Out There

The world is cruel

The world is wicked

It's I alone whom you can trust in this whole city

I am your only friend

I who keep you, teach you, feed you, dress you

I who look upon you without fear

How can I protect you, boy, unless you always stay in here?

Away in here

Remember what I've taught you, Quasimodo

You are deformed

I am deformed

And you are ugly

And I am ugly

And these are crimes for which the world shows little pity

You do not comprehend

You are my one defender

Out there, they'll revile you as a monster

I am a monster

Out there, they will hate and scorn and jeer

Only a monster

Why invite their calumny and consternation?

Stay in here, be faithful to me

I'm faithful

Grateful to me

I'm grateful

Do as I say

Obey, and stay in here

I'll stay in here

Safe behind these windows and these parapets of stone

Gazing at the people down below me

All my life, I watch them as I hide up here alone

Hungry for the histories they show me

All my life, I memorize their faces

Knowing them as they will never know me

All my life, I wonder how it feels to pass a day

Not above them, but part of them

And out there, living in the sun

Give me one day out there, all I ask is one

To hold forever

Out there, where they all live unaware

What I'd give, what I'd dare

Just to live one day out there!

Out there among the millers and the weavers and their wives

Through the roofs and gables, I can see them

Every day they shout and scold and go about their lives

Heedless of the gift it is to be them

If I was in their skin

I'd treasure every instant

Out there, strolling by the Seine, taste a morning

Out there, like ordinary men who freely walk

About there, just one day, and then I swear I'll be content

With my share

Won't resent, won't despair

Old and bent, I won't care

I'll have spent one day out there!