The world is cruel

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 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
 Ev'ry 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 ev'ry 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