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, feed you, teach 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're my defender)

Out there, they'll revile you as a monster (I am monster)

Out there, they will hate and scorn and jeer (Only a monster)

Why invite their curses and their consternation? Stay in here

Be faithful to me (I'm faithful)

Grateful to me  (I'm grateful)

Do as I say, obey and stay (I'll stay in here)

Remember, Quasimodo

This is your sanctuary (My sanctuary)

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 were 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