The Cardinal

The cardinal entered the way one enters one's own house: slowly, certain of being expected.

His red robe crossed the hall, followed by a procession of bishops, abbots and gentlemen. He smiled, greeted, blessed with a broad gesture. The crowd, which an hour earlier had been screaming for the play, now stood on tiptoe to catch a glimpse of him.

— There he is! It's him!

— Look at his robe!

— And that one behind him, who is that?

On the stage, the poor actors were still declaiming.

They could have recited backwards: nobody was listening anymore.

For behind the cardinal came something even better. The usher announced, one by one, the ambassadors from Flanders: aldermen, burgomasters, clerks, with names so complicated that the crowd laughed at every announcement.

Each new arrival was a show. Every robe, every face, every bow was commented on, applauded, mocked.

Gringoire, at the foot of his pillar, was living through torture.

— My play…, he kept repeating. My play…

He made one last effort. He leaned toward his neighbours:

— Gentlemen, don't you want to know how the mystery ends?

— What mystery? one of them answered without even looking at him.

That word hurt more than all the others.

Gringoire then understood something that poets sometimes take a lifetime to admit: reality is the strongest play of all.

A cardinal in flesh and blood, a power you could see, touch, envy — that was what the crowd had come for.

His theatre was only words.

And in the great theatre of the world, that day, the powerful held every role.