this inscrutable noise.
To the bars I crawl dragging my future in the shadows, running the past in my favour before my eyes. I see… a crowd. Something more golden than the sun… she with her naked feet, she with her raven hair, she with her skin dark, but sweet, like dates drizzled in honey.
What is this I feel? What is this hatred… for there is nothing but hatred and regret within this mouldering wreck? She is with her satanic goat and her bare neck and shoulder for all men to kiss. It is she I hate! It is she I detest! Curse her! Curse she- born from those who took my darling my sweet child. Perhaps she was one of them, one who consumed my child out of greed and left me instead with a monster for a child! Curse she who dances with the devil and smiles at the drop of an honest coin!
"Daughter of Egypt!" I screech like a demon. Still they carry on in their merry making, she, the Gypsy girl dancing in circles with her horrid pet. "DAUGHTER OF EGYPT!"
The beastly child stops, turns, questions. Her face… oh it looks innocent but it is not so. It is full of deception and laced with sin. The crowd turn. Do they not say word for I can see them talking… but I can only listen to her breath. I wish it to stop and let me be done with it!
"DAUGHTER OF EGYPT GO BACK TO YOUR SORDID HOT LANDS AND BURN!"
Something familiar within her churns. Is it hatred? No? Is it the beginning of tears? Take a step back she does, as if harmed by my words and says so sadly, so pitifully "What have I done to you to deserve such words?" Her conduct is indeed poor.
"MY CHILD!" cry I "MY DARLING AGNES BUT YOU GYPSIES ATE MY CHILD! YOU MURDERED MY CHILD!" I rattle the bars, I scream, I bare my teeth for my tiny little Agnes…
"I have done no such thing!" cries she, temptress of the hearts of men and dancer with the devil's animal. "Nor have my people! Be gone you wretch! Leave me be!"
Oh what a beauty. Such elegance, such grace for a gypsy…
I continue to scream, to curse… the music begins again… she begins to dance… her voice sears my heart…
"Henriet…" I whisper slyly. I feel my tounge decaying from lack of use "…Cousin…. Henriet Cousin!" Slurred perhaps, dare he turn, dare he smirk? No. The city excutioner turns his ugly head… ugly because he is death. "Henriet…"
"What do you want of me maddened sister?" He tears away from the dancing scene, she who dares dance in the shadow of Notre Dame and be content with the praise of idle men…
"I wish her dead! She who dares to dance before Notre Dame! She is a Gypsy wretch- does the lord god not pity us good women of the chapel? A rope around her pretty neck can be done and by you done well."
"I have no wish for such brutality," replied he steadily. "There is no law against entertaining honest men and their keep. Now be silent, Gudule, or you may find yourself under different bars."
Another is kinder, however. I see him there, standing, consumed by hatred… hatred for her. He, the sorceror priest, he the archecon of Notre Dame. He watches her on the cobbles, dancing like a crazed spirit. I feel pity for his hatred, for I hate too. He hates her, the Gypsy girl, the Tigeress, the daughter of monsters and foul hot sun. I watch as his pale hands become fists… knuckles, white from the intensity of his bubbling emotions…
I can deal no more in harsh words with Gypsies today. I return to the shadows of my cage, away from the prying eyes, into the only corner of privacy I keep. There, I take from the shadows a little shoe. A darling little shoe. It was once my … Agnes' little shoe. I sew it for her once. The neighbours were so delighted when they saw them on your feet that they even forgave me for my immoral crimes. How you were loved my darling. Sweet joyful Anges. What prettiness and radiance could be compared to you whom I loved so dearly? Yet this Gypsy girl, who dazzles the crowds… I compare her to you and see that you could not have been any less beautiful than she is.
I shall sit in my corner and kiss your shoe. Perhaps I shall imagine there is another shoe and that you are before me wearing it. Then I'll pretend to kiss you, too, and we shall be happy. Then I can embrace you…
…beautiful Agnes I miss you.