One Look of Love

Through Hugo’s eyes: the original version 

Quasimodo was the main character from a French author, Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel, Notre Dame de Paris. Publishers and marketers over the years adapted the title to suit the reading tastes of the masses with the result that the work was, in subsequent English editions, known better as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame".

Filled with plentiful anti-thesis elements to the virtues of a romantic novel hero of those days (or even today, if the commercially successful works of fiction or filmdom are anything to go by), Hugo’s central character, Quasimodo stood out from any other dream-lover. In one sense, the term was just right for him for an aspiration to love was all he nursed and could dare to hope for, tip-toeing as he did, over the least little overture made to La Esmeralda, the woman his heart sought out – for her loveliness, livery and gypsy charms were painted in colors so bright and masterfully by Hugo that only a blind man would be immune to such devastating beauty of form and face.

Quasimodo had been named so on account of two elements in the story: the first being that as a child, born with extreme physical deformities including a wart over the right eye that limited his sight, and the infamous hump, he was regarded “almost like,” (the Latin literal translation indicating Quasimodo was near-human, but not quite…) The second meaning is even more interesting to understand in terms of French culture and medieval lifestyle with its love of revelry, pomp and show – even on religious occasions: so we had, at the time of Quasimodo’s entry into the story, a festival known as Quasimodo Sunday or “Low Sunday.”

Records of celebration of Quasimodo Sunday exist from 1706, wherein it was an occasion for masked-merrymaking on the streets with gypsy chantings and dancing besides flowers and music on the streets of Paris, occurring on the first Sunday after Easter. Centered around this day’s significance, where reality was hushed up with masquerades and no one concerned by more than living in the moment, Victor Hugo’s pen bade a troubled gypsy woman abandon her grossly disfigured infant at Notre Dame Cathedral steps – and thus was he christened for his worth in earthly eyes: Quasimodo, no more, no less.

Now the original version of the Quasimodo story, if we go by Hugo’s edition, is a classic in its own manner: frank, embittered, struggling and passionate portrayals (at times, even ugly) of the tide of human emotions and filled with ordinarily deceptive character flaws while being fascinating in their hold on the reader’s mind: how something so fanciful can be so horrendous and yet compelling one to read more.

In jumps Quasimodo (literally so, for he leaps from a high window, perhaps even the bellfry) and rescues Esmeralda when she is entangled in a alleged case of murder and being sentenced for it; however, herein lies the crux to the whole Quasimodo character development angle: he does not earn love or compassion by the end. Hugo deflects from giving readers the satisfaction and ‘happily ever after’ that sympathetic hearts await with rousing enough of it for the Man with Immense Inner Beauty but Miserly Dispensed Outer Beauty by keeping the main theme of the book as the Unfairness of Nature, perpetuated by Society and Upheld by Love and Fate .

Through Disney’s Eyes: animated version     
                             

Recent adaptations (1996) to this classic tale of Quasimodo by Disney Studios have animated the character and made him more acceptable for ‘long-hours of viewing’ unlike his real form, as Hugo intended – but perhaps, that’s what literary license is all about. So, we have the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Quasimodo, as depicted by Disney, being neither one-eyed nor deaf, and quite capable of fluent speech. It went down pretty well with older children (and that includes legal aged adults with child-like hearts) as Disney followed up the effort with a sequel.

Now, as with previous 34-odd Disney animations, there have been a lot of creative liberties taken even with this fabulously etched out moving picture work, and Quasimodo, the deformed bell ringer and secret admirer of Gypsy dancer, Esmeralda, who are the main characters, along with Claude Frollo, as the powerful and ruthless judge who lusts after her and handsome Phoebus (made out to be chivalrous) as an irreverent military captain, who holds affections for her – build up the story.

Through Quasi’s Eyes: My version

“I can't will myself to understand it, O Lord, that ye who give us sight and breath and beauteous, bounteous glories, should hold back one, just One Look of Love, for me, Thy humble servant…who tolls the church bells till my ears be deaf and my heart be dumb.

And yet, what can I say to Thee, who made this wondrous creature, so feral, so perfect, and so Not-For-Me…

…such grace, such splendor, such awesome tenderness…

And I should only see it on Dies Irae…”

("Day of Wrath" – Latin for Day of Judgment)

As Quasimodo lies alone in the bell-tower, defeated and disheartened completely by the sight on the moor of Esmeralda kissing the easy-on-the-eye-Phoebus, willing away his last sigh on a prayer he feels even God may despise, for why else would He have created him, a creature so dreadfully out of the mould of regular men and women – if it wasn’t because he was in a foul temper one day on yonder sky-kingdom high, there comes a knock on his heart:

“Look up, Quasimodo; I have come to take thee to my Kingdom by the Shore, where no more of this ache will suffer you by...”

“Nay, Lord, not now…grant me only one wish, if you truly are God.”

And the Lord, not offended by the least of his servants, tendered kindly and softly these responsive words, "Speak, my Son of the hope in thy heart…speak to thy Father on this, thy last day on Earthe…”

And still shy from the overwhelming fervor of his state, Quasimodo beseeched the Lord, thus, with this, “Lord of the Clouds and King of the Seas,

One Look of Love…is all I ask of Thee…

Let one of Your Children look up at me

And smile at me full – with no fear or antipathy”

And the Lord looked on sadly as He almost passed Quasi by,

Till he thought of the perfect answer in my eye:

Yes, I was there,

In Notre Dame de Paris

And the Lord lifted me to look into Quasi’s eyes

And I smiled with such force like I knew not before,

For I was a child of months barely four…

Another abandoned girl-child

At the door to Forevermore…

My gypsy mother could scarce look at me

Without a vile word for the man who forcibly fathered me

Quasi’s last wish went along with my

Life,

For Dies Irae

Erupted with mighty war-cries

And before our souls were harmed,

God took us away…

But not before He granted Quasi’s Last Wish: One Look of Love that would make his day.

 

Oh, what the innocent ask

And the world can scarce afford,

One Look of Love