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THE ROMANCES
OF
VICTOR HUGO
Handy Library Edition
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
VOLUME ONE





--





Selling Children to the Comprachicos
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS, VOL. I., Page 39
DRAWN BY L.). BRIDGMAN






Dil
film)
THE ROMANCES OF
VICTOR HUGO
thun
THE MAN WHO
LAUGHS
VOLUME ONE
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN
AND COMPANY


41571.3 1.5(1)
HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY
Copyright, 1888,
By LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY.
Printers
8. J. PARKHILL & Co., BOSTON, U. S. A.


TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
VOLUME I.
PART I.
THE SEA AND THE NIGHT.
CHAPTER
INTRODUCTION.
PAGE
I. URSUS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
II. THE COMPRACHICOS. ......... 30
Book I.
·
NIGHT NOT SO BLACK AS MAN.
I. The South Point of PORTLAND ..... 49
II. ISOLATED . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
III. ALONE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
IV. QUESTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
V. THE TREE OF HUMAN INVENTION. . . . . 74
VI. STRUGGLE BETWEEN DEATH AND Night..
VII. The North Point oF PORTLAND. .... 90
·


VI
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Book II.
133
THE HOOKER AT SEA.
CHAPTER
PAGE
1. SUPERHUMAN LAWS . . . . . . . . 97
II. OUR FIRST OUTLINES FILLED IN . . . . 102
III. TROUBLED MEN ON THE TROUBLED SEA . 109
IV. A CLOUD UNLIKE THE OTHERS ENTERS ON
THE SCENE . . . . . . . . . . 115
V. HARDQUANONNE . . . . . . . . . . 128
VI. THEY THINK THAT HELP IS AT HAND . . 131
VII. SUPERHUMAN HORRORS . . . . . . .
VIII. NIL ET Nox . . . . . . . . . . . 138
IX. THE CHARGE CONFIDED TO A RAGING SEA 142
X. THE COLOSSAL SAVAGE, THE STORM . . 144
XI. THE CASKETS . . . . . . . . . . 150
XII. FACE TO FACE WITH THE Rock . . . . 154
XIII. FACE TO FACE WITH Night . . . . . 160
XIV. ORTACH . . . . . . . . .
XV. PORTENTOSUM MARE . . . . . . . . 165
XVI. AN UNEXPECTED CALM . . . . . . . 172
XVII. THE LAST RESOURCE . . . . . . . . 176
XVIII. ' THE HIGHEST RESOURCE. . . . . . . 182
·
·
Book III.
THE CHILD IN THE SHADOW.
I. CAESIL . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 192
II. THE EFFECT OF Snow . . . . . . . 199
III. A BURDEN MAKES A Rough ROAD ROUGHER 206
IV. ANOTHER FORM OF DESERT . . . . . 212
V. MISANTHROPY PLAYS ITS PRANKS. . . .
VI. THE AWAKING . . . . . . . . . ..
219


TABLE OF CONTENTS.
vii
PART II.
BY ORDER OF THE KING.
Book 1.
THE EVERLASTING PRESENCE OF THE PAST.
MAN REFLECTS MAN.
CHAPTER
PAGE
I. LORD CLANCHARLIE . . . . . . . . . 245
II. LORD David DIRRY-MOIR . . . . . . . 262
III. THE DUCHESS JOSIANA . . . . . . . . 271
IV. MAGISTER ELEGANTIARUM . . . . . . . 284
V. QUEEN ANNE . . . . . . . . . . . 295
VI. BARKILPAEDRO. . . . . . . . . . . 306
VII. BARKILPHEDRO GNAWS HIS WAY . . . . 314
VIII. INFERI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
IX. HATE IS AS STRONG AS LOVE . . . . . 325
X. THE FLAME WHICH WOULD BE SEEN IF MAN
WERE TRANSPARENT . . . . . . . . 335
XI. BARKILPHEDRO IN AMBUSCADE . . . . . 346
XII. SCOTLAND, IRELAND AND ENGLAND , . . 352
Book II.
GWYNPLAINE AND DEA.
I. WHEREIN WE SEE THE FACE OF HIM OF
WHOM WE HAVE HITHERTO SEEN ONLY
THE Acts . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
II. DEA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
III. «OculOS NON HABET, ET VIDET". . . . 375


viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
PAGE
IV. WELL-MATCHED LOVERS . . . . . . . 378
V. THE BLACK CLOUD SHOWS A RIFT OF BLUE 382
VI. URSUS AS TUTOR, AND URSUS AS GUARDIAN 388
VII. BLINDNESS GIVES LESSONS IN CLAIRVOYANCE 394
VIII. NOT ONLY HAPPINESS, BUT PROSPERITY . . 399
IX. ABSURDITIES THAT TASTELESS PEOPLE CALL
POETRY. . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
X. AN OUTSIDER'S VIEW OF MEN AND THINGS 415
XI. GWYNPLAINE THINKS JUSTICE, AND URSUS
TALKS TRUTH . . . . . . . . . 423
XII. URSUS THE POET RUNS AWAY with URSUS
THE PHILOSOPHER . . . . . . . . . 435


ILLUSTRATIONS.
From Drawings by L. J. Bridgman.
SELLING CHILDREN TO THE COMPRACHICOS, Vol. I. Frontispiece
“WELL! WHY DON'T YOU COME IN ?” .... Page 220
“MY LORD, GWYNPLAINE IS DEAD. Do you UNDER-
STAND ?” . . . . . . . . Vol. II. Frontispiece





THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
PART I.
THE SEA AND THE NIGHT.
INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER I.
URSUS.
I.
URSUS and Homo were fast friends. Ursus was
a man, Homo a wolf. Their dispositions tallied. It
was the man who had christened the wolf; probably
he had also chosen his own name. Having found
“Ursus ” fit for himself, he had found “Homo” fit for
the beast. Man and wolf turned their partnership to
account at fairs, at village fêtes, at the corners of
streets where passers-by throng, and out of the need
which people seem to feel everywhere to listen to idle
gossip and to buy quack medicine. The wolf, gen.
tle and courteously subordinate, diverted the crowd.
It is a pleasant thing to behold the tameness of
animals. Our greatest delight is to see all the varie-
ties of domestication parade before us. This it is
which collects so many folks on the road of royal
processions.
VOL. I. — 1


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
Ursus and Homo went about from cross-road to
cross-road, from the High Street of Aberystwith to
the High Street of Jedburgh, from country-side to
country-side, from shire to shire, from town to town.
One market exhausted, they went on to another,
Ursus lived in a small van upon wheels, which Homo
was civilized enough to draw by day and guard by
night. On bad roads, up hills, and where there were
too many ruts, or there was too much mud, the man
buckled the trace round his neck and pulled frater-
nally, side by side with the wolf. They had thus
grown old together. They encamped at hap-hazard
on a common, in the glade of a wood, on the waste
patch of grass where roads intersect, at the outskirts
of villages, at the gates of towns, in market-places,
in public walks, on the borders of parks, before the
entrances of churches. When the cart drew up on a
fair-green, when the gossips ran up open-mouthed,
and the curious made a circle round the pair, Ursus
harangued and Homo approved. Homo, with a bowl
in his mouth, politely made a collection among the
audience. They gained their livelihood. The wolf
was lettered, likewise the man. The wolf had been
trained by the man, or had trained himself unassisted,
to divers wolfish arts, which swelled the receipts.
“Above all things, do not degenerate into a man,"
his friend would say to him.
Never did the wolf bite; the man did now and
then, -- at least, made a pretence of biting. He was
a misanthrope, and to italicize his misanthropy he
had made himself a juggler, — to live, also; for the
stomach has to be consulted. Moreover, this juggler-


URSUS.
misanthrope, whether to add to the complexity of his
being or to perfect it, was a doctor. To be a doctor
is little; Ursus was a ventriloquist. You observed
him speak without his moving the lips. He counter-
feited, so as to deceive you, any one's accent or pro-
nunciation. He imitated voices so exactly that you
believed you heard the people themselves. All alone
he simulated the murmur of a crowd, and this gave
him a right to the title of Engastrimythos, which he
took. He reproduced all sorts of cries of birds, as of
the thrush, the wren, the pipit lark, otherwise called
the gray cheeper, and the ring ousel, all travellers like
himself; so that at times, when the fancy struck
him, he made you aware either of a public thorough-
fare filled with the uproar of men, or of a meadow
loud with the voices of beasts, — at one time stormy
as a multitude, at another fresh and serene as
the dawn. Such gifts, however, although rare, exist.
In the last century a man called Touzel, who imi-
tated the mingled utterances of men and animals,
and who counterfeited all the cries of beasts, was
attached to the person of Buffon, to serve as a
menagerie.
Ursus was sagacious, contradictory, odd, and in-
clined to the singular expositions which we term
fables. He had the air of believing in them, and this
impudence was a part of his humor. He read peo-
ple's hands, opened books at random and drew con-
clusions, told fortunes, taught that it is perilous to
meet a black mare, still more perilous, as you start
for a journey, to hear yourself accosted by one who
knows not whither you are going; and he called


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.'
himself a dealer in superstitions. He used to say:
“There is one difference between me and the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury; I avow what I am.” Hence
it was that the archbishop, justly indignant, had him
one day before him ; but Ursus cleverly disarmed his
grace by reciting a sermon he had composed upon
Christmas day, which the delighted archbishop learned
by heart, and delivered from the pulpit as his own.
In consideration thereof the archbishop pardoned
Ursus.
As a doctor, Ursus wrought cures by some means
or other. He made use of aromatics; he was versed
in simples; he made the most of the immense power
which lies in a heap of neglected plants, such as the
hazel, the catkin, the white alder, the white briony,
the mealy-tree, the traveller's joy, the buckthorn. He
treated phthisis with the sundew; at opportune
moments he would use the leaves of the spurge,
which plucked at the bottom are a purgative, and
plucked at the top, an emetic. He cured sore throat
by means of the vegetable excrescence called Jew's
ear. He knew the rush which cures the ox and the
mint which cures the horse. He was well acquainted
with the beauties and virtues of the herb mandra-
gora, which, as every one knows, is of both sexes.
He had many recipes. He cured burns with the sala-
mander wool, of which, according to Pliny, Nero
had a napkin. Ursus possessed a retort and a flask ;
he effected transmutations; he sold panaceas. It
was said of him that he had once been for a short
time in Bedlam; they had done him the honor to
take him for a madman, but had set him free on dis-


URSUS.
covering that he was only a poet. This story was
probably not true; we have all to submit to some
such legend about us.
The fact is, Ursus was a bit of a savant, a man of
taste, and an old Latin poet. He was learned in two
forms: he Hippocratized and he Pindarized. He could
have vied in bombast with Rapin and Vida. He
could have composed Jesuit tragedies in a style not
less triumphant than that of Father Bouhours. It
followed from his familiarity with the venerable
rhythms and metres of the ancients that he had
peculiar figures of speech and a whole family of
classical metaphors. He would say of a mother fol-
lowed by her two daughters, “There is a dactyl;"
of a father preceded by his two sons, “ There is an
anapæst ;” and of a little child walking between
its grandmother and grandfather, “ There is an am-
phimacer.” So much knowledge could only end in
starvation. The school of Salerno says, “ Eat little
and often.” Ursus ate little and seldom, — thus
obeying one half the precept and disobeying the
other; but this was the fault of the public, who did
not always flock to him, and who did not often
buy.
Ursus was wont to say: “ The expectoration of a
sentence is a relief. The wolf is comforted by its
howl, the sheep by its wool, the forest by its finch,
woman by her love, and the philosopher by his epi-
phonema.” Ursus at a pinch composed comedies,
which, in recital, he all but acted; this helped to sell
the drugs. Among other works, he had composed an
heroic pastoral in honor of Sir Hugh Middleton, who


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
hirty feet him le place, raising up the
in 1608 brought a river to London. The river was
lying peacefully in Hertfordshire, twenty miles from
London ; the knight came and took possession of it.
He brought a brigade of six hundred men, armed
with shovels and pickaxes ; set to breaking up the
ground, scooping it out in one place, raising it in an-
other, - now thirty feet high, now twenty feet deep;
made wooden aqueducts high in air; and at different
points constructed eight hundred bridges of stone,
bricks, and timber. One fine morning the river en-
tered London, which was short of water. Ursus
transformed all these vulgar details into a fine Ec-
logue between the Thames and the New River, in
which the former invited the latter to come to him,
and offered her his bed, saying, “I am too old to
please women, but I am rich enough to pay them,"
- an ingenious and gallant conceit to indicate how
Sir Hugh Middleton had completed the work at his
own expense.
Ursus was great in soliloquy. Of a disposition at
once unsociable and talkative, desiring to see no one,
yet wishing to converse with some one, he got out of
the difficulty by talking to himself. Any one who
has lived a solitary life knows how deeply seated
monologue is in one's nature. Speech imprisoned
frets to find a vent. To harangue space is an outlet.
To speak out aloud when alone is as it were to have a
dialogue with the divinity which is within. It was, as
is well known, a custom of Socrates; he declaimed
to himself. Luther did the same. Ursus followed
in the steps of those great men. He had the her-
maphrodite faculty of being his own audience. He


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
with those scales. In his travels he kept away from
Holland, and he did well. Indeed, we believe that
he used never to leave the United Kingdom.
However this may have been, he was very poor
and morose, and having - made the acquaintance of
Homo in a wood, a taste for a wandering life had come
over him. He had taken the wolf into partnership,
and with him had gone forth on the highways, living
in the open air the great life of chance. He had a
great deal of industry and of reserve, and great skill
in everything connected with healing operations, re-
storing the sick to health, and in working wonders
peculiar to himself. He was considered a clever
mountebank and a good doctor. As may be im-
agined, he passed for a wizard as well, — not much,
indeed, for it was unwholesome in those days to be
considered a friend of the devil. To tell the truth,
Ursus, by his passion for pharmacy and his love of
plants, laid himself open to suspicion, seeing that he
often went to gather herbs in rough thickets where
grew Lucifer's salads, and where, as has been proved
by the Counsellor De l’Ancre, there is a risk of meet-
ing in the evening mist a man who comes out of the
earth “blind of the right eye, barefooted, without a
cloak, and a sword by his side.” But for the matter
of that, Ursus, although eccentric in manner and dis-
position, was too good a fellow to invoke or disperse
hail, to make faces appear, to kill a man with the
torment of excessive dancing, to suggest dreams fair
or foul, and full of terror, and to cause the birth of
cocks with four wings. He had no such mischievous
tricks. He was incapable of certain abominations,


URSUS.
- such as, for instance, speaking German, Hebrew,
or Greek without having learned them, which is a
sign of unpardonable wickedness, or of a natural in-
firmity proceeding from a morbid humor. If Ursus
spoke Latin, it was because he knew it. He would
never have allowed himself to speak Syriac, which he
did not know. Besides, it is asserted that Syriac is
the language spoken in the midnight meetings at
which uncanny people worship the Devil. In medi-
cine he justly preferred Galen to Cardan; Cardan,
although a learned man, being but an earthworm to
Galen.
To sum up, Ursus was not one of those persons
who live in fear of the police. His van was long
enough and wide enough to allow of his lying down
in it on a box containing his not very sumptuous ap-
parel. He owned a lantern, several wigs, and some
utensils suspended from nails, among which were
musical instruments. He possessed, besides, a bear-
skin with which he covered himself on his days of
grand performance. He called this putting on full
dress. He used to say, “I have two skins; this is
the real one,” — pointing to the bearskin.
The little house on wheels belonged to himself and
to the wolf. Besides his house, his retort, and his
wolf, he had a flute and a violoncello on which he
played prettily. He concocted his own elixirs. His
wits yielded him enough to sup on sometimes. In
the top of his van was a hole, through which passed
the pipe of a cast-iron stove, - so close to his box as
to scorch the wood of it. The stove had two com-
partments ; in one of them Ursus cooked his chemi-


10
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
cals, and in the other his potatoes. At night the
wolf slept under the van, amicably secured by a
chain. Homo's hair was black, that of Ursus, gray;
Ursus was fifty, if indeed he was not sixty. He
accepted his destiny to such an extent that, as we
have just seen, he ate potatoes, — the trash on which
at that time they fed pigs and convicts. He ate
them indignant yet resigned. He was not tall — he
was long. He was bent and melancholy. The bowed
frame of an old man is the settlement in the archi-
tecture of life. Nature had formed him for sadness.
He found it difficult to smile, and he had never been
able to weep, so that he was deprived of the conso-
lation of tears, as well as of the palliative of joy.
An old man is a thinking ruin; and such a ruin was
Ursus. He had the loquacity of a charlatan, the
leanness of a prophet, the irascibility of a charged
mine: such was Ursus. In his youth he had been a
philosopher in the house of a lord.
This was one hundred and eighty years ago, when
men were more like wolves than they are now.
Yet not so much more.
II.
Homo was no ordinary wolf. From his appetite
for medlars and potatoes he might have been taken
for a prairie wolf; from his dark hide, for a lycaon ;
and from his howl prolonged into a bark, for a dog
of Chili. But no one has as yet observed the eye-
ball of a dog of Chili sufficiently to enable us to de-
termine whether he be not a fox; and Homo was a


URSUS.
11
real wolf. He was five feet long, which is a fine
length for a wolf, even in Lithuania ; he was very
strong; he looked at you askance, which was not his
fault; he had a soft tongue, with which he occa-
sionally licked Ursus; he had a narrow brush of
short bristles on his backbone, and he was lean with
the wholesome leanness of a forest life. Before he
knew Ursus and had a carriage to draw, he thought
nothing of doing his fifty miles a night. Ursus, meet-
ing him in a thicket near a stream of running water,
had conceived a high opinion of him from seeing the
skill and sagacity with which he fished out cray-fish,
and welcomed him as an honest and genuine Koupara
wolf of the kind called crab-eater.
As a beast of burden, Ursus preferred Homo to a
donkey. He would have felt repugnance to having
his hut drawn by an ass; he thought too highly of
the ass for that. Moreover, he had observed that the
ass, a four-legged thinker little understood by men,
has a habit of cocking his ears uneasily when philoso-
phers talk nonsense. In life, the ass is a third person
between our thoughts and ourselves, and acts as a
restraint. As a friend, Ursus preferred Homo to a
dog, considering that the love of a wolf is more
rare.
Hence it was that Homo sufficed for Ursus. Homo
was for Ursus more than a companion, he was an
analogue. Ursus used to pat the wolf's empty ribs,
saying, “I have found the second volume of my-
self!” Again he said, “When I am dead, any one
wishing to know me need only study Homo. I shall
leave him behind me as a true copy of myself.”


12
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
The English law, not very lenient to beasts of the
forest, might have picked a quarrel with the wolf,
and have put him to trouble for his assurance in going
freely about the towns; but Homo took advantage
of the immunity granted by a statute of Edward IV.
to servants : “Every servant in attendance on his
master is free to come and go.” Besides, a certain
relaxation of the law had resulted with regard to
wolves, in consequence of its being the fashion of
the ladies of the Court, under the later Stuarts, to
have, instead of dogs, little wolves, called adives,
about the size of cats, which were brought from Asia
at great cost.
Ursus had communicated to Homo a portion of
his talents : such as to stand upright, to restrain his
rage into sulkiness, to growl instead of howling, etc.;
and on his part, the wolf had taught the man what
he knew, — to do without a roof, without bread and
fire, to prefer hunger in the woods to slavery in a
palace.
The van, hut, and vehicle in one, which traversed
so many different roads, without, however, leaving
Great Britain, had four wheels, with shafts for the
wolf and a splinter-bar for the man. The splinter-bar
came into use when the roads were bad. The van
was strong, although it was built of light boards like
a dove-cot. In front there was a glass door with a
little balcony used for orations, which had something
of the character of the platform tempered by an air
of the pulpit. At the back there was a door with a
practicable panel. By lowering the three steps which
turned on a hinge below the door, access was gained


URSUS.
13
to the hut, which at night was securely fastened with
bolt and lock. Rain and snow had fallen plentifully
on it; it had been painted, but of what color it was
difficult to say, change of season being to vans what
changes of reign are to courtiers. In front, outside,
was a board, - a kind of frontispiece, on which the
following inscription might once have been deci-
phered ; it was in black letters on a white ground,
but by degrees the characters had become confused
and blurred :-
“ By friction gold loses every year a fourteen hun-
dredth part of its bulk. This is what is called the
• wear.' Hence it follows that on fourteen hundred
millions of gold in circulation throughout the world, one
million is lost annually. This million dissolves into
dust, flies away, floats about, is reduced to atoms,
charges drugs, weighs down consciences, amalgamates
with the souls of the rich whom it renders proud, and
with those of the poor whom it renders brutish.”
The inscription, rubbed and blotted by the rain
and by the kindness of Providence, was fortunately
illegible ; for it is possible that its philosophy con-
cerning the inhalation of gold, at the same time both
enigmatical and lucid, might not have been to the
taste of the sheriffs, the provost-marshals, and other
big-wigs of the law. English legislation did not trifle
in those days. It did not take much to make a man
a felon. The magistrates were ferocious by tradition,
and cruelty was a matter of routine. The judges of
assize increased and multiplied. Jeffreys had be.
come a breed.


14
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
III.
In the interior of the van there were two other in-
scriptions. Above the box, on a whitewashed plank,
a hand had written in ink as follows:-
THE ONLY THINGS NECESSARY TO KNOW.1
The baron, peer of England, wears a cap with six
pearls. The coronet begins with the rank of viscount.
The viscount wears a coronet of which the pearls are
without number; the earl a coronet with the pearls
1 A translator, as a rule, has no right to interfere with
the text of the author. I hope, however, that I may be ex-
cused for having ventured to correct some manifest slips which
M. Hugo has made in preparing for Ursus the description of
the rights and privileges of the English peerage. I have not,
indeed, corrected all mistakes. Thus, for example, in the
very first sentences of this passage about the peerage it is
stated that the baron wears only a cap, and that the viscount
is the lowest rank of peer entitled to a coronet. This was true
up to the end of Charles the Second's reign. It is not true now,
and it was not true at the time when Ursus wrote. Yet it was
a statement which he might reasonably have supposed to be
true, and therefore I have let it remain. I have even ventured
to pass anachronisms of the opposite kind, where Ursus
speaks of that as existing which had not yet come to pass.
Thus there will be found among his list of great peers, at the
period of the Revolution, some titles, as those of Lords Grant-
hain, Lonsdale, Scarborough, Kent, and Coningsby, which
were not created till afterwards, — when the century was at its
close, or even when the next century had commenced. These
are errors of detail which do not interfere with the general
truth of the picture. With other statements, which never
were at any time true, I have been less tender. Thus I have
struck out the statement that on the top of Devonshire House


URSUS.
15
med
upon points, mingled with strawberry leaves placed low
between; the Marquis, one with pearls and leaves on
the same level; the duke, one with strawberry leaves
alone, — no pearls ; the royal duke, a circlet of crosses
and fleurs-de-lis; the Prince of Wales, crown like that
of the king, but unclosed.
The duke is a most high and most puissant prince,
the marquis and earl most noble and puissant lord, the
viscount noble and puissant lord, the baron a trusty
lord; the duke is his grace; the other peers their lord-
ships. Most honorable is higher than right honorable.
there was a lion which turned its tail on the king's palace.
Again, where the writer states that daily in the kiug's palace
there were eighty-six tables spread, each with five hundred
dishes, I have ventured to give the true statement that there
were five hundred dishes in all. And so with some other de-
tails. With a few passages I have had a little difficulty in
deciding how to deal. Thus Victor Hugo makes his hero
write: “ Toute fille de lord est lady. Les autres filles an-
glaises sont miss.” With regard to the first of these statements
it is well known that every daughter of a peer does not bear
the title of lady; it is only the daughters of a duke, a marquis,
or an earl who are so honored. Still, in the general obfuscation
of intellect which titular niceties are apt to produce, Ursus might
be supposed likely to designate as lady every peer's daughter
whomsoever. On the other hand, the daughters of cominoners
were not called miss in those days, and I have made bold to
give the title which Ursus must have known. Let une add
that most of the details as to “ The only things necessary tu
know" are borrowed from Chamberlayne's well-known work,
“The Present State of England," and that I am a little sur-
prised at the omission by M. Victor Hugo and his hero Ursus
of one curious touch which will be found in Chamberlayne's
chapter on the peerage: “No viscount is to wash with a
marquis but at his pleasure." — TR.


16
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
Lords who are peers are lords in their own right.
Lords who are not peers are lords by courtesy. There
are no real lords excepting such as are peers.
The House of Lords is a chamber and a court, Con-
cilium et Curia, — legislature and court of justice.
The Commons, who are the people, when ordered to
the bar of the Lords, humbly present themselves bare-
headed before the peers, who remain covered. The
Commons send up their bills by forty members, who
present the bill with three low bows. The Lords send
their bills to the Commons by a mere clerk. In case of
disagreement, the two Houses confer in the Painted
Chamber, the Peers seated and covered, the Commons
standing and bareheaded.
Peers go to Parliament in their coaches in file; the
Commons do not. Some peers go to Westminster in
open four-wheeled chariots. The use of these and of
coaches emblazoned with coats of arms and coronets
is allowed only to peers, and forms a portion of their
dignity.
Barons have the same rank as bishops. To be a
baron peer of England it is necessary to be in posses-
sion of a tenure from the king per Baroniam integram,
by full barony. The full barony consists of thirteen
knights' fees and one third part, each knight's fee being
of the value of twenty pounds sterling, which makes in
all four hundred marks. The head of a barony (Caput
baronice) is a castle disposed by inheritance, as Eng.
land herself, — that is to say, descending to daughters
if there be no sons, and in that case going to the eldest
daughter coeteris filiabus aliunde satisfactis.
1 As much as to say, the other daughters are provided for
as best may be. (Note by Ursus on the margin of the
wall.)


URSUS.
17
Barons have the degree of lord, — in Saxon, laford ;
dominus in high Latin ; Lordus in low Latin. The
eldest and younger sons of viscounts and barons are the
first esquires in the kingdom. The eldest sons of peers
take precedence of knights of the garter; the younger
sons do not. The eldest son of a viscount comes after
all barons, and precedes all baronets. Every daughter
of a peer is a Lady; other English girls are plain
Mistress.
All judges rank below peers. The serjeant wears a
lambskin tippet; the judge one of patchwork, de minuto
vario, made up of a variety of little white furs, always
excepting ermine. Ermine is reserved for peers and
the king.
A lord never takes an oath, either to the crown
or the law; his word suffices : he says, “ Upon my
honor.”
By a law of Edward VI., peers have the privilege
of committing manslaughter. A peer who kills a man
without premeditation is not prosecuted.
The persons of peers are inviolable.
A peer cannot be held in durance, save in the Tower
of London.
A writ of supplicavit cannot be granted against a peer.
A peer sent for by the king has the right to kill one
or two deer in the royal park.
A peer holds in his castle a baron's court of justice.
It is unworthy of a peer to walk the street in a
cloak followed by two footmen; he should only show
himself attended by a great train of gentlemen of his
household.
A peer can be amerced only by his peers, and never
to any greater amount than five pounds, excepting in
the case of a duke, who can be amerced ten.
VOL. I. — 2


18
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
A peer may retain six aliens born ; any other English-
man but four.
A peer can have wine custom-free; an earl, eight
tuns.
A peer is alone exempt from presenting himself be-
fore the sheriff of the circuit.
A peer cannot be assessed towards the militia.
When it pleases a peer he raises a regiment and gives
it to the king ; thus have done their graces the Dukes
of Athol, Hamilton, and Northumberland.
A peer can hold only of a peer.
In a civil cause he can demand the adjournment of
the case, if there be not at least one knight on the
jury.
A peer nominates his own chaplains. A baron ap-
points three chaplains, a viscount four, an earl and a
marquis five, a duke six.
A peer cannot be put to the rack, even for high
treason. A peer cannot be branded on the hand. A
peer is a clerk, though he knows not how to read. In
law he knows.
A duke has a right to a canopy, or cloth of state,
in all places where the king is not present; a viscount
may have one in his house ; a baron has a cover of
assay, which may be held under his cup while he drinks.
A baroness has the right to have her train borne by a
man in the presence of a viscountess.
Eighty-six tables, with five hundred dishes, are served
every day in the royal palace at each meal."
1 This sentence is probably derived from the following pas-
sage in Chamberlayne's book, but in the French version it has
suffered some alteration in the process of transition: “ The
magnificent and abundant plenty of the king's tables hath
caused amazement in foreigners; when they have been in-


URSUS.
19
If a plebeian strike a lord, his hand is cut off.
A lord is very nearly a king.
The king is very nearly a god.
The earth is a lordship.
The English address God as “ My Lord !"
Opposite this writing was written a second one,
in the same fashion, which ran thus : —
SATISFACTION WHICH MUST SUFFICE THOSE WHO HAVE
NOTHING.
Henry Auverquerque, Earl of Grantham, who sits in
the House of Lords between the Earl of Jersey and the
formed that in King Charles the First's reign, before the
troubles when his Majesty had the purveyance, there were
daily in his court 86 tables well furnished each meal, whereof
the king's table had 28 dishes, the queen's 24; four other
tables, 16 dishes each ; three other, 10 dishes each ; twelve
other had 7 dishes each; seventeen other tables had each of
them 5 dishes; three other had 4 each ; thirty-two other tables
had each 3 dishes; and thirteen other had each 2 dishes, – in
all about 500 dishes each meal, with bread, beer, wine, and
all other things necessary. All which was provided most by
the several purveyors, who, by summons legally and regularly
authorized, did receive those provisions at a moderate price,
such as had been formally agreed upon in the several counties
of England.” .
The next sentence has been allowed to stand as in the
original, but it is probably based on the following from
Chamberlayne: “The king's court, or house where the king
resideth, is accounted a place so sacred that if any man pre-
sume to strike another within the palace where the king's
royal person resideth, and by such stroke only draw blood, his
right hand shall be stricken off, and he committed to perpetual
imprisonment and fined.” — TR.


20
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
marbleh lumacher marble of slosity which
Earl of Greenwich, has a hundred thousand a year. To
his lordship belongs the palace of Grantham Terrace,
built all of marble, and famous for what is called the
labyrinth of passages, — a curiosity which contains the
scarlet corridor in marble of Sarancolin, the brown cor-
ridor in lumachel of Astrakhan, the white corridor in
marble of Lani, the black corridor in marble of Ala-
banda, the gray corridor in marble of Staremma,
the yellow corridor in marble of Hesse, the green
corridor in marble of the Tyrol; the red corridor,
half cherry-spotted marble of Bohemia, half lumachel
of Cordova ; the blue corridor in turquin of Genoa, the
violet in granite of Catalonia, the mourning-hued corri-
dor veined black and white in slate of Murviedro, the
pink corridor in cipolin of the Alps, the pearl corridor
in lumachel of Nonetta, and the corridor of all colors,
called the courtiers' corridor, in motley.
Richard Lowther, Viscount Lonsdale, owns Lowther
in Westmoreland, which has a magnificent approach,
and a flight of entrance steps which seem to invite the
ingress of kings.
Richard, Earl of Scarborough, Viscount and Baron
Lumley of Lumley Castle, Viscount Lumley of Water-
ford in Ireland, and Lord Lieutenant and Vice Admiral
of the county of Northumberland and of Durham, both
city and county, owns the double castleward of old and
new Sandbeck, where you admire a superb railing in the
form of a semicircle, surrounding the basin of a match-
less fountain. He has, besides, his castle of Lumley.
Robert Darcy, Earl of Holderness, has his domain of
Holderness, with baronial towers, and large gardens
laid out in French fashion, where he drives in his coach-
and-six, preceded by two outriders, as becomes a peer
of England.


URSUS.
21
Charles Beauclerc, Duke of St. Alban's, Earl of Bur-
ford, Baron Hedington, Grand Falconer of England,
has an abode at Windsor, regal even by the side of the
king's.
Charles Bodville Robartes, Baron Robartes of Truro,
Viscount Bodmin and Earl of Radnor, owns Wimpole
in Cambridgeshire, which is as three palaces in one,
having three façades, one bowed and two triangular.
The approach is by an avenue of trees four deep.
The most noble and most puissant Lord Philip, Baron
Herbert of Cardiff, Earl of Montgomery and of Pem-
broke, Ross of Kendall, Parr, Fitzhugh, Marmion, St.
Quentin, and Herbert of Shurland, Warden of the Stan-
naries in the counties of Cornwall and Devon, hereditary
visitor of Jesus College, possesses the wonderful gar-
dens at Wilton, where there are two sheaf-like fountains,
finer than those of his most Christian Majesty King
Louis XIV. at Versailles.
Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset, owns Somerset
House on the Thames, which is equal to the Villa Pam-
fili at Rome. On the chimney-piece are seen two
porcelain vases of the dynasty of the Yuens, which are
worth half a million in French money.
In Yorkshire, Arthur, Lord Ingram, Viscount Irwin,
has Temple Newsam, which is entered under a trium-
phal arch, and which has large wide roofs resembling
Moorish terraces.
Robert, Lord Ferrers of Chartly, Bourchier, and
Louvaine, has Staunton Harold in Leicestershire, of
which the park is geometrically planned in the shape
of a temple with a façade, and in front of the piece
of water is the great church with the square belfry,
which belongs to his lordship.
In the county of Northampton, Charles Spencer, Earl


22
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
of Sunderland, member of his Majesty's Privy Council,
possesses Althorp, at the entrance of which is a railing
with four columns surmounted by groups in marble.
Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, has, in Surrey,
New Park, rendered magnificent by its sculptured pin-
nacles, its circular lawn belted by trees, and its wood-
land, at the extremity of which is a little mountain,
artistically rounded, and surmounted by a large oak,
which can be seen from afar.
Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, possesses Bret-
by Hall in Derbyshire, with a splendid clock-tower, fal-
conries, warrens, and very fine sheets of water, long,
square, and oval, one of which is shaped like a mirror,
and has two jets, which throw the water to a great
height.
Charles Cornwallis, Baron Cornwallis of Eye, owns
Broome Hall, a palace of the fourteenth century.
The most noble Algernon Capel, Viscount Malden,
Earl of Essex, has Cashiobury in Hertfordshire, - a
seat which has the shape of a capital H, and which
rejoices sportsmen with its abundance of game.
Charles, Lord Ossulston, owns Darnley in Middlesex,
approached by Italian gardens.
James Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, has, seven leagues
from London, Hatfield House, with its four lordiy
pavilions, its belfry in the centre, and its grand court-
yard of black and white slabs, like that of St. Germain.
This palace, which has a frontage two hundred and
seventy-two feet in length, was built in the reign of
James I. by the Lord High Treasurer of England, the
great-grandfather of the present earl. To be seen there
is the bed of one of the Countesses of Salisbury; it is
of inestimable value, and made entirely of Brazilian
wood, which is a panacea against the bites of serpents,


URSUS.
23
and which is called milhombres, - that is to say, a
thousand men. On this bed is inscribed, “ Honi soit
qui mal y pense.”
Edward Rich, Earl of Warwick and Holland, is
owner of Warwick Castle, where whole oaks are burned
in the fireplaces.
In the parish of Sevenoaks, Charles Sackville, Baron
Buckhurst, Baron Cranfield, Earl of Dorset and Middle-
sex, is owner of Knowle, which is as large as a town,
and is composed of three palaces standing para'lel one
behind the cther, like ranks of infantry. There are six
covered flignts of steps on the principal frontage, and a
gate under a kcep with four towers.
Thomas Thynne, Baron Thynne of Warminster, and
Viscount Weymouth, possesses Longleat, in which there
are as many chimneys, cupolas, pinnacles, pepper-boxes,
pavilions, and turrets as at Chambord, in France, which
belongs to the king.
Henry Howard, Earl of Suffolk, owns, twelve leagues
from London, the Palace of Audley End in Essex, which
in grandeur and dignity scarcely yields the palm to the
Escorial of the King of Spain.
In Bedfordshire, Wrest House and Park, which is a
whole district enclosed by ditches, walls, woodlands,
rivers, and hills, belongs to Henry, Marquis of Kent.
Hampton Court, in Herefordshire, with its strong
enibattled keep, and its gardens bounded by a piece
of water which divides them from the forest, belongs to
Thomas, Lord Coningsby.
Grimsthorp, in Lincolnshire, with its long façade
intersected by turrets in pale, its park, its fish-ponds,
its pheasantries, its sheepfolds, its lawns, its grounds
planted with rows of trees, its groves, its walks, its
shrubberies, its flower-beds and borders formed in


24
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
square and lozenge-shape, and resembling great car
pets, its race-courses, and the majestic sweep for car-
riages to turn in at the entrance of the house, belongs
to Robert, Earl Lindsey, hereditary lord of the forest of
Waltham.
Up Park, in Sussex, a square house, with two sym-
metrical belfried pavilions on each side of the great
courtyard, belongs to the Right Honorable Forde,
Baron Grey of Werke, Viscount Glendale and Earl of
Tankerville.
Newnham Paddox, in Warwickshire, which has two
quadrangular fish-ponds and a gabled archway with
a large window of four panes, belongs to the Earl
of Denbigh, who is also Count von Rheinfelden, in
Germany.
Wytham Abbey, in Berkshire, with its French garden
in which there are four curiously trimmed arbors, and
its great embattled towers, supported by two bastions,
belongs to Montague, Earl of Abingdon, who also owns
Rycote, of which he is Baron, and the principal door of
which bears the device, “ Virtus ariete fortior.”
William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire, has six
dwelling-places, of which Chatsworth (two-storied, and
of the finest order of Grecian architecture) is one.
The Viscount of Kinalmeaky, who is Earl of Cork, in
Ireland, is owner of Burlington House, Piccadilly, with
its extensive gardens, reaching to the fields outside
London; he is also owner of Chiswick, where there are
nine magnificent lodges ; be also owns Londesborough,
which is a new house by the side of an old palace.
The Duke of Beaufort owns Chelsea, which contains
two Gothic buildings and a Florentine one ; he has also
Badminton, in Gloucestershire, a residence from which
a number of avenues branch out like rays from a star.


URSUS.
25
The most noble and puissant Prince Henry, Duke of
Beaufort, is also Marquis and Earl of Worcester, Earl
of Glamorgan, Viscount Grosmont, and Baron Herbert
of Chepstow, Ragland, and Gower, Baron Beaufort of
Caldecott Castle, and Baron de Bottetourt.
John Holles, Duke of Newcastle, and Marquis of
Clare, owns Bolsover, with its majestic square keeps ;
his also is Haughton, in Nottinghamshire, where a
round pyramid, made to imitate the Tower of Babel,
stands in the centre of a basin of water.
William, Earl of Craven, Viscount Uffington, and
Baron Craven of Hamstead Marshall, owns Combe Ab-
bey in Warwickshire, where is to be seen the finest
water-jet in England ; and in Berkshire two baronies,
Hamstead Marshall, on the facade of which are five
Gothic lanterns sunk in the wall, and Ashdown Park,
which is a country-seat situate at the point of intersec-
tion of cross-roads in a forest.
Linnæus, Lord Clancharlie, Baron Clancharlie and
Hunkerville, Marquis of Corleone in Sicily, derives his
title from the castle of Clancharlie, built in 912 by Ed-
ward the Elder, as a defence against the Danes. Be-
sides Hunkerville House, in London, which is a palace,
he has Corleone Lodge at Windsor, which is another,
and eight castlewards, one at Burton-on-Trent, with a
royalty on the carriage of plaster-of-Paris ; then Grum-
daith Humble, Moricambe, Trewardraith, Hell-Kesters
(where there is a miraculous well), Phillinmore, with
its turf-bogs, Reculver, near the ancient city Vagniac,
Vinecaunton, on the Moel-eulle Mountain ; besides nine-
teen boroughs and villages with reeves, and the whole
of Penneth chase, — all of which bring his lordship
forty thousand pounds a year.
The one hundred and seventy-two peers enjoying


26
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
their dignities under James II. possess among them
all together a revenue of one million two hundred and
seventy-two thousand pounds sterling a year, which is
the eleventh part of the revenue of England.
In the margin opposite the last name (that of Lin-
næus, Lord Clancharlie) there was a note in the
handwriting of Ursus : “Rebel ; in exile ; houses,
lands, and chattels sequestered. It is well.”
IV.
URSUS admired Homo.' One admires one's like.
It is a law.
To be always raging inwardly and grumbling out-
wardly was the normal condition of Ursus. He was
the malcontent of creation. By nature he was a man
ever in opposition. He took the world unkindly ;
he gave his satisfecit to no one and to nothing. The
bee did not atone by its honey-making for its sting ;
a full-blown rose did not absolve the sun for yellow
fever and black vomit. It is probable that in secret
Ursus criticised Providence a good deal. “Evi-
dently," he would say, “the Devil works by a spring,
and the wrong that God does is having let go the
trigger.” He approved of none but princes, and he
had his own peculiar way of expressing his approba-
tion. One day, when James II. made a gift to the
Virgin in a Catholic chapel in Ireland of a massive
gold lamp, Ursus, passing that way with Homo, who
was more indifferent to such things, broke out in ad-
miration before the crowd, and exclaimed : “ It is


URSUS.
27
certain that the Blessed Virgin wants a lamp much
more than those barefooted children there require
shoes.”
Such proofs of his loyalty, and such evidences
of his respect for established powers, probably con-
tributed in no small degree to make the magistrates
tolerate his vagabond life and his low alliance with a
wolf. Sometimes of an evening, through the weak-
ness of friendship, he allowed Homo to stretch his
limbs and wander at liberty about the caravan. The
wolf was incapable of an abuse of confidence, and
behaved in society, that is to say among men, with
the discretion of a poodle. All the same, if bad-
tempered officials had to be dealt with, difficulties
might have arisen; so Ursus kept the honest wolf
chained up as much as possible.
From a political point of view, his writing about
gold, not very intelligible in itself, and now become
undecipherable, was but a smear, and gave no handle
to the enemy. Even after the time of James II., and
under the “respectable” reign of William and Mary,
his caravan might have been seen peacefully going its
rounds of the little English country towns. He trav-
elled freely from one end of Great Britain to the
other, selling his philtres and vials, and sustaining,
with the assistance of his wolf, his quack mummeries;
and he passed with ease through the meshes of the
nets which the police at that period had spread all
over England in order to sift wandering gangs, and
especially to stop the progress of the Comprachicos.
This was right enough. Ursus belonged to no
gang. Ursus lived with Ursus, - a tête-à-tête into


28
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
which the wolf gently thrust his nose. If Ursus
could have had his way, he would have been a Carib-
bee; that being impossible, he preferred to be alone.
The solitary man is a modified savage, accepted by
civilization. He who wanders most is most alone;
hence his continual change of place. To remain any-
where long, suffocated him with the sense of being
tamed. He passed his life in passing on his way.
The sight of towns increased his taste for brambles,
thickets, thorns, and holes in the rock. His home
was the forest. He did not feel himself much out of
his element in the murmur of crowded streets, which
is like enough to the bluster of trees. The crowd to
some extent satisfies our taste for the desert. What
he disliked in his van was its having a door and win-
dows, and thus resembling a house. He would have
realized his ideal, had he been able to put a cave on
four wheels and travel in a den.
He did not smile, as we have already said, but he
used to laugh, — sometimes, indeed frequently, a bit-
ter laugh. There is consent in a smile, while a laugh
is often a refusal.
His great business was to hate the human race.
He was implacable in that hate. Having made it
clear that human life is a dreadful thing, having ob-
served the superposition of evils, — kings on the peo-
ple, war on kings, the plague on war, famine on the
plague, folly on everything, — having proved a certain
measure of chastisement in the mere fact of existence,
having recognized that death is a deliverance, when
they brought him a sick man he cured him. He had
cordials and beverages to prolong the lives of the old.


URSUS,
29
He put lame cripples on their legs again, and hurled
this sarcasm at them: “There, you are on your paws
once more; may you walk long in this valley of
tears !” When he saw a poor man dying of hunger,
he gave him all the pence he had about him, growl-
ing out, “Live on, you wretch' eat ! last a long time!
It is not I who would shorten your penal servitude!”
After which, he would rub his hands and say, "I do
men all the harm I can.”
Through the little window at the back, passers-by
could read on the ceiling of the van these words,
written within, but visible from without, inscribed
with charcoal, in big letters, —
URSUS, PHILOSOPHER.


CHAPTER II.
THE COMPRACHICOS.
Who now knows the word Comprachicos, and
who knows its meaning ?
The Comprachicos, or Comprapequeños, were a
hideous and nondescript association of wanderers,
famous in the seventeenth century, forgotten in the
eighteenth, unheard of in the nineteenth. The Com-
prachicos are like the “succession powder,” — an an-
cient social characteristic detail. They are part of
old human ugliness. To the great eye of history,
which sees everything collectively, the Comprachicos
belong to the colossal fact of slavery. Joseph sold
by his brethren is a chapter in their story. The
Comprachicos have left their traces in the penal laws
of Spain and England. You find here and there in
the dark confusion of English laws the impress of this
horrible truth, like the footprint of a savage in a
forest.
Comprachicos, the same as Comprapequeños, is a
compound Spanish word signifying Child-buyers.
The Comprachicos traded in children. They
bought and sold them. They did not steal them.
The kidnapping of children is another branch of in-
dustry. And what did they make of these children?


THE COMPRACHICOS.
31
Monsters.
Why monsters ?
To laugh at.
The populace must needs laugh, and kings too. The
mountebank is wanted in the streets, the jester at
the Louvre; the one is called a Clown, the other
a Fool.
The efforts of man to procure bimself pleasure are
at times worthy of the attention of the philosopher.
What are we sketching in these few preliminary
pages ? A chapter in the most terrible of books, –
a book which might be entitled, “The Farming of
the Unhappy by the Happy.”
II.
A CHILD destined to be a plaything for men,
such a thing has existed, such a thing exists even
now. In simple and savage times such a thing
constituted an especial trade. The seventeenth cen-
tury, called the great century, was of those times.
It was a century very Byzantine in tone. It com-
bined corrupt simplicity with delicate ferocity; a
curious variety of civilization, - a tiger with a sim-
per. Madame de Sévigné minces on the subject of
the fagot and the wheel. That century traded a
good deal in children. Flattering historians have
concealed the sore, but have divulged the remedy, -
Vincent de Paul.
In order that a human toy should succeed, he must
be taken early. The dwarf must be fashioned when
young. We play with childhood, but a well-formed


32
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
child is not very amusing; a hunchback is better
fun.
Hence grew an art. There were trainers who
took a man, and made him an abortion ; they took a
face, and made a muzzle ; they stunted growth ;
they kneaded the features. The artificial production
of teratological cases had its rules ; it was quite a
science, — what one can imagine as the antithesis of
orthopedy. Where God put a look, their art put a
squint; where God had made harmony, they made
discord ; where God had made the perfect picture,
they re-established the sketch; and in the eyes of
connoisseurs it was the sketch which was perfect.
They debased animals as well; they invented piebald
horses. Turenne rode a piebald horse. In our own
days, do they not dye dogs blue and green? Nature
is our canvas. Man has always wished to add some-
thing to God's work; man retouches creation, some-
times for better, sometimes for worse. The court
buffoon was nothing but an attempt to lead back
man to the monkey; it was a progress the wrong
way, - a masterpiece in retrogression. At the same
time they tried to make a man of the monkey.
Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland and Countess of
Southampton, had a marmoset for a page. Frances
Sutton, Baroness Dudley, eighth peeress in the bench
of barons, had tea served by a baboon clad in gold
brocade, which her ladyship called My Black.
Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester, used to
go and take her seat in Parliament in a coach with
armorial bearings, behind which stood, their muzzles
stuck up in the air, three Cape monkeys in grand


THE COMPRACHICOS.
33
livery. A Duchess of Medina-Celi, whose toilet
Cardinal Pole witnessed, had her stockings put on
by an orang-outang. These monkeys raised in the
scale were a counterpoise to man brutalized and
bestialized. This promiscuousness of man and beast,
desired by the great, was especially prominent in the
case of the dwarf and the dog. The dwarf never
quitted the dog, which was always bigger than him-
self. The dog was the pair of the dwarf; it was as
if they were coupled with a collar. This juxtaposi-
tion is authenticated by a mass of domestic records,
— notably by the portrait of Jeffrey Hudson, dwarf
of Henrietta of France, daughter of Henry IV. and
wife of Charles I.
To degrade man tends to deform him. The sup-
pression of his state was completed by disfigurement.
Certain vivisectors of that period succeeded marvel-
lously well in effacing from the human face the
divine effigy. Dr. Conquest, member of the Amen
Street College, and judicial visitor of the chemists'
shops of London, wrote a book in Latin on this
pseudo-surgery, the processes of which he describes.
If we are to believe Justus of Carrickfergus, the in-
ventor of this branch of surgery was a monk named
Avonmore, - an Irish word, signifying Great River.
The dwarf of the Elector Palatine, Perkeo, whose
effigy — or ghost — springs from a magical box in
the cave of Heidelberg, was a remarkable specimen
of this science, very varied in its applications. It
fashioned beings the law of whose existence was
hideously simple: it permitted them to suffer, and
commanded them to amuse,
VOL. 1. — 3


34
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
II.
THE manufacture of monsters was practised on a
large scale, and comprised various branches.
The Sultan required them, so did the Pope; the
one to guard his women, the other to say his prayers.
These were of a peculiar kind, incapable of reproduc-
tion. Scarcely human beings, they were useful to
voluptuousness and to religion. The seraglio and
the Sistine Chapel utilized the same species of mon-
sters, — fierce in the former case, mild in the latter.
They knew how to produce things in those days
which are not produced now; they had talents
which we lack, and it is not without reason that
some good folk cry out that the decline has come.
We no longer know how to sculpture living human
flesh; this is consequent on the loss of the art of
torture. Men were once virtuosi in that respect,
but are so no longer; the art has become so sim-
plified that it will soon disappear altogether. In
cutting the limbs of living men, in opening their
bellies and in dragging out their entrails, phenomena
were grasped on the moment and discoveries made.
We are obliged to renounce these experiments now,
and are thus deprived of the progress which surgery
made by aid of the executioner. .
The vivisection of former days was not limited to
the manufacture of phenomena for the market-place,
of buffoons for the palace (a species of augmentative
of the courtier), and eunuchs for sultans and popes.
It abounded in varieties. One of its triumphs was
the manufacture of cocks for the King of England.


THE COMPRACHICOS.
35
It was the custom, in the palace of the kings of
England, to have a sort of watchman who crowed
like a cock. This watcher, awake while all others
slept, ranged the palace, and raised from hour to hour
the cry of the farmyard, repeating it as often as was
necessary, and thus supplying a clock. This man,
promoted to be cock, had in childhood undergone the
operation of the pharynx which was part of the art
described by Dr. Conquest. Under Charles II. the
salivation inseparable to the operation having dis-
gusted the Duchess of Portsmouth, the appointment
was indeed preserved, so that the splendor of the
crown should not be tarnished, but they got an
unmutilated man to represent the cock. A retired
officer was generally selected for this honorable em-
ployment. Under James II. the functionary was
named William Sampson, Cock, and received for his
crow, £9 2s. 6d. annually.
1 The author refers the reader to Chamberlayne's work on
“ The Present State of England,” chapter xiii., where will be
found “A List of His Majesties Household Officers and Ser-
· vants attending in the several offices below stairs, under the
command of his Grace James Duke of Ormand, Lord Steward,
together with their respective salaries." From this list it may
be enough to quote the last five entries :-
£ 8. d.
“ Sir Edward Villers, Knight Marshall. .. 26 00 00
Six under Marshalls . . . . . . . . 100 00 00
William Sampson, Cock . . . . . . . 09 02 06
Four Grooms Purveyours of Longcarts . . 10 13 04
Henry Rainsford, Porter at St. James's . 50 00 00 ”
And in case any one should imagine that Cock is a misprint
for Cook, let it be observed that the officers of the king's
kitchen are given in a different part of the same chapter, and
.


36
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
The memoirs of Catherine II. inform us that at St.
Petersburg, scarcely a hundred years since, whenever
the czar or czarina was displeased with a Russian
prince, he was forced to squat down in the great
ante-chamber of the palace, and to remain in that
posture a certain number of days, mewing like a cat,
or clucking like a sitting hen, and pecking his food
from the floor.
These fashions have passed away; but not so
much, perhaps, as one might imagine. Nowadays
courtiers slightly modify their intonation in clucking
to please their masters. More than one picks up
from the ground — we will not say from the mud -
what he eats.
It is very fortunate that kings cannot err; hence
their contradictions never perplex us. In approving
always, one is sure to be always right, which is
pleasant. Louis XIV. would not have liked to see
that the wages of the meanest of them was double what the
gallant Cock obtained. Here is the list :-
£ 8. d.
“ John Clement, Esquire, 2d Clerk ..., 150 00 00
Claud Fourmont, Esquire, 1st Master Cook. 150 00 00
Patrick Lambe, Esquire, 2d Master Cook . 80 00 00
Thomas Budding, Yeoman of the Mouth. 50 00 00
Joseph Centlivre, Yeoman Pottagier ... 50 00 00
John Tompson, Groom . . . . . . . 30 00 00
John Lincicombe, Groom . . . . . . . 30 00 00
Alexander Housden, Child . . . . . . 25 00 00
James Beacher, Child . . . . . . . . 25 00 00
One Scourer . . . . . . . . . . . 30 00 00
Three Turnbroches . . . . . . . . . 54 15 00
One Doorkeeper : . . . . . . . . 18 05 00 "
–TR.


THE COMPRACHICOS.
37
at Versailles either an officer acting the cock or a
prince acting the turkey. That which raised the
royal and imperial dignity in England and Russia
would have seemed to Louis the Great incompatible
with the crown of Saint Louis. We know what his
displeasure was when Madame Henriette forgot her-
self so far as to see a hen in a dream, which was,
indeed, a grave breach of good manners in a lady of
the court. When one is of the court one should not
dream of the courtyard. Bossuet, it may be remem-
bered, was nearly as scandalized as Louis XIV.
IV.
The commerce in children in the seventeenth cen-
tury, as we have explained, was connected with a
trade. The Comprachicos engaged in the commerce,
and carried on the trade. They bought children,
worked a little on the raw material, and resold them
afterwards.
The venders were of all kinds, from the wretched
father getting rid of his family to the master utilizing
his stud of slaves. The sale of men was a simple
matter. In our own time we have had fighting to
maintain this right. Remember that it is less than a
century ago since the Elector of Hesse sold his sub-
jects to the King of England, who required men to
be killed in America. Kings went to the Elector of
Hesse as we go to the butcher to buy meat. The
Elector had food for powder in stock, and hung up
his subjects in his shop. Come, buy ; it is for sale.
In England, under Jeffreys, after the tragical episode


38
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
of Monmouth, there were many lords and gentlemen
beheaded and quartered. Those who were executed
left wives and daughters, widows and orphans, whom
James II. gave to the queen, his wife. The queen
sold these ladies to William Penn. Very likely the
king had so much per cent on the transaction. The
extraordinary thing is, not that James II. should have
sold the women, but that William Penn should have
bought them. Penn's purchase is excused, or ex-
plained, by the fact that, having a desert to sow with
men, he needed women as farming implements.
Her Gracious Majesty made a good business out
of these ladies. The young sold dear. We may
imagine, with the uneasy feeling which a complicated
scandal arouses, that probably some old duchesses
were thrown in cheap
The Comprachicos were also called the Cheylas, —
a Hindu word, which conveys the image of harrying
a nest.
For a long time the Comprachicos only partially
concealed themselves. There is sometimes in the
social order a favoring shadow thrown over iniqui-
tous trades, in which they thrive. In our own day
we have seen an association of the kind in Spain,
under the direction of the ruffian Ramon Selles, last
from 1834 to 1866, and hold three provinces under
terror for thirty years, — Valencia, Alicante, and
Murcia.
Under the Stuarts, the Comprachicos were by no
means in bad odor at court. On occasions they were
used for reasons of State. For James II. they were
almost an instrumentum regni. It was a time when


THE COMPRACHICOS.
39
families which were refractory or in the way were
dismembered, when a descent was cut short, when
heirs were suddenly suppressed. At times one branch
was defrauded to the profit of another. The Com-
prachicos had a genius for disfiguration which recom-
mended them to State policy. To disfigure is better
than to kill. There was, indeed, the Iron Mask, but
that was a mighty measure. Europe could not be
peopled with iron masks, while deformed tumblers
ran about the streets without creating any surprise.
Besides, the iron mask is removable; not so the
mask of flesh. You are masked forever by your own
flesh : what can be more ingenious? The Comprachi-
cos worked on man as the Chinese work on trees.
They had their secrets, as we have said ; they had
tricks which are now lost arts. A sort of fantastic
stunted thing left their hands; it was ridiculous and
wonderful. They would touch up a little being with
such skill that its father could not have known it.
Sometimes they left the spine straight and remade.
the face. They unmarked a child as one might un-
mark a pocket-handkerchief. Products destined for
tumblers had their joints dislocated in a masterly
manner, -- you would have said they had been boned.
Thus gymnasts were made.
Not only did the Comprachicos take away his face
from the child, they also took away his memory. At
least, they took away all they could of it; the child
had no consciousness of the mutilation to which he
had been subjected. This frightful surgery left its
traces on his countenance, but not on his mind. The
most he could recall was that one day he had been


40
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
seized by men, that next he had fallen asleep, and
then that he had been cured. Cured of what? He
did not know. Of burnings by sulphur and incis-
ions by the iron he remembered nothing. The Com-
prachicos deadened the little patient by means of a
stupefying powder which was thought to be magical,
and suppressed all pain. This powder has been
known from time immemorial in China, and is still
employed there in the present day. The Chinese
have been beforehand with us in all our inventions,
— printing, artillery, aerostation, chloroform. Only,
the discovery, which in Europe at once takes life and
birth and becomes a prodigy and a wonder, remains
a chrysalis in China, and is preserved in a deathlike
state. China is a museum of embryos.
Since we are in China, let us remain there a mo-
ment to note a peculiarity. In China, from time im-
memorial, they have possessed a certain refinement
of industry and art. It is the art of moulding a living
man. They take a child, two or three years old, put
him in a porcelain vase, more or less grotesque, which
is made without top or bottom, to allow egress for
the head and feet. During the day the vase is set
upright, and at night is laid down to allow the child
to sleep. Thus the child thickens without growing
taller, filling up with his compressed flesh and dis-
torted bones the reliefs in the vase. This devel-
opment in a bottle continues many years. After a
certain time it becomes irreparable. When they
consider that this is accomplished, and the monster
made, they break the vase. The child comes out, —
and, behold, there is a man in the shape of a mug !


THE COMPRACHICOS.
This is convenient; by ordering your dwarf betimes
you are able to have it of any shape you wish.
V.
JAMES II. tolerated the Comprachicos for the good
reason that he made use of them; at least it hap-
pened that he did so more than once. We do not
always disdain to use what we despise. This low
trade, an excellent expedient sometimes for the higher
one which is called State policy, was willingly left in
a miserable state, but was not persecuted. There
was no surveillance, but a certain amount of atten-
tion. Thus much might be useful; the law closed
one eye, the king opened the other.
Sometimes the king went so far as to avow his
complicity. These are audacities of monarchical ter-
rorism. The disfigured one was marked with the
fleur-de-lis; they took from him the mark of God,
they put on him the mark of the king. Jacob Astley,
knight and baronet, lord of Melton Constable, in the
county of Norfolk, had in his family a child who had
been sold, and upon whose forehead the dealer had
imprinted a fleur-de-lis with a hot iron. In certain
cases in which it was held desirable to register for
some reason the royal origin of the new position made
for the child, they used such means. England has
always done us the honor to utilize, for her personal
service, the fleur-de-lis.
The Comprachicos, allowing for the shade of mean-
ing which divides a trade from a fanaticism, were
analogous to the Stranglers of India. They lived


42
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
among themselves in gangs, and to facilitate their
progress, affected somewhat of the Merry-Andrew.
They encamped here and there, but they were grave
and religious, bearing no affinity to other nomads,
and incapable of theft. The people for a long time
wrongly confounded them with the Moors of Spain
and the Moors of China. The Moors of Spain were
coiners, the Moors of China were thieves. There
was nothing of the sort about the Comprachicos;
they were honest folk. Whatever you may think of
them, they were sometimes sincerely scrupulous.
They pushed open a door, entered, bargained for a
child, paid, and departed. All was done with
propriety.
They were of all countries. Under the name of
Comprachicos fraternized English, French, Castilians,
Germans, Italians. A unity of idea, a unity of super-
stition, the pursuit of the same calling, make such
fusions. In this fraternity of vagabonds, those of the
Mediterranean seaboard represented the East, those
of the Atlantic seaboard the West. Many Basques
conversed with many Irishmen. The Basque and the
Irishman understand each other : they speak the old
Punic jargon; add to this the intimate relations of
Catholic Ireland with Catholic Spain, — relations such
that they terminated by bringing to the gallows in
London one almost King of Ireland, the Celtic Lord
de Brany; from which resulted the conquest of the
county of Leitrim.
The Comprachicos were rather a fellowship than a
tribe; rather a residuum than a fellowship. It was
all the riffraff of the universe, having for their trade a


THE COMPRACHICOS.
43
crime. It was a sort of harlequin people, all composed
of rags. To recruit a man was to sew on a tatter.
To wander was the Comprachicos' law of exist-
ence, — to appear and disappear. What is barely
tolerated cannot take root. Even in the kingdoms
where their business supplied the courts, and, on
occasions, served as an auxiliary to the royal power,
they were now and then suddenly ill-treated. Kings
made use of their art, and sent the artists to the
galleys. These inconsistencies belong to the ebb and
flow of royal caprice. “For such is our pleasure.”
A rolling stone and a roving trade gather no moss.
The Comprachicos were poor. They might have said
what the lean and ragged witch observed, when she
saw them setting fire to the stake, “ Le jeu n'en vaut
pas la chandelle.” It is possible, nay probable (their
chiefs remaining unknown), that the wholesale con-
tractors in the trade were rich. After the lapse of
two centuries, it would be difficult to throw any
light on this point.
It was, as we have said, a fellowship. It had its
laws, its oaths, its formulæ,- it had almost its cabala.
Any one nowadays wishing to know all about the
Comprachicos, need only go into Biscaya or Galicia;
there were many Basques among them, and it is in
those mountains that one hears their history. To
this day the Comprachicos are spoken of at Oyarzum,
at Urbistondo, at Leso, at Astigarraga. “Aguarda te,
niño, que voy a llamar al Comprachicos !” (“ Take
care, child, or I'll call the Comprachicos!”) is the
cry with which mothers frighten their children in that
country.


44
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
The Comprachicos, like the Zigeuner and the
gypsies, had appointed places for periodical meetings.
From time to time their leaders conferred together.
In the seventeenth century they had four principal
points of rendezvous, - one in Spain, the pass of
Pancorbo; one in Germany, the glade called the
Wicked Woman, near Diekirsch, where there are two
enigmatic bas-reliefs, representing a woman with a
head and a man without one; one in France, the hill
where was the colossal statue of Massue-la-Promesse
in the old sacred wood of Borvo Tomona, near Bour-
bonne-les-Bains; one in England, behind the garden
wall of William Challoner, Squire of Gisborough in
Cleveland, Yorkshire, behind the square tower and
the great wing which is entered by an arched door.
VI.
THE laws against vagabonds have always been
very rigorous in England. England, in her Gothic
legislation, seemed to be inspired with this prin-
ciple, “Homo errans fera errante pejor." One of the
special statutes classifies the man without a home as
“more dangerous than the asp, dragon, lynx, and basi-
lisk” (“atrocior aspide, dracone, lynce, et basilico ”).
For a long time England troubled herself as much
concerning the gypsies, of whom she wished to be
rid, as about the wolves of which she had been cleared.
In that the Englishman differed from the Irishman,
who prayed to the saints for the health of the wolf,
and called him “my godfather.”
English law, nevertheless, in the same way as (we


THE COMPRACHICOS.
45
have just seen) it tolerated the wolf, tamed, domesti-
cated, and become in some sort a dog, tolerated the
regular vagabond, become in some sort a subject.
It did not trouble itself about either the mountebank,
or the travelling barber, or the quack doctor, or the
pedler, or the open-air scholar, so long as they had a
trade to live by. Further than this, and with these
exceptions, the description of freedom which exists in
the wanderer terrified the law. A tramp was a pos-
sible public enemy. That modern thing, the lounger,
was then unknown; that ancient thing, the vagrant,
was alone understood. A suspicious appearance, that
indescribable something which all understand and
none can define, was sufficient reason that society
should take a man by the collar. “Where do you
live? How do you get your living ?” And if he
could not answer, harsh penalties awaited him. Iron
and fire were in the code : the law practised the
cauterization of vagrancy.
Hence, throughout English territory, a veritable
“ loi des suspects ” was applicable to vagrants (who,
it must be owned, readily became malefactors), and
particularly to gypsies, whose expulsion has errone-
ously been compared to the expulsion of the Jews
and the Moors from Spain, and the Protestants from
France. As for us, we do not confound a battue with
a persecution.
The Comprachicos, we insist, had nothing in com-
mon with the gypsies. The gypsies were a nation :
the Comprachicos were a compound of all nations, –
the lees of a horrible vessel full of filthy waters.
The Comprachicos had not, like the gypsies, an idiom


46
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
of their own; their jargon was a promiscuous collec-
tion of idioms : all languages were mixed together
in their language ; they spoke a medley. Like the
gypsies, they had come to be a people winding
through the peoples; but their common tie was asso-
ciation, not• race. At all epochs in history one finds
in the vast liquid mass which constitutes humanity
some of these streams of venomous men exuding
poison around them. The gypsies were a tribe; the
Comprachicos a freemasonry, - a masonry baving not
a noble aim, but a hideous handicraft. Finally, their
religions differed: the gypsies were Pagans, the
Comprachicos were Christians, and more than that,
good Christians, as became an association which,
although a mixture of all nations, owed its birth to
Spain, a devout land.
They were more than Christians, they were Cath-
olics; they were more than Catholics, they were Ro-
mans, and so touchy in their faith, and so pure, that
they refused to associate with the Hungarian nomads
of the comitate of Pesth, commanded and led by an
old man, having for sceptre a wand with a silver ball,
surmounted by the double-headed Austrian eagle.
It is true that these Hungarians were schismatics, to
the extent of celebrating the Assumption on the 27th
of August, which is an abomination.
In England, so long as the Stuarts reigned, the
confederation of the Comprachicos was, for motives
of which a glimpse has already been given, to a cer-
tain extent protected. James II., a devout man,
who persecuted the Jews and trampled out the
gypsies, was a good prince to the Comprachicos.


THE COMPRACHICOS.
47
We have seen why. The Comprachicos were buyers
of the human wares in which he was dealer. Dis-
appearances are occasionally necessary for the good of
the State. An inconvenient heir of tender age whom
they took and handled, lost his shape. This facili
tated confiscation; the transfer of titles to favorites
was simplified. The Comprachicos were, moreover,
very discreet and very taciturn. They bound them-
selves to silence and kept their word, which is
necessary in affairs of State. There was scarcely an
example of their having betrayed the secrets of the
king. This was, it is true, for their interest ; and if
the king had lost confidence in them,' they would
have been in great danger. They were thus of use
in a political point of view. Moreover, these artists
furnished singers for the Holy Father. The Compra-
chicos were useful for the “Miserere ” of Allegri.
They were particularly devoted to Mary. All this
pleased the papistry of the Stuarts. James II. could
not be hostile to holy men who pushed their devo-
tion to the Virgin to the extent of manufacturing
eunuchs. In 1688 there was a change of dynasty in
England. Orange supplanted Stuart; William III.
replaced James II.
James II. went away to die in exile, miracles were
performed on his tomb, and his relics cured the
Bishop of Autun of fistula, - a worthy recompense
of the Christian virtues of the prince.
William, having neither the same ideas nor the
same practices as James, was severe to the Compra-
chicos. He did his best to crush out the vermin.
A statute of the early part of William and Mary's
of view. My were the
led singers


48
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
chiefs, « Int hand
Peggars in
reign hit the association of child-buyers hard. It was
as the blow of a club to the Comprachicos, who were
from that time pulverized. By the terms of this stat-
ute those of the fellowship taken and duly convicted,
were to be branded with a red-hot iron, imprinting R
on the shoulder, signifying rogue; on the left hand
T, signifying thief; and on the right hand M, signify-
ing man-slayer. The chiefs, “supposed to be rich,
although beggars in appearance,” were to be pun-
ished in the collistrigium — that is, the pillory — and
branded on the forehead with a P, besides having
their goods confiscated, and the trees in their woods
rooted up. Those who did not inform against the
Comprachicos were to be punished by confiscation
and imprisonment for life, as for the crime of mis-
prision. As for the women found among these men,
they were to suffer the cucking-stool; this is a tum-
brel, the name of which is composed of the French
word coquine, and the German stuhl. English law
being endowed with a strange longevity, this pun-
ishment still exists in English legislation for quarrel-
some women. The cucking-stool is suspended over a
river or a pond, the woman seated on it. The chair
is allowed to drop into the water, and then pulled
out. This dipping of the woman is repeated three
times, “to cool her anger," says the commentator,
Chamberlayne.


BOOK I.
NIGHT NOT SO BLACK AS MAN.
CHAPTER 1.
THE SOUTH POINT OF PORTLAND.
An obstinate north wind blew without ceasing
over the mainland of Europe, and yet more roughly
over England, during all the month of December,
1689, and all the month of January, 1690. Hence
the disastrous cold weather, which caused that win-
ter to be noted as “memorable to the poor," on the
margin of the old Bible in the Presbyterian chapel of
the Non-jurors in London. Thanks to the lasting
qualities of the old monarchical parchment employed
in official registers, long lists of poor persons, found
dead of famine and exposure, are still legible in many
local repositories, particularly in the archives of the
Liberty of the Clink, in the borough of Southwark, of
Pie Powder Court (which signifies Dusty Feet Court),
and in those of Whitechapel Court, held in the vil-
lage of Stepney by the bailiff of the Lord of the
Manor. The Thames was frozen over, — a thing
which does not happen once in a century, as the ico
forms on it with difficulty owing to the action of the
sea. Coaches rolled over the frozen river, and a fair
VOL. 1. — 4


50
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
was held, with booths, bear-baiting, and bull-baiting.
An ox was roasted whole on the ice. This thick ice
lasted two months. The hard year 1690 surpassed
in severity even the famous winters at the beginning
of the seventeenth century, so minutely observed by
Dr. Gideon Delane, the same who was, in his quality
of apothecary to King James, honored by the city of
London with a bust and a pedestal.
One evening, towards the close of one of the most
bitter days of the month of January, 1690, something
unusual was going on in one of the numerous inhos-
pitable bights of the bay of Portland, which caused
the sea-gulls and wild geese to scream and circle
round its mouth, not daring to re-enter.
In this creek, the most dangerous of all which line
the bay during the continuance of certain winds, and
consequently the most lonely, — convenient, by rea-
son of its very danger, for ships in hiding, -- a little
vessel, almost touching the cliff, so deep was the
water, was moored to a point of rock. We are wrong
in saying, the night falls; we should say, the night
rises, for it is from the earth that obscurity comes.
It was already night at the bottom of the cliff;
it was still day at top. Any one approaching the
vessel's moorings would have recognized a Biscayan
hooker.
The sun, concealed all day by the mist, had just
set. There was beginning to be felt that deep and
sombrous melancholy which might be called anxiuty
for the absent sun. With no wind from the sea, the
water of the creek was calm.
This was, especially in winter, a lucky exception


THE SOUTH POINT OF PORTLAND.
51
Almost all the Portland creeks have sand-bars; and
in heavy weather the sea becomes very rough, and to
pass in safety, much skill and practice are necessary.
These little ports (ports more in appearance than
fact) are of small advantage. They are hazardous to
enter, fearful to leave. On this evening, for a won-
der, there was no danger.
The Biscay hooker is of an ancient model, now
fallen into disuse. This kind of hooker, which has
done service even in the navy, was stoutly built in
its hull, – a boat in size, a ship in strength. It
figured in the Armada. Sometimes the war-hooker
attained to a high tonnage; thus the “Great Griffin,"
bearing a captain's flag and commanded by Lopez de
Medina, measured six hundred and fifty good tons,
and carried forty guns. But the merchant and con-
traband hookers were very feeble specimens. Sea-
folk held them at their true value, and esteemed the
model a very sorry one. The rigging of the hooker
was made of hemp, sometimes with wire inside,
- which was probably intended as a means, however
unscientific, of obtaining indications in the case of
magnetic tension. The lightness of this rigging did
not exclude the use of heavy tackle, — the cabrias of
the Spanish galleon, and the cameli of the Roman
triremes. The helm was very long, which gives the
advantage of a long arm of leverage, but the disad-
vantage of a small arc of effort. Two wheels in two
pulleys at the end of the rudder corrected this de-
fect, and compensated to some extent for the loss of
strength. The compass was well housed in a case
perfectly square, and well balanced by its two copper


52
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
frames placed horizontally one in the other on little
bolts, as in Cardan's lamps. There was science and
cunning in the construction of the hooker, but it
was ignorant science and barbarous cunning. The
hooker was primitive, like the praam and the canoe ;
was kindred to the praam in stability and to the
canoe in swiftness; and, like all vessels born of the
instinct of the pirate and fisherman, it had remark-
able sea qualities; it was equally well suited to
land-locked and to open waters. Its system of sails,
complicated in stays and very peculiar, allowed of its
navigating trimly in the close bays of Asturias (which
are little more than enclosed basins, as Pasages, for
instance), and also freely out at sea. It could sail
round a lake, and sail round the world ; a strange
craft, with two objects, — good for a pond, and good
for a storm. The hooker is among vessels what the
wagtail is among birds, – one of the smallest and
one of the boldest. The wagtail, perching on a reed,
scarcely bends it, and, flying away, crosses the ocean.
These Biscay hookers, even to the poorest, were
gilded and painted. Tattooing is part of the genius of
those charming people, savages to some degree. The
sublime coloring of their mountains, variegated by
snows and meadows, reveals to them the rugged spell
which ornament possesses in itself. They are poverty-
stricken and magnificent; they put coats-of-arms on
their cottages; they have huge asses which they
bedizen with bells, and huge oxen on which they
put head-dresses of feathers. Their coaches, which
you can hear grinding the wheels two leagues off, are
illuminated, carved, and hung with ribbons. A cob-


THE SOUTH POINT OF PORTLAND.
53
bler has a bas-relief on his door ; it is only Saint
Crispin and an old shoe, but it is in stone. They
trim their leathern jackets with lace. They do not
mend their rags, but they embroider them. Vivacity
profound and superb! The Basques are like the
Greeks, — children of the sun. While the Valencian
drapes himself, bare and sad, in his russet woollen
rug, with a hole to pass his head through, the
natives of Galicia and Biscay have the delight of
fine linen shirts bleached in the dew. Their thresh-
olds and their windows teem with faces fair and
fresh, laughing under garlands of maize; a joyous
and proud serenity shines out in their ingenuous arts,
in their trades, in their customs, in the dress of their
maidens, in their songs. The mountain, that colos-
sal ruin, is all aglow in Biscay; the sun's rays go in
and out of every break. The wild Jaïzquivel is full
of idyls. Biscay is Pyrenean grace, as Savoy is
Alpine grace. The dangerous bays, — the neighbors
of St. Sebastian, Leso, and Fontarabia, — with
storms, with clouds, with spray flying over the
capes, with the rages of the waves and the winds,
with terror, with uproar, mingle boat-women crowned
with roses. He who has seen the Basque country
wishes to see it again. It is the blessed land, - two
harvests a year; villages resonant and gay; a stately
poverty; all Sunday the sound of guitars, dancing,
castanets, love-making ; houses clean and bright;
storks in the belfries.
Let us return to Portland, that rugged mountain
in the sea.
The peninsula of Portland, looked at geometrically,


34
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
presents the appearance of a bird's head, of which
the bill is turned towards the ocean, the back of the
head towards Weymouth; the isthmus is its neck.
Portland, greatly to the sacrifice of its wildness,
exists now but for trade. The coasts of Portland
were discovered by quarrymen and plasterers towards
the middle of the seventeenth century. Since that
period what is called Roman cement has been made
of the Portland stone, — a useful industry, enriching
the district and disfiguring the bay. Two hundred
years ago these coasts were eaten away as a cliff;
to-day, as a quarry. The pick bites meanly, the
wave grandly ; hence a diminution of beauty. To
the magnificent ravages of the ocean have succeeded
the measured strokes of men. These measured
strokes have worked away the creek where the
Biscay hooker was moored. To find any vestige of
the little anchorage, now destroyed, the eastern side
of the peninsula should be searched, towards the
point beyond Folly Pier and Dirdle Pier, — beyond
Wakeham, even, between the place called Church
Hope and the place called Southwell.
The creek, walled in on all sides by precipices
higher than its width, was minute by minute becom-
ing more overshadowed by evening. The misty
gloom, usual at twilight, became thicker; it was
like a growth of darkness at the bottom of a well.
The opening of the creek seaward, a narrow passage,
traced on the almost night-black interior a pallid rift
where the waves were moving. You must have
been quite close to perceive the hooker moored to
the rocks, and, as it were, hidden by the great cloaks


THE SOUTH POINT OF PORTLAND.
55
of shadow. A plank thrown from on board on to a
low and level projection of the cliff — the only point
on which a landing could be made — placed the
vessel in communication with the land. Dark fig-
ures were crossing and recrossing each other on this
tottering gangway, and in the shadow some people
were embarking
It was less cold in the creek than out at sea,
thanks to the screen of rock rising over the north of
the basin, which did not, however, prevent the peo-
ple from shivering. They were hurrying. The effect
of the twilight defined the forms as though they had
been punched out with a tool. Certain indenta.
tions in their clothes were visible, and showed that
they belonged to the class called in England “tho
ragged.”
The twisting of the pathway could be distinguished
vaguely in the relief of the cliff. A girl who lets her
stay-lace hang down trailing over the back of an arm-
chair describes, without being conscious of it, most
of the paths of cliffs and mountains. The pathway
of this creek, full of knots and angles, almost perpen-
dicular, and better adapted for goats than men, ter-
minated on the platform where the plank was placed.
The pathways of cliffs ordinarily imply a not very
inviting declivity; they offer themselves less as a
road than as a fall; they sink rather than incline.
This one — probably some ramification of a road on
the plain above — was disagreeable to look at, so
vertical was it. From underneath you saw it gain
by zigzag the higher layer of the cliff where it passed
out through deep passages on to the high plateau by


56
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
a cutting in the rock; and the passengers for whom
the vessel was waiting in the creek must have come
by this path.
Excepting the movement of embarkation which
was being made in the creek, -- a movement visibly
scared and uneasy, — all around was solitude ; no
step, no noise, no breath was heard. At the other
side of the roads, at the entrance of Ringstead Bay,
you could just perceive a flotilla of shark-fishing
boats, which were evidently out of their reckoning.
These polar boats had been driven from Danish into
English waters by the whims of the sea. Northerly
winds play these tricks on fishermen. They had just
taken refuge in the anchorage of Portland, - a sign
of bad weather expected and danger out at sea. They
were engaged in casting anchor. The chief boat was
placed in front after the old manner of Norwegian
flotillas, all her rigging standing out in black above
the white level of the sea ; and in front might be
perceived the hook-iron, loaded with all kinds of
hooks and harpoons, destined for the Greenland
shark, the dog-fish, and the spinous shark, as well
as the nets to pick up the sun-fish.
Except a few other craft, all swept into the same
corner, the eye met nothing living on the vast horizon
of Portland, — not a house, not a ship. The coast in
those days was not inhabited, and the roads at that
season were not safe.
Whatever may have been the appearance of the
weather, the beings who were going to sail away in
the Biscayan hooker pressed on the hour of depar-
ture all the same. They formed a busy and confused


THE SOUTH POINT OF PORTLAND.
57
group, in rapid movement on the shore. To distin-
guish one from another was difficult ; impossible to
tell whether they were old or young. The indistinct-
ness of evening intermixed and blurred them; the
mask of shadow was over their faces. They were
sketches in the night. There were eight of them,
and there were seemingly among them one or two
women, hard to recognize under the rags and tatters
in wbich the group was attired, — clothes which
were no longer man's or woman's. Rays have no
sex.
A smaller shadow, flitting to and fro among the
larger ones, indicated either a dwarf or a child.
It was a child.


CHAPTER II.
ISOLATED.
This is what an observer close at hand might have
noted :-
All wore long cloaks, torn and patched, but cover-
ing them, and at need concealing them up to the
eyes, useful alike against the north wind and curios-
ity. They moved with ease under these cloaks. The
greater number wore a handkerchief rolled round the
head, — a sort of rudiment which marks the com-
mencement of the turban in Spain. This head-dress
was nothing unusual in England. At that time the
South was in fashion in the North ; perhaps this
was connected with the fact that the North was
beating the South. It conquered and admired.
After the defeat of the Armada, Castilian was con-
sidered in the halls of Elizabeth to be elegant court
talk. To speak English in the palace of the Queen
of England was held almost an impropriety. Partially
to adopt the manners of those upon whom we impose
our laws is the habit of the conquering barbarian to-
wards conquered civilization. The Tartar contem-
plates and imitates the Chinese. It was thus Cas-
tilian fashions penetrated into England; in return,
English interests crept into Spain.


ISOLATED.
59
On the prind was wrappeled to his k
cloak, tiecket, which ould have a
One of the men in the group embarking appeared
to be a chief. He had sandals on his feet, and was
bedizened with gold-lace tatters and a tinsel waist-
coat, shining under his cloak like the belly of a fish,
Another pulled down over his face a huge piece of
felt, cut like a sombrero; this felt had no hole for
a pipe, thus indicating the wearer to be a man of
letters.
On the principle that a man's jacket is a child's
cloak, the child was wrapped over his rags in a
sailor's jacket, which descended to his knees.
By his height you would have guessed him to be a
boy of ten or eleven. His feet were bare.
The crew of the hooker was composed of a captain
and two sailors.
The hooker had apparently come from Spain, and
was about to return thither. She was beyond a doubt
engaged in a stealthy service from one coast to the
other.
The persons embarking in her whispered among
themselves.
The whispering interchanged by these creatures
was of composite sound, — now a word of Spanish,
then of German, then of French, then of Gaelic, at
times of Basque. It was either a patois or a slang.
They appeared to be of all nations, and yet of
the same band. The crew was probably of their
brotherhood, and there had been connivance in the
embarkation.
The motley group appeared to be a company of
comrades, perhaps a gang of accomplices.
Had there been a little more light, and if you could


60
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
have looked at them attentively, you might have per-
ceived on these people rosaries and scapulars half-
hidden under their rags ; one of the semi-women
mingling in the group had a rosary almost equal for.
the size of its beads to that of a dervish, and easy
to recognize for an Irish one made at Llanymthefry,
which is also called Llanandriffy.
You might also have observed, had it not been so
dark, a figure of Our Lady and Child carved and gilt
on the bow of the hooker. It was probably that of the
Basque Notre-Dame, — a sort of Panagia of the old
Cantabri. Under this image, which occupied the
position of a figure-head, was a lantern, which at this
moment was not lighted, — an excess of caution
which implied an extreme desire of concealment.
This lantern was evidently for two purposes. When
alight it burned before the Virgin, and at the same
time illumined the sea, - a beacon doing duty as a
taper.
Under the bowsprit the cut-water, long, curved,
and sharp, came out in front like the horn of a cres-
cent. At the top of the cut-water, and at the feet
of the Virgin, a kneeling angel, with folded wings,
leaned her back against the stem, and looked through
a spy-glass at the horizon. The angel was gilt like
Our Lady. In the cut-water were holes and open-
ings to let the waves pass through, which afforded an
opportunity for gilding and arabesques.
Under the figure of the Virgin was written, in gilt
capitals, the word “ Matutina,” — the name of the
vessel, not to be read just now on account of the
darkness.


ISOLATED.
61
Amid the confusion of departure there were thrown
down in disorder at the foot of the cliff the goods
which the voyagers were to take with them, and
which, by means of a plank serving as a bridge across,
were being passed rapidly from the shore to the boat.
Bags of biscuit, a cask of stock fish, a case of por-
table soup, three barrels, — one of fresh water, one
of malt, one of tar, — four or five bottles of ale, an old
portmanteau buckled up by straps, trunks, boxes, a
ball of tow for torches and signals, — such was the
lading. These ragged people had valises, which
seemed to indicate a roving life. Wandering rascals
are obliged to own something; at times they would
prefer to fly away like birds, but they cannot do so
without abandoning the means of earning a livelihood.
They of necessity possess boxes of tools and instru-
ments of labor, whatever their errant trade may be.
Those of whom we speak were dragging their baggage
with them, often an encumbrance.
It could not have been easy to bring these mov-
ables to the bottom of the cliff. This, however, re-
vealed the intention of a definite departure.
No time was lost; there was one continued pass-
ing to and fro from the shore to the vessel, and from
the vessel to the shore; each one took his share of
the work; one carried a bag, another a chest. Those
amidst the promiscuous company who were possibly
or probably women, worked like the rest. They
overloaded the child.
It was doubtful if the child's father or mother was
in the group; no sign of life was vouchsafed him.
They made him work, nothing more He appeared


62
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
not a child in a family, but a slave in a tribe. He
waited on every one, and no one spoke to him.
However, he made haste, and, like the others of
this mysterious troop, he seemed to have but one
thought,—to embark as quickly as possible. Did he
know why? Probably not; he hurried mechanically
because he saw the others hurry.
The hooker was decked. The stowing of the lad-
ing in the hold was quickly finished, and the moment
to put off arrived. The last case had been carried
over the gangway, and nothing was left to embark
but the men. The two objects among the group who
seemed women were already on board; six, the child
among them, were still on the low platform of the
cliff. A movement of departure was made in the
vessel, the captain seized the helm, a sailor took up
an axe to cut the hawser. To cut is an evidence of
haste.; when there is time it is unknotted.
“Andamos," said, in a low voice, he who appeared
chief of the six, and who had the spangles on his tat-
ters. The child rushed towards the plank in order
to be the first to pass. As he placed his foot on it,
two of the men hurried by, at the risk of throwing
him into the water, got in before him, and passed on;
the fourth drove him back with his fist and followed
the third; the fifth, who was the chief, bounded into
rather than entered the vessel, and, as he jumped in,
kicked back the plank, which fell into the sea, a
stroke of the hatchet cut the moorings, the helm
was put up, the vessel left the shore, and the child
remained on land.


CHAPTER III.
ALONE.
THE child remained motionless on the rock, with
his eyes fixed; no calling out, no appeal. Though
this was unexpected by him, he spoke not a word.
The same silence reigned in the vessel. No cry from
the child to the men, no farewell from the men to the
child. There was on both sides a mute acceptance
of the widening distance between them. It was like
a separation of ghosts on the banks of the Styx. The
child, as if nailed to the rock, which the high tide
was beginning to bathe, watched the departing bark.
It seemed as if he realized his position. What did
he realize ? Darkness.
A moment later, the hooker gained the neck of the
creek and entered it. Against the clear sky the
mast-head was visible, rising above the split blocks
between which the strait wound as between two
walls. The truck wandered to the summit of the
rocks and appeared to run into them. Then it was
seen no more: all was over; the bark had gained
the sea.
The child watched its disappearance; he was as-
tounded, but dreamy. His stupefaction was compli-
cated by a sense of the dark reality of existence. It


64
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
seemed as if there were experience in this dawning
being. Did he, perchance, already exercise judg-
ment? Experience coming too early constructs,
sometimes, in the obscure depths of a child's mind,
some dangerous balance — we know not what — in
which the poor little soul weighs God.
Feeling himself innocent, he yielded. There was
no complaint; the irreproachable does not reproach.
His rough expulsion drew from him no sign; he
suffered a sort of internal stiffening. The child
did not bow under this sudden blow of fate, which
seemed to put an end to his existence ere it had well
begun; he received the thunderstroke standing.
It would have been evident to any one who could
have seen his astonishment unmixed with dejection,
that, in the group which abandoned him, there was
nothing which loved him, nothing which he loved.
Brooding, he forgot the cold. Suddenly the wave
wetted his feet; the tide was flowing : a gust passed
through his hair; the north wind was rising. He
shivered. There came over him, from head to foot,
the shudder of awakening.
He cast his eyes about him.
He was alone.
Up to this day there had never existed for him any
other men than those who were now in the hooker.
Those men had just stolen away.
Let us add what seems a strange thing to state :
those men, the only ones he knew, were unknown
to him.
He could not have said who they were. His
childhood had been passed among them, without his


· ALONE.
65
having the consciousness of being of them. He was
in juxtaposition to them, nothing more.
He had just been forgotten by them.
He had no money about him, no shoes to his feet,
scarcely a garment to his body, not even a piece of
bread in his pocket.
It was winter; it was night. It would be neces-
sary to walk several leagues before a human habita-
tion could be reached.
He did not know where he was.
He knew nothing, unless it was that those who
had come with him to the brink of the sea had gone
away without him.
He felt himself put outside the pale of life.
He felt that man failed him.
He was ten years old.
The child was in a desert, between depths where
he saw the night rising, and depths where he heard
the waves murmur.
He stretched his little thin arms and yawned.
Then, suddenly, as one who makes up his mind,
bold, and throwing off his numbness, with the agility
of a squirrel, or perhaps of an acrobat, he turned his
back on the creek, and set himself to climb up the
cliff. He scaled the path, left it, returned to it,
quick and venturous. He was hurrying landward,
just as though he had a destination marked out;
nevertheless, he was going nowhere.
He hastened without an object, — a fugitive before
Fate.
To climb is the function of a man; to clamber is
that of an animal : he did both, As the slopes of
VOL. 1. – 5


66
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
Portland face southward, there was scarcely any snow
on the path; the intensity of cold had, however,
frozen that snow into dust very troublesome to the
walker. The child freed himself of it. His man's
jacket, which was too big for him, complicated mat-
ters, and got in his way. Now and then on an over-
hanging crag or in a declivity he came upon a little
ice, which caused him to slip down. Then, after
hanging some moments over the precipice, he would
catch hold of a dry branch or projecting stone. Once
he came on a vein of slate, which suddenly gave way
under him, letting him down with it. Crumbling
slate is treacherous. For some seconds the child
slid like a tile on a roof; he rolled to the extreme
edge of the decline; a tuft of grass which he clutched
at the right moment saved him. He was as mute in
sight of the abyss as he had been in sight of the
men; he gathered himself up and reascended silently.
The slope was steep, so he had to tack in ascending.
The precipice grew in the darkness; the vertical rock
had no ending. It receded before the child in the
distance of its height. As the child ascended, so
seemed the summit to ascend. While he clambered
he looked up at the dark entablature placed like a
barrier between heaven and him. At last he reached
the top.
He jumped on the level ground, or rather landed,
for he rose from the precipice.
Scarcely was he on the cliff when he began to
shiver. He felt in his face that bite of the night, the
north wind. The bitter northwester was blowing ;
he tightened his rough sailor's jacket about his chest.


ALONE.
67
It was a good coat, called in ship language a sou’-
wester, because that sort of stuff allows little of the
southwesterly rain to penetrate.
The child, having gained the table-land, stopped,
placed his two bare feet firmly on the frozen ground,
and looked about him.
Behind him was the sea, in front the land ; above,
the sky, but a sky without stars; an opaque mist
masked the zenith.
On reaching the summit of the rocky wall he found
himself turned towards the land, and looked at it
attentively. It lay before him as far as the sky-line,
flat, frozen, and covered with snow. Some tufts of
heather shivered in the wind. No roads were visible,
- nothing, not even a shepherd's cot. Here and there,
pale, spiral vortices might be seen, which were whirls
of fine snow snatched from the ground by the wind
and blown away. Successive undulations of ground
become suddenly misty rolled themselves into the
horizon. The great dull plains were lost under the
white fog. Deep silence. It spread like infinity,
and was voiceless as the tomb.
The child turned again towards the sea.
The sea, like the land, was white, — the one with
snow, the other with foam. There is nothing so
melancholy as the light produced by this double
whiteness.
Certain lights of night are very clearly cut in their
hardness; the sea was like steel, the cliff like ebony.
From the height where the child was, the bay of
Portland appeared almost like a geographical map,
pale, in a semicircle of hills. There was something


68
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
dreamlike in that nocturnal landscape, – a wan disk
belted by a dark crescent. The moon sometimes has
a similar appearance. From cape to cape, along the
whole coast, not a single spark indicating a hearth
with a fire, not a lighted window, not an inhabited
house, was to be seen. As overhead, so on earth, no
light. Not a lamp below, not a star above. Here
and there came sudden risings in the great expanse
of waters in the gulf, as the wind disarranged and
wrinkled the vast sheet. The hooker was still visible
in the bay as she fled.
It was a black triangle gliding over the livid
waters.
Far away the waste of waters stirred confusedly in
the ominous clear-obscure of immensity. The “Ma-
tutina” was making quick way. She seemed to grow
smaller every minute. Nothing appears so rapid as
the flight of a vessel melting into the distance of
ocean.
Suddenly she lit the lantern at her prow. Proba-
bly the darkness falling round her made those on
board uneasy, and the pilot thought it necessary to
throw light on the waves. This luminous point, a
spark seen from afar, clung like a corpse light to the
high and long black form. You would have said it
was a shroud raised up and moving in the middle of
the sea, under which some one wandered with a star
in his hand.
A storm threatened in the air: the child took no
account of it, but a sailor would have trembled. It
was that moment of preliminary anxiety, when it
seems as though the elements are changing into per-


ALONE.
69
sons, and one is about to witness the mysterious
transfiguration of the wind into the windgod. The
sea becomes Ocean : its power reveals itself as Will :
that which one takes for a thing, is a soul. It will
become visible. Hence the terror. The soul of man
fears to be thus confronted with the soul of Nature.
Chaos was about to appear. The wind rolling
back the fog, and making a stage of the clouds be-
hind, set the scene for that fearful drama of wave
and winter which is called a snow-storm. Vessels
putting back hove in sight. For some minutes past
the roads had no longer been deserted. Every in-
stant troubled barks hastening towards an anchorage
appeared from behind the capes; some were doubling
Portland Bill, the others St. Alban's Head. From
afar ships were running in. It was a race for refuge.
Southwards the darkness thickened, and clouds, full
of night, bordered on the sea. The weight of the
tempest hanging overhead made a dreary lull on
the waves. It certainly was no time to sail; yet
the hooker had sailed.
She had made the south of the cape. She was
already out of the gulf, and in the open sea. Sud-
denly there came a gust of wind. The “Matutina,”
which was still clearly in sight, made all sail, as if
resolved to profit by the hurricane. It was the nor’-
wester, — a wind sullen and angry. Its weight was
felt instantly. The hooker, caught broadside on,
staggered, but recovering held her course to sea.
This indicated a flight rather than a voyage, less fear
of sea than of land, and greater heed of pursuit from
man than from wind.


70
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
The hooker, passing through every degree of dimi-
nution, sank into the horizon. The little star which
she carried into shadow paled. More and more the
hooker became amalgamated with the night, then
disappeared.
This time forever.
At least the child seemed to understand it so. He
ceased to look at the sea ; his eyes turned back upon
the plains, the wastes, the hills, towards the space
where it might not be impossible to meet something
living; and he set out into this unknown.


CHAPTER IV.
QUESTIONS.
What kind of band was it which had left the
child behind in its flight?
Were those fugitives Comprachicos ?
We have already seen the account of the measures
taken by William III. and passed by Parliament
against the malefactors, male and female, called
Comprachicos, otherwise Comprapequeños, otherwise
Cheylas.
There are laws which disperse. The law acting
against the Comprachicos determined not only the
Comprachicos but vagabonds of all sorts on a general
flight.
It behooved each to lose no time in making his
escape and putting to sea. The greater number of
the Comprachicos returned to Spain, many of them,
as we have said, being Basques.
The law for the protection of children had at first
this strange result : it caused many children to be
abandoned.
The immediate effect of the penal statute was to
produce a crowd of children, found, or rather lost.
Nothing is easier to understand. Every wandering
gang containing a child was liable to suspicion. The


72
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
mere fact of the child's presence was in itself a
denunciation.
“They are very likely Comprachicos.” Such was
the first idea of the sheriff, of the bailiff, of the con-
stable. Hence arrest and inquiry. People simply
unfortunate, reduced to wander and to beg, were
seized with a terror of being taken for Comprachicos,
although they were nothing of the kind. But the
weak have grave misgivings of possible errors in
justice. Besides, these vagabond families are very
easily scared. The accusation against the Compra-
chicos was that they traded in other people's children.
But the promiscuousness caused by poverty and in-
digence is such that at times it might have been
difficult for a father and mother to prove a child
their own.
How came you by this child? How were they to
prove that they held it from God? The child be-
came a peril : they got rid of it. To fly unencum-
bered was easier ; the parents resolved to lose it, -
now in a wood, now on a strand, now down a
well.
Children were found drowned in cisterns.
Let us add that, in imitation of England, all Eu-
rope henceforth hunted down the Comprachicos,
The impulse of pursuit was given. There is nothing
like belling the cat. From this time forward the
desire to seize them made rivalry and emulation
among the police of all countries, and the alguazil
was not less keenly watchful than the constable.
One could still read, twenty-three years ago, on a
stone of the gate of Otero, an untranslatable inscrip-


QUESTIONS.
73
tion, — the words of the code outraging propriety.
In it, however, the shade of difference which existed
between the buyers and the stealers of children is
very strongly marked. Here is part of the inscrip-
tion in somewhat rough Castilian : “Aqui quedan las
orejas de los Comprachicos, y las bolsas de los robani-
ños, mientras que se van ellos al trabajo de mar.”
You see the confiscation of ears, etc., did not prevent
the owners going to the galleys; whence followed
a general rout among all vagabonds. They started
frightened; they arrived trembling. On every shore
in Europe their furtive advent was watched. Im-
possible for such a band to embark with a child, since
to disembark with one was dangerous.
To lose the child was much simpler of accom-
plishment.
And this child of whom we have caught a glimpse
in the shadow of the solitudes of Portland, - by
whom had he been cast away?
To all appearance by Comprachicos.


CHAPTER V.
THE TREE OF HUMAN INVENTION.
It might be about seven o'clock in the evening.
The wind was now diminishing, - a sign, however,
of a violent recurrence impending. The child was
· on the table-land at the extreme south point of
Portland.
Portland is a peninsula ; but the child did not
know what a peninsula is, and was ignorant even
of the name of Portland. He knew but one thing,
which is, that one can walk until one drops down.
An idea is a guide; he had no idea. They had
brought him there, and left him there. They and
there. These two enigmas represented his doom.
They were humankind. There was the universe.
For him in all creation there was absolutely no other
basis to rest on but the little piece of ground where
he placed his heel, - ground hard and cold to his
naked feet. In the great twilight world, open on all
sides, what was there for the child ? Nothing.
He walked towards this Nothing. Around him
was the vastness of human desertion.
He crossed the first platcau diagonally, then a sec-
ond, then a third. At the extremity of each plateau
the child came upon a break in the ground. The


THE TREE OF HUMAN INVENTION.
75
slope was sometimes steep, but always short; the
high, bare plains of Portland resemble great flag-
stones overlapping one another. The south side seems
to enter under the protruding slab, the north side
rises over the next one; these made ascents, which
the child stepped over nimbly. From time to time
he stopped, and seemed to hold counsel with hin-
self. The night was becoming very dark. His radius
of sight was contracting. He now only saw a few
steps before him.
All of a sudden he stopped, listened for an instant,
and with an almost imperceptible nod of satisfaction,
turned quickly and directed his steps towards an emi-
nence of moderate height, which he dimly perceived
on his right, at the point of the plain nearest the cliff.
There was on the eminence a shape which in the mist
looked like a tree. The child had just heard a noise
in this direction, which was the noise neither of the
wind nor of the sea, nor was it the cry of animals.
He thought that some one was there, and in a few
strides he was at the foot of the hillock.
In truth, some one was there.
That which had been indistinct on the top of the
eminence was now visible. It was something like a
great arm thrust straight out of the ground; at the
upper extremity of the arm a sort of forefinger, sup-
ported from beneath by the thumb, pointed out hori-
zontally; the arm, the thumb, and the forefinger drew
a square against the sky. At the point of juncture
of this peculiar finger and this peculiar thumb, there
was a line, from which hung something black and
shapeless. The line moving in the wind sounded


76
THE MAN WHO LAUGAS.
like a chain. This was the noise the child had heard.
Seen closely, the line was that which the noise indi-
cated, a chain, - a chain cable, formed of elliptical
links.
By that mysterious law of amalgamation which
throughout Nature causes appearances to exaggerate
realities, the place, the hour, the mist, the mournful
sea, the cloudy turmoils on the distant horizon,
added to the effect of this figure, and made it seem
enormous.
The mass linked to the chain presented the appear-
ance of a scabbard. It was swaddled like a child,
and long like a man. There was a round thing at its
summit, about which the end of the chain was rolled.
The scabbard was riven asunder at the lower end,
and shreds of flesh hung out between the rents.
A feeble breeze stirred the chain, and that which
hung to it swayed gently. The passive mass obeyed
the vague motions of space. It was an object to
inspire indescribable dread. Horror, which dispro-
portions everything, blurred its dimensions while re-
taining its shape. It was a condensation of darkness,
which had a defined form. Night was above and
within the spectre ; it was a prey of ghastly exagger-
ation. Twilight and moonrise, stars setting behind
the cliff, floating things in space, the clouds, winds
from all quarters, had ended by penetrating into the
composition of this visible nothing. The species of
log hanging in the wind partook of the impersonality
diffused far over sea and sky, and the darkness com-
pleted this phase of the thing which had once been
a man.


THE TREE OF HUMAN INVENTION.
77
It was that which is no longer.
To be nought but a remainder! Such a thing is
beyond the power of language to express. To exist
no more, yet to persist; to be in the abyss, yet out of
it; to reappear above death as if indissoluble, - there
is a certain amount of impossibility mixed with such
reality : thence comes the inexpressible. This being,
: - was it a being ?— this black witness was a remain-
der, and an awful remainder ; a remainder of what?
Of Nature first, and then of society. Nought, and
yet total.
The lawless inclemency of the weather held it at
its will; the deep oblivion of solitude environed it ;
it was given up to unknown chances; it was without
defence against the darkness, which did with it what
it willed. It was forever the patient : it submitted ;
the hurricane, that ghastly conflict of winds, was
upon it.
The spectre was given over to pillage. It under-
went the horrible outrage of rotting in the open air ;
it was an outlaw of the tomb. There was no peace
for it even in annihilation; in the summer it fell away
into dust, in the winter into mud. Death should be
veiled, the grave should have its reserve ; here was
neither veil nor reserve, but cynically avowed putre-
faction. It is effrontery in death to display its
work; it offends all the calmness of shadow when
it does its task outside its laboratory, the grave.
This dead being had been stripped. To strip one
already stripped, — relentless act! His marrow was
no longer in his bones; his entrails were no longer
in his body; his voice was no longer in his throat.


78
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
A corpse is a pocket which death turns inside out
and empties. If he ever had a Me, where was the
Me? There still, perchance; and this was fear-
ful to think of. Something wandering about some-
thing in chains, — can one imagine a more mournful
lineament in the darkness ?
Realities exist here below which serve as issues to
the unknown, which seem to facilitate the egress of
speculation, and at which hypothesis snatches. Con-
jecture has its compelle intrare. In passing by cer-
tain places and before certain objects one must pause,
a prey to dreams, and let the soul find entrance if it
will. In the invisible there are dark portals ajar.
No one could have met this dead man without
meditating.
In the vastness of dispersion he was wearing si-
lently away. He had had blood which had been
drunk, skin which had been eaten, flesh which had
been stolen. Nothing had passed him by without
taking somewhat from him. December had bor-
rowed cold of him; midnight, horror; the iron, rust;
the plague, miasma; the flowers, perfume. His slow
disintegration was a toll paid to all, - a toll of the
corpse to the storni, to the rain, to the dew, to the
reptiles, to the birds. All the dark hands of night
had rifled the dead.
He was indeed an inexpressibly strange tenant, —
a tenant of the darkness. He was on a plain, and
on a hill, and he was not. He was palpable, yet
vanished, - a shade that made the darkness more
intense. After the disappearance of day into the
vast of silent obscurity, he became in lugubrious


THE TREE OF HUMAN INVENTION.
79
accord with all around him. By his mere presence
he increased the gloom of the tempest and the calm
of stars. The unutterable which is in the desert was
condensed in him. Waif of an unknown fate, he
was one with all the wild secrets of the night.
There was in his mystery a vague reverberation of
all enigmas.
About him life seemed sinking to its lowest depths.
Certainty and confidence appeared to diminish in his
environs. The shiver of the brushwood and the
grass, a desolate melancholy, an anxiety in which a
conscience seemed to lurk, appropriated with tragic
force the whole landscape to that black figure sus-
pended by the chain. The presence of a spectre in
the horizon is an aggravation of solitude.
He was a sign. Having unappeasable winds around
him, he was implacable. Perpetual shuddering made
him terrible. Fearful to say, he seemed to be a
centre in space, with something immense leaning on
him. Who can tell? Perhaps that equity, half
seen and set at defiance, which transcends human
justice. There was in his unburied continuance the
vengeance of men, and his own vengeance. He was
a testimony in the twilight and the waste. He was
in himself a disquieting substance, since we tremble
before the substance which is the ruined habitation
of the soul. For dead matter to trouble us, it must
once have been tenanted by spirit. He denounced
the law of earth to the law of Heaven. Placed there
by man, he there awaited God. Above him floated,
blended with all the vague distortions of the cloud
and the wave, the illimitable dreams of shadow.


80
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
Who could tell what sinister mysteries lurked be-
hind this phantom? The infinite, circumscribed by
nought, — nor tree, nor roof, nor passer-by, — was
around the dead man. When the unchangeable
broods over us, when heaven, the abyss, life, the
grave, and eternity are revealed, then it is we feel
all that is inaccessible, forbidden, sealed. When
infinity opens to us, terrible indeed is the closing
of the gate behind.


CHAPTER VI.
STRUGGLE BETWEEN DEATH AND NIGHT.
THE child was before this thing, dumb, wondering,
and with eyes fixed.
To a man it would have been a gibbet; to the
child it was an apparition.
Where a man would have seen a corpse, the child
saw a spectre.
Besides, he did not understand.
The attractions of the obscure are manifold. There
was one on the summit of that hill. The child took
a step, then another; he ascended, wishing all the
while to descend ; and approached, wishing all the
while to retreat.
Bold, yet trembling, he went close up to survey.
the spectre.
When he got close under the gibbet, he looked up
and examined it.
The spectre was tarred; here and there it shone.
The child distinguished the face. It was coated over
with pitch ; and this mask, which appeared viscous
and sticky, varied its aspect with the night shadows.
The child saw the mouth, which was a hole; the
nose, which was a hole; the eyes, which were holes.
The body was wrapped, and apparently corded up,
VOL. I. -- 6


82
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
in coarse canvas soaked in naphtha. The canvas was
mouldy and torn. A knee protruded through it. A
rent disclosed the ribs; partly corpse, partly skeleton.
The face was the color of earth; slugs, wandering
over it, had traced across it vague ribbons of silver.
The canvas, glued to the bones, showed in reliefs like
the robe of a statue. The skull, cracked and frac-
tured, gaped like a rotten fruit. The teeth were still
human, for they retained a laugh. The remains of a
cry seemed to murmur in the open mouth. There
were a few hairs of beard on the cheek. The inclined
head had an air of attention.
Some repairs had recently been done; the face had
been tarred afresh, as well as the ribs and the knee
which protruded from the canvas. The feet hung
out below.
Just underneath, in the grass, were two shoes,
which snow and rain had rendered shapeless. These
shoes had fallen from the dead man.
The barefooted child looked at the shoes.
The wind, which had become more and more rest-
less, was now and then interrupted by those pauses
which foretell the approach of a storm. For the last
few minutes it had altogether ceased to blow. The
corpse no longer stirred; the chain was as motionless
as a plumb line.
Like all new-comers into life, and taking into ac-
count the peculiar influences of his fate, the child no
doubt felt within him that awakening of ideas char-
acteristic of early years, which endeavors to open the
brain and which resembles the pecking of the young
bird in the egg. But all that there was in his little


STRUGGLE BETWEEN DEATH AND NIGHT. 83
consciousness just then was resolved into stupor.
Excess of sensation has the effect of too much oil,
and ends by putting out thought. A man would
have put himself questions; the child put himself
none: he only looked.
The tar gave the face a wet appearance ; drops of
pitch, congealed in what had once been the eyes, pro-
duced the effect of tears. However, thanks to the
pitch, the ravage of death, if not annulled, was visibly
slackened, and reduced to the least possible decay.
That which was before the child was a thing of which
care was taken; the man was evidently precious.
They had not cared to keep him alive, but they cared
to keep him dead.
The gibbet was old, worm-eaten, although strong,
and had been in use many years.
It was an immemorial custom in England to tar
smugglers. They were hanged on the seaboard,
coated over with pitch, and left swinging. Examples
must be made in public, and tarred examples last
longest. The tar was mercy; by renewing it they
were spared making too many fresh examples. They
placed gibbets from point to point along the coast, as
now-a-days they do beacons. The hanged man did
duty as a lantern. After his fashion, he guided his
comrades, the smugglers. The smugglers from far
out at sea perceived the gibbets. There is one, first
warning; another, second warning. It did not stop
smuggling; but public order is made up of such .
things. The fashion lasted in England up to the
beginning of this century. In 1822 three men were
still to be seen hanging in front of Dover Castle,


84
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
But, for that matter, the preserving process was em-
ployed not only with smugglers. England turned
robbers, incendiaries, and murderers to the same ac-
count. Jack Painter, who set fire to the government
storehouses at Portsmouth, was hanged and tarred in
1776. L'Abbé Coyer, who describes him as Jean le
Peintre, saw him again in 1777 ; Jack Painter was
hanging above the ruin he had made, and was re-
tarred from time to time. His corpse lasted — I had
almost said lived — nearly fourteen years. It was
still doing good service in 1788; in 1790, how-
ever, they were obliged to replace it by another.
The Egyptians used to value the mummy of the king;
a plebeian mummy can also, it appears, be of service.
The wind, having great power on the hill, had
swept it of all its snow. Herbage reappeared on it,
interspersed here and there with a few thistles; the
hill was covered by that close short grass which
grows by the sea, and causes the tops of cliffs to re-
semble green cloth. Under the gibbet, on the very
spot over which hung the feet of the executed crimi-
nal, was a long and thick tuft, uncommon on such
poor soil. Corpses crumbling there for centuries
past, accounted for the beauty of the grass. Earth
feeds on man.
A dreary fascination held the child; he remained
there open-mouthed. He only dropped his head a
moment, when a nettle, which felt like an insect,
stung his leg; then he looked up again : he looked
above him at the face which looked down on him.
It appeared to regard him the more steadfastly be-
cause it had no eyes. It was a comprehensive glance,


STRUGGLE BETWEEN DEATH AND NIGHT. 85
having an indescribable fixedness in which there was
both light and darkness, and which emanated from
the skull and teeth, as well as the empty arches of
the brow. The whole head of a dead man seems to
have vision, and this is awful. No eyeball, yet we
feel that we are looked at. A horror of worms.
Little by little the child himself was becoming an
object of terror. He no longer moved. Torpor was
coming over him. He did not perceive that he was
losing consciousness; he was becoming benumbed
and lifeless. Winter was silently delivering him over
to night. There is something of the traitor in winter.
The child was all but a statue. The coldness of stone
was penetrating his bones; darkness, that reptile, was
crawling over him. The drowsiness resulting from
snow creeps over man like a dim tide. The child
was being slowly invaded by a stagnation resembling
that of the corpse. He was falling asleep.
On the hand of sleep is the finger of death. The
child felt himself seized by that hand. He was on
the point of falling under the gibbet. He no longer
knew whether he was standing upright.
The end always impending, no transition between
to be and not to be, the return into the crucible, the
slip possible every minute, — such is the precipice
which is Creation.
Another instant, the child and the dead, life in
sketch and life in ruin, would be confounded in the
same obliteration.
The spectre appeared to understand, and not to
wish it. Of a sudden it stirred. One would have
said it was warning the child. It was the wind be


86
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
ginning to blow again, — nothing stranger than this
dead man in movement.
The corpse at the end of the chain, pushed by the
invisible gust, took an oblique attitude; rose to the
left, then fell back, reascended to the right, and fell
and rose with slow and mournful precision,-a weird
game of see-saw. It seemed as though one saw in
the darkness the pendulum of the clock of Eternity.
This continued for some time. The child felt him-
self waking up at the sight of the dead; through his
increasing numbness he experienced a distinct sense
of fear.
The chain at every oscillation made a grinding
sound, with hideous regularity. It appeared to take
breath, and then to resume. This grinding was like
the cry of a grasshopper.
An approaching squall is heralded by sudden gusts
of wind. All at once the breeze increased into a
gale. The corpse emphasized its dismal oscillations.
It no longer swung, it tossed; the chain, which had
been grinding, now shrieked. It appeared that its
shriek was heard. If it was an appeal, it was obeyed.
From the depths of the horizon came the sound of a
rushing noise.
It was the noise of wings.
An incident occurred, a stormy incident, peculiar
to graveyards and solitudes. It was the arrival of
a flight of ravens. Black flying specks pricked the
clouds, pierced through the mist, increased in size,
came near, amalgamated, thickened, hastening to-
wards the hill, uttering cries. It was like the ap-
proach of a Legion. The winged vermin of the


STRUGGLE BETWEEN DEATH ADD NIGHT. 87
darkness alighted on the gibbet; the child, scared,
drew back.
Swarms obey words of command. The birds
crowded on the gibbet; not one was on the corpse.
They were talking among themselves. The croaking
was frightful. The howl, the whistle, and the roar
are signs of life; the croak is a satisfied acceptance
of putrefaction. In it you can fancy you hear the
tomb breaking silence. The croak is night-like in
itself.
The child was frozen even more by terror than by
cold.
Then the ravens held silence. One of them
perched on the skeleton. This was a signal; they
all precipitated themselves upon it. There was a
cloud of wings, then all their feathers closed up, and
the hanged man disappeared under a swarm of black
blisters struggling in the obscurity. Just then the
corpse moved. Was it the corpse? Was it the
wind? It made a frightful bound. The hurricane,
which was increasing, came to its aid. The phantom
fell into convulsions. The squall, already blowing
with full lungs, laid hold of it, and moved it about
in all directions.
It became horrible; it began to struggle, — an aw-
ful puppet, with a gibbet-chain for a string. Some
humorist of night must have seized the string, and
been playing with the mummy. It turned and leaped
as if it would fain dislocate itself; the birds, fright-
ened, flew off. It was like an explosion of all those
unclean creatures. Then they returned, and a struggle
began.


STRUGGLE BETWEEN DEATH AND NIGHT. 89
them. The wind was for him, the chain against
him. It was as if black deities were mixing them-
selves up in the fray. The hurricane was in the
battle. As the dead man turned himself about, the
flock of birds wound round him spirally. It was a
whirl in a whirlwind. A great roar was heard from
below; it was the sea.
The child saw this nightmare. Suddenly he trem-
bled in all his limbs ; a shiver thrilled his frame; he
staggered, tottered, nearly fell, recovered himself,
pressed both hands to his forehead, as if he felt his
forehead a support; then, haggard, his hair streaming
in the wind, descending the hill with long strides, his
eyes closed, himself almost a phantom, he took flight,
leaving behind that torment in the night.


CHAPTER VII.
THE NORTH POINT OF PORTLAND.
He ran until he was breathless, at random, des-
perate, over the plain into the snow, into space. His
flight warmed him ; he needed it. Without the run
and the fright he had died.
When his breath failed him he stopped, but he
dared not look back. He fancied that the birds
would pursue him, that the dead man had undone
his chain and was perhaps hurrying behind him, and
no doubt the gibbet itself was descending the hill,
running after the dead man; he feared to see these
things if he turned his head.
When he had somewhat recovered his breath he
resumed his flight.
To account for facts does not belong to childhood.
He received impressions which were magnified by
terror, but he did not link them together in his mind,
nor form any conclusion on them. He was going on,
no matter how or where; he ran in agony and diffi-
culty as one in a dream. During the three hours or
so since he had been deserted, his onward progress,
still vague, had changed its purpose. At first it was
a search ; now it was a flight. He no longer felt
hunger or cold; he felt fear. One instinct had


THE NORTH POINT OF PORTLAND.
91
given place to another. To escape was now his
whole thought. To escape from what? From every-
thing. On all sides life seemed to enclose him like
a horrible wall. If he could have fled from all things
he would have done so. But children know nothing
of that breaking from prison which is called suicide.
He was running ; he ran on for an indefinite time;
but fear dies with lack of breath.
All at once, as if seized by a sudden accession of
energy and intelligence, he stopped. One would
have said he was ashamed of running away. He
drew himself up, stamped his foot, and, with head
erect, looked round. There was no longer hill, nor
gibbet, nor flights of crows. The fog had resumed
possession of the horizon. The child pursued his
way; he now no longer ran, but walked. To say
that meeting with a corpse had made a man of him,
would be to limit the manifold and confused impres-
sion which possessed him. There was in his impres-
sion much more, and much less. The gibbet, a
mighty trouble in the rudiment of comprehension,
nascent in his mind, still seemed to him an appari-
tion; but a trouble overcome is strength gained, and
he felt himself stronger. Had he been of an age to
probe self, he would have detected within him a
thousand other germs of meditation ; but the reflec-
tion of children is shapeless, and the utmost they
feel is the bitter after-taste of that which, obscure to
them, the man later on calls indignation. Let us
add that a child has the faculty of quickly accepting
the conclusion of a sensation ; the distant, fading
boundaries which amplify painful subjects escape


92
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
him. A child is protected by the limit of feebleness
against emotions which are too complex. He sees
the fact, and little else beside. The difficulty of
being satisfied by half-ideas does not exist for him.
It is not until later that experience comes, with its
brief, to conduct the lawsuit of life. Then he con-
fronts groups of facts which have crossed his path ;
the understanding, cultivated and enlarged, draws
comparisons; the memories of youth reappear under
the passions, like the traces of a palimpsest under
the erasure; these memories form the bases of logic,
and that which was a vision in the child's brain
becomes a syllogism in the man's. Experience is,
however, various, and turns to good or evil accord-
ing to natural disposition. With the good it ripens,
with the bad it rots.
The child had run quite a quarter of a league, and
walked another quarter, when suddenly he felt the
craving of hunger. A thought which altogether
eclipsed the hideous apparition on the hill occurred
to him forcibly, — that he must eat. Happily, there
is in man a brute which serves to lead him back to
reality.
But what to eat, where to eat, how to eat ?
He felt his pockets inechanically, well knowing
that they were empty. Then he quickened his steps,
without knowing whither he was going. He has-
tened towards a possible shelter. This faith in an
inn is one of the convictions enrooted by God in
man. To believe in a shelter is to believe in God.
However, in that plain of snow there was nothing
like a roof. The child went on, and the waste con-


THE NORTH POINT OF PORTLAND.
93
tinued bare as far as eye could see. There had
never been a human habitation on the table-land.
It was at the foot of the cliff, in holes in the rocks,
that, lacking wood to build themselves buts, had
dwelt long ago the aboriginal inhabitants, who had
slings for arms, dried cow-dung for firing, for a god
the idol Heil standing in a glade at Dorchester, and
for trade the fishing of that false gray coral which
the Gauls called plin, and the Greeks insidis
plocamos.
The child found his way as best he could. Des-
tiny is made up of cross-roads. An option of paths
is dangerous. This little being had an early choice
of doubtful chances.
He continued to advance; but although the mus-
cles of his thighs seemed to be of steel, he began to
tire. There were no tracks in the plain, or if there
were any, the snow had obliterated them. Instinc-
tively he inclined eastward. Sharp stones had
wounded his heels. Had it been daylight, pink
stains made by his blood might have been seen in
the footprints he left in the snow.
He recognized nothing. He was crossing the
plain of Portland from south to north, and it is
probable that the band with which he had come,
to avoid meeting any one, had crossed it from east
to west; they had most likely sailed in some fisher-
man's or smuggler's boat, from a point on the coast
of Uggescombe, such as St. Catherine's Cape, or
Swancry, to Portland, to find the hooker which
awaited them; and they must have landed in one of
the creeks of Weston, and re-embarked in one of


94
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
those of Easton. That direction was intersected by
the one the child was now following. It was im-
possible for him to recognize the road,
On the plain of Portland there are here and there
raised strips of land, abruptly ended by the shore
and cut perpendicular to the sea. The wandering
child reached one of these culminating points and
stopped on it, hoping that a larger space might
reveal further indications. He tried to see around
him. Before him, the entire horizon was one vast,
livid opacity. He looked at this attentively, and
under the fixedness of his glance it became less
indistinct. At the base of a distant fold of land
towards the east, in the depths of that opaque
lividity, — a moving and wan sort of precipice,
which resembled a cliff of the night, — crept and
Aoated some vague black rents, some dim shreds of
vapor. The pale opacity was fog, the black shreds
were smoke. Where there is smoke there are men.
The child turned his steps in that direction.
He saw some distance off a descent, and at the
foot of the descent, among shapeless conformations
of rock, blurred by the mist, what seemed to be either
a sandbank or a tongue of land, joining, probably, to
the plains of the horizon the table-land he had just
crossed. It was evident he must pass that way.
He had, in fact, arrived at the Isthmus of Port-
land, - a diluvian alluvium which is called Chess
Hill.
He began to descend the side of the plateau.
The descent was difficult and rough. It was —
with less of ruggedness, however— the reverse of the


THE NORTH POINT OF PORTLAND.
95
ascent he had made on leaving the creek. Every
ascent is balanced by a decline : after having clam-
bered up, he crawled down.
He leaped from one rock to another at the risk of
a sprain, at the risk of falling into the vague depths
below. To save himself when he slipped on the
rock or on the ice, he caught hold of handfuls of
weeds and furze, thick with thorns, and their points
ran into his fingers. At times he came on an easier
declivity, taking breath as he descended, then came
on the precipice again, and each step necessitated an
expedient. In descending precipices, every move-
ment solves a problem; one must be skilful, under
pain of death. These problems the child solved
with an instinct that an ape might have observed,
a science that a mountebank might have admired.
The descent was steep and long; nevertheless he
was coming to the end of it.
Little by little it was drawing nearer the moment
when he should land on the Isthmus, of which from
time to time he caught a glimpse. At intervals,
while he bounded or dropped from rock to rock, he
pricked up his ears, his head erect, like a listening
deer. He was hearkening to a diffused and faint
uproar, far away to the left, like the deep note of a
clarion. It was a commotion of winds, preceding
that fearful north blast which is heard rushing from
the pole, like an inroad of trumpets. At the same
time the child felt now and then on his brow, on his
eyes, on his cheeks, something which was like the
palms of cold hands being placed on his face. These
were large frozen flakes, sown at first softly in space,


96
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
then eddying, and heralding a snow-storm. The child
was covered with them. The snow-storm, which for
the last hour had been on the sea, was beginning to
gain the land. It was slowly invading the plains.
It was entering obliquely, by the northwest, the
table land of Portland.


BOOK II.
THE HOOKER AT SEA.
CHAPTER I.
SUPERHUMAN LAWS.
THE snow-storm is one of the mysteries of the
ocean. It is the most obscure of things meteorlogi-
cal, — obscure in every sense of the word. It is a
mixture of fog and storm; and even in our days we
cannot well account for the phenomenon. Hence
many disasters.
We try to explain all things by the action of wind
and wave; yet in the air there is a force which is not
the wind, and in the waters a force which is not the
wave. That force, both in the air and in the water,
is effluvium. ‘Air and water are two nearly identical
liquid masses, entering into the composition of each
other by condensation and dilatation, so that to
breathe is to drink. Effluvium alone is fluid. The
wind and the wave are only impulses; effluvium is a
current. The wind is visible in clouds, the wave is
visible in foam ; effluvium is invisible. From time to
time, however, it says, “I am here." Its “I am
here” is a clap of thunder.
VOL. 1. - 7


98
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
The snow-storm offers a problem analogous to the
dry fog. If the solution of the callina of the Span-
iards, and the quobar of the Ethiopians be possible,
assuredly that solution will be achieved by attentive
observation of magnetic effluvium.
Without effluvium a crowd of circumstances would
remain enigmatic. Strictly speaking, the changes in
the velocity of the wind, varying from three feet per
second to two hundred and twenty feet, would supply
a reason for the variations of the waves, rising from
three inches in a calm sea to thirty-six feet in a raging
one. Strictly speaking, the horizontal direction of the
winds, even in a squall, enables us to understand how
it is that a wave thirty feet high can be fifteen hun-
dred feet long. But why are the waves of the Pacific
four times higher near America than near Asia; that
is to say, higher in the East than in the West ?
Why is the contrary true of the Atlantic? Why,
under the Equator, are they highest in the middle
of the sea? Wherefore these deviations in the swell
of the ocean? This is what magnetic effluvium,
combined with terrestrial rotation and sidereal at-
traction, can alone explain.
Is not this mysterious complication needed to ex-
plain an oscillation of the wind veering, for instance,
by the west from S.E. to N.E., then suddenly return-
ing in the same great curve from N.E. to S.E., so as
to make in thirty-six hours a prodigious circuit of
five hundred and sixty degrees ? Such was the
preface to the snow-storm of March 17, 1867.
The storm-waves of Australia reach a height of
eighty feet; this fact is connected with the vicinity


SUPERHUMAN LAWS.
99
of the Pole. Storms in those latitudes result less
from disorder of the winds than from submarine elec-
trical discharges. In the year 1866 the transatlantic
cable was disturbed at regular intervals in its working
for two hours in the twenty-four, from noon to two
o'clock, by a sort of intermittent fever. Certain com-
positions and decompositions of forces produce phe-
nomena, and impose themselves on the calculations
of the seaman under pain of shipwreck. The day
that navigation, now a routine, shall become a mathe-
matic; the day we shall, for instance, seek to know
why it is that in our regions hot winds come some-
times from the north, and cold winds from the south;
the day we shall understand that diminutions of tem-
perature are proportionate to oceanic depths; the day
we realize that the globe is a vast loadstone polarized
in immensity, with two axes —an axis of rotation and
an axis of effluvium — intersecting each other at the
centre of the earth, and that the magnetic poles turn
round the geographical poles; when those who risk
life will choose to risk it scientifically; when men
shall navigate assured from studied uncertainty ;
when the captain shall be a meteorologist; when the
pilot shall be a chemist, — then will many catastrophes
be avoided. The sea is magnetic as much as aquatic;
an ocean of unknown forces floats in the ocean of the
waves, or, one might say, on the surface. Only to
behold in the sea a mass of water is not to see it at
all; the sea is an ebb and flow of fluid, as much as a
flux and reflux of liquid. It is, perhaps, complicated
by attractions even more than by hurricanes; mo-
lecular adhesion manifested among other phenomena


100
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
by capillary attraction, although microscopic, takes in
ocean its place in the grandeur of immensity; and
the wave of effluvium sometimes aids, sometimes
counteracts, the wave of the air and the wave of the
waters. He who is ignorant of electric law is igno-
rant of hydraulic law; for the one is merged in the
other. It is true there is no study more difficult nor
more obscure : it verges on empiricism, just as astron-
omy verges on astrology; and yet without this study
there is no navigation. Having said this much we
will pass on.
One of the most dangerous components of the sea
is the snow-storm. The snow-storm is above all
things magnetic. The pole produces it as it produces
the aurora borealis. It is in the fog of the one as in
the light of the other; and in the flake of snow as
in the streak of flame, effluvium is visible.
Storms are the nervous attacks and delirious fren-
zies of the sea. The sea has its ailments. Tempests
may be compared to maladies. Some are mortal,
others not; some may be escaped, others not. The
snow-storm is supposed to be generally mortal.
Jarabija, one of the pilots of Magellan,, termed
it “a cloud issuing from the Devil's sore side.” 1
Surcouf observed, “ There is cholera-morbus in that
tempest.”
The old Spanish navigators called this kind of
squall la nevada when it came with snow; la helada
when it came with hail. According to them, bats
fell from the sky with the snow.
Snow-storms are characteristic of polar latitudes;
1 Una nube salida del malo lado del diabolo.


SUPERHUMAN LAWS.
101
nevertheless, at times they glide - one might almost
say tumble — into our climates; so much ruin is
mingled with the chances of the air.
The “Matutina,” as we have seen, plunged reso-
lutely into the great hazard of the night, – a hazard
increased by the impending storm. She had encoun-
tered its menace with a sort of tragic audacity;
nevertheless, it must be remembered that she had
received due warning.


CHAPTER II.
OUR FIRST OUTLINES FILLED IN.
WHILE the hooker was in the gulf of Portland
there was but little sea; the ocean, if gloomy, was
almost still, and the sky was yet clear. The wind
took little effect on the vessel; the hooker hugged
the cliff as closely as possible: it served as a screen
to her.
There were ten on board the little Biscayan felucca,
three men in crew, and seven passengers, of whom
two were women. In the light of the open sea
(which broadens twilight into day) all the figures
on board were clearly visible. Besides, they were
not hiding now; they were all at case. Each one re-
assumed his freedom of manner, spoke in his own
note, showed his face: departure was to them a
deliverance.
The motley nature of the group shone out. The
women were of no age. A wandering life produces
premature old age, and indigence is inade up of
wrinkles. One of them was a Basque of the Dry-
ports. The other, with the large rosary, was an
Irishwoman. They wore that air of indifference
common to the wretched. They had squatted down
close to each other when they got on board, on


OUR FIRST OUTLINES FILLED IN.
103
chests at the foot of the mast. They talked to each
other. Irish and Basque are, as we have said, kin-
dred languages. The Basque woman's hair was
scented with onions and basil. The skipper of the
hooker was a Basque of Guipuzcoa. One sailor was
a Basque of the northern slope of the Pyrenees,
the other was of the southern slope, – that is to say,
they were of the same nation, although the first was
French and the latter Spanish. The Basques recognize
no official country. “Mi madre se llama Montaña”
(“my mother is called the mountain”), as Zalareus,
the muleteer, used to say. Of the five men who
were with the two women, one was a Frenchman of
Languedoc, one a Frenchman of Provence, one a
Genoese; one, an old man, he who wore the sombrero
without a hole for a pipe, appeared to be a German.
The fifth, the chief, was a Basque of the Landes from
Biscarosse. It was he who, just as the child was
going on board the hooker, had, with a kick of his
heel, cast the plank into the sea. This man, robust,
agile, sudden in movement, covered, as may be re-
membered, with trimmings, slashings, and glistening
tinsel, could not keep in his place; he stooped down,
rose up, and continually passed to and fro from one
end of the vessel to the other, as if debating uneasily
on what had been done and what was going to
happen.
This chief of the band, the captain and the two
men of the crew, all four Basques, spoke sometimes
Basque, sometimes Spanish, sometimes French, -
these three languages being common on both slopes
of the Pyrenees. But generally speaking, excepting


104
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
the women, all talked something like French, which
was the foundation of their slang. The French lan-
guage about this period began to be chosen by the
peoples as something intermediate between the excess
of consonants in the north, and the excess of vowels
in the south. In Europe, French was the lan-
guage of commerce, and also of felony. It will be
remembered that Gibby, a London thief, under-
stood Cartouche.
The hooker, a fine sailer, was making quick way;
still, ten persons besides their baggage were a heavy
cargo for one of such light draught.
The fact of the vessel's aiding the escape of a
band did not necessarily imply that the crew were
accomplices. It was sufficient that the captain
of the vessel was a Vascongado, and that the
chief of the band was another. Among that race
mutual assistance is a duty which admits of no
exception. A Basque, as we have said, is neither
Spanish nor French ; he is Basque, and always
and everywhere he must succor a Basque. Such
is Pyrenean fraternity.
All the time the hooker was in the gulf, the sky,
although threatening, did not frown enough to cause
the fugitives any uneasiness. They were flying, they
were escaping, they were brutally gay. One laughed,
another sang; the laugh was dry but free, the song
was low but careless.
The Languedocian cried, “ Caoucagno !” “Co
cagne" expresses the highest pitch of satisfaction in
Narbonne. He was a longshore sailor, a native of
the waterside village of Gruissan, on the southern


OUR FIRST OUTLINES FILLED IN.
105
side of the Clappe, a bargeman rather than a mari-
ner, but accustomed to work the reaches of the inlet
of Bages, and to draw the drag-net full of fish over
the salt sands of St. Lucie. He was of the race who
wear a red cap, make complicated signs of the cross
after the Spanish fashion, drink wine out of goat-
skins, eat scraped ham, kneel down to blaspheme,
and implore their patron saint with threats : “Great
saint, grant me what I ask, or I 'll throw a stone at
thy head” (“ou té feg' un pic”). He might be, at
need, a useful addition to the crew.
The Provençal, in the caboose, was blowing up a
turf fire under an iron pot, and making broth. The
broth was a kind of puchero, in which fish took the
place of meat, and into which the Provençal threw
chick peas, little bits of bacon cut in squares, and
pods of red pimento, - concessions made by the eat-
ers of bouillabaisse to the eaters of olla podrida.
One of the bags of provisions was beside him un-
packed. He had lighted over his head an iron lan-
tern, glazed with talc, which swung on a hook from
the ceiling. By its side, on another hook, swung the
weathercock halcyon. There was a popular belief
in those days that a dead halcyon hung by the beak
always turned its breast to the quarter whence the
wind was blowing. While he made the broth the
Provençal put the neck of a gourd into his mouth,
and now and then swallowed a draught of aguar-
diente. It was one of those gourds covered with
wicker, broad and flat, with handles, which used to
be hung to the side by a strap, and which were then
called hip-gourds. Between each gulp he mumbled


106
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
one of those country songs of which the subject is
nothing at all: a hollow road, a hedge ; you see in
the meadow, through a gap in the bushes, the shadow
of a horse and cart, elongated in the sunset, and
from time to time, above the hedge, the end of a
fork loaded with hay appears and disappears, — you
want no more to make a song.
A departure, according to the bent of one's mind,
is a relief or a depression. All seemed lighter in
spirits excepting the old man of the band, - the
man with the hat that had no pipe.
This old man, who looked more German than any-
thing else, although he had one of those unfathom-
able faces in which nationality is lost, was bald, and
so grave that his baldness might have been a tonsure.
Every time he passed before the Virgin on the prow
he raised his felt hat, so that you could see the
swollen and senile veins of his skull. A sort of full
gown, torn and threadbare, of brown Dorchester serge,
but half hid his closely-fitting coat, tight, compact,
and hooked up to the neck like a cassock. His
hands inclined to cross each other, and had the me-
chanical junction of habitual prayer. He had what
might be called a wan countenance; for the coun-
tenance is above all things a reflection, and it is an
error to believe that idea is colorless. That coun-
tenance was evidently the surface of a strange inner
state, the result of a composition of contradictions,
some tending to drift away in good, others in evil,
and to an observer it was the revelation of one who
was less and more than human, – capable of falling
below the scale of the tiger or of rising above that of


OUR FIRST OUTLINES FILLED IN.
107
man. Such chaotic souls exist. There was some-
thing inscrutable in that face. Its secret reached
the abstract. You felt that the man had known the
foretaste of evil which is the calculation, and the
after-taste which is the zero. In his impassibility,
which was perhaps only on the surface, were im-
printed two petrifactions, — the petrifaction of the
heart proper to the hangman, and the petrifaction of
the mind proper to the mandarin. One might have
said (for the monstrous has its mode of being com-
plete) that all things were possible to him, even
emotion. In every savant there is something of the
corpse, and this man was a savant. Only to see him
you caught science imprinted in the gestures of his
body and in the folds of his dress. His was a fossil
face, the serious cast of which was counteracted by that
wrinkled mobility of the polyglot which verges on
grimace ; but a severe man withal, — nothing of the
hypocrite, nothing of the cynic, — a tragic dreamer ;
he was one of those whom crime leaves pensive;
he had the brow of an incendiary tempered by
the eyes of an archbishop; his sparse gray locks
turned to white over his temples; the Christian was
evident in him, complicated with the fatalism of the
Turk; chalk-stones deformed his fingers, dissected
by leanness; the stiffness of his tall frame was gro-
tesque; he had his sea-legs, — he walked slowly
about the deck, not looking at any one, with an
air decided and sinister ; his eyeballs were vaguely
filled with the fixed light of a soul studious of
the darkness and afflicted by re-apparitions of
conscience.


108
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
From time to time the chief of the band, abrupt
and alert, and making sudden turns about the vessel,
came to him and whispered in his ear. The old man
answered by a nod. It might have been the light-
ning consulting the night.


CHAPTER III.
TROUBLED MEN ON THE TROUBLED SEA.
Two men on board the craft were absorbed in
thought, — the old man, and the skipper of the
hooker, who must not be mistaken for the chief of
the band. The captain's glance was absorbed by the
sea, the old man's by the sky. The former was not
lifted from the waters; the latter kept watch on the
firmament. The skipper's anxiety was the state of
the sea; the old man seemed to suspect the heavens,
- he scanned the stars through every break in the
clouds.
It was the time when day still lingers, but some
few stars begin faintly to pierce the twilight. The
horizon was singular. The mist upon it varied.
Haze predominated on land, clouds at sea.
The skipper, noting the rising billows, hauled all
taut before he got outside Portland Bay. He would
not delay so doing until he should pass the headland.
He examined the rigging closely, and satisfied himself
that the lower shrouds were well set up, and sup-
ported firmly the futtock-shrouds, – precautions of
a man who means to carry on with a press of sail at
all risks.
The hooker was not trimmed, being two feet by
the head. This was her weak point,


110
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
The captain passed every minute from the binnacle
to the standard compass, taking the bearings of ob-
jects on shore. The “ Matutina” had at first a sol-
dier's wind which was not unfavorable, though she
could not lie within five points of her course. The
captain took the helm as often as possible, trusting
no one but himself to prevent her from dropping to
leeward, the effect of the rudder being influenced by
the steerage-way.
The difference between the true and apparent
course being relative to the way on the vessel, the
hooker seemed to lie closer to the wind than she did
in reality. The breeze was not abeam, nor was the
hooker close-hauled; but one cannot ascertain the
true course made, except when the wind is abaft.
When you perceive long streaks of clouds meeting in
a point on the horizon, you may be sure that the
wind is in that quarter ; but this evening the wind
was variable; the needle fluctuated; the captain dis-
trusted the erratic movements of the vessel. He
steered cautiously but resolutely, luffed her up,
watched her coming to, prevented her from yaw-
ing, and from running into the wind's eye; noted
the lee-way, the little jerks of the helm; was
observant of every roll and pitch of the vessel, of
the difference in her speed, and of the variable
gusts of wind. For fear of accidents, he was con-
stantly on the lookout for squalls from off the
land he was hugging, and above all he was cau-
tious to keep her full; the direction of the breeze
indicated by the compass being uncertain from the
small size of the instrument. The captain's eyes.


TROUBLED MEN ON THE TROUBLED SEA. 111
frequently lowered, remarked every change in the
waves.
Once nevertheless he raised them towards the sky,
and tried to make out the three stars of Orion's belt.
These stars are called the three magi, and an old
proverb of the ancient Spanish pilots declares that
“He who sees the three magi is not far from the
Saviour.”
This glance of the captain's tallied with an aside
growled out, at the other end of the vessel, by the
old man. “We don't even see the pointers, nor the
star Antares, red as he is. Not one is distinct.”
No care troubled the other fugitives.
Still, when the first hilarity they felt in their escape
had passed away, they could not help remembering
that they were at sea in the month of January, and
that the wind was frozen. It was impossible to
establish themselves in the cabin. It was much too
narrow and too much encumbered by bales and
baggage. The baggage belonged to the passengers,
the bales to the crew, for the hooker was no pleasure-
boat, and was engaged in smuggling. The passen-
gers were obliged to settle themselves on deck, - &
condition to which these wanderers easily resigned
themselves. Open-air habits make it simple for vaga-
bonds to arrange themselves for the night. A pro-
pitious star befriends them, and the cold helps them
to sleep, — sometimes to die.
This night, as we have seen, there was no propitious
star.
The Languedocian and the Genoese, while waiting
for supper, rolled themselves up near the women, at


112
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
the foot of the mast, in some tarpaulin which the
sailors had thrown them.
The old man remained at the bow motionless, and
apparently insensible to the cold.
The captain of the hooker, from the helm where
he was standing, uttered a sort of guttural call some-
what like the cry of the American bird called the
exclaimer; at his call the chief of the band drew
near, and the captain addressed him thus :-
“Etcheco jauna.” These two words, which mean
“tiller of the mountain," form with the old Cantabri
a solemn preface to any subject which should com-
mand attention.
Then the captain pointed the old man out to the
chief, and the dialogue continued in Spanish ; it was
not, indeed, a very correct dialect, being that of the
mountains. Here are the questions and answers.
“Etcheco jauna, que este hombre ? ”
“Un hombre.”
“Que lenguas habla ?”
“Todas.”
“Que cosas sabe?”
“Todas.”
“Qual païs?”
“Ningun, y todos.”
“Qual Dios?”
“Dios."
“Como le llamas ? "
“El Tonto."
“ Como dices que le llamas "
“El Sabio.”
“En vuestre tropa, que esta p"


TROUBLED MEN ON THE TROUBLED SEA. 113
“Esta lo que esta."
“El gefe ?”
“ No.”
“Pues que esta ?”
“ La alma.” 1
The chief and the captain parted, each reverting to
his own meditation, and a little while afterwards the
“ Matutina” left the gulf.
Now came the great rolling of the open sea. The
ocean in the spaces between the foam was slimy in
appearance. The waves seen through the twilight
in indistinct outline somewhat resembled plashes of
gall. Here and there a wave floating flat showed
cracks and stars, like a pane of glass broken by stones;
in the centre of these stars, in a revolving orifice,
trembled a phosphorescence, like that feline reflection
of vanished light which shines in the eyeballs of
owls.
Proudly, like a bold swimmer, the “Matutina”
crossed the dangerous Shambles shoal. This bank, a
hidden obstruction at the entrance of Portland roads,
is not a barrier, it is an amphitheatre. A circus of
sand under the sea, its benches cut out by the circling
1 Tiller of the mountain, who is that man — A man.
What tongue does he speak? — All.
What things does he know? — All.
What is his country ? - None and all.
Who is his God ? — God.
What do you call him ? — The madman.
What do you say you call him ? — The wise man.
In your band, what is he? — He is what he is.
The chief ? — No.
Then what is he ? — The soul,
vol. 1. – 8


114
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
of the waves; an arena, round and symmetrical, as
high as a Jungfrau, only drowned ; a coliseum of the
ocean, seen by the diver in the vision-like transpar-
ency which engulfs him, — such is the Shambles shoal.
There hydras fight, leviathans meet. There, says the
legend, at the bottom of the gigantic shaft, are the
wrecks of ships seized and sunk by the huge spider
Kraken, also called the fish-mountain. Such things
lie in the fearful shadow of the sea.
These spectral realities, unknown to man, are
manifested at the surface by a slight shiver.
In this nineteenth century the Shambles bank is
in ruins ; the breakwater recently constructed has
overthrown and mutilated by the force of its surf
that high submarine architecture, just as the jetty
built at the Croisic in 1760 changed by a quarter
of an hour the courses of the tides. And yet the
tide is eternal; but eternity obeys man more than
man imagines.


CHAPTER IV.
A CLOUD UNLIKE THE OTHERS ENTERS ON
THE SCENE.
THE old man whom the chief of the band had
named first the Madman, then the Sage, now
never left the forecastle. Since they crossed the
Shambles shoal, his attention had been divided be-
tween the heavens and the waters. He looked
down, he looked upwards, and above all watched
the northeast.
The skipper gave the helm to a sailor, stepped
over the after hatchway, crossed the gangway, and
went on to the forecastle. He approached the old
man, but not in front; he stood a little behind, with
elbows resting on his hips, with outstretched hands,
the head on one side, with open eyes and arched
eyebrows, and a smile about the corners of his
mouth, — the attitude of curiosity hesitating be-
tween mockery and respect.
The old man, either that it was his habit to talk
to himself, or that hearing some one behind him
incited him to speech, began to soliloquize while he
looked into space : —
· “The meridian from which the right ascension is
calculated is marked in this century by four stars, –
the Polar, Cassiopeia's Chair, Andromeda's Head,


116
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
and the star Algenib, which is in Pegasus ; but
there is not one visible.”
These words followed each other mechanically,
confused, and scarcely articulated, as if he did not
care to pronounce them. They floated out of his
mouth and dispersed. Soliloquy is the smoke ex-
haled by the inmost fires of the soul.
The skipper broke in : “My lord !”
The old man, perhaps rather deaf as well as very
thoughtful, went on:-
“Too few stars, and too much wind. The breeze
continually changes its direction, and blows inshore;
thence it rises perpendicularly. This results from
the land being warmer than the water. Its atmos-
phere is lighter. The cold and dense wind of the
sea rushes in to replace it ; from this cause, in the
upper regions the wind blows towards the land from
every quarter. It would be advisable to make long
tacks between the true and apparent parallel. When
the latitude by observation differs from the latitude
by dead reckoning by not more than three minutes
in thirty miles, or by four minutes in sixty miles, you
are in the true course."
The skipper bowed, but the old man saw him not.
The latter, who wore what resembled an Oxford or
Göttingen university gown, did not relax his haughty
and rigid attitude. He observed the waters as a
critic of waves and of men. He studied the billows,
but almost as if he was about to demand his turn to
speak amid their turmoil and teach them something.
There was in him both pedagogue and soothsayer.
He seemed an oracle of the deep.


A NEW CLOUD ENTERS ON THE SCENE. 117
He continued his soliloquy, which was perhaps
intended to be heard.
“We might strive, if we had a wheel instead of a
helm. With a speed of twelve miles an hour, a
force of twenty pounds exerted on the wheel pro-
duces three hundred thousand pounds' effect on the
course. And more too ; for in some cases, with a
double block and runner they can get two more
revolutions."
The skipper bowed a second time, and said, "My
lord !”
The old man's eye rested on him; he had turned
his head without moving his body.
“ Call me Doctor.”
“ Master Doctor, I am the skipper.”
“ Just so," said the doctor.
The doctor, as henceforward we shall call him,
appeared willing to converse.
“ Skipper, have you an English sextant ?”
“No."
“ Without an English sextant you cannot take an
altitude at all."
“ The Basques,” replied the captain, “ took alti-
tudes before there were any English.”
“Be careful you are not taken aback.”
“I keep her away when necessary."
“Have you tried how many knots she is running?”
“ Yes."
“When?”
“ Just now."
“How?”
“By the log."


118
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
“Did you take the trouble to look at the tri
angle ?”
« Yes."
“Did the sand run through the glass in exactly
thirty seconds ? ”
“ Yes.”
“Are you sure that the sand has not worn the
hole between the globes ? ”
“Yes.”
“Have you proved the sand-glass by the oscilla-
tions of a bullet — ”
“Suspended by a rope-yarn drawn out from the
top of a coil of soaked hemp ? Undoubtedly."
“Have you waxed the yarn, lest it should
stretch ?”
“ Yes.”
“Have you tested the log ? ”
“I tested the sand-glass by the bullet, and checked
the log by a round shot.”
“Of what size was the shot ? ”
“ One foot in diameter.”
“ Heavy enough?”
“It is an old round shot of our war-hooker, ' La
Casse de Par-Grand.'”
“ Which was in the Armada ?”
“Yes.”
“And which carried six hundred soldiers, fifty
sailors, and twenty-five guns ? ”
“Shipwreck knows it.”
“How did you compute the resistance of the
water to the shot ?”.
“By means of a German scale.”


A NEW CLOUD ENTERS ON THE SCENE. 119
“ Have you taken into account the resistance of
the rope supporting the shot to the waves ? ”
“ Yes.”
“ What was the result ? ”.
“ The resistance of the water was one hundred
and seventy pounds.”
“That is to say, she is running four French leagues
an hour.”
“ And three Dutch leagues.”
“But that is the difference, merely, of the vessel's
way and the rate at which the sea is running ?”
“ Undoubtedly.”
“ Whither are you steering ?”
“For a creek I know, between Loyola and St.
Sebastian.”
“Make the latitude of the harbor's mouth as soon
as possible.”
“Yes, as near as I can.”
“Beware of gusts and currents ; the first cause the
second.”
“ Traidores.” 1
“No abuse ; the sea understands. Insult noth-
ing; rest satisfied with watching."
“I have watched, and I do watch. Just now the
tide is running against the wind; by-and-by, when it
turns, we shall be all right.”
“ Hare you a chart ?”
“No, not for this channel.”
“ Then you sail. by rule of thumb ?”.
“Not at all. I have a compass.”
“The compass is one eye, the chart the other."
1 Traitors.


120
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
“A man with one eye can see.”
“How do you compute the difference between the
true and apparent course ? ”
“I've got my standard compass, and I make a
guess."
“To guess is all very well. To know for certain
is better."
“ Christopher guessed.”
“When there is a fog and the needle revolves
treacherously, you can never tell on which side you
should look out for squalls, and the end of it is that
you know neither the true nor apparent day's work.
An ass with his chart is better off than a wizard with
his oracle.”
“ There is no fog in the breeze yet, and I see no
cause for alarm."
“Ships are like flies in the spider's web of the sea.”
“ Just now both winds and waves are tolerably
favorable.”
“Black specks quivering on the billows, such are
men on the ocean.”
“I dare say there will be nothing wrong to-night.”
“You may get into such a mess that you will find
it hard to get out of it."
“All goes well at present."
The doctor's eyes were fixed on the northeast.
The skipper continued, —
“Let us once reach the Gulf of Gascony, and I an-
swer for our safety. Ah! I should say I am at home
there. I know it well, my Gulf of Gascony. It is a
little basin, often very boisterous; but there, I know
every sounding in it, and the nature of the bottom;


A NEW CLOUD ENTERS ON THE SCENE. 121
mud opposite San Cipriano, shells opposite Cizarque,
sand off Cape Peñas, little pebbles off Boncaut de
Mimizan, and I know the color of every pebble."
The skipper broke off; the doctor was no longer
listening.
The doctor gazed at the northeast. Over that icy
face passed an extraordinary expression. All the
agony of terror possible to a mask of stone was de-
picted there. From his mouth escaped this word,
“Good !”
His eyeballs, which had all at once become quite
round like an owl's, were dilated with stupor on dis-
covering a speck on the horizon. He added, —
“It is well. As for me, I am resigned.”
The skipper looked at him. The doctor went on
talking to himself, or to some one in the deep :-
“I say, Yes.”
Then he was silent, opened his eyes wider and
wider with renewed attention on that which he was
watching, and said, —
“ It is coming from afar, but not the less surely
will it come.”
The arc of the horizon which occupied the visual
rays and thoughts of the doctor, being opposite to
the west, was illuminated by the transcendent reflec-
tion of twilight, as if it were day. This arc, limited
in extent, and surrounded by streaks of grayish vapor,
was uniformly blue, but of a leaden rather than ceru-
lean blue. The doctor, having completely returned
to the contemplation of the sea, pointed to this ate
mospheric arc, and said, -
“Skipper, do you see ?”


122
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
“What?”
« That.”
" What ?”
“Out there."
“A blue spot? Yes."
“ What is it?”
“A niche in heaven.”
“For those who go to heaven; for those who go
elsewhere — it is another affair.” And he emphasized
these enigmatical words with an appalling expression
which was unseen in the darkness.
A silence ensued. The skipper, remembering the
two names given by the chief to this man, asked
himself the question, —
“Is he a madman, or is he a sage?”
The stiff and bony finger of the doctor remained
immovably pointing, like a sign-post, to the misty
blue spot in the sky.
The skipper looked at this spot.
“In truth,” he growled out, “it is not sky but
clouds.”
“A blue cloud is worse than a black cloud,” said
the doctor; “and,” he added, “it's a snow-cloud.”
“La nube de la nieve," said the skipper, as if
trying to understand the word better by translating
it.
“Do you know what a snow-cloud is?” asked the
doctor.
“No.”
“You 'll know by-and-by.”
The skipper again turned his attention to the
horizon.


A NEW CLOUD ENTERS ON THE SCENE 123
Continuing to observe the cloud, he muttered be-
tween his teeth:-
“One month of squalls, another of wet; January
with its gales, February with its rains, — that 's all the
winter we Asturians get. Our rain even is warm.
We've no snow but on the mountains. Ay, ay, look
out for the avalanche. The avalanche is no respecter
of persons. The avalanche is a brute.”
“And the waterspout is a monster," said the
doctor, adding, after a pause, “bere it comes." He
continued, “Several winds are getting up together, —
a strong wind from the west, and a gentle wind from
the east.”
“ That last is a deceitful one," said the skipper.
The blue cloud was growing larger.
“If the snow,” said the doctor, “is appalling when
it slips down the mountain, think what it is when it
falls from the Pole !”
His eye was glassy. The cloud seemed to spread
over his face and simultaneously over the horizon.
He continued, in musing tones, -
“Every minute the hour draws nearer. The will
of heaven is about to be manifested.”
The skipper asked himself again this question :
“ Is he a madman ? ”
“Skipper," began the doctor, without taking his
eyes off the cloud, “have you often crossed the
Channel ?”
“This is the first time.”
The doctor, who was absorbed by the blue cloud,
and who, as a sponge can take up but a definite
quantity of water, had but a definite measure of


124
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
anxiety, displayed no more emotion at this answer
of the skipper than was expressed by a slight shrug
of his shoulders.
“ How is that ? ”
“Master Doctor, my usual cruise is to Ireland. I
sail from Fontarabia to Black Harbor, or to the
Achill Islands. I go sometimes to Braic-y-Pwll, –
a point on the Welsh coast. But I always steer out-
side the Scilly Islands. I do not know this sea
at all.”
“That 's serious. Woe to him who is inexperienced
on the ocean! One ought to be familiar with the
Channel; the Channel is the Sphinx. Look out for
shoals !”
“We are in twenty-five fathoms here.”
“We ought to get into fifty-five fathoms to the
west, and avoid even twenty fathoms to the east.”
“We'll sound as we get on.”
“The Channel is not an ordinary sea. The water
rises fifty feet with the spring tides, and twenty-five
with neap tides. Here we are in slack water. I
thought you looked scared.”
“We'll sound to-night.”
“To sound you must heave-to, and that you can-
not do."
“ Why not?”
“On account of the wind.”
“We'll try.”
“ The squall is close on us."
“We'll sound, Master Doctor."
“ You could not even bring-to."
« Trust in God.”


A NEW CLOUD ENTERS ON THE SCENE. 125
“ Take care what you say. Pronounce not lightly
the awful name."
“I will sound, I tell you."
“Be sensible; you will have a gale of wind
presently.”
“I say that I will try for soundings.”
“The resistance of the water will prevent the lead
from sinking, and the line will break. Ah! so this
is your first time in these waters ?”.
“The first time.”
“Very well; in that case listen, skipper.”
The tone of the word “listen” was so commanding
that the skipper made an obeisance.
“Master Doctor, I am all attention.”
“Port your helm, and haul up on the starboard
tack.”
What do you mean?”.
“Steer your course to the west.”
“ Caramba !”
“Steer your course to the west.”
“Impossible.”
“As you will. What I tell you is for the others'
sake. As for myself, I am indifferent.”
“But, Master Doctor, steer west ?”
“Yes, skipper.”
“The wind will be dead ahead.”
“Yes, skipper.”
“She 'll pitch like the devil.”
“Moderate your language. Yes, skipper.”
“The vessel would be in irons."
“Yes, skipper.”
“That means very likely the mast will go.”


126
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
“Possibly.”
“Do you wish me to steer west ?”
“ Yes."
“I cannot.”
“ In that case settle your reckoning with the sea."
“ The wind ought to change.”
“ It will not change all night.”
“Why not ?"
“Because it is a wind twelve hundred leagues in
length.”
“Make headway against such a wind ? Impos-
sible.”
“To the west, I tell you.”
“I'll try; but in spite of everything she will
fall off.”
“That's the danger.”
“The wind sets us to the east.”
“Don't go to the east.”
“Why not?”
“Skipper, do you know what is for us the word
of death ?”
"No."
“Death is the east.”
“I steer west."
This time the doctor, having turned right round,
looked the skipper full in the face, and with his eyes
resting on him, as though to implant the idea in his
head, pronounced slowly, syllable by syllable, these
words : -
“If to-night out at sea we hear the sound of a bell,
the ship is lost.”
The skipper pondered in amaze.


A NEW CLOUD ENTERS ON THE SCENE. 127
“ What do you mean?”
The doctor did not answer. His countenance, ex-
pressive for a moment, was now reserved ; his eyes
became vacuous; he did not appear to hear the skip-
per's wondering question ; he was now attending to
his own monologue ; his lips let fall, as if mechani-
cally, in a low murmuring tone, these words : —
“The time has come for sullied souls to purify
themselves.”
The skipper made that expressive grimace which
raises the chin towards the nose.
“He is more madman than sage,” he growled,
and moved off. Nevertheless, he steered west.
But the wind and the sea were rising.


CHAPTER V.
HARDQUANONNE.
The mist was deformed by all sorts of inequalities,
bulging out at once on every point of the horizon, as
if invisible mouths were busy puffing out the bags of
wind. The formation of the clouds was becoming
ominous. In the west, as in the east, the sky's depths
were now invaded by the blue cloud ; it advanced in
the teeth of the wind. These contradictions are part
of the wind's vagaries.
The sea, which a moment before wore scales, now
wore a skin, —such is the nature of that dragon. It
was no longer a crocodile, it was a boa. The skin,
lead-colored and dirty, looked thick, and was crossed
by heavy wrinkles. Here and there, on its surface,
bubbles of surge, like pustules, gathered and then
burst. The foam was like a leprosy. It was at this
moment that the hooker, still seen from afar by the
child, lighted her signal.
A quarter of an hour elapsed.
The skipper looked for the doctor; he was no
longer on deck. Directly the skipper had left him,
the doctor had stooped his somewhat ungainly form
under the hood, and had entered the cabin ; there he
had sat down near the stove, on a block. He had


HARDQUANONNE.
129
taken a shagreen ink-bottle and a cordwain pocket-
book from his pocket; he had extracted from his
pocket-book a parchment folded four times, old,
stained, and yellow; he had opened the sheet, taken
a pen out of his ink-case, placed the pocket-book flat
on his knee, and the parchment on the pocket-book ;
and by the rays of the lantern which was lighting
the cook, he set to writing on the back of the parch-
ment. The roll of the waves inconvenienced him.
He wrote thus for some time.
As he wrote, the doctor remarked the gourd of
aguardiente, which the Provençal tasted every time
he added a grain of pimento to the puchero, as if he
were consulting it in reference to the seasoning. The
doctor noticed the gourd, not because it was a bottle
of brandy, but because of a name which was plaited
in the wicker-work with red rushes on a background
of white. There was light enough in the cabin to
permit of his reading the name.
The doctor paused, and spelled it in a low voice,
“Hardquanonne.”
Then he addressed the cook.
“I had not observed that gourd before ; did it
belong to Hardquanonne ?”
“Yes," the cook answered; "to our poor comrade,
Hardquanonne."
The doctor went on.
“ To Hardquanonne, the Fleming of Flanders ?”
“ Yes."
“Who is in prison ?”
“ Yes.”
“In the dungeon at Chatham ?”
VOL. I. — 9


130
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
“ It is his gourd,” replied the cook ; "and he was
my friend. I keep it in remembrance of him. When
shall we see him again? It is the bottle he used to
wear slung over his hip.”
The doctor took up his pen again, and continued
laboriously tracing somewhat straggling lines on the
parchment. He was evidently anxious that his hand-
writing should be very legible; and at length, not-
withstanding the tremulousness of the vessel and
the tremulousness of age, he finished what he wanted
to write.
It was time; for suddenly a sea struck the craft, a
mighty rush of waters besieged the hooker, and they
felt her break into that fearful dance in which ships
lead off with the tempest.
The doctor arose and approached the stove, meet-
ing the ship’s motion with his knees dexterously bent,
dried as best he could, at the stove where the pot
was boiling, the lines he had written, refolded the
parchment in the pocket-book, and replaced the
pocket-book and the ink-horn in his pocket.
The stove was not the least ingenious piece of
interior economy in the hooker. It was judiciously
isolated. Meanwhile, the pot heaved; the Provençal
was watching it.
“ Fish broth,” said he.
“For the fishes,” replied the doctor. Then he
went on deck again.
break into this besieged the hook the craft, a


CHAPTER VI.
THEY THINK THAT HELP IS AT HAND.
THROUGH his growing preoccupation the doctor
in some sort reviewed the situation ; and any one
near to him might have heard these words drop from
his lips, –
“Too much rolling, and not enough pitching."
Then, recalled to himself by the dark workings of
his mind, he sank again into thought, as a miner
into his shaft. His meditation in no wise interfered
with his watch on the sea. The contemplation of
the sea is in itself a reverie.
The sombre anguish of the waters, eternally tor-
tured, was commencing. A lamentation arose from
the whole main. Preparations, confused and melan-
choly, were forming in space. The doctor observed
all before him, and lost no detail. There was, how-
ever, no sign of scrutiny in his face. One does not
scrutinize hell.
A vast commotion, yet half latent, but visible
through the turmoils in space, increased and irritated,
more and more, the winds, the vapors, the waves.
Nothing is so logical and nothing appears so absurd
as the ocean, Self-dispersion is the essence of its
sovereignty, and is one of the elements of its redun-
dance. The sea is ever for and against. It knots,


132
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
that it may unravel, itself; one of its slopes attacks,
the other relieves. No apparition is so wonderful as
the waves. Who can paint the alternating hollows
and promontories, the valleys, the melting bosoms,
the sketches? How render the thickets of foam,
blendings of mountains and dreams ? The indescrib-
able is everywhere there, in the rending, in the frown-
ing, in the anxiety, in the perpetual contradiction, in
the lights and shadows, in the pendants of the cloud,
in the keys of the ever open vault, in the disaggrega-
tion without rupture, in the funereal tumult caused
by all that madness!
The wind had just set due north. Its violence
was so favorable and so useful in driving them
away from England, that the captain of the “Matu-
tina” had made up his mind to set all sail. The
hooker slipped through the foam as at a gallop, the
wind right aft, bounding from wave to wave in a gay
frenzy. The fugitives were delighted, and laughed;
they clapped their hands, applauded the surf, the
sea, the wind, the sails, the swift progress, the flight,
all unmindful of the future. The doctor appeared
not to see them, and dreamed on.
Every vestige of day had faded away. This was
the moment when the child, watching from the dis-
tant cliff, lost sight of the hooker. Up to then his
glance had remained fixed, and, as it were, leaning
on the vessel. What part had that look in fate?
When the hooker was lost to sight in the distance,
and when the child could no longer see aught, the
child went north and the ship went south.
All were plunged in darkness.


CHAPTER VII.
SUPERHUMAN HORRORS.
On their part it was with wild jubilee and delight
that those on board the hooker saw the hostile land
recede and lessen behind them. By degrees the dark
ring of ocean rose higher, dwarfing in twilight Port-
land, Purbeck, Tineham, Kimmeridge, the Matravers,
the long streaks of dim cliffs, and the coast dotted
with light-houses.
England disappeared. The fugitives had now
nothing round them but the sea.
All at once night grew awful.
There was no longer extent nor space; the sky
became blackness and closed in round the vessel.
The snow began to fall slowly; a few flakes ap-
peared. They might have been ghosts. Nothing
else was visible in the course of the wind. They
felt as if yielded up. A snare lurked in every
possibility.
It is in this cavernous darkness that in our climate
the Polar waterspout makes its appearance.
A great muddy cloud, like to the belly of a hydra,
hung over the ocean, and in places its lividity adhered
to the waves. Some of these adherences resembled
pouches with holes, pumping the sea, disgorging


134
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
vapor, and refilling themselves with water. Here and
there these suctions drew up cones of foam on the sea.
The boreal storin hurled itself on the hooker; the
hooker rushed to meet it: the squall and the vessel
met as though to insult each other.
In the first mad shock not a sail was clewed up,
not a jib lowered, not a reef taken in, so much is
flight a delirium. The mast creaked, and bent back
as if in fear.
Cyclones, in our northern hemisphere, circle from
left to right, - in the same direction as the hands of
a watch, — with a velocity which is sometimes as
much as sixty miles an hour. Although she was
entirely at the mercy of that whirling power, the
hooker behaved as if she were out in moderate
weather, without any further precaution than keep-
ing her head on to the rollers, with the wind broad
on the bow so as to avoid being pooped or caught
broadside on. This semi-prudence would have availed
her nothing in case of the wind's shifting and taking
her aback.
A deep rumbling was brewing up in the distance.
The roar of the abyss, — nothing can be compared
to it; it is the great brutish howl of the universe.
What we call matter — that unsearchable organism,
that amalgamation of incommensurable energies in
which can occasionally be detected an almost imper-
ceptible degree of intention which makes us shudder,
that blind, benighted cosmos, that enigmatical Pan
— has a cry, a strange cry, prolonged, obstinate, and
continuous, which is less than speech and more than
thunder. That cry is the hurricane. Other voices,


SUPERHUMAN HORRORS.
135
songs, melodies, clamors, tones, proceed from nests,
from broods, from pairings, from nuptials, from homes.
This one, a trumpet, comes out of the Naught,
which is All. Other voices express the soul of the
universe; this one expresses the monster. It is the
howl of the formless; it is the inarticulate finding
utterance in the indefinite ; a thing it is, full of
pathos and terror. Those clamors converse above
and beyond man; they rise, fall, undulate, determine
waves of sound, form all sorts of wild surprises for
the mind ; now burst close to the ear with the
importunity of a peal of trumpets, now assail us
with the rumbling hoarseness of distance, - giddy
uproar which resembles a language, and which in
fact is a language. It is the effort which the world
makes to speak; it is the lisping of the wonderful.
In this wail is manifested vaguely all that the vast
dark palpitation endures, suffers, accepts, rejects.
For the most part it talks nonsense ; it is like an
access of chronic sickness, and rather an epilepsy
diffused than a force employed; we fancy that we
are witnessing the descent of supreme evil into the
infinite. At moments we seem to discern a recla-
mation of the elements, some vain effort of chaos to
reassert itself over creation. At times it is a com-
plaint; the void bewails and justifies itself. It is as
the pleading of the world's cause. We can fancy
that the universe is engaged in a lawsuit; we listen,
we try to grasp the reasons given, — the redoubtable
for and against. Such a moaning of the shadows
has the tenacity of a syllogism. Here is a vast
trouble for thought; here is the raison d'être of


CHAPTER VIII.
NIL ET NOX.
THE characteristic of the snow-storm is its black-
ness. Nature's habitual aspect during a storm - the
earth or sea black and the sky pale — is reversed :
the sky is black, the ocean white; foam below, dark-
ness above; an horizon walled in with smoke, a
zenith roofed with crape. The tempest resembles a
cathedral hung with mourning, but no light in that
cathedral, — no phantom lights on the crests of the
waves, no spark, no phosphorescence, naught but a
huge shadow. The Polar cyclone differs from the
Tropical cyclone, inasmuch as the one sets fire to
every light, and the other extinguishes them all. The
world is suddenly converted into the arched vault
of a cave. Out of the night falls a dust of pale
spots, which hesitate between sky and sea. These
spots, which are flakes of snow, slip, wander, and
float. It is like the tears of a winding-sheet putting
themselves into life-like motion. A mad wind min-
gles with this dissemination. Blackness crumbling
into whiteness, the furious into the obscure, all the
tumult of which the sepulchre is capable, a whirl-
wind under a catafalque, — such is the snow-storm.
Underneath trembles the ocean, forming and reform-
ing over portentous unknown depths.


NIL ET NOX.
139
In the Polar wind, which is electrical, the flakes
turn suddenly into hailstones, and the air becomes
filled with projectiles; the water crackles, shot with
grape.
No thunderstrokes ; the lightning of boreal storms
is silent. What is sometimes said of the cat, “ It
swears," may be applied to this lightning. It is a
menace proceeding from a mouth half open, and
strangely inexorable. The snow-storm is a storm
blind and dumb; when it has passed, the ships also
are often blind and the sailors dumb.
To escape from such an abyss is difficult.
It would be wrong, however, to believe shipwreck
to be absolutely inevitable. The Danish fisherman
of Disco and the Balesin, the seekers of black whales,
Hearn steering towards Behring Strait to discover
the mouth of Coppermine River, Hudson, Mackenzie,
Vancouver, Ross, Dumont-D'Urville, — all underwent
at the Pole itself the wildest hurricanes, and escaped
out of them.
It was into this description of tempest that the
hooker had entered, triumphant and in full sail.
Frenzy against frenzy. When Montgomery, escaping
from Rouen, threw his galley with all the force of its
oars against the chain barring the Seine at La Bouille,
he showed similar effrontery.
The “Matutina” sailed on fast; she bent so much
under her sails that at moments she made a fearful
angle with the sea of fifteen degrees; but her good
bellied keel adhered to the water as if glued to it.
The keel resisted the grasp of the hurricane. The
lantern at the prow cast its light ahead.


140
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
The cloud, full of winds, dragging its tumor over
the deep, cramped and eat more and more into the
sea round the hooker. Not a gull, not a sea-mew,-
nothing but snow. The expanse of the field of waves
was becoming contracted and terrible; only three or
four gigantic ones were visible.
Now and then a tremendous flash of lightning of a
red copper-color broke out behind the obscure super-
position of the horizon and the zenith. That sudden
release of vermilion flame revealed the horror of the
clouds; that abrupt conflagration of the depths, to
which for an instant the first tiers of clouds and the
distant boundaries of the celestial chaos seemed to
adhere, placed the abyss in perspective. On this
ground of fire the snow-flakes showed black, — they
might have been compared to dark butterflies flying
about in a furnace; then all was extinguished.
The first explosion over, the squall, still pursuing
the hooker, began to roar in thorough bass. This
phase of grumbling is a perilous diminution of uproar.
Nothing is so terrifying as this monologue of the storm.
This gloomy recitative appears to serve as a moment
of rest to the mysterious combating forces, and indi-
cates a species of patrol kept in the unknown.
The hooker held wildly on her course. Her two
mainsails especially were doing fearful work. The
sky and sea were as of ink, with jets of foam running
higher than the mast. Every instant masses of water
swept the deck like a deluge, and at each roll of the
vessel the hawse-holes, now to starboard, now to lar-
board, became as so many open mouths vomiting
back the foam into the sea. The women had taken


NIL ET NOX.
141
refuge in the cabin, but the men remained on deck ;
the blinding snow eddied around, the spitting surge
mingled with it, — all was fury.
At that moment the chief of the band, standing
abaft on the stern-frames, holding on with one hand
to the shrouds, and with the other taking off the ker-
chief he wore round his head and waving it in the
light of the lantern, gay and arrogant, with pride in
his face, and his hair in wild disorder, intoxicated by
all the darkness, cried out, -
“We are free ! ”
“Free, free, free !” echoed the fugitives ; and the
band, seizing hold of the rigging, rose up on deck.
“Hurrah !” shouted the chief.
And the band shouted in the storm,
“Hurrah!”
Just as this clamor was dying away in the tempest,
a loud solemn voice rose from the other end of the
vessel, saying, -
“Silence ! ”
All turned their heads. The darkness was thick,
and the doctor was leaning against the mast so that
he seemed part of it, and they could not see him.
The voice spoke again, —
“Listen!”
All were silent.
Then did they distinctly hear through the darkness
the toll of a bell.


CHAPTER IX.
THE CHARGE CONFIDED TO A RAGING SEA.
THE skipper, at the helm, burst out laughing :-
“A bell, that's good. We are on the larboard
tack. What does the bell prove? Why, that we
have land to starboard."
The firm and measured voice of the doctor replied:
“You have not land to starboard."
“But we have,” shouted the skipper.
“No!”
“But that bell tolls from the land.”
“That bell,” said the doctor, “ tolls from the sea."
A shudder passed over these daring men, the hag-
gard faces of the two women appeared above the
companion like two hobgoblins conjured up; the
doctor took a step forward, separating his tall form
from the mast. From the depth of the night's dark-
ness came the toll of the bell.
The doctor resumed :-
“There is in the midst of the sea, half-way be-
tween Portland and the Channel Islands, a buoy,
placed there for warning; that buoy is moored by
chains to the shoal, and floats on the top of the
water. On the buoy is fixed an iron trestle, and
across the trestle a bell is hung. In bad weather


THE CHARGE CONFIDED TO A RAGING SEA. 143
heavy seas toss the buoy, and the bell rings. That
is the bell you hear.”
The doctor paused to allow an extra-violent gust
of wind to pass over, waited until the sound of the
bell reasserted itself, and then went on :-
“To hear that bell in a storm, when the nor'wester
is blowing, is to be lost. Why? For this reason :
if you hear the bell, it is because the wind brings it
to you. But the wind is nor'westerly, and the break-
ers of Aurigny lie east. You hear the bell only be-
cause you are between the buoy and the breakers.
It is on those breakers the wind is driving you.
You are on the wrong side of the buoy. If you
were on the right side, you would be out at sea on
a safe course, and you would not hear the bell. The
wind would not convey the sound to you. You
would pass close to the buoy without knowing it.
We are out of our course. That bell is shipwreck
sounding the tocsin. Now, look out!”.
As the doctor spoke, the bell, soothed by a lull of
the storm, rang slowly stroke by stroke; and its in-
termitting toll seemed to testify to the truth of the
old man's words. It was as the knell of the abyss.
All listened breathless, — now to the voice, now
to the bell.


THE COLOSSAL SAVA
THE STORM
CHAPTER X.
THE COLOSSAL SAVAGE, THE STORM.
In the mean time the skipper had caught up his
speaking-trumpet.
“ Cargate todo, hombres ! Let go the sheets, man
the down-hauls, lower ties and brails. Let us steer
to the west, let us regain the high sea; head for the
buoy, steer for the bell; there's an offing down
there. We've yet a chance.”
“ Try,” said the doctor.
Let us remark here, by the way, that this ringing
buoy — a kind of bell-tower on the deep — was re-
moved in 1802. There are yet alive very old mari-
ners who remember hearing it. It forewarned, but
rather too late.
The orders of the skipper were obeyed. The
Languedocian made a third sailor. All bore a hand.
Not satisfied with brailing up, they furled the sails,
lashed the earrings, secured the clew-lines, bunt-
lines, and leech-lines, and clapped preventor shrouds
on the block-straps, which thus might serve as back-
stays. They fished the mast. They battened down
the ports and bull's-eyes, which is a method of
walling up a ship. These evolutions, though exe-
cuted in a lubberly fashion, were nevertheless thor-


THE COLOSSAL SAVAGE, THE STORM.
145
oughly effective. The hooker was stripped to bare
poles. But in proportion as the vessel, stowing
every stitch of canvas, became more helpless, the
havoc of both winds and waves increased. The seas
ran mountains high ; the hurricane, like an execu-
tioner hastening to his victim, began to dismember
the craft. There came, in the twinkling of an eye,
a dreadful crash: the topsails were blown from the
bolt-ropes, the chess-trees were hewn asunder, the
deck was swept clear, the shrouds were carried away,
the mast went by the board, all the lumber of the
wreck was flying in shivers. The main shrouds gave
out, although they were turned in and stoppered to
four fathoms.
The magnetic currents common to snow-storms
hastened the destruction of the rigging. It broke as
much from the effect of effluvium as from the violence
of the wind. Most of the chain gear, fouled in the
blocks, ceased to work. Forward the bows, aft the
quarters, quivered under the terrific shocks. One
wave washed overboard the compass and its bin-
nacle ; a second carried away the boat, which, like
a box slung under a carriage, had been, in accord-
ance with the quaint Asturian custom, lashed to the
bowsprit; a third breaker wrenched off the spritsail
yard; a fourth swept away the figure-head and signal-
light. The rudder only was left.
To replace the ship’s bow lantern, they set fire to
and suspended at the stem a large block of wood
covered with oakum and tar.
The mast, broken in two, all bristling with quiv-
ering splinters, ropes, blocks, and yards, cumbered
VOL. I. — 10


146
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
the deck. In falling, it had stove in a plank of the
starboard gunwale. The skipper, still firm at the
helm, shouted, -
“While we can steer, we have yet a chance. The
lower planks hold good. Axes ! axes ! Overboard
with the mast! Clear the decks !”
Both crew and passengers worked with the excite-
ment of despair. A few strokes of the hatchets, and
it was done. They pushed the mast over the side.
The deck was cleared.
“Now," continued the skipper, “ take a rope’s-end
and lash me to the helm.”
To the tiller they bound him.
While they were fastening him he laughed, and
shouted, -
“Blow, old one! bellow! I've seen your equal
off Cape Machichaco."
And when secured, he clutched the helm with
that strange hilarity which danger awakens.
“All goes well, my lads. Long live Our Lady of
Buglose! Let us steer west.”
An enormous wave came down abeam, and fell on
the vessel's quarter. There is always in storms a
tiger-like wave, a billow fierce and decisive, which,
attaining a certain height, creeps horizontally over
the surface of the waters for a time, then rises, roars,
rages, and, falling on the distressed vessel, tears it
limb from limb.
A cloud of foam covered the entire poop of the
“ Matutina."
There was heard above the confusion of darkness
and waters a crash.


THE COLOSSAL SAVAGE, THE STORM. 147
When the spray cleared off, when the stern again
rose in view, the skipper and the helm had disap-
peared; both had been swept away.
The helm, and the man they had but just secured
to it, had passed with the wave into the hissing
turmoil of the hurricane.
The chief of the band, gazing intently into the
darkness, shouted,
“Te burlas de nosotros ?”1
To this defiant exclamation there followed another
cry:—
“Let go the anchor ! Save the skipper!”
They rushed to the capstan and let go the
anchor.
Hookers carry but one. In this case the anchor
reached the bottom, but only to be lost. The bote
tom was of the hardest rock; the billows were
raging with resistless force; the cable snapped like
a thread.
The anchor lay at the bottom of the sea.
At the cutwater there remained but the cable-end
protruding from the hawse-hole.
From this moment the hooker became a wreck.
The “Matutina” was irrevocably disabled. The ves-
sel, just before in full sail, and almost formidable in
her speed, was now helpless. All her evolutions
were uncertain, and executed at random. She
yielded passively and like a log to the capricious
fury of the waves. That in a few minutes there
should be in place of an eagle a useless cripple,
such a transformation is to be witnessed only at sea. Olin, R; ;?..
1 Dost thou mock at us ?


148
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
The howling of the wind became more and more
frightful. A hurricane has terrible lungs; it makes
unceasingly mournful additions to darkness, which
cannot be intensified. The bell on the sea rang
despairingly, as if tolled by a weird hand.
The “Matutina” drifted like a cork at the mercy
of the waves. She sailed no longer, she merely
floated. Every moment she seemed about to turn
over on her back, like a dead fish. The good condi-
tion and perfectly water-tight state of the hull alone
saved her from this disaster. Below the water-line
not a plank had started. There was not a cranny,
chink, or crack; and not a drop of water had entered
the hold. This was lucky, as the pump, being out of
order, was useless.
The hooker pitched and rolled frightfully in the
seething billows. The vessel had throes as of sick.
ness, and seemed to be trying to belch forth the un-
happy crew.
Helpless they clung to the standing rigging, to the
transoms, to the shank painters, to the gaskets, to
the broken planks, the protruding nails of which tore
their hands, to the warped riders, and to all the rug-
ged projections of the stumps of the masts. From
time to time they listened. The toll of the bell came
over the waters fainter and fainter; one would have
thought that it also was in distress. Its ringing was
no more than an intermittent rattle. Then this rattle
died away. Where were they? At what distance
from the buoy? The sound of the bell had fright-
ened them; its silence terrified them. The north-
wester drove them forward in perhaps a fatal course,


THE COLOSSAL SAVAGE, THE STORM.
149
They felt themselves wafted on by maddened and
ever-recurring gusts of wind. The wreck sped for-
ward in the darkness. There is nothing more fearful
than being hurried forward blindfold. They felt the
abyss before them, over them, under them. It was
no longer a run, it was a rush.
Suddenly, through the appalling destiny of the
snow-storm, there loomed a red light.
“A light-house !” cried the crew.


CHAPTER XI.
THE CASKETS.
It was, indeed, the Caskets light.
A light-house of the nineteenth century is a high
cylindrical masonry, approaching the conoidal form,
and surmounted by scientifically constructed machin-
ery for throwing light. The Caskets light-house in
particular is a triple white tower bearing three light-
rooms. These three chambers revolve on clock-work
wheels with such precision that the man on watch,
who sees them from sea, can invariably take ten
steps during their irradiation, and twenty-five during
their eclipse. Everything is based on the focal plan,
and on the rotation of the octagon drum, formed of
eight wide simple lenses in range, having above and
below its two series of dioptric rings, — an algebraic
gear, secured from the effects of the beating of winds
and waves by glass a millimetre thick, yet sometimes
broken by the sea-eagles, which dash themselves like
great moths against these gigantic lanterns. The
building which encloses and sustains this mechanism,
and in which it is set, is also mathematically con-
structed. Everything about it is plain, exact, bare,
precise, correct. A light-house is a mathematical
figure.


THE CASKETS.
151
In the seventeenth century a light-house was a sort
of plume of the land on the sea-shore. The architec-
ture of a light-house tower was magnificent and ex-
travagant. It was covered with balconies, balusters,
lodges, alcoves, weathercocks : nothing but masks,
statues, foliage, volutes, reliefs, figures large and small,
medallions with inscriptions. “Pax in bello," said
the Eddystone light-house. We may as well observe,
by the way, that this declaration of peace did not al-
ways disarm the ocean. Winstanley repeated it on a
light-house which he constructed at his own expense,
on a wild spot near Plymouth. The tower being fin-
ished, he shut himself up in it to have it tried by the
tempest. The storm came and carried off the light-
house, and Winstanley in it. Such excessive adorn-
ment gave too great a hold to the hurricane; as
generals too brilliantly equipped in battle draw the
· enemy's fire. Besides whimsical designs in stone,
they were loaded with whimsical designs in iron,
copper, and wood. The iron-work was in relief, the
wood-work stood out. On the sides of the light-house
there jutted out, clinging to the walls among the
arabesques, engines of every description, useful and
useless, windlasses, tackles, pulleys, counterpoises,
ladders, cranes, grapnels. On the pinnacle around
the light, delicately-wrought iron-work held great
iron chandeliers, in which were placed pieces of rope
steeped in resin,- wicks which burned doggedly, and
which no wind extinguished ; and from top to bottom
the tower was covered by a complication of sea stand-
ards, banderoles, banners, flags, pennons, colors which
rose from stage to stage, from story to story, a medley


152
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
of all hues, all shapes, all heraldic devices, all signals,
all confusion, up to the light-chamber, making, in the
storm, a gay riot of tatters about the blaze. That
insolent light on the brink of the abyss showed like a
defiance, and inspired shipwrecked men with a spirit
of daring. But the Caskets light was not after this
fashion.
It was at that period merely an old barbarous
light-house, such as Henry I. had built it after the
loss of the “White Ship," — a flaming pile of wood
under an iron trellis, a brasier behind a railing, a
head of hair flaming in the wind.
The only improvement made in this light-house since
the twelfth century was a pair of forge-bellows worked
by an indented pendulum and a stone weight, which
had been added to the light-chamber in 1610.
The fate of the sea-birds who chanced to fly against
these old light-houses was more tragic than that of
our day. The birds dashed against them, attracted
by the light, and fell into the brasier, where they
could be seen struggling like black spirits in a hell,
and at times they would fall back again between the
railings upon the rock, red hot, smoking, lame, blind,
like half-burned flies out of a lamp.
To a full-rigged ship in good trim, answering read-
ily to the pilot's handling, the Caskets light is useful ;
it cries, “ Look out!” It warns her of the shoal. To
a disabled ship it is simply terrible. The hull, para-
lyzed and inert, without resistance, without defence
against impulsion of the storm or the mad heaving
of the waves, — a fish without fins, a bird without
wings, — can but go where the wind wills. The


THE CASKETS.
153
light-house shows the end, — points out the spot
where it is doomed to disappear, throws light upon
the burial; it is the torch of the sepulchre.
To light up the inexorable chasm, to warn against
the inevitable, — what more tragic mockery!


CHAPTER XII.
FACE TO FACE WITH THE ROCK,
THE wretched people in distress on board the
“ Matutina” understood at once the mysterious deri-
sion which mocked their shipwreck. The appearance
of the light-house raised their spirits at first, then
overwhelmed them. Nothing could be done, nothing
attempted. What has been said of kings we may
say of the waves, — we are their people, we are their
prey. All their fury must be borne. The nor'wester
was driving the hooker on the Caskets. They were
nearing them; no evasion was possible. They drifted
rapidly towards the reef; they felt that they were
getting into shallow waters ; the lead, if they could
have thrown it to any purpose, would not have shown
more than three or four fathoms. The shipwrecked
people heard the dull sound of the waves being sucked
within the submarine caves of the steep rock. They
made out, under the light-house, like a dark cutting
between two plates of granite, the narrow passage of
the ugly, wild-looking little harbor, supposed to be
full of the skeletons of men and carcasses of ships.
It looked like the mouth of a cavern rather than
the entrance of a port. They could hear the crack-
ling of the pile on high within the iron grating. A


FACE TO FACE WITH THE ROCK.
155
ghastly purple illuminated the storm; the collision of
the rain and hail disturbed the mist. The black
cloud and the red flame fought, serpent against
serpent; live ashes, reft by the wind, flew from
the fire, and the sudden assaults of the sparks
seemed to drive the snow-flakes before them. The
breakers, blurred at first in outline, now stood out
in bold relief, — a medley of rocks with peaks,
crests, and vertebræ. The angles were formed by
strongly-marked red lines, and the inclined planes
in blood-like streams of light. As they neared it,
the outline of the reefs increased and rose —
sinister.
One of the women, the Irishwoman, told her beads
wildly.
In place of the skipper, who was the pilot, re-
mained the chief, who was the captain. The Basques
all know the mountain and the sea. They are bold
on the precipice, and inventive in catastrophes.
They neared the cliff. They were about to strike.
Suddenly they were so close to the great north rock
of the Caskets that it shut out the light-house from
them. They saw nothing but the rock and the red
light behind it. The huge rock looming in the
mist was like a gigantic black woman with a hood
of fire.
That ill-famed rock is called the Biblet. It faces
the north side of the reef, which on the south is
faced by another ridge, L'Etacq-aux-Guilmets. The
chief looked at the Biblet, and shouted, -
"A man with a will to take a rope to the rock !
Who can swim?”.


156
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
.
No answer.
No one on board knew how to swim, not even the
sailors, – an ignorance not uncommon among sea-
faring people.
A beam nearly free of its lashings was swinging
loose. The chief clasped it with both bands, crying :
“Help me!”
They unlashed the beam. They had now at their
disposal the very thing they wanted. From the de-
fensive they assumed the offensive.
It was a longish beam of heart of oak, sound and
strong, useful either as a support or as an engine
of attack, - a lever for a burden, a ram against a
tower.
“Ready!” shouted the chief.
All six, getting foothold on the stump of the mast,
threw their weight on the spar projecting over the
side, straight as a lance towards a projection of the
cliff.
It was a dangerous manœuvre. To strike at a
mountain is audacity indeed. The six men might
well have been thrown into the water by the
shock.
There is variety in struggles with storms, - after
the hurricane the shoal, after the wind the rock;
first the intangible, then the immovable, to be
encountered.
Some minutes passed, — such minutes as whiten
men's hair.
The rock and the vessel were about to come in
collision. The rock awaited the blow passively.
A resistless wave rushed in ; it ended the respite.


FACE TO FACE WITH THE ROCK.
157
It caught the vessel underneath, raised it, and
swayed it for an instant as the sling swings its
projectile.
“Steady!” cried the chief ; "it is only a rock, and
we are men.”
The beam was couched; the six men were one
with it: its sharp bolts tore their armpits, but they
did not feel them.
The wave dashed the hooker against the rock.
Then came the shock.
It came under the shapeless cloud of foam which
always hides such catastrophes.
When this cloud fell back into the sea, when the
waves rolled back from the rock, the six men were
tossing about the deck; but the “Matutina ” was
floating alongside the rock, clear of it. The beam
had stood and turned the vessel; the sea was running
so fast that in a few seconds she had left the Caskets
behind.
Such things sometimes occur. It was a straight
stroke of the bowsprit that saved Wood of Largo at
the mouth of the Tay. In the wild neighborhood
of Cape Winterton, and under the command of Cap-
tain Hamilton, it was the appliance of such a lever
against the dangerous rock Brannodu-um that saved
the “Royal Mary” from shipwreck, although she
was but a Scotch-built frigate. The force of the
waves can be so abruptly discomposed that changes
of direction can be easily managed, or at least are
possible, even in the most violent collisions. There
is a brute in the tempest. The hurricane is a bull,
and can be turned.


FACE TO FACE WITH THE ROCK.
159
light-house which had threatened had melted away.
And yet it was more awful now that they had ceased
to threaten. One was a voice, the other a torch.
There was something human about them.
They were gone, and naught remained but the
abyss.


CHAPTER XIII.
FACE TO FACE WITH NIGHT.
AGAIN was the hooker running with the shadow
into immeasurable darkness.
The “Matutina,” escaped from the Caskets, sank
and rose from billow to billow, - a respite, but in
chaos.
Spun round by the wind, tossed by all the thousand
motions of the wave, she reflected every mad oscilla-
tion of the sea. She scarcely pitched at all, - a ter-
rible symptom of a ship's distress. Wrecks merely
roll. Pitching is a convulsion of the strife. The
helm alone can turn a vessel to the wind.
In storms, and more especially in the meteors of
snow, sea and night end by melting into amalgama-
tion, resolving into nothing but a smoke. Mists,
whirlwinds, gales, motion in all directions, no basis,
no shelter, no stop; constant recommencement, one
gulf succeeding another; no horizon visible; intense
blackness for background, — through all these the
hooker drifted.
To have got free of the Caskets, to have eluded
the rock, was a victory for the shipwrecked men;
but it was a victory which left them in stupor. They
had raised no cheer ; at sea such an imprudence is not


FACE TO FACE WITH NIGHT.
161
repeated twice. To throw down a challenge where
they could not cast the lead, would have been too
serious a jest.
The repulse of the rock was an impossibility
achieved. They were petrified by it. By degrees,
however, they began to hope again. Such are the
insubmergeable mirages of the soul! There is no
distress so complete but that even in the most critical
moments the inexplicable sunrise of hope is seen in
its depths. These poor wretches were ready to
acknowledge to themselves that they were saved.
It was on their lips.
But suddenly something terrible appeared to them
in the darkness.
On the port bow arose, standing stark, cut out on
the background of mist, a tall, opaque mass, vertical,
right-angled, a tower of the abyss. They watched it
open-mouthed.
The storm was driving them towards it.
They knew not what it was. It was the Ortach
rock.
VOL. I. ~ 11


CHAPTER XIV.
ORTACH.
The reef reappeared. After the Caskets comes
Ortach. The storm is no artist; brutal and all-pow-
erful, it never varies its appliances. The darkness is
inexhaustible. Its snares and perfidies never come
to an end. As for man, he soon comes to the bottom
of his resources. Man expends his strength, the
abyss never.
The shipwrecked men turned towards the chief,
their hope. He could only shrug his shoulders with
the sad disdain of one that knows himself impotent.
A pavement in the midst of the ocean, such is the
Ortach rock. The Ortach, all of a piece, rises up in
a straight line to eighty feet above the angry beating
of the waves. Waves and ships break against it. An
immovable cube, it plunges its rectilinear planes apeak
into the numberless serpentine curves of the sea.
At night it stands an enormous block resting on
the folds of a huge black sheet. In time of storm it
awaits the stroke of the axe, which is the thunder-
clap.
But there is never a thunder-clap during the snow-
storm. True, the ship has the bandage round her
eyes; darkness is knotted about her; she is like


ORTACH.
163
one prepared to be led to the scaffold. As for the
thunder-bolt, which makes quick ending, it is not
to be hoped for.
The “ Matutina,” nothing better than a log upon
the waters, drifted towards this rock as she had
drifted towards the other. The poor wretches on
board, who had for a moment believed themselves
saved, relapsed into their agony. The destruction
they had left behind faced them again. The reef
reappeared from the bottom of the sea. Nothing
had been gained.
The Caskets are a figuring-iron 1 with a thousand
compartments; the Ortach is a wall. To be wrecked
on the Caskets is to be cut into ribbons; to strike on
the Ortach is to be crushed into powder.
Nevertheless there was one chance.
On a straight frontage such as that of the Ortach,
neither the wave nor the cannon-ball can ricochet.
The operation is simple : first the flux, then the
reflux; a wave advances, a billow returns.
In such cases the question of life and death is
balanced thus : if the wave carries the vessel on the
rock, she breaks on it and is lost; if the billow
retires before the ship has touched, she is carried
back, she is saved.
It was a moment of great anxiety. Those on
board saw through the gloom the great decisive
wave bearing down on them ; how far was it going
to drag them? If the wave broke upon the ship,
they would be carried on the rock and dashed to
pieces; if it passed under the ship —
Gaufrier, the iron with which a pattern is traced on stuff.


164
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
The wave passed under.
They breathed again.
But what of the recoil ? what would the surf do
with them? The surf carried them back. A few
minutes later, the “Matutina” was free of the break-
ers; the Ortach faded from their view, as the Cas
kets had done. It was their second victory; for the
second time the hooker had verged on destruction,
and had drawn back in time.


CHAPTER XV.
PORTENTOSUM MARE.
MEANWHILE, a thickening mist had descended on
the drifting wretches. They were ignorant of their
whereabouts, they could scarcely see a cable's length
around. Despite a furious storm of hail, which
forced them to bend down their heads, the women
had obstinately refused to go below again. No one,
however hopeless, but wishes, if shipwreck be inevi-
table, to meet it in the open air. When so near
death, a ceiling above one's head seems like the first
outline of a coffin.
They were now in a short and chopping sea. A
turgid sea indicates its constraint. Even in a fog
the entrance into a strait may be known by the
boiling-like appearance of the waves. And thus it
was; for they were unconsciously coasting Aurigny.
Between the west of Ortach and the Caskets and the
east of Aurigny the sea is hemmed in and cramped,
and the uneasy position determines locally the con-
dition of storms. The sea suffers like others, and
when it suffers it is irritable. That channel is a
thing to fear.
The “ Matutina” was in it.
Imagine under the sea a tortoise-shell as big as


166
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
Hyde Park or the Champs Élysées, of which every
striature is a shallow and every embossment a reef.
Such is the western approach of Aurigny. The sea
covers and conceals this shipwrecking apparatus.
Upon this carapace of submarine breakers the cloven
waves leap and foam : in calm weather, a chopping
sea; in storms, a chaos.
The shipwrecked men observed this new compli
cation without endeavoring to explain it to them-
selves. Suddenly they understood it. A pale vista
broadened in the zenith ; a wan tinge overspread the
sea ; the livid light revealed on the port side a long
shoal stretching eastward, towards which the power
of the rushing wind was driving the vessel. The
shoal was Aurigny.
What was that shoal ? They shuddered. They
would have shuddered even more, had a voice an-
swered them, “ Aurigny."
No isle is so well defended against man's approach
as Aurigny. Below and above water it is protected
by a savage guard, of which Ortach is the outpost.
To the west, Burhou, Sauteriaux, Anfroque, Niangle,
Fond-du-Croc, Les Jumelles, La Grosse, La Clanque,
Les Eguillons, Le Vrac, La Fosse-Malière; to the
east, Sauquet, Hommeau Floreau, La Brinebetais,
La Queslingue, Croquelihou, La Fourche, Le Saut,
Noire Pute, Coupie, Orbue. These are hydra-mon-
sters of the species reef.
One of these reefs is called Le But, — as if to
imply that every voyage ends there.
This obstruction of rocks, simplified by night and
sea, appeared to the shipwrecked men in the shape


PORTENTOSUM MARE.
167
of a single dark band, — a sort of black blot on the
horizon.
Shipwreck is the ideal of helplessness : to be near
land, and unable to reach it; to float, yet not to be
able to do so in any desired direction; to rest the
foot on what seems firm and is fragile; to be full of
life when overshadowed by death; to be the prisoner
of space; to be walled in between sky and ocean ;
to have the infinite overhead like a dungeon; to be
encompassed by the eluding elements of wind and
waves ; and to be seized, bound, paralyzed, — such
a load of misfortune stupefies and crushes us. We
imagine that in it we catch a glimpse of the sneer of
the opponent who is beyond our reach. That which
holds you fast is that which releases the birds and
sets the fishes free. It appears nothing, and is
everything. We are dependent on the air which is
ruffled by our mouths; we are dependent on the
water which we catch in the hollow of our hands.
Draw a glassful from the storm, and it is but a cup
of bitterness; a mouthful is nausea, a waveful is
extermination. The grain of sand in the desert, the
foam-flake on the sea, are fearful symptoms. Om-
nipotence takes no care to hide its atom, it changes
weakness into strength, fills naught with all; and it
is with the infinitely little that the infinitely great
crushes you. It is with its drops the ocean dissolves
you. You feel you are a plaything.
A plaything: ghastly epithet!
The “Matutina” was a little above Aurigny, which
was not an unfavorable position; but she was drift-
ing towards its northern point, which was fatal. As


168
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
a bent bow discharges its arrow, the nor'wester was
shooting the vessel towards the northern cape. Off
that point, a little beyond the harbor of Corbelets,
is that which the seamen of the Norman archipelago
call a “singe.”
The singe, or swinge, is a furious kind of current.
A wreath of funnels in the shallows produces in the
waves a wreath of whirlpools. You escape one to
fall into another. A ship caught hold of by the
singe winds round and round until some sharp rock
cleaves her hull; then the shattered vessel stops, her
stern rises from the waves, the stem completes the
revolution in the abyss, the stern sinks in, and all is
sucked down. A circle of foam broadens and floats,
and nothing more is seen on the surface of the waves
but a few bubbles here and there rising from the
smothered breathings below.
The three most dangerous races in the whole
Channel are, one close to the well-known Girdler
Sands, one at Jersey between the Pignonnet and the
Point of Noirmont, and the race of Aurigny.
Had a local pilot been on board the “Matutina,”
he could have warned them of their fresh peril. In
place of a pilot, they had their instinct. In sit-
uations of extreme danger men are endowed with
second sight. High contortions of foam were flying
along the coast in the frenzied raid of the wind.
It was the spitting of the race. Many a bark has
been swamped in that snare. Without knowing what
awaited them, they approached the spot with horror.
How to double that cape? There were no means
of doing it.


PORTENTOSUM MARE.
169
Just as they had seen, first the Caskets, then
Ortach, rise before them, they now saw the point
of Aurigny, all of steep rock. It was like a number
of giants, rising up one after another, - a series of
frightful duels.
Charybdis and Scylla are but two; the Caskets,
Ortach, and Aurigny are three.
The phenomenon of the horizon invaded by the
rocks was thus repeated with the grand monotony-of
the abyss. The battles of the ocean have the same
sublime tautology as the combats of Homer.
Each wave, as they neared it, added twenty cubits
to the cape, awfully magnified by the mist; the fast
decreasing distance seemed more inevitable; they
were touching the skirts of the race! The first fold
which seized them would drag them in; another
wave surmounted, and all would be over.
Suddenly the hooker was driven back, as by the
blow of a Titan's fist. The wave reared up under
the vessel and fell back, throwing the waif back in
its mane of foam. The “Matutina,” thus impelled,
drifted away from Aurigny.
She was again on the open sea.
Whence had come the succor? From the wind.
The breath of the storm had changed its direction.
The wave had played with them, now it was the
wind's turn. They had saved themselves from the
Caskets. Off Ortach it was the wave which had
been their friend; now it was the wind. The wind
had suddenly veered from north to south. The sou'.
wester had succeeded the norwester.
The current is the wind in the waters; the wind


170
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
is the current in the air. These two forces had just
counteracted each other, and it had been the wind's
will to snatch its prey from the current.
The sudden fantasies of ocean are uncertain. They
are, perhaps, an embodiment of the perpetual ; when
at their mercy man must neither hope nor despair.
They do and they undo. The ocean amuses itself.
Every shade of wild, untamed ferocity is phased in
the vastness of that cunning sea which Jean Bart
used to call the “great brute.” To its claws and
their gashings succeed soft intervals of velvet paws.
Sometimes the storm hurries on a wreck, at others it
works with care, might almost be said to caress its
victim. The sea has time, and to spare, as men in
their agonies find out.
We must own that occasionally these lulls of the
torture announce deliverance. Such cases are rare.
However this may be, men in extreme peril are quick
to believe in rescue; the slightest pause in the storm's
threats is sufficient; they tell themselves that they
are out of danger. After believing themselves buried,
they declare their resurrection; they feverishly em-
brace what they do not yet possess; it is clear that
the bad luck has turned; they declare themselves
satisfied; they are saved; they cry quits with God.
It is not well to be in too great haste in giving re-
ceipts to the Unknowní.
The sou’wester set in with a whirlwind. Ship-
wrecked men have never any but rough helpers. The
“Matutina” was dragged rapidly out to sea by the
remnant of her rigging, like a dead woman trailed
by the hair. It was like the enfranchisement granted


PORTENTOSUM MARE.
171
by Tiberius, at the price of violation. The wind
treated with brutality those whom it saved; it ren-
dered a furious service, a merciless succor.
The wreck was breaking up under the severity of
its deliverers.
Hailstones, big and hard enough to charge a blun-
derbuss, smote the vessel ; at every rotation of the
waves these hailstones rolled about the deck like
marbles. The hooker, whose deck was almost flush
with the water, was being beaten out of shape by the
rolling masses of water and its sheets of spray. On
board, it was each man for himself.
They clung on as best they could. As each sea
swept over them, it was with a sense of surprise they
saw that all were still there. Several had their faces
torn by splinters.
Happily despair has stout hands. In terror a
child's hand has the grasp of a giant. Agony makes
a vise of a woman's fingers. A girl in her fright can
almost bury her rose-colored fingers in a piece of iron.
They came closer to each other, they clung and held
their own against the waves; but every ware brought
them the fear of being swept away.
Suddenly they were relieved.


CHAPTER XVI.
AN UNEXPECTED CALM.
THE hurricane had just stopped short. There was
no longer in the air sou'wester or nor'wester. The
fierce clarions of space were mute. The whole of the
waterspout had poured from the sky without any
warning of diminution, as if it had slided perpendic-
ularly into a gulf beneath. None knew what had
become of it; flakes replaced the hailstones, the snow
began to fall slowly. No more swell: the sea flat-
tened down.
Such sudden cessations are peculiar to snow-
storms. The electric effluvium exhausted, all be-
comes still, even the wave, which in ordinary storms
often remains agitated for a long time. In snow-
storms it is not so. No prolonged anger in the deep.
Like a tired-out worker it becomes drowsy directly,
thus almost giving the lie to the laws of statics, but
not astonishing old seamen, who know that the sea
is full of unforeseen surprises.
The same phenomenon takes place, although very
rarely, in ordinary storms. Thus, in our time, on the
occasion of the memorable hurricane of July 27th,
1867, at Jersey, the wind, after fourteen hours' fury,
suddenly relapsed into a dead calm.


AN UNEXPECTED CALM.
173
In a few minutes the hooker was floating in
sleeping waters.
At the same time (for the last phase of these
storms resembles the first) they could distinguish
nothing; all that had been made visible in the
convulsions of the meteoric cloud was again dark.
Pale outlines were fused in vague mist, and the
gloom of infinite space closed about the vessel.
The wall of night — that circular occlusion, that
interior of a cylinder, the diameter of which
was lessening minute by minute — enveloped the
“Matutina,” and, with the sinister deliberation of
an encroaching iceberg, was drawing in dangerously.
In the zenith nothing, – a lid of fog closing down.
It was as if the hooker were at the bottom of the
well of the abyss.
In that well the sea was a puddle of liquid lead.
No stir in the waters, – ominous immobility! The
ocean is never less tamed than when it is still as a
pool.
All was silence, stillness, blindness.
Perchance the silence of inanimate objects is
taciturnity.
The last ripples glided along the hull. The deck
was horizontal, with an insensible slope to the sides.
Some broken planks were shifting about irresolutely.
The block on which they had lighted the tow steeped
in tar in place of the signal light, which had been
swept away, swung no longer at the prow, and no
longer let fall burning drops into the sea. What
little breeze remained in the clouds was noiseless.
The snow fell thickly, softly, with scarce a slant,


174
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
No foam of breakers could be heard. Over all the
peace of night.
This repose succeeding all the past exasperations
and paroxysms was for the poor creatures so long
tossed about an unspeakable comfort. It was as
though the punishment of the rack had ceased. They
caught a glimpse about them and above them of
something which seemed like a consent that they
should be saved. They regained confidence. All
that had been fury was now tranquillity. It appeared
to them a pledge of peace. Their wretched hearts
dilated. They were able to let go the end of rope
or beam to which they had clung, to rise, hold them-
selves up, stand, walk, move about. They felt in-
expressibly calmed. There are in the depths of
darkness such phases of paradise, — preparations for
other things. It was clear that they were delivered
out of the storm, out of the foam, out of the wind,
out of the uproar. Henceforth all the chances were
in their favor. In three or four hours it would be
sunrise: they would be seen by some passing ship;
they would be rescued. The worst was over: they
were re-entering life. The important feat was to
have been able to keep afloat until the cessation of
the tempest. They said to themselves, “This time
all is over.”
Suddenly they found that all was indeed over.
One of the sailors, the northern Basque, Galdeazun
by name, went down into the hold to look for a rope,
then came above again, and said, —
“ The hold is full.”
“ Of what ?” asked the chief.


AN UNEXPECTED CALM.
175
“Of water," answered the sailor
The chief cried out, -
“What does that mean?”
“ It means," replied Galdeazun," that in half an
hour we shall founder.”


CHAPTER XVII.
THE LAST RESOURCE.
THERE was a hole in the keel; a leak had been
sprung. When it happened no one could have said.
Was it when they touched the Caskets? Was it off
Ortach? Was it when they were whirled about the
shallows west of Aurigny ? It was most probable
that they had touched some rock there; they had
struck against some hidden buttress which they had
not felt in the midst of the convulsive fury of the
wind which was tossing them. In tetanus, who
would feel a prick?
The other sailor, the southern Basque, whose
name was Ave-Maria, went down into the hold too,
came on deck again, and said, -
“There are two varas of water in the hold.”
About six feet.
Ave-Maria added, —
“ In less than forty minutes we shall sink.”
Where was the leak? They could not find it. It
was hidden by the water which was filling up the
hold. The vessel had a hole in her hull somewhere
under the water-line, quite forward in the keel. Im-
possible to find it; impossible to check it; they had
a wound which they could not stanch. The water,
however, was not rising very fast.


THE LAST RESOURCE. 177
The chief called out, —
“ We must work the pump.”
Galdeazun replied, -
“We have no pump left.”
“Then,” said the chief, “we must make for land.”
“Where is the land ?”
“I don't know."
“ Nor I.”
“ But it must be somewhere.”
“ True."
“Let some one steer for it,” replied the chief.
“ We have no pilot.”
“ Stand to the tiller yourself.”
“We have lost the tiller.”
“Rig one out of the first beam we can lay hands
on. Nails ! a hammer! — quick, some tools !”
“The carpenter's box is overboard ; we have no
tools."
“We 'll steer all the same, – no matter where."
“ The rudder is lost.”
“Where is the boat? We 'll get in and row.”
“ The boat is lost.”
“We'll row the wreck.”
“ We have lost the oars."
“We'll sail.”
“ We have lost the sails, and the mast."
“We'll rig one up with a pole and a tarpaulin
for sail. Let's get clear of this, and trust in the
wind.”
“ There is no wind.”
The wind indeed had left them; the storm had
fled, and its departure, which they had believed to
VOL. 1. - 12


178
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
mean safety, meant in fact destruction. Had the
sou'wester continued it might have driven them
wildly on some shore, might have beaten the leak in
speed, — might perhaps have carried them to some
propitious sandbank, and cast them on it before the
hooker foundered. The swiftness of the storm bear-
ing them away might have enabled them to reach
land; but no more wind, no more hope. They were
going to die because the hurricane was over.
The end was near.
Wind, hail, the hurricane, the whirlwind, — these
are wild combatants that may be overcome; the
storm can be taken in the weak point of its armor;
there are resources against the violence which con-
tinually lays itself open, is off its guard, and often
hits wide. But nothing is to be done against a
calm; it offers nothing to the grasp of which you
can lay hold.
The winds are a charge of Cossacks : stand your
ground, and they disperse. Calms are the pincers of
the executioner.
The water, deliberate and sure, irrepressible and
heavy, rose in the hold, and as it rose the vessel
sank; it was sinking very slowly.
Those on board the wreck of the “Matutina” felt
that most hopeless of catastrophes, an inert catas-
trophe, undermining them. The still and sinister
certainty of their fate petrified them. No stir in the
air, no movement on the sea. The motionless is the
inexorable. Absorption was sucking them down
silently. Through the depths of the dumb waters,
without anger, without passion, not willing, not know-


THE LAST RESOURCE.
179
ing, not caring, the fatal centre of the globe was
attracting them downwards, — a silent horror amal-
gamating them with itself. It was no longer the
gaping mouth of the sea, the double jaw of the wind
and the wave, vicious in its threat, the grin of the
waterspout, the foaming appetite of the breakers ;
it was as if the wretched beings had under them the
black yawn of the infinite.
They felt themselves sinking into death's peaceful
depths. The height between the vessel and the
water was lessening, — that was all. They could
calculate her disappearance to the moment: it was
the exact reverse of submersion by the rising tide ;
the water was not rising towards them, they were
sinking towards it. They were digging their own
grave; their own weight was their sexton.
They were being executed, not by the law of man,
but by the law of things.
The snow continued to fall, and as the wreck was
now motionless, this white lint made a cloth over
the deck and covered the vessel as with a winding-
sheet.
The hold was becoming fuller and deeper, — no
means of getting at the leak. They struck a light,
and fixed three or four torches in holes as best they
could. Galdeazun brought some old leathern buckets,
and they tried to bail out the hold, standing in a
row to pass them from hand to hand; but the
buckets were past use; the leather of some was
unstitched, there were holes in the bottoms of others,
and the buckets emptied themselves on the way.
The difference in quantity between the water which


180
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
was making its way in and that which they returned
to the sea was ludicrous : for a tun that entered, a
glassful was bailed out; they did not improve their
condition. It was like the expenditure of a miser,
– trying to exhaust a million, half-penny by half-
penny.
The chief said, “Let us lighten the wreck.”
During the storm they had lashed together the
few chests which were on deck. These remained
tied to the stump of the mast. They undid the
lashings and rolled the chests overboard through a
breach in the gunwale. One of these trunks be-
longed to the Basque woman, who could not repress
a sigh: —
“Oh, my new cloak lined with scarlet! Oh, my
poor stockings of birchen-bark lace! Oh, my silver
ear-rings, to wear at Mass on May-day!”
The deck cleared, there remained the cabin to be
seen to. It was greatly encumbered ; in it were, as
may be remembered, the luggage belonging to the
passengers, and the bales belonging to the sailors.
They took the luggage and threw it over the gun-
wale ; they carried up the bales and cast them into
the sea.
Thus they emptied the cabin. The lantern,
the cap, the barrels, the sacks, the bales, the water-
butts, and the pot of soup, all went over into the
waves.
They unscrewed the nuts of the iron stove, the
fire in which had long been extinguished; they pulled
it out, hoisted it on deck, dragged it to the side, and
threw it out of the vessel.


THE LAST RESOURCE.
181
They cast overboard everything they could pull
out of the deck,-chains, shrouds, and torn rigging.
From time to time the chief took a torch, and,
throwing its light on the figures painted on the prow
to show the draught of water, looked to see how
deep the wreck had settled down.


CHAPTER XVIII.
THE HIGHEST RESOURCE.
The wreck, being lightened, was sinking more
slowly, but none the less surely.
The hopelessness of their situation was without
resource, without mitigation; they had exhausted
their last expedient.
“Is there anything else we can throw overboard ?”
The doctor, whom every one had forgotten, rose
from the companion and said, -
" Yes.”
“ What ?” asked the chief.
The doctor answered, -
“Our crime.”
They shuddered, and all cried out, –
“ Amen!”
The doctor, standing up, pale, raised his hand to
heaven, saying, —
“ Kneel.”
They wavered; to waver is the preface to kneeling
down.
The doctor went on :-
“Let us throw our crimes into the sea; they
weigh us down; it is they that are sinking the ship.
Let us think no more of safety, — let us think of
salvation. Our last crime, above all, — the crime


THE HIGHEST RESOURCE.
183
which we committed, or rather completed, just now,
-oh, wretched beings who are listening to me, it
is that which is overwhelming us! For those who
leave intended murder behind them, it is an impious
insolence to tempt the abyss. He who sins against
a child sins against God. True, we were obliged to
put to sea, but it was certain perdition. The storm,
warned by the shadow of our crime, came on. It is
well. Regret nothing, however. There, not far off
in the darkness, are the sands of Vauville and Cape
La Hogue ; it is France. There was but one possi-
ble shelter for us, which was Spain. France is no
less dangerous to us than England. Our deliverance
from the sea would have led but to the gibbet.
Hanged or drowned, — we had no alternative. God
has chosen for us; let us give him thanks. He has
vouchsafed us the grave, which cleanses. Brethren,
the inevitable hand is in it. Remember that it was
we who just now did our best to send on high that
child, and that at this very moment - now, as I
speak — there is perhaps above our heads a soul
accusing us before a Judge whose eye is on us. Let
us make the best use of this last respite; let us make
an effort, if we still may, to repair as far as we are
able the evil that we have wrought. If the child
survives us, let us come to his aid; if he is dead, let
us seek his forgiveness. Let us cast our crime from
us; let us ease our consciences of its weight. Let
us strive that our souls be not swallowed up before
God, for that is the awful shipwreck. Bodies go to
the fishes, souls to the devils. Have pity on your-
selves. On your knees, I say! Repentance is the


184
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
bark which never sinks. You have lost your com-
pass? You are wrong! You still have prayer."
The wolves became lambs, — such transformations
occur in last agonies ; tigers lick the crucifix; when
the dark portal opens ajar, belief is difficult, unbelief
impossible. However imperfect may be the different
sketches of religion essayed by man, even when his
belief is shapeless, even when the outline of the
dogma is not in harmony with the lineaments of the
eternity he foresees, there comes in his last hour a
trembling of the soul. There is something which
will begin when life is over; this thought impresses
the last pang.
A man's dying agony is the expiration of a term.
In that fatal second he feels weighing on him a
diffused responsibility. That which has been com-
plicates that which is to be. The past returns and
enters into the future. What is known becomes as
much an abyss as the unknown. And the two chasms,
the one which is full of his faults, the other of his
anticipations, mingle their reverberations. It is this
confusion of the two gulfs which terrifies the dying
man.
They had spent their last grain of hope in the direc-
tion of life; hence they turned in the other. Their
only remaining chance was in its dark shadow. They
understood it. It came on them as a lugubrious
flash, followed by a relapse of horror. That which is
intelligible to the dying man is as what is perceived
in the lightning, - everything, then nothing ; you see,
then all is blindness. After death the eye will re-
open, and that which was a flash will become a sun.


THE HIGHEST RESOURCE.
185
They cried out to the doctor,—
“Thou, thou, there is no one but thee. We will
obey thee. What must we do? Speak.”
The doctor answered, —
“The question is how to pass over the unknown
precipice, and reach the other bank of life, which is
beyond the tomb. Being the one that knows the
most, my danger is greater than yours. You do well
to leave the choice of the bridge to him whose bur-
den is the heaviest.”
He added,
“Knowledge is a weight added to conscience."
He continued, —
“How much time have we still ?”
Galdeazun looked at the water-mark, and an-
swered, —
“A little more than a quarter of an hour.”
“Good !” said the doctor.
The low hood of the companion on which he
leaned his elbows made a sort of table; the doctor
took from his pocket his ink-horn and pen, and his
pocket-book, out of which he drew a parchment, the
same one on the back of which he had written, a few
hours before, some twenty cramped and crooked
lines.
“A light !” he said.
The snow, falling like the spray of a cataract, had
extinguished the torches one after another; there
was but one left. Ave-Maria took it out of the
place where it had been stuck, and holding it in his
hand, came and stood by the doctor's side.
The doctor replaced his pocket-book in his pocket,


186
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
put down the pen and ink-horn on the hood of the
companion, unfolded the parchment, and said,
“ Listen ! ”
Then in the midst of the sea, on the failing bridge
(a sort of shuddering flooring of the tomb), the
doctor began a solemn reading, to which all the
shadows seemed to listen. The doomed men bowed
their heads around him. The flaming of the torch
intensified their pallor. What the doctor read was
written in English. Now and then, when one of
those woe-begone looks seemed to ask an explana-
tion, the doctor would stop, to repeat — whether in
French or Spanish, Basque or Italian — the passage
he had just read. Stifled sobs and hollow beatings
of the breast were heard. The wreck was sinking
more and more.
The reading over, the doctor placed the parchment
flat on the companion, seized his pen, and on a clear
margin which he had carefully left at the bottom of
what he had written, he signed himself,— GERHARDUS
GEESTEMUNDE, Doctor.
Then, turning towards the others, he said, —
“ Come, and sign.”
The Basque woman approached, took the pen, and
signed herself, — ASUNCION.
She handed the pen to the Irishwoman, who, not
knowing how to write, made a cross.
The doctor, by the side of this cross, wrote,
- BARBARA FERMOY, of Tyrryf Island, in the
Hebrides.
Then he handed the pen to the chief of the band.
The chief signed, — GAÏZDORRA, Captal.


THE HIGHEST RESOURCE.
187
The Genoese signed himself under the chief's
name, — GIANGIRATE.
The Languedocian signed, — JACQUES QUA-
TOURZE, alias the Narbonnais.
The Provençal signed, — LUC-PIERRE CAPGA-
ROUPE, of the Galleys of Mahon.
Under these signatures the doctor added a
note : -
“Of the crew of three men, the skipper having been
washed overboard by a sea, but two remain, and they
have signed.”
The two sailors affixed their names underneath
the note. The northern Basque signed himself, -
GALDEAZUN.
The southern Basque signed, — AVE-MARIA,
Robber.
Then the doctor said, -
“ Capgaroupe.”
“Here,” said the Provençal.
“Have you Hardquanonne's flask ?"
“ Yes.”
“Give it me."
Capgaroupe drank off the last mouthful of brandy,
and handed the flask to the doctor.
The water was rising in the hold; the wreck was
sinking deeper and deeper into the sea. The sloping
edges of the ship were covered by a thin gnawing
wave which was rising. All were crowded on the
centre of the deck.
The doctor dried the ink on the signatures by the
· heat of the torch, and folding the parchment into a


188
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
narrower compass than the diameter of the neck, put
it into the flask. He called for the cork.
“I don't know where it is,” said Capgaroupe.
“Here is a piece of rope,” said Jacques Qua-
tourze.
The doctor corked the flask with a bit of rope, and
asked for some tar. Galdeazun went forward, extin-
guished the signal light with a piece of tow, took the
vessel in which it was contained from the stern, and
brought it, half full of burning tar, to the doctor.
The flask holding the parchment which they had
all signed, was corked and tarred over.
“ It is done,” said the doctor.
And from out all their mouths, vaguely stammered
in every language, came the dismal utterances of the
catacombs.
“Ainsi soit-il !”
“Mea culpa !”
“ Asi sea!”
“ Aro raï !”
“ Amen!”
It was as though the sombre voices of Babel were
scattered through the shadows as Heaven uttered its
awful refusal to hear them.
The doctor turned away from his companions in
crime and distress, and took a few steps towards the
gunwale. Reaching the side, he looked into space,
and said in a deep voice, —
“Bist du bei mir ?”i
Perchance he was addressing some phantom.
The wreck was sinking.
Art thou near me ?


THE HIGHEST RESOURCE.
189
Behind the doctor all the others were in a dream.
Prayer mastered them by main force. They did not
bow, they were bent. There was something involun-
tary in their contrition; they wavered as a sail flaps
when the breeze fails. And the haggard group took
by degrees, with clasping of hands and prostration
of foreheads, attitudes various, but all alike full of
humiliation and hopeless confidence in God. Some
strange reflection of the deep seemed to soften their
villanous features.
The doctor returned towards them. Whatever
had been his past, the old man was great in the
presence of the catastrophe.
The deep reserve of nature which enveloped him
preoccupied without disconcerting him. He was not
one to be taken unawares. . Over him was the calm
of a silent horror: on his countenance, the majesty
of God's will comprehended.
This old and thoughtful outlaw unconsciously as-
sumed the air of a pontiff.
He said, -
“Attend to me.”
He contemplated for a moment the waste of water,
and added, -
“Now we are going to die.”
Then he took the torch from the hands of Ave-
Maria, and waved it.
A spark broke from it and flew into the night.
Then the doctor cast the torch into the sea.
The torch was extinguished : all light disappeared.
Nothing was left but the huge, unfathomable shadow,
It was like the filling up of the grave.


190
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
In the darkness, the doctor was heard saying,
“Let us pray."
All knelt.
It was no longer on the snow, but in the water,
that they knelt.
They had but a few minutes more.
The doctor alone remained standing.
The flakes of snow falling on him had sprinkled
him with white tears, and made him visible on the
background of darkness. He might have been the
speaking statue of the shadow.
The doctor made the sign of the cross and
raised his voice, while beneath his feet he felt that
almost imperceptible oscillation which prefaces the
moment in which a wreck is about to founder.
He said, —
“Pater noster qui es in coelis.”
The Provençal repeated in French, -
“Notre Père qui êtes aux cieux.”
The Irishwoman repeated in Gaelic, understood
by the Basque woman, —
“ Ar nathair ata ar neamh.”
The doctor continued, —
“Sanctificetur nomen tuum.”
“Que votre nom soit sanctifié," said the Provençal.
“Naomhthar hainm,” said the Irishwoman.
“Adveniat regnum tuum,” continued the doctor.
“Que votre règne arrive,” said the Provençal.
“Tigeadh do rioghachd,” said the Irishwoman.
As they knelt, the waters had risen to their shoul.
ders. The doctor went on, -
“ Fiat voluntas tua.”


THE HIGHEST RESOURCE.
191
“Que votre volonté soit faite,” stammered the
Provençal.
And the Irishwoman and the Basque woman
cried, —
“ Deuntar do thoil ar an Hhalámb.”
“Sicut in coelo, sicut in terra,” said the doctor.
No voice answered him.
He looked down. All their heads were under
water. They had let themselves be drowned on
their knees.
· The doctor took in his right hand the flask which
he had placed on the companion, and raised it above
his head.
The wreck was going down. As he sank, the doc-
tor murmured the rest of the prayer.
For an instant his shoulders were above water,
then his head, then nothing remained but his arm
holding up the flask, as if he were showing it to the
Infinite.
His arm disappeared; there was no greater fold
on the deep sea than there would have been on a
tun of oil. The snow continued falling.
One thing floated, and was carried by the waves
into the darkness. It was the tarred flask, kept
afloat by its osier cover.


BOOK III.
THE CHILD IN THE SHADOW.
CHAPTER I.
CHESIL.
The storm was no less severe on land than on sea.
The same wild enfranchisement of the elements had
taken place around the abandoned child. The weak
and innocent become their sport in the expenditure
of the unreasoning rage of their blind forces. Shad-
ows discern not, and things inanimate have not the
clemency they are supposed to possess.
On the land there was but little wind; there was
an inexplicable dumbness in the cold ; there was no
hail; the thickness of the falling snow was fearful.
Hailstones strike, harass, bruise, stun, crush.
Snow-flakes do worse : soft and inexorable, the
snow-flake does its work in silence. Touch it, and
it melts ; it is pure, even as the hypocrite is candid.
It is by white particles slowly heaped upon one
another that the flake becomes an avalanche and the
knave a criminal.
The child continued to advance into the mist.
The fog presents but a soft obstacle; hence its
danger. It yields and yet persists. Mist, like snow,


194
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
or that triple species of slate, — one sort green, one
blue, and the third the color of sage-leaves. The
foxes, the badgers, the otters, and the martens have
taken themselves off; on the cliffs of Portland, as
well as at the extremity of Cornwall, where there
were at one time chamois, none remain. They still
fish in some inlets for plaice and pilchards ; but the
scared salmon no longer ascend the Wey between
Michaelmas and Christmas to spawn. No more are
seen there, as during the reign of Elizabeth, those old
unknown birds as large as hawks, which could cut
an apple in two, but ate only the pips. You never
meet those crows with yellow beaks, called “ Cornish
choughs” in English, "phyrrocorax” in Latin, who
in their mischief would drop burning twigs on
thatched roofs; nor that magic bird, the fulmar, a
wanderer from the Scottish archipelago, dropping
from his bill an oil which the islanders used to burn
in their lamps ; nor do you ever find in the evening,
in the plash of the ebbing tide, that ancient legendary
neitse, with the feet of a hog and the bleat of a calf.
The tide no longer throws up the whiskered seal,
with its curled ears and sharp jaws, dragging itself
along on its nailless paws. On that Portland — now-
adays so changed as scarcely to be recognized — the
absence of forests precluded nightingales ; but now
the falcon, the swan, and the wild goose have fled.
The sheep of Portland nowadays are fat, and have
fine wool; the few scattered ewes that nibbled the
salt grass there two centuries ago were small and
tough and coarse in the fleece, as became Celtic
flocks brought there by garlic-eating shepherds, who


CHESIL.
195
lived to a hundred, and who at the distance of half a
mile could pierce a cuirass with their yard-long ar-
rows. Uncultivated land makes coarse wool. The
Chesil of to-day resembles in no particular the Chesil
of the past, so much has it been disturbed by man
and by those furious winds which gnaw the very
stones.
At present this tongue of land bears a railway,
terminating in a pretty square of houses, called Ches-
ilton, and there is a Portland station. Railway
carriages roll where seals used to crawl.
The Isthmus of Portland two hundred years ago
was a back of sand, with a vertebral spine of rock.
The child's danger changed its form. What he had
had to fear in the descent was falling to the bottom
of the precipice ; in the isthmus it was falling into
the holes. After dealing with the precipice, he must
deal with the pitfalls. Everything on the sea-shore
is a trap, — the rock is slippery, the strand is quick-
sand; resting-places are but snares ; it is walking on
ice which may suddenly crack and yawn with a fissure,
through which you disappear. The ocean has false
stages below, like a well-arranged theatre.
The long backbone of granite, from which fall
away both slopes of the isthmus, is awkward of ac-
cess. It is difficult to find there what in scene-
shifters' language are termed " practicables.” Man
has no hospitality to hope for from the ocean; from
the rock no more than from the wave. The sea is
provident for the bird and the fish alone. Isthmuses
are especially naked and rugged ; the wave, which
wears and mines them on either side, reduces them


196
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
to the simplest form. Everywhere there were sharp
relief ridges, cuttings, frightful fragments of torn
stone, yawning with many points, like the jaws of a
shark ; breaknecks of wet moss, rapid slopes of rock
ending in the sea. Whosoever undertakes to pass
over an isthmus meets at every step misshapen blocks
as large as houses, in the forms of shin-bones, shoul-
der-blades, and thigh-bones, — the hideous anatomy
of dismembered rocks. It is not without reason that
these striæ of the sea-shore are called côtes.1
The wayfarer must get out as he best can from
the confusion of these ruins. It is like journeying
over the bones of an enormous skeleton.
Put a child to this labor of Hercules.
Broad daylight might have aided him; it was
night. A guide was necessary; he was alone. All
the vigor of manhood would not have been too
much ; he had but the feeble strength of a child.
In default of a guide, a footpath might have aided
him; there was none.
By instinct he avoided the sharp ridge of the
rocks, and kept to the strand as much as possible.
It was there that he met with the pitfalls. They
were multiplied before him under three forms, – the
pitfall of water, the pitfall of snow, and the pitfall
of sand. This last is the most dangerous of all, be-
cause the most illusory. To know the peril we face
is alarming; to be ignorant of it, is terrible. The
child was fighting against unknown dangers. He
was groping his way through something which miglit,
perhaps, be the grave.
1 Côtes, coasts; costa, ribs,


198
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
He was saved from the isthmus; but he found
himself again face to face with the tempest, with the
cold, with the night.
Before him once more, as far as the eye could
reach, was unfolded the dark outline of the plain.
He examined the ground, seeking a footpath. Sud-
denly he bent down. He had discovered in the
snow something which seemed to him a track.
It was indeed a track, — the print of a foot. The
print was cut out clearly in the whiteness of the
snow, which rendered it distinctly visible. He ex-
amined it. It was a naked foot, - too small for that
of a man, too large for that of a child.
It was probably the foot of a woman. Beyond
that mark was another, then another, then another.
The footprints followed one another at the distance
of a step, and struck across the plain to the right.
They were still fresh, and slightly covered with a little
snow. A woman had just passed that way.
This woman was walking in the direction in which
the child had seen the smoke. With his eyes fixed
on the footprints, he set himself to follow them.


CHAPTER II.
THE EFFECT OF SNOW..
He journeyed some time along this course. One
fortunately the footprints were becoming less and
less distinct. Dense and fearful was the falling of
the snow. It was the time when the hooker was so
distressed by the snow-storm at sea.
The child, in distress like the vessel, but after
another fashion, had, in the inextricable intersection
of shadows which rose up before him, no resource
but the footsteps in the snow, and he held to it as
the thread of the labyrinth.
Suddenly, whether the snow had filled them up
or for some other reason, the footsteps ceased. All
became even, level, smooth, without a stain, without
a detail. There was now nothing but a white cloth
drawn over the earth and a black one over the sky.
It seemed as if the foot-passenger had flown away.
The child, in despair, bent down and searched; but
in vain.
As he arose he had a sensation of hearing some
indistinct sound, but he could not be sure of it. It
resembled a voice, a breath, a shadow. It was more
human than animal, more sepulchral than living,
It was a sound, but the sound of a dream,


200
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
He looked, but saw nothing.
Solitude, vast, naked, and livid, was before him.
He listened. That which he had thought he heard
had died away. He still listened : all was silent.
There was some illusion in the mist.
He went on his way again, walking at random,
having no longer the footprint to guide him. He
had taken but a few steps when the noise began
again. This time he could doubt no longer. It was
a groan, almost a sob.
He turned ; his eyes scanned the darkness; he
saw nothing. The sound arose once more. If limbo
could find a voice, it would cry in such a voice as
this.
Nothing so penetrating, so feeble, so piercing as
this voice ; for voice it was. It arose from a soul.
There was a tremor in the murmur; nevertheless it
seemed uttered almost unconsciously; it was an ap-
peal of suffering, not knowing that it suffered and
appealed.
The cry, perhaps a first breath, perhaps a last
sigh, was equally distant from the rattle that closes
life and the wail with which it commences. It
breathed ; then it was stifled; then it wept, – a
gloomy supplication from the heart of the invisible.
The child fixed his attention everywhere, — far, near,
above, below. There was no one, — nothing. He
listened : the voice arose again; he perceived it dis-
tinctly. The sound somewhat resembled the bleating
of a lamb.
Then he was frightened, and thought of flight.
The groan again : this was the fourth time. It


THE EFFECT OF SNOW.
201
was strangely miserable and plaintive. One felt that
after that last effort, more mechanical than voluntary,
the cry would probably be extinguished. It was an
expiring exclamation, instinctively appealing to what-
ever succor might be held suspended in space. It
was an agonized stammer directed towards a post-
sible Providence.
The child approached in the direction whence the
sound came.
Still he saw nothing.
He advanced again watchfully.
The complaint continued. Inarticulate and con-
fused as it was, it was becoming clear, and now
vibrated almost. The child was near the voice; but
where was it?
He was close to a complaint. The trembling of a
cry passed by his side into space; a human moan
floated away into the darkness. This was what he
had met. Such at least was his impression, dim as
the dense mist in which he was lost.
While he hesitated between an instinct that urged
him to fly and another that commanded him to re-
main, he perceived in the snow at his feet a few steps
before him a sort of undulation of the dimensions of
a human body, - a little eminence, long, low, and
narrow, like the mould over a grave; a sepulchre in
a white churchyard.
At the same time the voice cried out. It was
from beneath the undulation that it proceeded.
The child bent down, crouching before the undula-
tion, and with both his hands began to clear it
away.


202
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
MAAN
HO LAUG
LA
Beneath the snow that he removed a form grew
under his hands, and suddenly in the hollow he had
made there appeared a pale face.
The cry had not proceeded from that face. Its
eyes were shut, and the mouth open, but full of
snow.
It remained motionless; it stirred not under the
hands of the child. The child, whose fingers were
mumb with frost, shuddered when he touched its cold-
ness. It was that of a woman. Her dishevelled
hair was mingled with the snow. The woman was
dead.
Again the child set himself to sweep away the
snow. The neck of the dead woman appeared ; then
her shoulders, clothed in rags. Suddenly he felt
something move feebly under his touch. It was
something small that was buried, and which stirred.
The child swiftly cleared away the snow, discovering
a wretched little body — thin, wan and cold, still
alive - lying naked on the dead woman's naked
breast.
It was a little girl.
It had been swaddled up, but in rags so scanty
that in its struggles it had freed itself from its
tatters. Under it its attenuated limbs, and above
it its breath, had somewhat melted the snow. A
nurse would have said that it was five or six
months old, but perhaps it might be a year; for
growth in poverty suffers heartbreaking reductions,
which sometimes even produce rachitis. When its
face was exposed to the air it gave a cry, — the
continuation of its sobs of distress. For the mother


THE EFFECT OF SNOW.
203
not to have heard that sob proved her irrevocably
dead.
The child took the infant in his arms. The stif-
fened body of the mother was a fearful sight. A
spectral light proceeded from her face; the mouth,
apart, and without breath, seemed about to answer
in the indistinct language of shadows the questions
put to the dead by the Invisible. The ghastly re-
flection of the icy plains was on that countenance.
There was the youthful forehead under the brown
hair, the almost indignant knitting of the eyebrows,
the pinched nostrils, the closed eyelids, the lashes glued
together by the rime, and from the corners of the eyes
to the corners of the mouth a deep channel of tears.
The snow lighted up the corpse. Winter and the
tomb are not adverse. The corpse is the icicle of man.
The nakedness of her breasts was pathetic. They
had fulfilled their purpose. On them was a sublime
blight of the life infused into one being by another
from whom life has fled, and maternal majesty was
there instead of virginal purity. At the point of one
of the nipples was a white pearl. It was a drop of
milk frozen.
Let us explain at once. On the plains over
which the deserted boy was passing in his turn,
a beggar woman nursing her infant and searching
for a refuge had lost her way a few hours before.
Benumbed with cold she had sunk under the tem-
pest, and could not rise again. The falling snow
had covered her. So long as she was able she
had clasped her little girl to her bosom, and thus
died.


204
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
The infant had tried to suck the marble breast.
– blind trust, inspired by Nature ; for it seems that
it is possible for a woman to suckle her child even
after her last sigh.
But the lips of the infant had been unable to
find the breast, where the drop of milk, stolen by
death, had frozen, while under the snow the child,
more accustomed to the cradle than the tomb, had
wailed.
The deserted child had heard the cry of the dying
child.
He disinterred it.
He took it in his arms.
When she felt herself in his arms she ceased crying.
The faces of the two children touched each other, and
the purple lips of the infant sought the cheek of the
boy, as it had been a breast. The little girl had
nearly reached the moment when the congealed
blood stops the action of the heart. Her mother had
touched her with the chill of her own death ; a corpse
communicates death; its numbness is infectious.
Her feet, hands, arms, knees, seemed paralyzed by
cold. The boy felt the terrible chill. He had on
him a garment dry and warm, — his pilot jacket. He
placed the infant on the breast of the corpse, took off
his jacket, wrapped the infant in it, took it up again
in his arms, and now, almost naked, under the blast
of the north wind which covered him with eddies
of snow-flakes, carrying the infant, he pursued his
journey.
The little one having succeeded in finding the boy's
cheek, again applied her lips to it, and, soothed by


THE EFFECT OF SNOW.
205
the warmth, she slept. First kiss of those two souls
in the darkness.
The mother lay there, her back to the snow, her
face to the night; but perhaps at the moment when
the little boy stripped himself to clothe the little girl,
the mother saw hinn from the depths of infinity.


CHAPTER III.
A BURDEN MAKES A ROUGH ROAD ROUGHER.
It was little more than four hours since the hooker
had sailed from the creek of Portland, leaving the
boy on the shore. During the long hours since he
had been deserted, and had been journeying onwards,
he had met but three persons of that human society
into which he was, perchance, about to enter. A
man — the man on the hill — a woman — the woman
in the snow — and the little girl whom he was carry-
ing in his arms.
He was exhausted by fatigue and hunger, yet ad-
vanced more resolutely than ever, with less strength
and an added burden. He was now almost naked.
The few rags which remained to him, hardened by
the frost, were sharp as glass, and cut his skin. He
became colder, but the infant was warmer. That
which he lost was not thrown away, but was gained
by her. He found out that the poor infant enjoyed
the comfort, which was to her the renewal of life.
He continued to advance.
From time to time, still holding her securely, he
bent down, and taking a handful of snow he rubbed
his feet with it, to prevent their being frost-bitten.
At other times, his throat feeling as if it were on fire,


A BURDEN MAKES A ROUGH ROAD ROUGHER. 207
he put a little snow in his mouth and sucked it; this
for a moment assuaged his thirst, but changed it into
fever, - a relief which was an aggravation.
The storm had become shapeless from its violence.
Deluges of snow are possible. This was one. The
paroxysm scourged the shore at the same time that
it uptore the depths of ocean. This was, perhaps,
the moment when the distracted hooker was going to
pieces in the battle of the breakers.
He travelled under this north wind, still towards
the east, over wide surfaces of snow. He knew not
how the hours had passed. For a long time he had
ceased to see the smoke. Such indications are soon
effaced in the night ; besides, it was past the hour
when fires are put out. Or he had, perhaps, made a
mistake, and it was possible that neither town nor
village existed in the direction in which he was trav-
elling. Doubting, he yet persevered.
Two or three times the little infant cried. Then
he adopted in his gait a rocking movement, and the
child was soothed and silenced. She ended by fall-
ing into a sound sleep. Shivering himself, he felt her
warm. He frequently tightened the folds of the
jacket round the babe's neck, so that the frost should
not get in through any opening, and that no melted
snow should drop between the garment and the child.
The plain was unequal. In the declivities into
which it sloped, the snow, driven by the wind into
the dips of the ground, was so deep, in comparison
with a child so small, that it almost engulfed him,
and he had to struggle through it, half-buried. He
walked on, working away the snow with his knees.
with a
had to ing awa


208
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
Having cleared the ravine, he reached the high
lands swept by the winds, where the snow lay thin.
There he found the surface a sheet of ice. The little
girl's lukewarm breath, playing on his face, warmed
it for a moment, then lingered, and froze in his hair,
stiffening it into icicles.
He felt the approach of another danger. He could
not afford to fall. He knew that if he did so, he
should never rise again. He was overcome by fa-
tigue, and the weight of the darkness would, as with
the dead woman, have held him to the ground, and
the ice glued him alive to the earth.
He had tripped upon the slopes of precipices, and
had recovered himself; he had stumbled into holes,
and had got out again. Thenceforward the slightest
fall would be death; a false step opened for him a
tomb. He must not slip. He had not strength to
rise even to his knees. Now everything was slip-
pery; everywhere there was rime and frozen snow.
The little creature that he carried made his progress
fearfully difficult. She was not only a burden, which
his weariness and exhaustion made excessive, but was
also an embarrassment. She occupied both his arms;
and to him who walks over ice, both arms are a nat-
ural and necessary balancing power.
He was obliged to do without this balance.
He did without it and advanced, bending under his
I urden, not knowing what would become of him.
This little infant was the drop causing the cup of
distress to overflow.
He advanced, reeling at every step, as if on a
spring board, and accomplishing, without spectators,


A BURDEN MAKES A ROUGH ROAD ROUGHER. 209
miracles of equilibrium. Let us repeat that he was,
perhaps, followed on this path of pain by eyes un-
sleeping in the distances of the shadows, — the eyes
of the mother and the eyes of God. He staggered,
slipped, recovered himself, took care of the infant,
and, gathering the jacket about her, covered up
her head ; staggered again, advanced, slipped, then
drew himself up. The cowardly wind drove against
him. Apparently, he made much more way than was
necessary. He was, to all appearance, on the plains
where Bincleaves Farm was afterwards established,
between what are now called Spring Gardens and the
Parsonage House. Homesteads and cottages occupy
the place of waste lands. Sometimes less than a
century separates a steppe from a city.
Suddenly, a lull having occurred in the icy blast
which was blinding him, he perceived at a short dis-
tance in front of him a cluster of gables and of chim-
neys, shown in relief by the snow, — the reverse of
a silhouette; a city painted in white on a black
horizon; something like what we call nowadays a
negative proof. Roofs, dwellings, shelter! He had
arrived somewhere at last. He felt the ineffable en-
couragement of hope. The watch of a ship which
has wandered from her course feels some such eno-
tion when he cries, “ Land, ho!”
He hurried his steps.
At length, then, he was near mankind. He would
soon be amid living creatures. There was no longer
anything to fear. There glowed within him that
sudden warmth, security ; that out of which he was
emerging was over; thenceforward there would no
VOL. I. -- 14


210
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
longer be night, nor winter, nor tempest. It seemed
to him that he had left all evil chances behind him.
The infant was no longer a burden. He almost
ran.
His eyes were fixed on the roofs. There was life
there. He never took his eyes off them; a dead
man might gaze thus on what might appear through
the half-opened lid of his sepulchre. There were
the chimneys of which he had seen the smoke.
No smoke arose from them now. It was not
long before he reached the houses. He came to the
outskirts of a town, — an open street; at that pe-
riod, bars to streets were falling into disuse.
The street began by two houses. In those two
houses neither candle nor lamp was to be seen; nor
in the whole street; nor in the whole town, so far
as eye could reach. The house to the right was a
roof, rather than a house. Nothing could be more
mean; the walls were of mud, the roof was of
straw, and there was more thatch than wall; a large
nettle, springing from the bottom of the wall, reached
the roof. The hovel had but one door, which was
like that of a dog-kennel; and a window, which
was but a hole. All was shut up. At the side,
an inhabited pigsty told that the house was also
inhabited.
The house on the left was large, high, built en-
tirely of stone, with a slated roof. It was also
closed. It was the rich man's home opposite to
that of the pauper.
The boy did not hesitate. He approached the
great mansion. The double folding-door of massive


A BURDEN MAKES A ROUGH ROAD ROUGHER. 211
oak, studded with large nails, was of the kind that
leads one to expect that behind it there is a stout
armory of bolts and locks. An iron knocker was
attached to it. He raised the knocker with some dif-
ficulty, for his benumbed hands were stumps rather
than hands. He knocked once.
No answer.
He struck again, and two knocke.
No movement was heard in the house.
He knocked a third time.
There was no sound. He saw that they were all
asleep and did not care to get up.
Then he turned to the hovel. He picked up a
pebble from the snow, and knocked against the low
door.
There was no answer.
He raised himself on tiptoe, and knocked with his
pebble against the pane, — too softly to break the
glass, but loud enough to be heard.
No voice was heard, no step moved, no candle
was lighted.
He saw that there, as well, they did not care to
awake.
The house of stone and the thatched hovel were
equally deaf to the wretched.
The boy decided to push on farther, and penetrate
the strait of houses which stretched away in front of
him, so dark that it seemed more like a gulf between
two cliffs than the entrance to a town.


CHAPTER IV.
ANOTHER FORM OF DESERT.
It was Weymouth which he had just entered.
Weymouth then was not the respectable and fine
Weymouth of to-day.
Ancient Weymouth did not present, like the pres-
ent one, an irreproachable rectangular quay, with an
inn, and a statue in honor of George III. This was
because George III. had not yet been born. For
the same reason they had not yet designed on the
slope of the green hill toward the east, fashioned
flat on the soil by cutting away the turf and leaving
the bare chalk to the view, the white horse, two hun-
dred and eight feet long, bearing the king upon his
back, and always turning, in honor of George III.,
his tail to the city. These honors, however, were
deserved. George III., having lost in his old age
the intellect he had never possessed in his youth, was
not responsible for the calamities of his reign. He
was an innocent; why not erect statues to him?
Weymouth, a hundred and eighty years ago, was
about as symmetrical as a game of spilikins in con-
fusion. In legends it is said that Ashtaroth trav-
elled over the world, carrying on her back a wallet
which contained everything, - even good women in


ANOTHER FORM OF DESERT.
213
their houses. A pell-mell of sheds thrown from her
devil's-bag would give an idea of that irregular Wey-
mouth, — the good women in the sheds included.
The Music Hall remains as a specimen of those
buildings,—a confusion of wooden dens, carved, and
eaten by worms (which carve in another fashion),
shapeless, overhanging buildings, some with pillars,
leaning one against the other for support against the
sea-wind, and leaving between them awkward spaces
of narrow and winding channels, lanes, and passages,
often flooded by the equinoctial tides. A heap of
old grandmother houses, crowded round a grand-
father church : such was Weymouth, — a sort of old
Norman village thrown up on the coast of England.
The traveller who entered the tavern, now re-
placed by the hotel, instead of paying royally his
twenty-five francs for a fried sole and a bottle of
wine, had to suffer the humiliation of eating a penny-
worth of soup made of fish, — which soup, by the
bye, was very good. Wretched fare !
The deserted child, carrying the foundling, passed
through the first street, then the second, then the
third. He raised his eyes, seeking in the higher
stories and in the roofs a lighted window-pane; but
all were closed and dark. At intervals he knocked
at the doors. No one answered. Nothing makes
the heart so like a stone as being warm between
sheets. The noise and the shaking had at length
awakened the infant. He knew this because he felt
her suck his cheek. She did not cry, believing him
her mother.
He was about to turn and wander long, perhaps,


214
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
in the intersections of the Scrambridge lanes, where
there were then more cultivated plots than dwellings,
more thorn hedges than houses; but fortunately he
struck into a passage which exists to this day near
Trinity Schools. This passage led him to a water-
brink, where there was a roughly-built quay with a
parapet, and to the right he made out a bridge. It
was the bridge over the Wey, connecting Weymouth
with Melcombe-Regis, and under the arches of which
the Backwater joins the harbor.
Weymouth, a hamlet, was then the suburb of Mel-
combe Regis, — a city and port. Now, Melcombe-
Regis is a parish of Weymouth. The village has
absorbed the city. It was the bridge which did the
work. Bridges are strange vehicles of suction, which
inhale the population, and sometimes swell one river-
bank at the expense of its opposite neighbor.
The boy went to the bridge, which at that period
was a covered timber structure. He crossed it.
Thanks to its roofing, there was no snow on the
planks. His bare feet had a moment's comfort as
they crossed them. Having passed over the bridge,
he was in Malcombe-Regis. There were fewer
wooden houses than stone ones there. He was no
longer in the village ; he was in the city.
The bridge opened on a rather fine street called
St. Thomas's Street. He entered it. Here and
there were high carved gables and shop-fronts. He
set to knocking at the doors again ; he had no
strength left to call or shout.
At Melcombe-Regis, as at Weymouth, no one was
stirring. The doors were all carefully double-locked.


ANOTHER FORM OF DESERT.
215
The windows were covered by their shutters, as the
eyes by their lids. Every precaution had been taken
to avoid being aroused by disagreeable surprises.
The little wanderer was suffering the indefinable de-
pression made by a sleeping town. Its silence, as of
a paralyzed ants' nest, makes the head swim. All its
lethargies mingle their nightmares, its slumbers are a
crowd, and from its human bodies lying prone there
arises a vapor of drcains. Sleep has gloomy asso-
ciates beyond this life; the decomposed thoughts of
the sleepers float above them in a mist which is
both of death and of life, and combine with the Pos-
sible, which has also perhaps the power of thought
as it floats in space; hence arise entanglements.
Dreams, those clouds, interpose their folds and their
transparencies over that star, the mind. Above those
closed eyelids, where vision has taken the place of
sight, a sepulchral disintegration of outlines and ap-
pearances dilates itself into impalpability. Mysteri-
ous, diffused existences amalgamate themselves with
life on that border of death which sleep is. Those
larvæ and souls mingle in the air. Even he who
sleeps not feels a medium press upon him full of
sinister life. The surrounding chimera, in which he
suspects a reality, impedes him. The waking man,
wending his way amid the sleep phantoms of others,
unconsciously pushes back passing shadows, has,
or imagines that he has, a vague fear of adverse
contact with the invisible, and feels at every monient
the obscure pressure of a hostile encounter which im-
mediately dissolves. There is something of the effect
of a forest in the nocturnal diffusion of dreams.


216
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
This is what is called being afraid without reason,
What a man feels, a child feels still more.
The uneasiness of nocturnal fear, increased by the
spectral houses, augmented the weight of the sad
burden under which he was struggling.
He entered Conycar Lane, and perceived at the
end of that passage the Backwater, which he took for
the ocean. He no longer knew in what direction the
sea: lay. He retraced his steps, struck to the left by
Maiden Street, and returned as far as St. Alban's
Row.
There, by chance, and without selection, he knocked
violently at any house that he happened to pass. His
blows, on which he was expending his last energies,
were jerky and without aim, now ceasing altogether
for a time, now renewed as if in irritation. It was
the violence of his fever striking against the doors.
One voice answered.
That of Time.
Three o'clock tolled slowly behind him from the
old belfry of St. Nicholas.
Then all sank into silence again.
That no inhabitant should have opened a lattice
may appear surprising. Nevertheless that silence is
in a great measure to be explained. We must re-
member that in January, 1690, they were just over
a somewhat severe outbreak of the plague in London,
and that the fear of receiving sick vagabonds caused
a diminution of hospitality everywhere. People
would not even open their windows, for fear of
inhaling the poison.
The child felt the coldness of men more terribly


ANOTHER FORM OF DESERT.
217
desert much
of whething5
than the coldness of night. The coldness of men is
intentional. He felt a tightening on his sinking
heart which he had not known on the open plains.
. Now he had entered into the midst of life, and re-
mained alone. This was the summit of misery. The
pitiless desert he had understood ; the unrelenting
town was too much to bear.
The hour, the strokes of which he had just counted,
had been another blow. Nothing is so freezing in
certain situations as the voice of the hour. It is a
declaration of indifference. It is Eternity saying,
“What does it matter to me?”
He stopped, and it is not certain that in that
miserable minute he did not ask himself whether
it would not be easier to lie down there and die.
However, the little infant leaned her head against
his shoulder, and fell asleep again.
This blind confidence set him onwards again. He
whom all supports were failing, felt that he was
himself a basis of support. Irresistible summons
of duty!
Neither such ideas nor such a situation belonged
to his age. It is probable that he did not under-
stand them. It was a matter of instinct. He did
what he chanced to do.
He set out again in the direction of Johnstone
Row. But now he no longer walked; he dragged
himself along. He left St. Mary's Street to the left,
made zigzags through lanes, and at the end of a
winding passage found himself in a rather wide,
open space. It was a piece of waste land not built
upon; probably the spot where Chesterfield Place


218
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS..
now stands. The houses ended there. He per
ceived the sea to the right, and scarcely anything
more of the town to his left.
What was to become of him? Here was the
country again. To the east great inclined planes
of snow marked out the wide slopes of Radipole.
Should he continue this journey? Should he ad-
vance and re-enter the solitudes ? Should he return
and re-enter the streets ? What was he to do be-
tween those two silences, — the mute plain and the
deaf city? Which of the two refusals should he
choose ?
There is the anchor of mercy. There is also the
look of piteousness. It was that look which the
poor little despairing wanderer threw around him.
All at once he heard a menace.


CHAPTER V.
MISANTHROPY PLAYS ITS PRANKS
A STRANGE and alarming grinding of teeth reached
him through the darkness.
It was enough to drive one back : he advanced.
To those to whom silence has become dreadful, a
howl is comforting.
That fierce growl reassured him; that threat was
a promise. There was then a being alive and awake,
though it might be a wild beast. He advanced in
the direction whence came the snarl.
He turned the corner of a wall, and behind, in the
vast sepulchral light made by the reflection of snow
and sea, he saw a thing placed as if for shelter. It
was a cart, unless it was a hovel. It had wheels ;
it was a carriage. It had a roof; it was a dwelling.
· From the roof arose a funnel, and out of the funnel,
smoke. This smoke was red, and seemed to imply a
good fire in the interior. Behind, projecting hinges
indicated a door, and in the centre of this door a
square opening showed a light inside the caravan.
He approached.
Whatever had growled perceived his approach, and
became furious. It was no longer a growl which he
had to meet, it was a roar. He heard a sharp sound,


220
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
.
as of a chain violently pulled to its full length, and
suddenly, under the door, between the hind wheels,
two rows of sharp white teeth appeared. At the
same time as the mouth between the wheels, a head
was put through the window.
“Peace there !” said the head.
The mouth was silent.
The head began again, -
“Is any one there?”
The child answered, -
“ Yes.”
“ Who?”
" I.”
“ You? Who are you? Whence do you come ? ”
“I am weary,” said the child.
“ What o'clock is it ? ”
“I am cold.”
“What are you doing there ?”
“I am hungry.”
The head replied, —
“Every one cannot be as happy as a lord. Off
with you!”
The head was withdrawn and the window closed.
The child bowed his forehead, drew the sleeping
infant closer in his arms, and collected his strength
to resume the journey; he had taken a few steps,
and was hurrying away.
However, at the same time that the window closed
the door had opened ; a step had been let down, the
voice which had spoken to the child cried out angrily
from the inside of the van, -
“Well ! why don't you come in ? "


"Well, why don't you come in?!"
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS, VOL. I., Page 220
DRAWN BY L. J. BRIDGMAN











MISANTHROPY PLAYS ITS PRANKS.
221
The child turned back.
“Come in!” resumed the voice. “Who has sent
me a fellow like this, who is hungry and cold, and
does not come in ?”
The child, at once repulsed and invited, remained
motionless.
The voice continued, -
“You are told to come in, you young rascal I”
He made up his mind, and placed one foot on the
lowest step.
There was a great growl under the van. He
drew back. The gaping jaws appeared.
“Peace ! ” cried the voice of the man.
The jaws retreated; the growling ceased.
“Come up!” continued the man.
The child with difficulty climbed up the three
steps. He was impeded by the infant, so benumbed,
rolled up, and enveloped in the jacket that nothing
could be distinguished of her, it being at best but
a little shapeless mass.
He passed over the three steps, and having
reached the threshold, stopped.
No candle was burning in the caravan, — prob-
ably from the economy of want. The hut was
lighted only by a red tinge, arising from the opening
at the top of the stove, in which sparkled a peat fire.
On the stove was smoking a porringer and a sauce-
pan, containing to all appearance something to eat.
The savory odor was perceptible. The hut was fur-
nished with a chest, a stool, and an unlighted lantern
which hung from the ceiling. Besides, to the par-
tition were attached some boards on brackets, and


222
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.'
some hooks, from which hung a variety of things.
On the boards and nails were rows of glasses, cop-
pers, an alembic, a vessel rather like those used for
graining wax, which are called granulators, and a
confusion of strange objects of which the child un-
derstood nothing, and which were utensils for cook-
ing and chemistry. The caravan was oblong in
shape, the stove being in front. It was not even
a little room ; it was scarcely a big box. There was
more light outside from the snow than inside from
the stove; everything in the caravan was indistinct
and misty. Nevertheless, a reflection of the fire on
the ceiling enabled the spectator to read, in large
letters, —
URSUS, PHILOSOPHER.
The child, in fact, was entering the house of
Homo and Ursus. The one he had just heard
growling, the other speaking.
The child, having reached the threshold, perceived
near the stove a man, tall, smooth, thin, and old,
dressed in gray, whose head, as he stood, reached
the roof. The man could not have raised himself
on tiptoe; the caravan was just his size.
“Come in!” said the man, who was Ursus.
The child entered.
“ Put down your bundle.”
The child placed his burden carefully on the top
of the chest, for fear of awakening and terrifying it.
The man continued :-
“How gently you put it down! You could not
be more careful were it a case of relics. Is it that


MISANTHROPY PLAYS ITS PRANKS.
223
you are afraid of tearing a hole in your rags ?
Worthless vagabond ! in the streets at this hour !
Who are you? answer! But, no, - I forbid you to
answer. Come, be quick there! You are cold;
warm yourself !” And he shoved him by the shoul-
ders in front of the fire.
“How wet you are! You're frozen through!
A nice state to come into a house! Come, take off
those rags, you villain !” And as with one hand,
and with feverish haste, he dragged off the boy's
rags, which tore into shreds, with the other he took
down from a nail a man's shirt and one of those
knitted jackets which are up to this day called kiss-
me-quicks.
“Here are clothes.”
He chose out of a heap a woollen rag, and chafed
before the fire the limb of the exhausted and bewil-
dered child, who at that moment, warm and naked,
felt as if he were seeing and touching heaven. The
limbs having been rubbed, he next wiped the boy's
feet.
“ Come, you limb! you have nothing frost-bitten !
I was a fool to fancy you had something frozen, -
hind-legs or fore-paws. You will not lose the use
of them this time. Dress yourself !”
The child put on the shirt, and the man slipped
the knitted jacket over it.
“Now — "
The man kicked the stool forward and made the
little boy sit down, again shoving him by the shoul-
ders; then he pointed with his finger to the por-
ringer which was smoking upon the stove. What


224
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
the child saw in the porringer was again heaven to
him; namely, a potato and a bit of bacon.
“You are hungry; eat!”
The man took from the shelf a crust of hard bread
and an iron fork, and handed them to the child.
The boy hesitated.
“ Perhaps you expect me to lay the cloth,” said
the man; and he placed the porringer on the child's
lap.
“Gnaw that !”
Hunger overcame astonishment. The child began
to eat. The poor boy devoured rather than ate.
The glad sound of the crunching of bread filled the
hut. The man grumbled :-
“Not so quick, you horrid glutton! Is n't he a
greedy scoundrel ? When such brats are hungry,
they eat in a revolting fashion. You should see a
lord sup. In my time I have seen dukes eat. They
don't eat, – that's the noble part of it. But how
they drink! Come, you pig! stuff yourself !”
The absence of ears, which is the concomitant of
a hungry stomach, caused the child to take little
heed of these violent epithets, tempered as they
were by charity of action involving a contradiction
resulting in his benefit. For the moment he was
absorbed by two exigencies and by two ecstasies, –
food and warmth.
Ursus continued his imprecations, muttering to
himself:-
“I have seen King James supping in propria
persona, in the Banqueting House, where are to be
admired the paintings of the famous Rubens. His


MISANTHROPY PLAYS ITS PRANKS.
225
Majesty touched nothing. This beggar here browses,
- browses, a word derived from brute. What put
it into my head to come to this Weymouth, seven
times devoted to the infernal deities? I have sold
nothing since morning. I have harangued the snow;
I have played the flute to the hurricane; I have not
pocketed a farthing; and now, to-night, beggars
drop in. Horrid place! There is battle, struggle,
competition, between the fools in the street and my-
self. They try to give me nothing but farthings; I
try to give them nothing but drugs. Well! to-day
I've made nothing; not an idiot on the highway, not
a penny in the till. Eat, hell-born boy! tear and
crunch! We have fallen on times when nothing
can equal the cynicism of spongers. Fatten at my
expense, parasite! This wretched boy is more than
hungry,– he is mad; it is not appetite, it is ferocity.
He is carried away by a rabid virus. Perhaps he
has the plague. Have you the plague, you thief?
Suppose he were to give it to Homo! No, never!
Let the populace die, but not my wolf. But, by the
bye, I am hungry myself. I declare that this is all
very disagreeable. I have worked far into the night.
There are seasons in a man's life when he is hard
pressed. I was to-night, by hunger. I was alone;
I made a fire; I have but one potato, one crust of
bread, a mouthful of bacon, and a drop of milk, and
I put it to warm; I say to myself, 'Good !' I think
I am going to eat, and — bang! this crocodile falls
upon me at the very moment. He installs himself
clean between my food and myself. Behold, how
my larder is devastated ! Eat, pike! eat! You
VOL. 1. – 15
F


226
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
shark! how many teeth have you in your jaws ?
Guzzle, wolf-cub! No, I withdraw that word; I
respect wolves. Swallow up my food, boa! I have
worked all day, and far into the night, on an empty
stomach; my throat is sore, my pancreas in distress,
my entrails torn; and my reward is to see another
eat. 'T is all one, though! We will divide: he
shall have the bread, the potato, and the bacon,
but I will have the milk.”
Just then a wail, touching and prolonged, arose
in the hut. The man listened.
“ You cry, sycophant! Why do you cry?”
The boy turned towards him. It was evident
that it was not he who cried; he had his mouth
full.
The cry continued.
The man went to the chest.
“ So it is your bundle that bawls ! Vale of
Jehoshaphat! behold, a vociferating parcel ! What
the devil has your bundle got to croak about ?”
He unrolled the jacket; an infant's head appeared,
the mouth open and crying.
“Well, who goes there!” said the man. “Here
is another of them. When is this to end? Who is
there! To arms! corporal ! call out the guard !
Another bang! What have you brought me, thief?
Don't you see it is thirsty ? Come! the little one
must have a drink. So, now, I shall not have even
the milk !”
He took down from the things lying in disorder on
the shelf a bandage of linen, a sponge, and a vial,
muttering savagely, “What an infernal place !"


MISANTHROPY PLAYS ITS PRANKS.
227
Then he looked at the little infant. “ 'Tis a girl!
one can tell that by her scream; and she is drenched
as well.” He dragged away, as he had done from
the boy, the tatters in which she was knotted up
rather than dressed, and swathed her in a rag,
which, though of coarse linen, was clean and dry.
This rough and sudden dressing made the infant
angry.
“ She mews relentlessly,” said he.
He bit off a long piece of sponge, tore from the
roll a square piece of linen, drew from it a bit of
thread, took the saucepan containing the milk from
the stove, filled the vial with milk, drove down the
sponge half-way into its neck, covered the sponge
with linen, tied this cork in with the thread, applied
his cheeks to the phial to be sure that it was not too
hot, and seized under his left arm the bewildered
bundle, which was still crying. “Come, take your
supper, creature ; let me suckle you.” And he put
the neck of the bottle to its mouth.
The little infant drank greedily.
He held the vial at the necessary incline, grum-
bling, “ They are all the same, the cowards! When
they have all they want they are silent.”
The child had drunk so ravenously, and had seized
so eagerly this breast offered by a cross-grained Provi-
dence, that she was taken with a fit of coughing.
“You are going to choke!” growled Ursus. “A
fine glutton, this one, too!”
He drew away the sponge which she was sucking,
allowed the cough to subside, and then replaced the
vial to her lips, saying, “Suck, you jade !”


228
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
In the mean time the boy had laid down his fork.
Seeing the infant drink had made him forget to eat.
The moment before, while he ate, the expression in
his face was satisfaction; now it was gratitude. He
watched the infant's renewal of life: the completion
of the resurrection begun by himself filled his eyes
with an ineffable brilliancy. Ursus went on muttering
angry words between his teeth. The little boy now
and then lifted towards Ursus his eyes moist with the
unspeakable emotion which the poor little being felt,
but was unable to express. Ursus addressed him
furiously.
“Well, will you eat?”
“ And you ?” said the child, trembling all over,
and with tears in his eyes. “You will have
nothing !”
“Will you be kind enough to eat it all up, you
cub! There is not too much for you, since there was
not enough for me.”
The child took up his fork, but did not eat.
“Eat !” shouted Ursus. “What has it got to
do with me? Who speaks of me? Wretched little
barefooted clerk of Penniless Parish, I tell you, eat
it all up. You are here to eat, drink, and sleep.
Eat, or I will kick you out, both of you!”
The boy, under this menace, began to eat again.
He had not much trouble in finishing what was left
in the porringer. Ursus muttered, “ This building is
badly joined ; the cold comes in by the window-pane."
A pane had indeed been broken in front, either by a
jolt of the caravan or by a stone thrown by some
mischievous boy. Ursus had placed a star of paper


230
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
drugs. You are losing your time, old friend. Pack
up your physic. Every one is well down here. It 's
a cursed town, where every one is well. The skies
alone have diarrhea, — what snow! Anaxagoras
taught that the snow was black; and he was right,
cold being blackness. Ice is night. What a hurri-
cane! I can fancy the delight of those at sea. The
hurricane is the passage of demons. It is the row
of the tempest-fiends galloping and rolling head over
heels above our bone-boxes. In the cloud this one
has a tail, that one has horns, another a flame for a
tongue, another claws to its wings, another a lord-
chancellor's paunch, another an academician's pate.
You may observe a form in every sound. To every
fresh wind a fresh demon. The ear hears, the eye
sees, the crash is a face. Zounds! there are folks
at sea, — that is certain. My friends, get through
the storm as best you can. I have enough to do to
get through life. Come now, do I keep an inn or do
I not? Why should I trade with these travellers ?
The universal distress sends its spatterings even as
far as my poverty. Into my cabin fall hideous drops
of the far-spreading mud of mankind. I am given
up to the voracity of travellers. I am a prey, — the
prey of those dying of hunger. Winter, night, a
pasteboard hut, an unfortunate friend below and
without; the storm, a potato, a fire as big as my fist,
parasites, the wind penetrating through every cranny,
not a halfpenny, and bundles which set to howling.
I open them, and find beggars inside. Is this fair ?
Besides, the laws are violated. Ah! vagabond with
your vagabond child! Mischievous pickpocket, evil..


MISANTHROPY PLAYS ITS PRANKS.
231
minded abortion ! so you walk the streets after cur-
few? If our good king only knew it, would he not
have you thrown into the bottom of a ditch, just to ·
teach you better? My gentleman walks out at night
with my lady, and with the glass at fifteen degrees of
frost, bareheaded and barefooted. Understand that
such things are forbidden. There are rules and reg-
ulations, you lawless wretches ! Vagabonds are pun-
ished; honest folks who have houses are guarded
and protected. Kings are the fathers of their peo-
ple. I have my own house. You would have been
whipped in the public street had you chanced to have
been met, and quite right too. There must be order
in an established city. For my own part, I did
wrong not to denounce you to the constable. But I
am such a fool! I understand what is right, and do
what is wrong! Oh, the ruffian, to come here in
such a state! I did not see the snow upon them
when they came in; it has melted, and here's my
whole house swamped. I have an inundation in my
home. I shall have to burn an incredible amount of
coals to dry up this lake, - coals at twelve farthings,
the miners' standard ! How am I going to manage
to fit three into this caravan ? Now it is over; I
enter the nursery; I am going to have in my house
the weaning of the future beggardom of England.
I shall have for employment, office, and function, to
fashion the miscarried fortunes of that colossal pros-
titute Misery, to bring to perfection future gallows'
birds, and to give young thieves the forms of phi-
losophy. The tongue of the bear is the warning of
God. And to think that if I had not been eaten up


232
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
by creatures of this kind for the last thirty years
I should be rich; Homo would be fat; I should
have a medicine-chest full of rarities, as many surgi-
cal instruments as Dr. Linacre, surgeon to King
Henry VIII., divers animals of all kinds, Egyptian
mummies and similar curiosities; I should be a mem-
ber of the College of Physicians, and have the right
of using the library, built in 1652 by the celebrated
Hervey, and of studying in the lantern of that dome
whence you can see the whole of London. I could
continue my observations of solar obfuscation, and
prove that a caliginous vapor arises from the planet.
Such was the opinion of John Kepler, who was born
the year before the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew,
and who was mathematician to the emperor. The
sun is a chimney which sometimes smokes ; so does
my stove. My stove is no better than the sun. Yes,
I should have made my fortune: my part would have
been a different one; I should not be the insig-
nificant fellow I am. I should not degrade science
in the highways ; for the crowd is not worthy
of the doctrine, the crowd being nothing better
than a confused mixture of all sorts of ages, sexes,
humors, and conditions that wise men of all periods
have not hesitated to despise, and whose extravagance
and passion the most moderate men in their justice
detest. Oh, I am weary of existence! After all, one
does not live long; this human life is soon done with.
But no, - it is long. At intervals, that we should
not become too discouraged, that we may have the
stupidity to consent to bear our being, and not profit
by the magnificent opportunities to hang ourselves


. MISANTHROPY PLAYS ITS PRANKS.
233
which cords and nails afford, Nature puts on an air
of taking a little care of man, — not to-night though.
The rogue causes the wheat to spring up, ripens the
grape, gives her song to the nightingale. From time
to time a ray of morning or a glass of gin; and that is
what we call happiness! It is a narrow border of
good round a huge winding-sheet of evil. We have
a destiny of which the Devil has woven the stuff and
God has sewn the hem. In the mean time, you have
eaten my supper, you thief !”
In the mean time the infant whom he was holding
all the time in his arms very tenderly while he was
vituperating, shut its eyes languidly, — a sign of reple-
tion. Ursus examined the vial, and grumbled, -
“She has drunk it all up, the shameless one !”
He arose, and sustaining the infant with his left
arm, with his right he raised the lid of the chest and
drew from beneath it a bear-skin, the one he called,
as will be remembered, his real skin. While he was
doing this he heard the other child eating, and looked
at him sideways.
“It will be something to do if, henceforth, I have
to feed that growing glutton. It will be a worm
gnawing at the vitals of my industry.”
He spread out still, with one arm, the bear-skin on
the chest, working his elbow and managing his move-
ments so as not to disturb the sleep into which the
infant was just sinking.
Then he laid her down on the fur, on the side next
the fire. Having done so, he placed the vial on the
stove, and exclaimed, —
“I'm thirsty, if you like!”


234
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
He looked into the pot. There were a few good
mouthfuls of milk left in it; he raised it to his lips.
Just as he was about to drink, his eye fell on the
little girl. He replaced the pot on the stove, took
the vial, uncorked it, poured into it all the milk
that remained, which was just sufficient to fill it,
replaced the sponge and the linen rag over it, and
tied it round the neck of the bottle.
“All the same, I'm hungry and thirsty,” he observed.
And he added, -
“When one cannot eat bread, one must drink
water.”
Behind the stove there was a jug with the spout
off. He took it and handed it to the boy.
“Will you drink ?”
The child drank, and then went on eating.
Ursus seized the pitcher again, and conveyed it to
his mouth. The temperature of the water which it
contained had been unequally modified by the prox-
imity of the stove.
He swallowed some mouthfuls and made a grimace.
“Water! pretending to be pure, thou resemblest
false friends. Thou art warın at the top and cold at
bottom."
In the mean time the boy had finished his supper.
The porringer was more than empty; it was cleaned
out. He picked up and ate pensively a few crumbs
caught in the folds of the knitted jacket on his lap.
Ursus turned towards him.
“That is not all. Now, a word with you. The
mouth is not made only for eating, it is made for
speaking. Now that you are warmed and stuffed,


MISANTHROPY PLAYS ITS PRANKS.
235
you beast, take care of yourself. You are going to
answer my questions. Whence do you come ?”
The child replied, -
“I do not know."
“How do you mean, you don't know ?”
“I was abandoned this evening on the sea-shore.”
“ You little scamp! what's your name? He is so
good for nothing that his relations desert him.”
“I have no relations."
“Give in a little to my tastes, and observe that I
do not like those who sing to a tune of fibs. You
must have relatives, since you have a sister.”
“ It is not my sister.”
“ It is not your sister?”
66 No.”
“Who is it, then?”
“ It is a baby that I found.”
“Found?”
“ Yes.”
“What! did you pick her up ?”
“ Yes.”
“Where? If you lie I will exterminate you."
“On the breast of a woman who was dead in the
snow.”
“When?”
“An hour ago."
“Where?”
“A league from here."
The arched brow of Ursus knitted and took that
pointed shape which characterizes emotion on the
brow of a philosopher.
“Dead ! fortunate for her! We must leave her


236
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
in the snow. She is well off there. In which
direction ?”
“In the direction of the sea.”
“Did you cross the bridge ?”
“Yes."
Ursus opened the window at the back and exam-
ined the view.
The weather had not improved. The snow was
falling thickly and mournfully.
He shut the window.
He went to the broken glass; he filled the hole
with a rag; he heaped the stove with peat; he
spread out as far as he could the bear-skin on the
chest, took a large book which he had in a corner,
placed it under the skin for a pillow, and laid the
head of the sleeping infant on it.
Then he turned to the boy.
“Lie down there.”
The boy obeyed, and stretched himself at full
length by the side of the infant.
Ursus rolled the bear-skin over the two children,
and tucked it under their feet.
He took down from a shelf, and tied round his
waist, a linen belt with a large pocket containing,
no doubt, a case of instruments and bottles of
restoratives.
Then he took the lantern from where it hung to
the ceiling, and lighted it. It was a dark-lantern.
When lighted, it still left the children in shadow.
Ursus half opened the door, and said,
“I am going out; do not be afraid. I shall re-
turn. Go to sleep.”


238
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
the whiteness of the snow over buried bodies, do
not equal in pathos two children's mouths meeting
divinely in sleep, and the meeting of which is not
even a kiss. A betrothal perchance, perchance a
catastrophe. The unknown weighs down upon their
juxtaposition. It charms, it terrifies; who knows
which ? It stays the pulse. Innocence is higher
than virtue. Innocence is holy ignorance. They
slept. They were in peace. They were warm.
The nakedness of their bodies, embraced each in
each, amalgamated with the virginity of their souls.
They were there as in the nest of the abyss.


CHAPTER VI.
THE AWAKING.
THE beginning of day is sinister. A sad pale light
penetrated the hut. It was the frozen dawn. That
wan light which throws into relief the mournful
reality of objects which are blurred into spectral
forms by the night, did not awake the children, so
soundly were they sleeping. The caravan was warm.
Their breathings alternated like two peaceful waves.
There was no longer a hurricane without. The light
of dawn was slowly taking possession of the horizon.
The constellations were being extinguished, like can-
dles blown out one after the other. Only a few large
stars resisted. The deep-toned chant of the Infinite
was coming from the sea.
The fire in the stove was not quite out. The twi-
light broke, little by little, into daylight. The boy
slept less heavily than the girl. At length a ray
brighter than the others broke through the pane, and
he opened his eyes. The sleep of childhood ends
in forgetfulness. He lay in a state of semi-stupor,
without knowing where he was or what was
near him, without making an effort to remember,
gazing at the ceiling, and setting himself an aimless
task as he gazed dreamily at the letters of the


THE 241
THE AWAKING
AWAKING.
hts at length He exclaimed tone dead!"e mould
thoughts at length found breath, as usual, in a rapid
outflow of words. He exclaimed, -
“Happy, doubtless! Dead ! stone dead !”.
He bent down and put a shovelful of turf mould
into the stove; and as he poked the peat, he growled
out, –
“I had a deal of trouble to find her. The malice
of the unknown had buried her under two feet of
snow. Had it not been for Homo, who sees as clear-
ly with his nose as Christopher Columbus did with
his mind, I should be still there, scratching at the
avalanche, and playing hide and seek with Death.
Diogenes took his lantern and sought for a man; I
took my lantern, and sought for a woman. He found
a sarcasm, and I found mourning. How cold she
was! I touched her hand, - a stone! What silence
in her eyes! How can any one be such a fool as to
die and leave a child behind! It will not be con-
venient to pack three into this box. A pretty family
I have now, — a boy and a girl ! ”
While Ursus was speaking, Homo sidled up close
to the stove. The hand of the sleeping infant was
hanging down between the stove and the chest. The
wolf set to licking it. He licked it so softly that he
did not awake the little infant.
Ursus turned round.
“Well done, Homo. I shall be father, and you
shall be uncle.”
Then he betook himself again to arranging the fire
with philosophical care, without interrupting his
aside.
“Adoption! It is settled ; Homo is willing.”
VOL. I. - 16


242
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
He drew himself up.
“I should like to know who is responsible for that
woman's death? Is it man, or -- ".
He raised his eyes, but looked beyond the ceiling,
and his lips murmured, -
“ Is it Thou ? ”
Then his brow dropped, as if under a burden, and
he continued, —
“ The night took the trouble to kill the woman.”
Raising his eyes they met those of the boy, just
awakened, who was listening. Ursus addressed him
abruptly, —
“What are you laughing about ?”
The boy answered, —
“I am not laughing.”
Ursus felt a kind of shock, looked at him fixedly
for a few minutes, and said, -
“Then you are frightful.”
The interior of the caravan, on the previous night,
had been so dark that Ursus had not yet seen the
boy's face. The broad daylight revealed it. He
placed the palms of his hands on the two shoulders
of the boy, and, examining his countenance more and
more piercingly, exclaimed, -
“Do not laugh any more!”
“I am not laughing,” said the child.
Ursus was seized with a shudder from head to
foot.
“You do laugh, I tell you."
Then seizing the child with a grasp which would
have been one of fury had it not been one of pity, he
asked him roughly, -


THE AWAKING.
243
“Who did that to you ?”
The child replied, —
“I don't know what you mean.”
“How long have you had that laugh ?”
“I have always been thus," said the child.
Ursus turned towards the chest, saying in a low
voice,
“I thought that work was out of date.”
He took from the top of it, very softly, so as not
to awaken the infant, the book which he had placed
there for a pillow.
“Let us see Conquest,” he murmured.
It was a bundle of paper in folio, bound in soft
parchment. He turned the pages with his thumb,
stopped at a certain one, opened the book wide on
the stove, and read, —
“De Denasatis,' — it is here.”
And he continued, -
“Bucca fissa usque ad aures, genzivis denu-
datis, nasoque murdridato, masca eris, et ridebis
semper.'”
“There it is for certain."
Then he replaced the book on one of the shelves,
growling.
"It might not be wholesome to inquire too deeply
into a case of the kind. We will remain on the sur-
face; laugh away, my boy!”
Just then the little girl awoke. Her good-day
was a cry.
“Come, nurse, give her the breast,” said Ursus.
The infant sat up. Ursus, taking the vial from
the stove, gave it to her to suck,


244
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
Then the sun arose. He was level with the hori-
zon. His red rays gleamed through the glass, and
struck against the face of the infant, which was
turned towards him. Her eyeballs, fixed on the sun,
reflected his purple orbit like two mirrors. The eye-
balls were immovable, the eyelids also.
“See !” said Ursus. “She is blind.”


PART II.
BY ORDER OF THE KING.
BOOK I.
THE EVERLASTING PRESENCE OF THE PAST.
MAN REFLECTS MAN.
CHAPTER I.
LORD CLANCHARLIE.
T'HERE was in those days an old tradition.
That tradition was Lord Linnæus Clancharlie.
Baron Linnæus Clancharlie, a contemporary of
Cromwell, was one of the peers of England, few in
number be it said, who accepted the republic. The
reason of his acceptance of it might, indeed, for
want of a better, be found in the fact that for the
time being the republic was triumphant. It was a
matter of course that Lord Clancharlie should adhere
to the republic as long as the republic had the upper
hand; but after the close of the Revolution and the
fall of the parliamentary government, Lord Clan-
charlie had persisted in his fidelity to it. It would
have been easy for the noble patrician to re-enter the
reconstituted upper house, repentance being ever well


246
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
received on restorations, and Charles II. being a kind
prince enough to those who returned to their alle-
giance to him ; but Lord Clancharlie had failed to
understand what was due to events. While the
nation overwhelmed with acclamation the king, come
to retake possession of England, while unanimity was
recording its verdict, while the people were bowing
their salutation to the monarchy, while the dynasty
was rising anew amidst a glorious and triumphant
recantation, at the moment when the past was be-
coming the future and the future becoming the past,
that nobleman remained refractory. He turned his
head away from all that joy, and voluntarily exiled
himself. While he could have been a peer, he pre-
ferred being an outlaw. Years had thus passed away.
He had grown old in his fidelity to the dead republic,
and was therefore crowned with the ridicule which
is the natural reward of such folly.
He had retired into Switzerland, and dwelt in a
sort of lofty ruin on the banks of the Lake of Geneva.
He had chosen his dwelling in the most rugged nook
of the lake between Chillon, where is the dungeon of
Bonnivard, and Vevay, where is Ludlow's tomb. The
rugged Alps, filled with twilight, winds, and clouds,
were around him; and he lived there hidden in the
great shadows that fall from the mountains. He
was rarely met by any passer-by. The man was out
of his country, almost out of his century. At that
time, to those who understood and were posted in
the affairs of the period, no resistance to established
things was justifiable. England was happy. A res-
toration is as the reconciliation of husband and wife,


LORD CLANCHARLIE.
247
- prince and nation return to each other; no state
can be more graceful or more pleasant. Great Britain
beamed with joy; to have a king at all was a good
deal, but furthermore, the king was a charming one.
Charles II. was amiable, a man of pleasure, yet able
to govern, arid great, if not after the fashion of
Louis XIV. He was gentle, — by birth and in dis-
position. Charles II. was admired by his subjects.
He had made war in Hanover: assuredly he himself
knew for what reason, but no one else did. He had
sold Dunkirk to France, -- a highly politic transac-
tion. The Whig peers, concerning whom Chamber-
layne says, “The cursed republic infected with its
stinking breath several of the high nobility,” had had
the good sense to bow to the inevitable, to conform
to the times, and to resume their seats in the House
of Lords. To do so, it sufficed that they should take
the oath of allegiance to the king. When these facts
were considered, — the glorious reign, the excellent
king, august princes given back by divine mercy to
the people's love; when it was remembered that per-
sons of such consideration as Monk, and later on,
Jeffreys, had rallied round the throne; that they had
been properly rewarded for their loyalty and zeal by
the most splendid appointments and the most lucra-
tive offices; that Lord Clancharlie could not be igno.
rant of this, and that it only depended on himself to
be seated by their side, glorious in his honors; that
England had, thanks to her king, risen again to the
summit of prosperity; that London was all banquets
and carousals; that everybody was rich and enthusi-
astic; that the court was gallant, gay, and magnificent,


248
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS..
- if by chance, far from these splendors, in some
melancholy, indescribable half-light, like nightfall,
that old man, clad in the same garb as the common
people, was observed pale, absent-minded, bent to-
wards the grave, standing on the shore of the lake,
scarce heeding the storm and the winter, walking as
though at random, his eye fixed, his white hair tossed
by the wind of the shadow, silent, pensive, solitary,
who could forbear to smile ?
It was the sketch of a madman.
Thinking of Lord Clancharlie, of what he might
have been and what he was, a smile was indulgent ;
some laughed out aloud, others could not restrain
their anger. It is easy to understand that men of
sense were much shocked by the insolence implied
by his isolation.
One extenuating circumstance: Lord Clancharlie
had never had any brains. Every one agreed on that
point.
II.
It is disagreeable to see one's fellows practice ob-
stinacy. Imitations of Regulus are not popular, and
public opinion holds them in some derision. Stubborn
people are like reproaches, and we have a right to
laugh at them.
Besides, to sum up, are these perversities, these
rugged notches, virtues? Is there not in these ex-
cessive advertisements of self-abnegation and of honor
a good deal of ostentation ? It is all parade more
than anything else. Why such exaggeration of soli-
tude and of exile ? To carry nothing to extremes is


LORD CLANCHARLIE.
249
the wise man's maxim. Be in opposition if you
choose, blame if you will, but decently, and crying
out all the while, “ Long live the King !”. The true
virtue is common sense, — what falls ought to fall ;
what succeeds ought to succeed. Providence acts
advisedly : it crowns him who deserves the crown.
Do you pretend to know better than Providence ?
When matters are settled, when one rule has replaced
another, when success is the scale in which truth and
falsehood are weighed, in one side the catastrophe, in
the other the triumph, then doubt is no longer pos-
sible, the honest man rallies to the winning side, and
although it may happen to serve his fortune and his
family, he does not allow himself to be influenced by
that consideration, but thinking only of the public
weal, holds out his hand heartily to the conqueror.
What would become of the State if no one con-
sented to serve it ? Would not everything come to
a standstill ? To keep his place is the duty of a
good citizen. Learn to sacrifice your secret prefer-
ences. Appointments must be filled, and some one
must necessarily sacrifice himself. To be faithful to
public functions is true fidelity. The retirement of
public officials would paralyze the State. What!
banish yourself ? How weak! As an example? what
vanity! As a defiance? what audacity! What do
you set yourself up to be, I wonder ? Learn that
we are just as good as you. If we chose, we too
could be intractable and untamable, and do worse
things than you ; but we prefer to be sensible peo-
ple. Because I am a Trimalcion, you think that I
could not be a Cato! What nonsense !


250
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
NII.
NEVER was a situation more clearly defined or
more decisive than that of 1660. Never had a
course of conduct been more plainly indicated to a
well-ordered mind. England was out of Cromwell's
grasp. Under the Republic many irregularities had
been committed. British preponderance had been
created. With the aid of the Thirty Years' War,
Germany had been overcome ; with the aid of the
Fronde, France had been humiliated; with the aid
of the Duke of Braganza, the power of Spain had
been lessened. Cromwell had tamed Mazarin ; in
signing treaties, the Protector of England wrote
his name above that of the King of France. The
United Provinces had been put under a fine of eight
millions ; Algiers and Tunis had been attacked ;
Jamaica conquered; Lisbon humbled; French rivalry
encouraged in Barcelona, and Masaniello in Naples ;
Portugal had been made fast to England; the seas
had been swept of Barbary pirates, from Gibraltar to
Crete; maritime domination had been founded under
two forms, – Victory and Commerce. On the 10th
of August, 1653, the man of thirty-three victories,
the old Admiral who called himself the sailors'
grandfather, Martin Happertz van Tromp, who had
beaten the Spanish, had been destroyed by the
English fleet. The Atlantic had been cleared of
the Spanish navy, the Pacific of the Dutch, the
Mediterranean of the Venetian, and by the patent of
navigation England had taken possession of the sea.


LORD CLANCHARLIE.
251
coast of the world. By the ocean she commanded
the world ; at sea, the Dutch flag humbly saluted the
British flag. France, in the person of the ambassa-
dor Mancini, bent the knee to Oliver Cromwell; and
Cromwell played with Calais and Dunkirk as with
two shuttlecocks on a battledore. The Continent
had been taught to tremble, peace had been dictated,
war declared, the British ensign raised on every
pinnacle. By itself, the Protector's regiment of Iron-
sides weighed in the fears of Europe against an
army. Cromwell used to say, “I wish the Republic
of England to be respected, as was respected the
Republic of Rome.” No longer were delusions held
sacred ; speech was free, the press was free. In the
public street men said what they listed; they printed
what they pleased, without control or censorship.
The equilibrium of thrones had been destroyed.
The whole order of European monarchy, in which
the Stuarts formed a link, had been overturned.
But at last England had emerged from this odious
order of things, and had won its pardon.
The indulgent Charles II. had granted the Decla-
ration of Breda. He had conceded to England
oblivion of the period in which the son of the Hun-
tingdon brewer placed his foot on the neck of Louis
XIV. England said its mea culpa, and breathed
again. The cup of joy was, as we have just said,
füll, - gibbets for the regicides adding to the uni-
versal delight. A restoration is a smile; but a few
gibbets are not out of place, and satisfaction is due
to the conscience of the public. To be good subjects
was thenceforth the people's sole ambition. The


252
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
spirit of lawlessness had been expelled. Royalty
was reconstituted. Men had recovered from the
follies of politics. They mocked at revolution, they
jeered at the Republic; and as to those times when
such strange words as Right, Liberty, Progress had
been in the mouth, — why, they laughed at such
bombast! Admirable was the return to common-
sense. England had been in a dream. What joy
to be quit of such errors! Was ever anything so
mad? Where should we be, if every one had his
rights? Fancy every one's having a hand in the
government! Can you image a city ruled by its
citizens ? Why, the citizens are the team; and the
team cannot be driver. To put to the vote is to
throw to the winds. Would you have States driven
like clouds ? Disorder cannot build up order.
With chaos for an architect, the edifice would be a
Babel. And besides, what tyranny is this pretended
liberty! As for me, I wish to enjoy myself, not to
govern. It is a bore to have to vote; I want to
dance. A prince is a providence, and takes care of
us all. Truly, the king is generous to take so much
trouble for our sakes. Besides, he is to the manner
born. He knows what it is. It's his business.
Peace, War, Legislation, Finance, — what have the
people to do with such things ? Of course the
people have to pay; of course the people have to
serve ; but that should suffice them. They have a
place in policy; from them come two essential things,
- the army and the budget. To be liable to contrib-
ute, and to be liable to serve, — is not that enough?
What more should they want ? They are the mili-


LORD CLANCHARLIE.
253
tary and the financial arm, - a magnificent rôle !
The king reigns for them, and they must reward
him accordingly. Taxation and the civil list are the
salaries paid by the peoples and earned by the prince.
The people give their blood and their money, in
return for which they are led. To wish to lead
themselves, — what an absurd idea! They require a
guide : being ignorant, they are blind; has not the
blind man his dog? Only the people have a lion,
the king, who consents to act the dog. What good-
nature ! But why are the people ignorant? Be-
cause it is good for them ; ignorance is the guardian
of Virtue. Where there is no perspective, there is
no ambition. The ignorant man is in useful dark-
ness, which, suppressing sight, suppresses covetous-
ness : whence innocence. He who reads, thinks ;
who thinks, reasons. But not to reason is duty,
and happiness as well. These truths are incontest-
able ; society is based on them.
Thus had sound social doctrines been re-established
in England; thus had the nation been reinstated.
At the same time a correct taste in literature was re-
viving. Shakspeare was despised, Dryden admired.
“ Dryden is the greatest poet of England, and of the
century,” said Atterbury, the translator of “Achito-
phel.” It was about the time when M. Huet, Bishop
of Avranches, wrote to Saumaise, who had done the
author of “Paradise Lost” the honor to refute and
abuse him, “How can you trouble yourself about
so mean a thing as that Milton?” Everything was
falling into its proper place : Dryden above, Shak-
speare below; Charles II. on the throne, Cromwell on


254
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
good order in benefits should the cold sho
the gibbet. England was raising herself out of the
shame and the excesses of the past. It is a great
happiness for nations to be led back by monarchy to
good order in the State and good taste in letters.
That such benefits should be misunderstood, is
difficult to believe. To turn the cold shoulder to
Charles II., to reward with ingratitude the magna-
nimity which he displayed in ascending the throne,-
was not such conduct abominable ? Lord Linnæus
Clancharlie had inflicted this vexation upon honest
men. To sulk at his country's happiness, alack !
what aberration!
We know that in 1650 Parliament had drawn up
this form of declaration: “I promise to remain
faithful to the republic, without king, sovereign, or
lord.” Under pretext of having taken this monstrous
oath, Lord Clancharlie was living out of the king-
dom, and, in the face of the general joy, thought that
he had the right to be sad. He had a morose esteem
for that which was no more, and was absurdly at-
tached to things which had been.
To excuse him was impossible. The kindest-
hearted abandoned him; his friends had long done
him the honor to believe that he had entered the
republican ranks only to observe the more closely the
flaws in the republican armor, and to smite it the more
surely, when the day should come, for the sacred
cause of the king. These lurkings in ambush for the
convenient hour to strike the enemy a death-blow in
the back, are attributes of loyalty. Such a line of
conduct had been expected of Lord Clancharlie, so
strong was the wish to judge him favorably; but, in


LORD CLANCHARLIE.
255
the face of his strange persistence in republicanism,
people were obliged to lower their estimate. Evi-
dently Lord Clancharlie was confirmed in his convic-
tions, — that is to say, an idiot!
The explanation given by the indulgent, wavered
between puerile stubbornness and senile obstinacy.
The severe and the just went farther; they blighted
the name of the renegade. Folly has its rights, but
it has also its limits. A man may be a brute, but he
has no right to be a rebel. And, after all, what was
this Lord Clancharlie ? A deserter. He had fled his
camp, the aristocracy, for that of the enemy, the peo-
ple. This faithful man was a traitor. It is true that
he was a traitor to the stronger, and faithful to the
weaker; it is true that the camp repudiated by him
was the conquering camp, and the camp adopted by
him, the conquered ; it is true that by his treason he
lost everything, — his political privileges and his do-
mestic hearth, his title and his country. He gained
nothing but ridicule, he attained no benefit but exile.
But what does all this prove, — that he was a fool ?
Granted.
Plainly a dupe and traitor in one. Let a man be
as great a fool as he likes, so that he does not set a
bad example. Fools need only be civil, and in con-
sideration thereof they may aim at being the bases of
monarchies. The narrowness of Clancharlie's mind
was incomprehensible. His eyes were still dazzled
by the phantasmagoria of the revolution. He had
allowed himself to be taken in by the Republic, yes ;
and cast out. He was an affront to his country. The
attitude he assumed was downright felony. Absence


256
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
was an insult. He held aloof from the public joy
as from the plague. In his voluntary banishment he
found some indescribable refuge from the national re-
joicing. He treated loyalty as a contagion : over the
widespread gladness at the revival of the monarchy,
denounced by him as a lazaretto, he was the black
flag. What! could he look thus askance at order
reconstituted, a nation exalted, and a religion re-
stored? Over such serenity why cast his shadow ?
Take umbrage at England's contentment! Must he
be the one blot in the clear blue sky! Be as a threat!
protest against a nation's will! refuse his Yes to the
universal consent! It would be disgusting, if it were
not the part of a fool. Clancharlie could not have
taken into account the fact that it did not matter if
one had taken the wrong turn with Cromwell, as
long as one found one's way back into the right path
with Monk.
Take Monk's case. He commands the republican
army. Charles II., having been informed of his hon-
esty, writes to him. Monk, who combines virtue
with tact, dissimulates at first, then suddenly at the
head of his troops dissolves the rebel parliament,
and re-establishes the king on the throne. Monk is
created Duke of Albemarle, has the honor of having
saved society, becomes very rich, sheds a glory over
his own time, is created Knight of the Garter, and
has the prospect of being buried in Westminster
Abbey. Such glory is a loyal Englishman's reward !
Lord Clancharlie could never rise to a sense of
duty thus carried out. He had the infatuation and
obstinacy of an exile. He contented himself with


LORD CLANCHARLIE.
257
hollow phrases. He was tongue-tied by pride. The
words conscience and dignity are but words, after all.
One must penetrate to the depths. These depths
Lord Clancharlie had not reached. His “eye was
single," and before committing an act, he wished to
observe it so closely as to be able to judge it by more
senses than one. Hence arose absurd disgust to the
facts examined. No man can be a statesman who
gives way to such overstrained delicacy. Excess of
conscientiousness degenerates into infirmity. Scruple
is one-handed when a sceptre is to be seized, and an
eunuch when fortune is to be wedded. Distrust
scruples ; they drag you too far. Unreasonable fidel-
ity is like a ladder leading into a cavern, - one step
down, another, then another, and there you are in
the dark. The clever reascend; fools remain in it.
Conscience must not be allowed to practise such
austerity. If it be, it will fall until, from transition
to transition, it at length reaches the deep gloom of
political prudery. Then one is lost. Thus it was
with Lord Clancharlie.
Principles terminate in a precipice.
He was walking, his hands behind him, along the
shores of the Lake of Geneva. A fine way of get-
ting on!
In London they sometimes spoke of the exile. He
was accused before the tribunal of public opinion.
They pleaded for and against him. The cause hav-
ing been heard, he was acquitted on the ground of
stupidity.
Many zealous friends of the former republic had
given their adherence to the Stuarts. For this they
VOL. I. — 17
mnie.


258
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
deserve praise. They naturally calumniated him a
little. The obstinate are repulsive to the compliant.
Men of sense, in favor and good places at court,
weary of his disagreeable attitude, took pleasure in
saying, “If he has not rallied to the throne, it is be-
cause he has not been sufficiently paid,” etc. “He
wanted the chancellorship which the king has given
to Hyde.” One of his old friends went so far as to
whisper, “ He told me so himself.” Remote as was
the solitude of Linnæus Clancharlie, something of
this talk would reach him through the outlaws he
met, such as old regicides like Andrew Broughton,
who lived at Lausanne. Clancharlie confined him-
self to an imperceptible shrug of the shoulders, a sign
cf profound deterioration. On one occasion he added
to the shrug these few words, murmured in a low
voice, “I pity those who believe such things.”
IV.
CHARLES II., good man! despised him. The
happiness of England under Charles II. was more
than happiness; it was enchantment. A restoration
is like an old oil painting, blackened by time, and re-
varnished. All the past reappeared, good old man-
ners returned, beautiful women reigned and governed.
Evelyn notices it. We read in his journal, “ Luxury,
profaneness, contempt of God. I saw the king on
Sunday evening with his courtesans, — Portsmouth,
Cleveland, Mazarin, and two or three others, all
nearly naked, in the gaming-room.” We feel that
there is ill-nature in this description, for Evelyn was


CHAPTER II,
LORD DAVID DIRRY-MOIR.
LORD LINNÆUS CLANCHARLIE had not always
been old and proscribed; he had had his phase of
youth and passion. We know from Harrison and
Pride that Cromwell, when young, loved women and
pleasure, a taste which, at times another reading of
the text, “Woman”), betrays a seditious man. Dis-
trust the loosely-clasped girdle. "Male præcinctum
juvenem cavete.” Lord Clancharlie, like Cromwell,
had had his wild hours and his irregularities. He
was known to have had a natural child, a son. This
son was born in England in the last days of the re-
public, just as his father was going into exile. Hence
he had never seen his father. This bastard of Lord
Clancharlie had grown up as page at the court of
Charles II. He was styled Lord David Dirry-Moir:
he was a lord by courtesy, his mother being a woman
of quality. The mother, while Lord Clancharlie was
becoming an owl in Switzerland, made up her mind,
being a beauty, to give over sulking, and was forgiven
that Goth, her first lover, by one undeniably polished
and at the same time a royalist, for it was the king
himself.
She had been but a short time the mistress of
Charles II., — sufficiently long, however, to have


LORD DAVID DIRRY-MOIR.
263
made his majesty, who was delighted to have won
so pretty a woman from the republic, bestow on the
little Lord David, the son of his conquest, the office
of keeper of the stick, which made that bastard
officer, boarded at the king's expense, by a natural
revulsion of feeling, an ardent adherent of the Stuarts.
Lord David was for some time one of the hundred
and seventy wearing the great sword, while after-
wards, entering the corps of pensioners, he became
one of the forty who bear the gilded halberd. He
had, besides being one of the noble company insti-
tuted by Henry VIII. as a body-guard, the privilege
of laying the dishes on the king's table. Thus it was
that while his father was growing gray in exile, Lord
David prospered under Charles II.
After which he prospered under James II.
The king is dead. Long live the king! It is the
“non deficit alter, aureus.”
It was on the accession of the Duke of York that
he obtained permission to call himself David Lord
Dirry-Moir, from an estate which his mother, who
had just died, had left him, in that great forest of
Scotland where is found the krag, a bird which
scoops out a nest with its beak in the trunk of
the oak.
IL.
JAMES II. was a king, and affected to be a general.
He loved to surround himself with young officers.
He showed himself frequently in public on horseback,
in a helmet and cuirass, with a huge projecting wig


264
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
hanging below the helmet and over the cuirass, -a
sort of equestrian statue of imbecile war. He took
a fancy to the graceful mien of the young Lord
David. He liked the royalist for being the son of
a republican. The repudiation of a father does not
damage the foundation of a court fortune. The king
made Lord David gentleman of the bedchamber, at
a salary of a thousand a year.
It was a fine promotion. A gentleman of the bed-
chamber sleeps near the king every night, on a bed
which is made up for him. There are twelve gentle-
men, who relieve one another.
Lord David, while he held that post, was also head
of the king's granary, giving out corn for the horses,
and receiving a salary of £260. Under him were the
five coachmen of the king, the five postilions of the
king, the five grooms of the king, the twelve footmen
of the king, and the four chair-bearers of the king.
He had the management of the race-horses which
the king kept at Newmarket, and which cost his
Majesty £600 a year. He worked his will on the
king's wardrobe, from which the knights of the garter
are furnished with their robes of ceremony. He was
saluted to the ground by the usher of the black rod,
who belongs to the king. That usher, under James II.,
was the knight of Duppa. Mr. Baker, who was
clerk of the crown, and Mr. Brown, who was clerk of
the Parliament, kotoued to Lord David. The court
of England, which is magnificent, is a model of hos-
pitality. Lord David presided, as one of the twelve,
at banquets and receptions. He had the glory of
standing behind the king on offertory days, when the


LORD DAVID DIRRY-MOIR.
265
king gives to the church the golden byzantium ; on
collar-days, when the king wears the collar of his
order; on communion days, when no one takes the
sacrament excepting the king and the princes. It
was he who, on Holy Thursday, introduced into his
majesty's presence the twelve poor men to whom the
king gives as many silver pence as the years of his
age, and as many shillings as the years of his reign.
The duty devolved on him, when the king was ill, to
call to the assistance of his majesty the two grooms
of the almonry, who are priests, and to prevent the
approach of doctors without permission from the coun-
cil of State. Besides, he was lieutenant-colonel of
the Scotch regiment of Guards, — the one which
plays the Scottish march. As such he made several
campaigns, and with glory, for he was a gallant sol-
dier. He was a brave lord, well-made, handsome,
generous, and majestic in look and in manner. His
person was like his quality : he was tall in stature,
as well as high in birth.
At one time he stood a chance of being made groom
of the stole, which would have given him the privi-
lege of putting the king's shirt on his majesty; but to
hold that office it was necessary to be either prince
or pcer. Now, to create a peer is a serious thing; it
is to create a peerage, and that makes many people
jealous. It is a favor, — a favor which gives the
king one friend and a hundred enemies, without tak-
ing into account that the one friend becomes ungrate-
ful. James II., from policy, was indisposed to create
peerages, but he transferred them freely. The trans-
fer of a peerage creates no sensation; it is simply the


266
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
continuation of a name. The order is little affected
by it.
The good-will of royalty had no objection to raise
Lord David Dirry-Moir to the upper house so long as
it could do so by means of a substituted peerage.
Nothing would have pleased his majesty better than
to transform Lord David Dirry-Moir, lord by courtesy,
into a lord by right.
III.
The opportunity occurred.
One day it was announced that several things had
happened to the old exile, Lord Clancharlie, the most
important of which was that he was dead. Death
does just this much good to folks : it causes a little
talk about them. People related what they knew, or
what they thought they knew, of the last years of
Lord Linnæus. What they said was probably legend
and conjecture. If these random tales were to be
credited, Lord Clancharlie must have had his republi-
canism intensified towards the end of his life, to the
extent of marrying (strange obstinacy of the exile !)
Ann Bradshaw, the daughter of a regicide; they were
precise about the name. She had also died, it was
said, but in giving birth to a boy. If these details
should prove to be correct, this child would of course
be the legitimate and rightful heir of Lord Clan-
charlie. These reports, however, were extremely
vague in form, and were rumors rather than facts.
Circumstances which happened in Switzerland in


268
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
It was to this little duchess that the king granted
the peerage of Clancharlie. She was a peeress till
there should be a peer; the peer should be her hus-
band. The peerage was founded on a double castle-
ward, the barony of Clancharlie and the barony of
Hunkerville ; besides, the Barons of Clancharlie
were, in recompense of an ancient feat of arms, and
by royal license, Marquises of Corleone, in Sicily.
Peers of England cannot bear foreign titles; there
are, nevertheless, exceptions : thus, Henry Arundel,
Baron Arundel of Wardour, was, as well as Lord
Clifford, a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, of
which Lord Cowper is a prince. The Duke of
Hamilton is Duke of Châtellerault, in France ;
Basil Fielding, Earl of Denbigh, is Count of Haps-
burg, of Lauffenberg, and of Rheinfelden, in Ger-
many. The Duke of Marlborough was Prince of
Mindelheim, in Suabia, just as the Duke of Welling-
ton was Prince of Waterloo, in Belgium. The same
Lord Wellington was a Spanish Duke of Ciudad-
Rodrigo, and Portuguese Count of Vimeira.
There were in England, and there are still, lands
both noble and common. The lands of the Lords
of Clancharlie were all noble. These lands, burghs,
bailiwicks, fiefs, rents, freeholds, and domains ad-
herent to the peerage of Clancharlie-Hunkerville be-
longed provisionally to Lady Josiana ; and the king
declared that, once married to Josiana, Lord David
Dirry-Moir should be Baron Clancharlie.
Besides the Clancharlie inheritance, Lady Josiana
had her own fortune. She possessed great wealth,
much of which was derived from the gifts of Madame


270
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
proud
Lord, a pala' of a
ness ; a man of courtesy and etiquette, proud of
kneeling at great regal ceremonies ; of a gay valor ;
a courtier on the surface, a paladin below ; quite
young at forty-five. Lord David sang French songs,
- an elegant gayety, which had delighted Charles II.
He loved eloquence and fine language. He greatly
admired those celebrated discourses which are called
the funeral orations of Bossuet.
From his mother he had inherited almost enough
to live on, - about ten thousand pounds a year.
He managed to get on with it, — by running into
debt. In magnificence, extravagance, and novelty
he was without a rival. Directly he was copied, he
changed his fashion. On horse-back he wore loose
boots of cowhide, which turned over, with spurs.
He had hats like nobody else's; unheard-of lace,
and bands of which he alone had the pattern.


CHAPTER III.
THE DUCHESS JOSIANA.
TOWARDS 1705, although Lady Josiana' was
twenty-three and Lord David forty-four, the wedding
had not yet taken place, and that for the best rea-
sons in the world. Did they hate each other?
Far from it; but what cannot escape from you in-
spires you with no haste to obtain it. Josiana
wanted to remain free, David to remain young. To
have no tie until as late as possible appeared to him
to be a prolongation of youth. Middle-aged young
men abounded in those rakish times. They grew
gray as young fops. The wig was an accomplice ;
later on, powder became the auxiliary. At fifty-five,
Lord Charles Gerrard, Baron Gerrard, one of the
Gerrards of Bromley, filled London with his suc
cesses. The young and pretty Duchess of Bucking-
ham, Countess of Coventry, made a fool of herself
for love of the handsome Thomas Bellasys, Viscount
Fauconberg, who was sixty-seven. People quoted
the famous verses of Corneille, the septuagenarian,
to a girl of twenty, —“Marquise, si mon visage.”
Women, too, had their successes in the autumn of
life. Witness Ninon and Marion. Such were the
models of the day.


272
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
Josiana and David carried on a flirtation of a
particular shade. They did not love, they pleased
each other. To be at each other's side sufficed
them ; why hasten the conclusion? The novels of
those days carried lovers and engaged couples to
that kind of stage which was the most becoming.
Besides, Josiana, while she knew herself to be a
bastard, felt herself a princess, and carried her au-
thority over him with a high tone in all their
arrangements. She had a fancy for Lord David.
Lord David was handsome, but that was over
and above the bargain ; she considered him to be
fashionable.
To be fashionable is everything. Caliban, fashion-
able and magnificent, would distance Ariel, poor.
Lord David was handsome; so much the better.
The danger in being handsome is being insipid; and
that he was not. He betted, boxed, ran into debt.
Josiana thought great things of his horses, his dogs,
his losses at play, his mistresses. Lord David, on
his side, bowed down before the fascinations of the
Duchess Josiana, -a maiden without spot or scruple,
haughty, inaccessible, and audacious. He addressed
sonnets to her, which Josiana sometimes read. In
these sonnets he declared that to possess Josiana
would be to rise to the stars, which did not pre-
vent his always putting the ascent off to the follow-
ing year. He waited in the antechamber outside
Josiana's heart; and this suited the convenience of
both. At court all admired the good taste of this
delay. Lady Josiana said, “It is a bore that I
should be obliged to marry Lord David, -1, who


THE DUCHESS JOSIANA.
273
would desire nothing better than to be in love with
him!”
Josiana was “the flesh.” Nothing could be more
resplendent. She was very tall, — too tall. Her hair
was of that tinge which might be called red gold.
She was plump, fresh, strong, and rosy, with immense
boldness and wit. She had eyes which were too in-
telligible. She had neither lovers nor chastity. She
walled herself round with pride. Men! oh, fie! a
god only would be worthy of her — or a monster. If
virtue consists in the protection of an inaccessible po-
sition, Josiana possessed all possible virtue, but with-
out any innocence. She disdained intrigues; but she
would not have been displeased had she been sup-
posed to have engaged in some, provided that the ob-
jects were uncommon, and proportioned to the merits
of one so highly placed. She thought little of her
reputation, but much of her glory. To appear yield-
ing, and to be unapproachable, is perfection. Josiana
felt herself majestic and material. Hers was a cum-
brous beauty. She usurped rather than charmed.
She trod upon hearts. She was earthly. She would
have been as much astonished at being proved to have
a soul in her bosom as wings on her back. She dis-
coursed on Locke; she was polite; she was suspected
of knowing Arabic.
To be “the flesh” and to be woman are two differ-
ent things. Where a woman is vulnerable, on the
side of pity, for instance, which so readily turns to
love, Josiana was not. Not that she was unfeeling.
The ancient comparison of flesh to marble is abso-
lutely falsc. The beauty of flesh consists in not be
VOL. I. — 18


THE DUCHESS JOSIANA.
275
was, in the insolence of high birth, tempting and
accessible. Nevertheless, she might find it amus-
ing to plan a fall for herself. She dwelt in a halo of
glory, half wishing to descend from it, and perhaps
feeling curious to know what a fall was like. She
was a little too heavy for her cloud. To err is a
diversion. Princely unconstraint has the privilege
of experiment; and what is frailty in a plebeian, is
only frolic in a duchess. Josiana was in everything
—in birth, in beauty, in irony, in brilliancy —- almost
a queen. She had felt a moment's enthusiasm for
Louis de Boufflers, who used to break horseshoes
between his fingers. She regretted that Hercules
was dead. She lived in some undefined expectation
of a voluptuous and supreme ideal.
Morally, Josiana brought to one's mind the line,-
“Un beau torse de femme en hydre se termine.”
Hers was a noble neck, a splendid bosom, heaving
harmoniously over a royal heart, a glance full of life
and light, a countenance pure and haughty, and
(who knows ?) below the surface, in a semi-trans-
parent and misty depth, an undulating, supernatural
prolongation, perchance deformed and dragon-like,
— a proud virtue ending in vice in the depths of
dreams ?
With all that she was a prude.
It was the fashion.
Remember Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was of a type that prevailed in England


276
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
for three centuries, — the sixteenth, seventeenth, and
eighteenth. Elizabeth was more than English, she
was Anglican : hence the deep respect of the Epis-
copal Church for that Queen, - a respect resented
by the Church of Rome, which counterbalanced it
with a dash of excommunication. In the mouth of
Sixtus V., when anathematizing Elizabeth, maledic-
tion turned to madrigal. “Un gran cervello di prin-
cipessa,” he says. Mary Stuart, less concerned with
the church and more with the woman part of the ques-
tion, had little respect for her sister Elizabeth; and
wrote to her as queen to queen and coquette to prude :
“Your disinclination to marriage arises from your
not wishing to lose the liberty of being made love
to.” Mary Stuart played with the fan, Elizabeth
with the axe, - an uneven match. They were rivals,
besides, in literature. Mary Stuart composed French
verses ; Elizabeth translated Horace. The ugly Eliz-
abeth decreed herself beautiful ; liked quatrains and
acrostics ; had the keys of towns presented to her by
cupids; bit her lips, after the Italian fashion, rolled
her eyes after the Spanish; had in her wardrobe three
thousand dresses and costumes, of which several were
for the character of Minerva and Amphitrite; es-
teemed the Irish for the width of their shoulders ;
covered her farthingale with braids and spangles ;
loved roses ; cursed, swore, and stamped; struck her
maids of honor with her clenched fists; used to send
Dudley to the devil; beat Burleigh, the Chancellor,
who would cry, poor old fool ! spat on Mathew;
collared Hatton ; boxed the ears of Essex; showed
her legs to Bassompierre; and was a virgin,


THE DUCHESS JOSIANA.
277
What she did for Bassompierre, the Queen of
Sheba had done for Solomon ; 1 consequently she was
right, Holy Writ having created the precedent. That
which is biblical may well be Anglican. Biblical
precedent goes so far as to speak of a child who was
called Ebnehaquem or Melilechet, that is to say, the
Wise Man's son.
Why object to such manners ? Cynicism is at
least as good as hypocrisy.
Nowadays England, whose Loyola is named Wes-
ley, casts down her eyes a little at the remembrance
of that past age. She is vexed at the memory, yet
proud of it.
Amidst such manners as these, a taste for deform-
ity existed, especially amongst women, and singularly
amongst beautiful women. Where is the use of
being beautiful if one does not possess a baboon ?
Where is the charm of being a queen if one cannot
bandy words with a dwarf? Mary Stuart had “been
kind” to the bandy-legged Rizzio. Maria Theresa,
of Spain, had been “somewhat familiar” with a ne-
gro, — whence the black abbess. In the alcoves of
the great century, a hump was the fashion; witness
the Marshal of Luxembourg, and before Luxembourg,
Condé, — "such a pretty little man!”
Beauties themselves might be ill-made without
detriment; it was admitted. Anne Boleyn had one
breast bigger than the other, six fingers to one hand,
and a projecting tooth ; Lavallière was bandy-legged ;
1 Regina Saba coram rege crura denudavit. — Schicklardus
in Procemio Tarich. Jersici, F. 65.


278
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
which did not hinder Henry VIII. from going mad
for the one, and Louis XIV. for the other.
Morals were equally awry. There was not a
woman of high rank who was not teratological.
Agnes possessed the principles of Messalina. They
were women by day, ghouls by night. They sought
the scaffold to kiss the heads of the newly-beheaded
on their iron stakes. Marguerite de Valois, a prede-
cessor of the prudes, wore, fastened to her belt, the
hearts of her lovers in tin boxes, padlocked: Henry
IV. bad hidden himself under her farthingale.
In the eighteenth century the Duchess de Berry,
daughter of the Regent, was in herself an abstract,
of obscene and royal type, of all these creatures.
These fine ladies, moreover, knew Latin. From
the sixteenth century this had been accounted a fem-
inine accomplishment. Lady Jane Grey had carried
fashion to the point of knowing Hebrew. The Duch-
ess Josiana latinized. Then (another fine thing) she
was secretly a Catholic, — after the manner of her
uncle, Charles II., rather than her father, James II.
James II. had lost his crown for his catholicism,
and Josiana did not care to risk her peerage.
Thus it was that while a Catholic amongst her
intimate friends and the refined of both sexes, she
was outwardly a Protestant for the benefit of the
riffraff.
This is the pleasant view to take of religion. You
enjoy all the good things belonging to the official
Episcopalian church, and later on you die, like Gro-
tius, in the odor of Catholicity, having the glory of a
Mass being said for you by le Père Petau.


THE DUCHESS JOSIANA.
279
idol.
Although plump and healthy, Josiana was, we re
peat, a perfect prude.
At times, her sleepy and voluptuous way of drag-
ging out the end of her phrases was like the creep-
ing of a tiger's paws in the jungle.
The advantage of prudes is that they disorganize the
human race; they deprive it of the honor of their
adherence. Beyond all, keep the human species at a
distance. This is a point of the greatest importance.
When one has not got Olympus, one must take the
Hôtel de Rambouillet. Juno resolves herself into
Araminta. A pretension to divinity not admitted
creates affectation. In default of thunder-claps there
is impertinence. The temple shrivels into the bou-
doir, Not having the power to be a goddess, she is
an idol.
There is, besides, in prudery a certain pedantry
which is pleasing to women. The coquette and the
pedant are neighbors. Their kinship is visible in the
fop. The subtile is derived from the sensual. Glut-
tony affects delicacy; a grimace of disgust conceals
cupidity. And then woman feels her weak point
guarded by all that casuistry of gallantry which
takes the place of scruples in prudes. It is a line
of circumvallation with a ditch. Every prude puts
on an air of repugnance. It is a protection. She
will consent, but she disdains — for the present.
Josiana had an uneasy conscience. She felt such
a leaning towards immodesty that she was a prude.
The recoils of pride in the direction opposed to our
vices lead us to those of a contrary nature. It was
the excessive effort to be chaste which made her a


282
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
rium of the sexes, – the one robust in bodily strength,
the other all-powerful in feminine weakness. Strength
on one side, beauty on the other, makes one a master
and the other a servant; while without marriage one
is a slave, the other a queen.
To make love prosaically decent, how gross ! to
deprive it of all impropriety, how dull !
Lord David was ripening. Forty : 't is a marked
period. He did not perceive this, and in truth he
looked no more than thirty. He considered it more
amusing to desire Josiana than to possess her. He
possessed others : he had mistresses. On the other
hand, Josiana had dreams.
The Duchess Josiana had a peculiarity, less rare
than it is supposed, — one of her eyes was blue and
the other black. Her pupils were made for love and
hate, for happiness and misery ; night and day were
mingled in her look.
Her ambition was this, — to show herself capable
of impossibilities. One day she said to Swift, “ You
people fancy that you know what scorn is.” “You
people ” meant the human race.
She was a skin-deep Papist. Her Catholicism did
not exceed the amount necessary for fashion. She
would have been a Puseyite in the present day. She
wore great dresses of velvet, satin, or moire, some
composed of fifteen or sixteen yards of material, with
embroideries of gold and silver; and round her waist
many knots of pearls, alternating with other precious
stones. She was extravagant in gold-lace. Some-
times she wore an embroidered cloth jacket like a
bachelor. She rode on a man's saddle, notwithstand-


THE DUCHESS JOSIANA.
283
ing the invention of side-saddles, introduced into
England in the fourteenth century by Anne, wife of
Richard II. She washed her face, arms, shoulders,
and neck in sugar-candy diluted in white of egg, after
the fashion of Castile. There came over her face,
after any one had spoken wittily in her presence, a
reflective smile of singular grace. She was free from
malice, and rather good-natured than otherwise.


CHAPTER IV.
MAGISTER ELEGANTIARUM.
JOSIANA was bored. The fact is so natural as to
be scarcely worth mentioning.
Lord David held the position of judge in the gay
life of London. He was looked up to by the nobility
and gentry. Let us register a glory of Lord David's :
he was daring enough to wear his own hair. The
reaction against the wig was beginning. Just as in
1824 Eugène Déveria was the first to allow his beard
to grow, so in 1702 Price Devereux was the first
to risk wearing his own hair in public, disguised by
artful curling. For to risk one's hair was almost
to risk one's head. The indignation was universal.
Nevertheless Price Devereux was Viscount Here-
ford, and a peer of England. He was insulted, and
the deed was well worth the insult. In the hottest
part of the row Lord David suddenly appeared with-
out his wig and in his own hair. Such conduct
shakes the foundations of society. Lord David was
insulted even more than Viscount Hereford. He
held his ground. Price Devereux was the first, Lord
David Dirry-Moir the second. It is sometimes more
difficult to be second than first: it requires less
genius, but more courage. The first, intoxicated by


MAGISTER ELEGANTIARUM.
285
the novelty, may ignore the danger; the second sees
the abyss, and rushes into it. Lord David flung him-
self into the abyss of no longer wearing a wig. Later
on, these lords found imitators. Following these two
revolutionists, men found sufficient audacity to wear
their own hair, and powder was introduced as an
extenuating circumstance.
In order to establish, before we pass on, an impor-
tant period of history, we should remark that the first
blow in the war of wigs was really struck by a queen,
Christina of Sweden, who wore men's clothes, and
had appeared in 1680 in her hair of golden brown,
powdered, and brushed up from her head. She had,
besides, says Misson, a slight beard. The Pope, on
his part, by a bull of March, 1694, had somewhat let
down the wig, by taking it from the heads of bishops
and priests, and in ordering churchmen to let their
hair grow.
Lord David then did not wear a wig, and did wear
cowhide boots. Such great things made him a mark
for public admiration. There was not a club of
which he was not the leader, not a boxing-match in
which he was not desired as referee. The referee is
the arbitrator.
He had drawn up the rules of several clubs in
high life; he founded several resorts of fashionable
society, of which one, the Lady Guinea, was still in
existence in Pall Mall in 1772. The Lady Guinea
was a club in which all the youth of the peerage
congregated. They gamed there. The lowest stake
allowed was a rouleau of fifty guineas, and there was
never less than twenty thousand guineas on the table.


286
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
By the side of each player was a little stand on
which to place his cup of tea, and a gilt bowl in
which to put the rouleaux of guineas. The players,
like servants when cleaning knives, wore leather
sleeves to save their lace, breastplates of leather to
protect their ruffles, shades on their brows to shelter
their eyes from the great glare of the lamps, and,
to keep their curls in order, broad-brimmed hats
covered with flowers. They were masked to conceal
their excitement, especially when playing the game of
“quinze.” All, moreover, had their coats turned the
wrong way for luck. Lord David was a member of
the Beefsteak Club, the Surly Club, and of the Split-
farthing Club, of the Cross Club, the Scratchpenny
Club, of the Sealed Knot, a Royalist club, and of the
Martinus Scribblerus, founded by Swift to take the
place of the Rota, founded by Milton.
Though handsome, he belonged to the Ugly Club.
This club was dedicated to deformity. The mem-
bers agreed to fight, not about a beautiful woman,
but about an ugly man. The hall of the club was
adorned by hideous portraits, — Thersites, Triboulet,
Duns, Hudibras, Scarron ; over the chimney was
Æsop, between two men each blind of an eye,
Coclès and Camoëns (Coclès being blind of the left,
Camoëns of the right eye), so arranged that the two
profiles without eyes were turned to each other. The
day that the beautiful Mrs. Visart caught the small
pox the Ugly Club toasted her. This club was
still in existence in the beginning of the nineteenth
century, and Mirabeau was elected an honorary
member.


MAGISTER ELEGANTIARUM.
287
Since the restoration of Charles II. revolutionary
clubs had been abolished. The tavern in the little
street by Moorfields, where the Calf's-Head Club was
held, had been pulled down; it was so called because
on the 30th of January, the day on which the blood
of Charles I. flowed on the scaffold, the members had
drunk red wine out of the skull of a calf to the health
of Cromwell. To the republican clubs had succeeded
monarchical clubs. In them people amused them-
selves with decency.
There was the She-Romps Club. Some woman
of the middle classes passing by, one as young
and well-favored as could be found, was caught in
the street, dragged by force into the club, and made
to walk upon her hands, her face hidden by her
skirts falling about her. If she took this with bad
grace, they lashed with their riding-whips that part
that was not concealed. It was her own fault.
The equerries of this noble order of horsebreakers
called themselves “ The Rompers.”
There was also the Sheet-Lightning Club, meta-
phorically speaking, the “Merry Dancers.” Here
negroes and whites danced the picantes and timti-
rimbas of Peru, — notably the Mozambala. This
latter has as its crowning attraction a dancing-girl
sitting upon a bag of meal, on which, when she has
risen, is left the imprint of the callipyge. This spec-
tacle calls to mind the verse of Lucretius :-
“Tunc Venus in sylvis jungebat corpora amantum."
There was the Hell-Fire Club, where they played
at being impious. It was a joust of sacrilege.


288
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
Hell was at auction there to the highest bidder in
blasphemy.
There was the Butting Club, so called from its
members butting folks with their heads. They found
some street-porter with a wide chest and a stupid
countenance. They offered him, and compelled him
if necessary to accept, a pot of porter, in return for
which he was to allow them to butt him with their
heads four times in the chest; and on this they
betted. One day a man — a great brute of a Welsh-
man, named Gogangerdd — expired at the third butt.
This looked serious. An inquest was held, and the
jury returned the following verdict: “Died of an
inflation of the heart, caused by excessive drinking."
Gogangerdd had certainly drunk the contents of the
pot of porter.
There was the Fun Club. Fun is, like cant, like
humor, a word which is untranslatable. Fun is to
farce what pepper is to salt. To get into a house
and break a valuable mirror, slash the family por-
traits, poison the dog, put the cat in the aviary, is
called “cutting a bit of fun.” To give bad news
which is untrue, whereby people put on mourning
by mistake, is fun. It was fun to cut a square hole
in the Holbein at Hampton Court. Fun would
have been proud to break the arm of the Venus
of Milo. Under James II., a young millionnaire
lord who had during the night set fire to a thatched
cottage — a feat which made all London burst with
laughter — was proclaimed the King of Fun. The
poor devils in the cottage were saved in their night-
clothes. The members of the Fun Club — all of


MAGISTER ELEGANTIARUM.
289
the highest aristocracy — used to run about London
during the hours when the citizens were asleep,
pulling the hinges from the shutters, cutting off
the pipes of pumps, filling up cisterns, digging up
cultivated plots of ground, putting out lamps, saw-
ing through the beams which supported houses,
breaking the window-panes, especially in the poor
quarters of the town. It was the rich who acted
thus towards the poor. For this reason no com-
plaint was possible. That was the best of the joke.
These manners have not altogether disappeared. In
many places in England and in English possessions
- at Guernsey, for instance — your house is now
and then somewhat damaged during the night, or
a fence is broken, or the knocker twisted off your
door. If it were poor people who did these things,
they would be sent to jail; but they are done by
pleasant young gentlemen.
The most fashionable of the clubs was presided
over by an emperor, who wore a crescent on his fore-
head, and was called the Grand Mohawk. The
Mohawk surpassed the Fun. Do evil for evil's sake,
was the programme. The Mohawk Club had one
great object, — to injure. To fulfil this duty, all
means were held good. In becoming a Mohawk,
the members took an oath to be hurtful. To injure
at any price, no matter when, no matter whom, no
matter where, was a matter of duty. Every mem-
ber of the Mohawk Club was bound to possess
an accomplishment. One was a “ dancing-master;”
that is to say, he made the rustics frisk about by
pricking the calves of their legs with the point of
VOL. 1. — 19


290
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
his sword. Others knew how to make a man sweat;
that is to say, a circle of gentlemen with drawn
rapiers would surround a poor wretch, so that it
was impossible for him not to turn his back upon
some one. The gentleman behind him chastised
him for this by a prick of his sword, which made
him spring round ; another prick in the back warned
the fellow that one of noble blood was behind him ;
and so on, each one wounding him in his turn.
When the man, closed round by the circle of swords
and covered with blood, had turned and danced
about enough, they ordered their servants to beat
him with sticks, to change the course of his ideas.
Others “ hit the lion ;” that is to say, they gayly
stopped a passenger, broke his nose with a blow
of the fist, and then shoved both thumbs into his
eyes. If his eyes were gouged out, he was paid for
them.
Such were, near the beginning of the eighteenth
century, the pastimes of the rich idlers of London.
The idlers of Paris had theirs. M. de Charolais
was firing his gun at a citizen standing on his
own threshold. In all times youth has had its
amusements.
Lord David Dirry-Moir brought into all these
institutions his magnificent and liberal spirit. Just
like any one else, he would gayly set fire to a cot of
wood-work and thatch, and just scorch those within ;
but he would rebuild their houses in stone. He
insulted two ladies. One was unmarried; he gave
her a portion. The other was married; he had her
husband appointed chaplain.


MAGISTER ELEGANTIARUM.
291
Cock-fighting owed him some praiseworthy im-
provements. It was marvellous to see Lord David
dress a cock for the pit. Cocks lay hold of each other
by the feathers, as men by the hair; Lord David there-
fore made his cock as bald as possible. With a pair
of scissors he cut off all the feathers from the tail,
and from the head to the shoulders, and all those on
the neck. So much less for the enemy's beak, he
used to say. Then he extended the cock's wings,
and cut each feather, one after another, to a point;
and thus the wings were furnished with darts. So
much for the enemy's eyes, he would say. Then he
scraped its claws with a penknife, sharpened its
nails, fitted it with spurs of sharp steel, spit on its
head, spit on its neck, anointed it with spittle as
they used to rub oil over athletes, then set it dowal
in the pit a redoubtable champion, exclaiming,
“That's how to make a cock an eagle, and a bird
of the poultry-yard a bird of the mountain !”.
Lord David attended prize-fights, and was their
living law. On occasions of great performances it
was he who had the stakes driven in and ropes
stretched, and who fixed the number of feet for the
ring. When he was a second, he followed his man
step by step, a bottle in one hand, a sponge in the
other, crying out to him to hit hard, suggesting strata-
gems, advising him as he fought, wiping away the
blood, raising him when overthrown, placing him on
his knee, putting the mouth of the bottle between
his teeth, and from his own mouth, filled with
water, blowing a fine rain into his eyes and ears, —
a thing which reanimates even a dying man. If he


292
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
was referee, he saw that there was no foul play,
prevented any one, whosoever he might be, from
assisting the combatants, excepting the seconds;
declared the man beaten who did not fairly face
his opponent ; watched that the time between
the rounds did not exceed half a minute; pre-
vented butting, and declared whoever resorted to
it beaten ; and forbade a man's being hit when
down. All this science, however, did not render
him a pedant, nor destroy his ease of manner in
society.
When he was referee, rough, pimple-faced, unshorn
friends of either combatant never dared to come to
the aid of their failing man, nor in order to upset
the chances of the betting, jumped over the barrier,
entered the ring, broke the ropes, pulled down the
stakes, and violently interposed in the battle. Lord
David was one of the few referees whom they dared
not thrash.
No one could train like him. The pugilist whose
trainer he consented to become was sure to win.
Lord David would choose a Hercules — massive as a
rock, tall as a tower – and make him his child. The
problem was to turn that human rock from a defen-
sive to an offensive state. In this he excelled. Hav-
ing once adopted the Cyclops, he never left him.
He became his nurse; he measured out his wine,
weighed his meat, and counted his hours of sleep.
It was he who invented the athlete's admirable rules,
afterwards reproduced by Morely. In the mornings,
a raw egg and a glass of sherry; at twelve, some slices
of a leg of mutton, almost raw, with tea; at four,


MAGISTER ELEGANTIARUM.
293
toast and tea; in the evening, pale ale and toast;
after which he undressed his man, rubbed him, and
put him to bed. In the street he never allowed him
to leave his sight, keeping him out of every danger,
— runaway horses, the wheels of carriages, drunken
soldiers, pretty girls. He watched over his virtue.
This maternal solicitude continually brought some
new perfection into his pupil's education. He taught
him the blow with the fist which breaks the teeth,
and the twist of the thumb which gouges out the
eye. What could be more touching ?
Thus he was preparing himself for public life, to
which he was to be called later on. It is no easy
matter to become an accomplished gentleman.
Lord David Dirry-Moir was passionately fond of
open-air exhibitions, of shows, of circuses with wild
beasts, of the caravans of mountebanks, of clowns,
tumblers, merrymen, open-air farces, and the wonders
of a fair. The true noble is he who smacks of the
people. Therefore it was that Lord David fre-
quented the taverns and low haunts of London and
the Cinque Ports. In order to be able at need, and
without compromising his rank in the white squad-
ron, to be cheek-by-jowl with a topman or a calker,
he used to wear a sailor's jacket when he went into
the slums. For such disguise, his not wearing a wig
was convenient; for even under Louis XIV. the peo-
ple kept to their hair like the lion to his mane. This
gave him great freedom of action. The low people
whom Lord David used to meet in the stews, and
with whom he mixed, held him in high esteem,
without ever dreaming that he was a lord. They


294
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
called him Tom-Jim-Jack. Under this name he was
famous and very popular amongst the dregs of the
people. He played the blackguard in a masterly
style: when necessary, he used his fists. This phase
of bis fashionable life was highly appreciated by
Lady Josiana.


CHAPTER V.
QUEEN ANNE.
ABOVE this couple there was Anne, Queen of Eng-
land. An ordinary woman was Queen Anne. She
was gay, kindly, august, to a certain extent. No
quality of hers attained to virtue, none to vice. Her
stoutness was bloated, her humor ponderous, her
good-nature dull. She was stubborn and weak. As
a wife, she was faithless and faithful, having favorites
to whom she gave up her heart, and a husband for
whom she kept her bed. As a Christian, she was a
heretic and a bigot. She had one beauty, - the well-
developed neck of a Niobe. The rest of her person
was indifferently formed. She was a clumsy coquette,
and a chaste one. Her skin was white and fine; she
displayed a great deal of it. It was she who intro-
duced the fashion of necklaces of large pearls clasped
round the throat. She had a narrow forehead, sen-
sual lips, fleshy cheeks, large eyes, short sight. Her
short sight extended to her mind. Beyond a burst
of merriment now and then, almost as ponderous as
her anger, she lived in a sort of taciturn grumble and
a grumbling silence. Words escaped from her which
had to be guessed at. She was a mixture of a good
woman and a mischievous devil. She liked surprises,


296
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
which is extremely woman-like. Anne was a pattern
- just sketched roughly — of the universal Eve. To
that sketch had fallen that chance, the throne. She
drank. Her husband was a Dane, thorough-bred.
A Tory, she governed by the Whigs; like a woman,
like a mad woman. She had fits of rage. She was
violent, a brawler. Nobody more awkward than
Anne in directing affairs of State. She allowed
events to fall about as they might chance. Her
whole policy was cracked. She excelled in bringing
about great catastrophes from little causes. When a
whim of authority took hold of her, she called it giv-
ing a stir with the poker. She would say, with an
air of profound thought, “No peer may keep his hat
on before the king except De Courcy, Baron King-
sale, an Irish peer.” Or, “ It would be an injustice
were my husband not to be Lord High Admiral, since
my father was.” And she made George of Denmark
High Admiral of England and of all her majesty's
plantations. She was perpetually perspiring bad hu-
mor; she did not express her thought, she exuded it.
There was something of the sphinx in this goose.
She rather liked fun, teazing, and practical jokes.
Could she have made Apollo a hunchback, it would
have delighted her; but she would have left him a
god. Good-natured, her ideal was to allow none to
despair, and to annoy all. She had often a rough
word in her mouth; a little more, and she would
have sworn like Elizabeth. From time to time she
would take from a man's pocket, which she wore in
her skirt, a little round box, of chased silver, on
which was her portrait, in profile, between the two


QUEEN ANNE.
297
letters Q. A.; she would open this box, and take
from it, on her finger, a little pomade, with which
she reddened her lips; and, having colored her
mouth, would laugh. She was greedily fond of the
flat Zealand gingerbread cakes. She was proud of
being fat.
More of a puritan than anything else, she would,
nevertheless, have liked to devote herself to stage
plays. She had an absurd academy of music, copied
after that of France. In 1700 a Frenchman named
Forteroche wanted to build a royal circus at Paris, at
a cost of four hundred thousand francs, which scheme
was opposed by D'Argenson. This Forteroche passed
into England, and proposed to Queen Anne, who was
immediately charmed by the idea, to build in London
a theatre with machinery, with a fourth under-stage
finer than that of the King of France. Like Louis
XIV., she liked to be driven at a gallop. Her teams
and relays would sometimes do the distance between
London and Windsor in less than an hour and a
quarter.
In Anne's time, no meeting was allowed without
the permission of two justices of the peace. The
assembly of twelve persons, were it only to eat
oysters and drink porter, was a felony. Under her
reign, otherwise relatively mild, pressing for the fleet
was carried on with extreme violence: a gloomy evi-
dence that the Englishman is a subject rather than
a citizen. For centuries, England suffered under that


298
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
process of tyranny which gave the lie to all the old
charters of freedom, and out of which France espe-
cially gathered a cause of triumph and indignation,
What in some degree diminished the triumph is,
that while sailors were pressed in England, soldiers
were pressed in France. In every great town of
France, any able-bodied man, going through the
streets on his business, was liable to be shoved by
the crimps into a house called the oven. There he
was shut up with others in the same plight, those fit
for service were picked out, and the recruiters sold
them to the officers. In 1695 there were thirty of
these ovens in Paris.
The laws against Ireland, emanating from Queen
Anne, were atrocious. Anne was born in 1664, two
years before the great fire of London, on which the
astrologers (there were some left, and Louis XIV.
was born with the assistance of an astrologer, and
swaddled in a horoscope) predicted that, being the
elder sister of fire, she would be queen. And so
she was, thanks to astrology and the revolution of
1688. She had the humiliation of having only
Gilbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, for godfather.
To be godchild of the Pope was no longer possible
in England. A mere primate is but a poor sort of
godfather. Anne had to put up with one, however.
It was her own fault. Why was she a Protestant ?
Denmark had paid for her virginity (virginitas
empta, as the old charters expressed it) by a dowry
of £6,250 a year, secured on the bailiwick of Wardin-
burg and the island of Fehmarn. Anne followed,
without conviction, and by routine, the traditions


QUEEN ANNE.
299
of William. The English, under that royalty born of
a revolution, possessed as much liberty as they could
lay hands on between the Tower of London, into
which they put orators, and the pillory, into which
they put writers. Anne spoke a little Danish in her
private chats with her husband, and a little French
in her private chats with Bolingbroke, — wretched
gibberish ; but the height of English fashion, espe-
cially at court, was to talk French. There was never
a bon mot but in French. Anne paid a deal of atten-
tion to her coins, especially to copper coins, which
are the low and popular ones; she wanted to cut a
great figure on them. Six farthings were struck dur-
ing her reign. On the back of the first three she had
merely a throne struck; on the back of the fourth
she ordered a triumphal chariot, and on the back of
the sixth a goddess holding a sword in one hand and
an olive-branch in the other, with the scroll, “Bello
et pace.” Her father, James II., was candid and
cruel; she was brutal.
At the same time she was mild at bottom. A
contradiction which only appears such. A fit of
anger metamorphosed her. Heat sugar and it will
boil.
Anne was popular. England likes feminine rulers.
Why ? France excludes them. There is a reason at
once. Perhaps there is no other. With English
historians Elizabeth embodies grandeur, Anne, good-
nature. As they will. Be it so. But there is nothing
delicate in the reigns of these women. The lines are
heavy. It is gross grandeur and gross good-nature.
As to their immaculate virtue, England is tenacious


QUEEN ANNE.
303
However, there is an outline of incipient irony, which
fifty years later was to turn to philosophy, in the
literature of the age, and the Protestant Tartuffe is
unmasked by Swift just in the same way as the Cath-
olic Tartuffe is denounced by Molière. Although
the England of the period quarrels and fights France,
she imitates her and draws enlightenment from her;
and the light on the facade of England is French
light. It is a pity that Anne's reign lasted but twelve
years, or the English would not hesitate to call it the
century of Anne, as we say the century of Louis XIV.
Anne appeared in 1702, as Louis XIV. declined. It
is one of the curiosities of history, that the rise of
that pale planet coincides with the setting of the
planet of purple ; and that at the moment in which
France had the king Sun, England should have had
the queen Moon.
A detail to be noted : Louis XIV., although they
made war with him, was greatly admired in England.
“He is the kind of king they want in France,” said
the English. The love of the English for their own
liberty is mingled with a certain acceptance of servi-
tude for others. That favorable regard of the chains
which bind their neighbors sometimes attains to en-
thusiasm for the despot next door.
To sum up, Anne rendered her people “hureux,"
as the French translator of Beeverell's book repeats
three times, with graceful reiteration, at the sixth and
ninth page of his dedication, and the third of his
preface.


QUEEN ANNE.
· 305
Royal Majesty. Why this Josiana ? What had put
it into her head to be born? What good was
a Josiana ? Certain relationships are detrimental.
Nevertheless, Anne smiled on Josiana ; perhaps she
might even have liked her had she not been her
sister.
VOL. I. -


CHAPTER VI.
BARKILPHEDRO.
It is useful to know what people do, and a certain
surveillance is wise. Josiana had Lord David watched
by a little creature of hers in whom she reposed con-
fidence, and whose name was Barkilphedro.
Lord David had Josiana discreetly observed by a
creature of his of whom he was sure, and whose name
was Barkilphedro.
Queen Anne, on her part, kept herself secretly in-
formed of the actions and conduct of the Duchess
Josiana, her bastard sister, and of Lord David, her
future brother-in-law by the left hand, by a creature
of hers on whom she counted fully, and whose name
was Barkilphedro.
This Barkilphedro had his fingers on that key-
board, — Josiana, Lord David, a queen: a man
between two women. What modulations possible !
what amalgamation of souls !
Barkilphedro had not always held the magnificent
position of whispering into three ears.
He was an old servant of the Duke of York. Ile
had tried to be a churchman, but had failed. The
Duke of York, an English and a Roman prince, com-
pounded of royal Popery and legal Anglicanism, had


BARKILPHEDRO.
307
his Catholic house and his Protestant house, and
might have pushed Barkilphedro into one or the other
hierarchy. But he did not judge him to be Catholic
enough to make him almoner, or Protestant enough
to make him chaplain; so that between two religions
Barkilphedro found himself with his soul on the
ground.
Not a bad posture, either, for certain reptile
souls.
Certain ways are impracticable except by crawling
flat on the belly.
An obscure but fattening servitude had long made
up Barkilphedro's whole existence. Service is some-
thing; but he wanted power besides. He was per-
haps about to reach it when James II. fell. He had
to begin all over again. Nothing to do under Wil-
liam III., a sullen prince, and exercising in his mode
of reigning a prudery which he believed to be probity.
Barkilphedro, when his protector, James II., was
dethroned, did not lapse all at once into rags. There
is something which survives deposed princes, and
which feeds and sustains their parasites. The re-
mains of the exhaustible sap causes leaves to live
on for two or three days on the branches of the up-
rooted tree; then all at once the leaf yellows and
dries up: and thus it is with the courtier.
Thanks to that embalming which is called legiti
macy, the prince himself, although fallen and cast
away, lasts and keeps preserved; it is not so with the
courtier, much more dead than the king. The king,
beyond there, is a mummy; the courtier, here, is a
phantom. To be the shadow of a shadow is lean-


308
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
ness indeed. Hence, Barkilphedro became famished.
Then he took up the character of a man of letters.
But he was thrust back even from the kitchens.
Sometimes he knew not where to sleep. “Who will
give me shelter ?” he would ask. He struggled on.
All that is interesting in patience in distress he
possessed. He had, besides, the talent of the ter-
mite, -- knowing how to bore a hole from the bottom
to the top. By dint of making use of the name of
James II., of old memories, of fables of fidelity, of
touching stories, he pierced as far as the Duchess
Josiana's heart.
Josiana took a liking to this man because of his
poverty and wit, both of which moved her. She
presented him to Lord Dirry-Moir, gave him a shelter
in the servants' hall among her domestics, retained
him in her household, was kind to him, and some-
times even spoke to him. Barkilphedro felt neither
hunger nor cold again. Josiana addressed him in
the second person; it was the fashion for great ladies
to do so to men of letters, who allowed it. The
Marquise de Mailly received Roy — whom she had
never seen before — in bed, and said to him, “C'est
toi qui as fait l'Année galante! Bonjour.” Later on,
the men of letters returned the custom. The day
came when Fabre d'Églantine said to the Duchesse
de Rohan, “N'es-tu pas la Chabot ?”
For Barkilphedro to be “thee'd” and “ thou'd”
was a success; he was overjoyed by it. He had
aspired to this contemptuous familiarity. “Lady
Josiana thees-and-thous me," he would say to him-
self; and he would rub his hands. He profited by


BARKILPHEDRO.
309
this theeing-and-thouing to make further way. He
became a sort of constant attendant in Josiana's
private rooms, in no way troublesome, unperceived ;
the duchess would almost have changed her shift
before him. All this, however, was precarious. Bar-
kilphedro was aiming at a position. A duchess was
half-way; an underground passage which did not lead
to the queen was one it availed little to bore.
One day Barkilphedro said to Josiana, —
“Would your Grace like to make my fortune ?”
“What dost thou want ?”
“ An appointment."
“An appointment, — for thee!”
“Yes, madam.”
“What an idea! thou to ask for an appointment,
- thou, who art good for nothing."
“ That 's just the reason.”
Josiana burst out laughing.
“Of all the offices for which thou art unfit, which
dost thou desire ?”
“That of cork-drawer of the bottles of the ocean.”
Josiana's laughter redoubled.
“What meanest thou? Thou art fooling.”
“No, madam.”
“To amuse myself, I shall answer you seriously,"
said the duchess. “What dost thou wish to be ?
Repeat it.”
“Uncorker of the bottles of the ocean.”
“Everything is possible at court. Is there an
appointment of that kind ?”
“Yes, madam.”
“Tell me more news. Go on.”
Rep uncorking is
kind


310
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
“There is such an appointment.”
“Swear it on the soul thou hast not."
“I swear it.”
“I do not believe thee."
“ Thanks, madam.”
“ Then thou wishest – Begin again.”
“To uncork the bottles of the ocean.”
“ 'T is not a very fatiguing situation. It is like
grooming a bronze horse.”
“Very nearly.”
“Nothing to do. Indeed, thou wouldst become
thine office! For so much thou art excellent.”
“You see I am good for something."
“Come! thou art jesting. Is there such an
appointment ? ”
Barkilphedro assumed an attitude of deferential
gravity. “Madam, you had an august father, James
II., the king ; and you have an illustrious brother-in-
law, George of Denmark, Duke of Cumberland ; your
father was and your brother is Lord High Admiral of
England — ”
“Is this thy news? I know all that as well as
thou.”
“But hear what your Grace does not know. In
the sea there are three kinds of things : those at the
bottom, lagan; those which float, flotsam ; those
which the sea throws up on the shore, jetsam."
“And then ? "
“These three things — lagan, flotsam, and jetsam
- belong to the Lord High Admiral.”
“And then?”
“ Your Grace understands."


BARKILPHEDRO.
311
“No."
“All that is in the sea, all that sinks, all that
floats, all that is cast ashore, — all belongs to the
Admiral of England.”
“Everything! Well ? And then?”
“Except the sturgeon, which belongs to the king.”
“I should have thought,” said Josiana, “all that
would have belonged to Neptune.”
“Neptune is a fool. He has given up everything.
He has allowed the English to take everything."
“Finish what thou wert saying.”
“Prizes of the sea' is the name given to such
treasure-trove."
“Be it so.”
“It is boundless : there is always something float-
ing, something being cast up. It is the contribution
of the sea, — the tax which the ocean pays to
England.”
“With all my heart. But conclude.”
“Your Grace understands that in this way the
ocean creates a department.”
“ Where?”
“At the Admiralty.”
“What department ?”
“ The Sea-Prize Department."
“ Well?"
“The department is subdivided into three offices,
– Lagan, Flotsam, and Jetsam, — and in each there
is an officer.”
" And then ?”
“A ship at sea writes to give notice on any sub-
ject to those on land, – that it is sailing in such a


312
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
latitude, that it has met a sea-monster, that it is in
sight of shore, that it is in distress, that it is about to
founder, that it is lost, etc. The captain takes a
bottle, puts into it a bit of paper on which he has
written the information, corks up the flask, and casts
it into the sea. If the bottle goes to the bottom, it
is in the department of the lagan officer; if it floats,
it is in the department of the flotsam officer; if it be
thrown upon shore, it concerns the jetsam officer.”
“ And wouldst thou like to be the jetsam officer?”
“Precisely.”
“And that is what thou callest uncorking the
bottles of the ocean?”
“Since there is such an appointment.”
“Why dost thou wish for the last-named place in
preference to both the others?”
“Because it is vacant just now."
“In what does the appointment consist ?”
“Madam, in 1598 a tarred bottle, picked up by a
man conger-fishing on the strand of Epidium Pro-
montorium, was brought to Queen Elizabeth, and a
parchment drawn out of it gave information to Eng-
land that Holland had taken, without saying anything
about it, an unknown country, Nova Zembla; that
the capture had taken place in June, 1596 ; that in
that country people were eaten by bears; and that
the manner of passing the winter was described on a
paper enclosed in a musket-case hanging in the chim-
ney of the wooden house built in the island and left
by the Dutchmen, who were all dead; and that the
chimney was built of a barrel with the end knocked
out sunk into the roof.”


BARKILPHEDRO.
313
“ I understand little of thy rigmarole.”
“Be it so. Elizabeth understood. A country the
more for Holland was a country the less for England.
The bottle which had given the information was held
to be of importance; and thenceforward an order
was issued that anybody who should find a sealed
bottle on the sea-shore should take it to the Lord
High Admiral of England, under pain of the gallows.
The Admiral intrusts the opening of such bottles to
an officer, who presents the contents to the queen if
there be reason for so doing.”
“Are many such bottles brought to the Admiralty?”
“Few; but of that no matter. The appointment
exists. There is for the office a room and lodgings
at the Admiralty.”
“ And for doing nothing after this fashion how
much is one paid ?”
“ One hundred guineas a year.”
“And thou wouldst trouble me for that much ?”
“ It is enough to live upon.”
“Like a beggar."
“As becomes one of my sort.”,
“One hundred guineas! It's a bagatelle.”
“ What keeps you for a minute keeps us for a
year: that's the advantage of the poor.”
“Thou shalt have the place.”
A week afterwards, thanks to Josiana's exertions,
thanks to the influence of Lord David Dirry-Moir,
Barkilphedro — safe thenceforward, drawn out of his
precarious existence, lodged, and boarded, with a
salary of a hundred guineas — was installed at the
Admiralty.


CHAPTER VII.
BARKILPHEDRO GNAWS HIS WAY.
THERE is one thing the most pressing of all,
to be ungrateful.
Barkilphedro was not wanting therein.
Having received so many benefits from Josiana, he
had naturally but one thought, — to revenge himseli
on her. When we add that Josiana was beautiful,
great, young, rich, powerful, illustrious, while Barkil-
phedro was ugly, little, old, poor, dependent, obscure,
he must necessarily revenge himself for all this as
well.
When a man is made out of night, how is he to
forgive so many beams of light ?
Barkilphedro was an Irishman who had denied
Ireland, - a bad species.
Barkilphedro had but one thing in his favor, —
he had a very big belly. A big belly passes for a
sign of kind-heartedness. But his belly was but an
addition to Barkilphedro's hypocrisy; for the man
was full of malice.
What was Barkilphedro's age ? None, — the age
necessary for his project of the moment. He was
old in his wrinkles and gray hairs, young in the
activity of his mind. He was active and ponderous,


BARKILPHED
315
BARKILPHEDRO GNAWS INAWS
HIS WAY.
- a sort of hippopotamus-monkey. A Royalist,
certainly; a Republican, who knows? a Catholic,
perhaps ; a Protestant, without doubt; for Stuart,
probably; for Brunswick, evidently. To be “for”
is a power only on the condition of being at the
same time “ against.” Barkilphedro practised this
wisdom.
The appointment of drawer of the bottles of the
ocean was not as absurd as Barkilphedro had ap-
peared to make out. The complaints, which would
in these times be termed declamations, of Garcia Fer-
nandez in his “ Chart-Book of the Sea," against the
robbery of jetsan, called right of wreck, and against
the pillage of wreck by the inhabitants of the coast,
had created a sensation in England, and had obtained
for the shipwrecked this reform, — that their goods,
chattels, and property, instead of being stolen by the
country-people, were confiscated by the Lord High
Admiral. All the débris of the sea cast upon the
English shore--merchandise, broken hulls of ships,
bales, chests, etc. — belonged to the Lord High Ad-
miral. But — and here was revealed the importance
of the place asked for by Barkilphedro — the float-
ing receptacles containing messages and declarations
awakened particularly the attention of the Admiralty.
Shipwrecks are one of England's gravest cares : navi-
gation being her life, shipwreck is her anxiety. Eng-
land is kept in perpetual care by the sea. The little
glass bottle thrown to the waves by the doomed ship
contains final intelligence, precious from every point
of view — intelligence concerning the ship, intelli-
gence concerning the crew, intelligence concerning


316
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
the place, the time, the manner of loss, intelligence
concerning the winds which have broken up the ves-
sel, intelligence concerning the currents which bore
the floating flask ashore. The situation filled by
Barkilphedro has been abolished more than a cen-
tury, but it had its real utility. The last holder was
William Hussey, of Doddington, in Lincolnshire.
The man who held it was a sort of guardian of the
things of the sea. All the closed and sealed-up ves-
sels, bottles, flasks, jars, thrown upon the English
coast by the tide, were brought to him. He alone
had the right to open them; he was first in the secrets
of their contents; he put them in order, and ticketed
them with his signature. The expression, “loger
un papier au greffe,” still used in the Channel Islands,
is thence derived. However, one precaution was
certainly taken: Not one of these bottles could be
unsealed except in the presence of two jurors of the
Admiralty sworn to secrecy, who signed, conjointly
with the holder of the jetsam office, the official re-
port of the opening. But these jurors being held to-
secrecy, there resulted for Barkilphedro a certain dis-
cretionary latitude ; it depended upon him, to a certain
extent, to suppress a fact or bring it to light.
These fragile floating messages were far from being
what Barkilphedro had told Josiana, — rare and in-
significant. Sometimes they reached land with little
delay; at others after many years : that depended
on the winds and the currents. The fashion of cast-
ing bottles on the surface of the sea has somewhat
passed away, like that of vowing offerings; but in
those religious times those who were about to die were


BARKILPHEDRO GNAWS HIS WAY. 317
glad thus to send their last thought to God and to
men, and at times these messages from the sea were
plentiful at the Admiralty. A parchment preserved
in the hall at Audlyene (ancient spelling), with notes
by the Earl of Suffolk, Grand Treasurer of England
under James I., bears witness that in the one year
1615 fifty-two flasks, bladders, and tarred vessels,
containing mention of sinking ships, were brought
and registered in the records of the Lord High
Admiral.
A court appointment, like a drop of oil, ever goes
on increasing itself; thus it is that the porter has
become chancellor, and the groom, constable. The
special officer charged with the appointment desired
and obtained by Barkilphedro was invariably a con-
fidential man. Elizabeth had wished that it should
be so. At court to speak, of confidence is to speak
of intrigue, and to speak of intrigue is to speak of
advancement. This functionary had come to be a
personage of some consideration. He was a clerk,
and ranked directly after the two grooms of the
almonry. He had the right of entrance into the
palace, but, we must add, what was called the humble
entrance (humilis introitus), and even into the bed-
chamber. For it was the custom that he should
inform the monarch, on occasions of sufficient im-
portance, of the objects found, which were often very
curious, -- the wills of men in despair, farewells cast
to fatherland, revelations of falsified logs, bills of
lading, and crimes committed at sea, legacies to the
crown, etc.,; that he should maintain his records in
communication with the court, and should account,


318
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
from time to time, to the king or queen concerning
the opening of these ill-omened bottles. It was the
black cabinet of the ocean.
Elizabeth, who was always glad of an opportunity
of speaking Latin, used to ask Tonfield, of Coley in
Berkshire, jetsam officer of her day, when he brought
her one of these papers cast up by the sea, “ Quid
mihi scribit Neptunus ? ” (“What does Neptune
write me?”)
The way had been eaten, the insect had succeeded.
Barkilphedro approached the queen.
This was all he wanted.
In order to make his fortune ?
No.
To unmake that of others.
A greater happiness.
To injure is to enjoy.
To have within one the desire of injuring, vague
but implacable, and never to lose sight of it, is not
given to every one.
Barkilphedro possessed that fixity of intention.
As the bulldog holds on with his jaws, so did his
thought.
To feel himself inexorable gave him a depth of
gloomy satisfaction. As long as he had a prey un-
der his teeth, or in his soul a certainty of evil-doing,
he wanted nothing.
He was happy shivering in the cold which his
neighbor was suffering. To be malignant is an
opulence. Such a man is believed to be poor, and
in truth is so; but he has all his riches in malice,
and prefers having them so. Everything is in what


BARKILPHEDRO GNAWS HIS WAY
319
contents one. To do a bad turn, which is the same
as a good turn, is better than money, — bad for him
who endures, good for him who does it. Catesby, the
colleague of Guy Fawkes in the Popish powder-plot,
said: “To see Parliament blown upside down, - I
would n't miss it for a million sterling."
What was Barkilphedro ? That meanest and most
terrible of things, — an envious man.
Envy is a thing ever easily placed at court.
Courts abound in impertinent people, in people
without occupation, in rich loungers hungering for
gossip, in those who seek for needles in trusses of
hay, in triflers, in banterers bantered, in witty ninnies,
who cannot do without converse with an envious
man.
What a refreshing thing is the evil spoken to you
of others!
Envy is good stuff to make a spy. There is a pro
found analogy between that natural passion, envy,
and that social function, espionage. The spy hunts
on others' account, like the dog; the envious man
hunts on his own, like the cat.
A fierce Myself, — such is the envious man.
As for other qualities, Barkilphedro was discreet,
secret, servile. He kept everything to himself, and
racked himself with his hate. Enormous baseness
implies enormous vanity. He was liked by those
whom he amused, and hated by all others; but he
felt that he was disdained by those who hated him,
and despised by those who liked him. He restrained
himself. All his gall simmered noiselessly in his
hostile resignation. He was indignant, as if rogues


BARKILPHEDRO GNAWS HIS WAY.
321
profile, his upper lip was raised at an acute angle,
showing two teeth. Those teeth seemed to look at
you. The teeth can look, just as the eye can bite.
Patience, temperance, continence, reserve, self-con-
trol, affability, deference, gentleness, politeness, so-
briety, chastity, completed and finished Barkilphedro.
For him to possess those virtues was to calumniate
them.
In a short time Barkilphedro had gained foot-
hold at court.
VOL. I. — 21


CHAPTER VIII.
INFERI.
THERE are two ways of taking a footing at court:
in the clouds, and you are august; in the mud, and
you are powerful.
In the first case, you belong to Olympus. In the
second case, you belong to the private closet.
He who belongs to Olympus has but the thunder-
bolt, he who is of the private closet has the police.
The private closet contains all the instruments of
government, and sometimes — for it is a traitor — its
chastisement. Heliogabalus goes there to die. Then
it is called the latrines.
Generally it is less tragic. It is there that Albéroni
admires Vendôme. Royal personages willingly make
it their place of audience. It takes the place of the
throne. Louis XIV. receives the Duchess of Bur-
gundy there; Philip V. is shoulder to shoulder there
with the queen. The priest penetrates into it. The
private closet is sometimes a branch of the confes-
sional. Therefore it is that at court there are under-
ground fortunes, — not always the least. If, under
Louis XI., you would be great, be Pierre de Rohan,
Marshal of France ; if you would be influential, be
Olivier le Daim, the barber. If you would, under


INFERI.
323
Mary de Medicis, be glorious, be Sillery the Chancel-
lor; if you would be a person of consideration, be La
Hannon the maid. If you would, under Louis XV.,
be illustrious, be Choiseul the minister; if you would
be formidable, be Lebel the valet. Given Louis
XIV., Bontemps, who makes his bed, is more pow-
erful than Louvois who raises his armies, and Turenne
who gains his victories. Rob Richelieu of Père
Joseph, and you have left but a part of Richelieu.
There is the mystery the less. His eminence in
scarlet is magnificent; his eminence in gray is terri-
ble. What power in being a worm! All the
Narvaez amalgamated with all the O'Donnells do
less work than one Sõr Patrocinio.
Of course, the condition of this power is littleness.
If you would remain powerful, remain petty, - be
Nothingness. The serpent in repose, twisted into a
circle, is a figure at the same time of the infinite and
of naught.
One of these viper-like fortunes had fallen to
Barkilphedro.
He had crawled where he wished.
Flat beasts can get in everywhere. Louis XIV.
had bugs in his bed and Jesuits in his policy.
Incompatible ? Not at all.
In this world everything is a clock. To gravitate
is to oscillate : one pole is attracted to the other.
Francis I. is attracted by Triboulet; Louis XV. is
attracted by Lebel. There exists a deep affinity be-
tween extreme elevation and extreme debasement.
It is abasement which directs. Nothing is easier
of comprehension. It is he who is below who pulls


324
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
the strings, — no position more convenient. He is
the eye, and has the ear: he is the eye of the govern-
ment; he has the car of the king. To have the eye
of the king is to draw and shut, at one's whim, the
bolt of the royal conscience, and to throw into that
conscience whatever one wishes. The mind of the
king is his cupboard ; if he be a rag-picker, it is his
basket. The ears of kings belong not to kings, and
therefore it is that, on the whole, the poor devils are
not altogether responsible for their actions. He who
does not possess his own thought does not possess
his own deed. A king obeys — what? Any evil
spirit buzzing from outside in his ear, — a noisome
fly of the abyss.
This buzzing commands. A reign is a dictation.
The loud voice is the sovereign ; the low voice
sovereignty.
Those who know how to distinguish, in a reign,
this low voice, and to hear what it whispers to
the loud, are the real historians.


CHAPTER IX.
HATE IS AS STRONG AS LOVE.
QUEEN ANNE had several of these low voices
about her; Barkilphedro was one.
Besides the queen, he secretly worked, influenced,
and plotted upon Lady Josiana and Lord David. As
we have said, he whispered in three ears, — one more
than Dangeau. Dangeau whispered in but two in
the days when, thrusting himself between Louis XIV.
in love with Henrietta his sister-in-law, and Henri-
etta in love with Louis XIV. her brother-in-law, –
being Louis' secretary without the knowledge of
Henrietta, and Henrietta's without the knowledge
of Louis, he wrote the questions and answers of both
the love-making marionettes.
Barkilphedro was so cheerful, so accepting, so inca-
pable of taking up the defence of anybody, possessing
so little devotion at bottom, so ugly, so mischievous,
that it was quite natural that a regal personage should
come to be unable to do without him. Once Anne
had tasted Barkilphedro, she would have no other
flatterer. He flattered her as they flattered Louis
the Great, - by stinging her neighbors. “ The king
being ignorant,” says Madame de Montchevreuil,
“one is obliged to mock at the learned.”


HATE IS AS STRONG AS LOVE.
327
others tremble. He was a powerful buffoon. Every
day he worked his way forward — underground.
Barkilphedro became a necessity. Many great peo-
ple honored him with their confidence, to the extent
of charging him, when they required him, with their
disgraceful commissions..
There are wheels within wheels at court. Barkil-
phedro became the motive power. Have you re-
marked in certain mechanisms the smallness of the
motive wheel?
Josiana in particular, who, as we have explained,
made use of Barkilphedro's talents as a spy, reposed
such confidence in him that she had not hesitated to
intrust him with one of the master-keys of her apart-
ments, by means of which he was able to enter them
at any hour. This excessive license of insight into
private life was in fashion in the seventeenth cen-
tury. It was called “giving the key.” Josiana had
given two of these confidential keys : Lord David
had one, Barkilphedro the other. However, to enter
straight into a bedchamber was, in the old code of
manners, a thing not in the least out of the way :
thence resulted incidents. La Ferté, suddenly draw-
ing back the bed-curtains of Mademoiselle Lafont,
found, inside, Sainson the black musketeer, etc.
Barkilphedro excelled in making the cunning dis-
coveries which place the great in the power of the
little. His walk in the dark was winding, soft,
clever. Like every perfect spy, he was composed of
the inclemency of the headsman and the patience of
a micographer. He was a born courtier. Every cour-
tier is a noctambulist. The courtier prowls in a sort


328
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
of night that may be likened to omnipotence. He
carries a dark-lantern in his hand; he lights up the
spot he wishes, and remains in darkness himself.
What he seeks with his lantern is not a man ; it is a
fool. What he finds is the king.
Kings do not like to see those about them pretend
to greatness. Irony aimed at any one except them-
selves has a charm for them. The talent of Barkil-
phedro consisted in a perpetual dwarfing of the peers
and princes, to the advantage of her majesty's stature,
thus increased in proportion. The secret key held by
Barkilphedro was made with two sets of wards, one
at each end, so as to open the inner apartments
in both Josiana's favorite residences, -- Hunkerville
House in London, Corleone Lodge at Windsor. These
two houses were part of the Clancharlie inheritance.
Hunkerville House was close to Oldgate. Oldgate
was a gate of London which was entered by the
Harwich road, and on which was displayed a statue
of Charles II., with a painted angel on his head, and
beneath his feet a carved lion and unicorn. From
Hunkerville House, in an easterly wind, you heard
the peals of St. Marylebone. Corleone Lodge was a
Florentine palace of brick and stone, with a marble
colonnade, built on pile-work, at Windsor, at the
head of the wooden bridge, and having one of the
finest courts in England.
In the latter palace, near Windsor Castle, Josiana
was within the queen's reach. Nevertheless, Josiana
liked it.
Scarcely anything in appearance, everything in the
root, — such was the influence of Barkilphedro over


HATE IS AS STRONG AS LOVE.
329
the queen. There is nothing more difficult than to
drag up these weeds of the court; they take a deep
root, and offer no hold above the surface. To root
out a Roquelaure, a Triboulet, or a Brummel, is
almost impossible.
From day to day, and more and more, did the
queen take Barkilphedro into her good graces.
Sarah Jennings is famous; Barkilphedro is un-
known. His existence remains ignored. The name
of Barkilphedro has not reached as far as history.
All the moles are not caught by the mole-trapper.
Barkilphedro, once a candidate for orders, had
studied a little of everything. Skimming all things
leaves naught for result. One may be victim of the
omnis res scibilis. Having the vessel of the Danaïdes
in one's head is the misfortune of a whole race of
learned men, who may be termed the sterile. What
Barkilphedro had put into his brain had left it
empty.
The mind, like Nature, abhors vacuum. Into
emptiness, Nature puts love; the mind often puts
hate. Hate occupies.
Hate for hate's sake exists. Art for art's sake ex-
ists in Nature more than is believed. A man hates :
he must do something. Gratuitous hate, — formi-
dable word! It means hate which is itself its own
payment. The bear lives by licking his claws; not
indefinitely, of course. The claws must be revict-
ualled; something must be put under them.
Hate indistinct is sweet, and suffices for a time;
but one must end by having an object. An ani-
mosity diffused over creation is exhausting, like every


330
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
solitary pleasure. Hate without an object is like
a shooting-match without a target. What lends in-
terest to the game is a heart to be pierced. One
cannot hate solely for honor; some seasoning is
necessary, - a man, a woman, somebody, to destroy.
This service of making the game interesting ; of offer-
ing an end; of throwing passion into hate by fixing
it on an object; of amusing the hunter by the sight
of his living prey; of giving the watcher the hope
of the smoking and boiling blood about to flow; of
amusing the bird-catcher by the credulity of the use-
lessly-winged lark; of being a victim, unknowingly
reared for murder by a master-mind, — all this exqui-
site and horrible service, of which the person render-
ing it is unconscious, Josiana rendered Barkilphedro.
Thought is a projectile. Barkilphedro had, from
the first day, begun to aim at Josiana the evil in-
tentions which were in his mind. An intention and
a carbine are alike. Barkilphedro aimed at Josiana,
directing against the duchess all his secret malice.
That astonishes you! What has the bird done at
which you fire ? You want to eat it, you say. And
so it was with Barkilphedro.
Josiana could not be struck in the heart, - the
spot where the enigma lies is hard to wound; but
she could be struck in the head, — that is, in her
pride. It was there that she thought herself strong,
and that she was weak.
Barkilphedro had found it out. If Josiana had
been able to see clearly through the night of Barkil-
phedro, if she had been able to distinguish what lay
in ambush behind his smile, that proud woman, so


HATE IS AS STRONG AS LOVE.
331
highly situated, would have trembled. Fortunately
for the tranquillity of her sleep, she was in complete
ignorance of what was in the man.
The unexpected spreads, one knows not whence.
The profound depths of life are formidable. There
is no small hate : hate is always enormous; it pre-
serves its stature in the smallest being, and remains
a monster. An elephant hated by an ant is in
danger.
Even before he struck, Barkilphedro felt, with joy,
the foretaste of the evil action which he was about to
commit. He did not as yet know what he was going
to do to Josiana; but he had made up his mind to
do something. To have come to this decision was a
great step taken...
To crush Josiana utterly would have been too great
a triumph. He did not hope for so much ; but to
humiliate her, lessen her, bring her grief, redden
those superb eyes with tears of rage, — what a suc-
cess! He counted on it. Tenacious, diligent, faith-
ful to the torment of his neighbor, not to be torn
from his purpose, Nature had not formed him for
nothing. He well understood how to find the flaw
in Josiana’s golden armor, and how to make the blood
of that Olympian flow.
What benefit, we ask again, would accrue to him
in so doing? An immense benefit, — doing evil to
one who had done good to him. What is an envious
man? An ungrateful one. He hates the light which
lights and warms him. Zoilus hated that benefit to
man, Homer. To inflict on Josiana what would now-
adays be called vivisection, — to place her all com


332
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
valsed on his anatomical table; to dissect her alive
at his leisure in some surgery; to cut her up, as an
amateur, while she should scream, — this dream de-
Víghted Barkilphedro!
To arrive at this result it was necessary to suffer
somewhat himself; he did so willingly. We may
pinch ourselves with our own pincers. The knife as
it shuts cuts our fingers. What does it matter ?
That he should partake of Josiana's torture was a
matter of little moment. The executioner handling
the red-hot iron when about to brand a prisoner,
takes no heed of a little burn. He feels no pain, be-
cause he sees the other suffer. To see the victim's
writhings takes all his own pain.
Do harm, whatever happens.
To plan evil for others is mingled with an accep-
tance of some hazy responsibility. We risk ourselves
in the danger which we impel towards another, be-
cause the chain of events sometimes, of course, brings
unexpected accidents. This does not stop the man
who is truly malicious. He feels as much joy as the
patient suffers agony; he is tickled by the laceration
of the victim. The malicious man blooms in hideous
joy. Pain reflects itself on him in a sense of welfare.
The Duke of Alva used to warm his hands at the stake.
The pile was torture, the reflection of it pleasure.
That such transpositions should be possible makes
one shudder. Our dark side is unfathomable. Sup
plice exquis (exquisite torture) -- the expression is in
Bodini-has perhaps this terrible triple sense: search
i Book iv. p. 196.


HATE IS AS STRONG AS LOVE. 333
for the torture; suffering of the tortured; delight of
the torturer.
Ambition, appetite, — all such words signify some
one sacrificed to some one satiated. It is sad that
hope should be wicked. Is it that the outpourings
of our wishes flow naturally in the direction to which
we most incline, — that of evil ? One of the hardest
labors of the just man is to expunge from his soul a
malevolence which it is difficult to efface. Almost
all our desires, when examined, contain what we
dare not avow.
In the completely wicked man this exists in hid-
eous perfection. So much the worse for others, sig-
nifies so much the better for himself: the shadows
of the caverns of man's mind!
Josiana, in a plenitude of security, the fruit of
ignorant pride, had a contempt for all danger. The
feminine faculty of disdain is extraordinary. Josiana
was disdain itself, unreasoning, involuntary, and con-
fident. Barkilphedro was to her so contemptible
that she would have been astonished had any one
remarked to her that such a creature existed. She
went and came and laughed before this man, who
was looking at her with evil eyes. Thoughtful, he
bided his time.
In proportion as he waited, his determination to
cast a despair into this woman's life augmented.
Inexorable high tide of malice !
In the mean time he gave himself excellent reasons
for his determination. It must not be thought that
scoundrels are deficient in self-esteem. They enter
into details with themselves in their lofty monologues,


334
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
and they take matters with a high hand. How?
This Josiana had bestowed charity on him! She
had thrown some crumbs of her enormous wealth
to him, as to a beggar; she had nailed and riveted
him to an office which was unworthy of him! Yes ;
that he, Barkilphedro, almost a clergyman, of varied
and profound talent, a learned man, with the material
in him for a bishop, should have for employ the regis-
tration of shards fit for scraping off the pustules of
Job, that he should have to pass his life in the garret
of a register office, gravely uncorking stupid bottles,
incrusted with all the nastiness of the sea, decipher-
ing musty parchments, like filthy conjuring books,
dirty wills, and other illegible stuff of the kind, was
the fault of this Josiana. Worst of all, this creature
“thee'd” and “thou’d” him! And he should not
revenge himself ! he should not punish such conduct !
Why, in that case there would no longer be justice
on earth!


CHAPTER X.
THE FLAME WHICH WOULD BE SEEN IF MAN
WERE TRANSPARENT.
WHAT! this woman, this extravagant thing, this
libidinous dreamer, a virgin until the opportunity oc-
curred; this bit of flesh as yet unfreed, this bold crea-
ture under a princess's coronet; this Diana by pride,
as yet untaken by the first comer just because chance
had so willed it; this bastard of a low-lived king who
had not the intellect to keep his place; this duchess
by a lucky hit, who being a fine lady played the
goddess, and who had she been poor would have
been a prostitute : this lady, more or less, this robber
of a proscribed man's goods, this overbearing strum-
pet, because one day Barkilphedro had not money
enough to buy his dinner and to get a lodging,
had had the impudence to seat him in her house at
the corner of a table, and to put him up in some
hole in her intolerable palace, — where ? never
mind where ; perhaps in the barn, perhaps in the
cellar; what does it matter ? — a little better than
her valets, a little worse than her horses. She had
abused his distress (his, Barkilphedro's) in hastening
to do him treacherous good, — a thing which the
rich do in order to humiliate the poor, and to tie


336
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
them, like curs led by a string. Besides, what had
this service cost herself ? A service is worth what it
costs. She had spare rooms in her house. She came
to Barkilphedro's aid, — a great thing indeed! Had
she eaten a spoonful the less of turtle soup for it?
Hlad she deprived herself of anything in the hateful
overflowing of her superfluous luxuries? No: she
had added to it a vanity, a luxury, a good action like
a ring on her finger, the relief of a man of wit, the
patronization of a clergymen. She could give herself
airs; say, “I lavish kindness; I fill the mouths of
men of letters; I am his bencfactress. How fortunate
the wretch was to find me out! What a patroness of
the arts I am!” — all for having set up a truckle-
bed in a wretched garret in the roof! As for the
place in the Admiralty, Barkilphedro owed it to
Josiana, — by Jove, a pretty appointment! Josiana
had made Barkilphedro what he was; she had cre-
ated him : be it so: yes, created nothing, - less than
nothing ; for in his absurd situation he felt borne
down, tongue-tied, disfigured. What did he owe
Josiana ? The thanks due from a hunchback to the
mother who bore him deformed. Behold your priv-
ileged ones, your folks overwhelmed with fortune,
your parvenus, your favorites of that horrid step-
mother, Fortune! And that man of talent, Barkil-
phedro, was obliged to stand on staircases, to bow to
footmen, to climb to the top of the house at night,
to be courteous, assiduous, pleasant, respectful, and
to have ever on his muzzle a respectful grimace!
Was not it enough to make him gnash his teeth with
rage! And all the while she was putting pearls


FLAME TO BE SEEN IF MAN TRANSPARENT. 339
dain they are polite. At table they give you a little
nod. Sometimes they absolutely know how your
name is spelled! They only show that they are your
protectors by walking unconsciously over all the deli-
cacy and susceptibility you possess. They treat you
with good-nature. Is all this to be borne ?
No doubt he was eager to punish Josiana. He
must teach her with whom she had to deal !
Oh, my rich gentry, because you cannot eat up
everything, because opulence produces indigestion
seeing that your stomachs are no bigger than ours,
because it is, after all, better to distribute the re
mainder than to throw it away, you exalt a morsel
flung to the poor into an act of magnificence! Oh,
you give us bread, you give us shelter, you give us
clothes, you give us employment, and you push au-
dacity, folly, cruelty, stupidity, and absurdity, to the
pitch of believing that we are grateful! The bread
is the bread of servitude, the shelter is a footman's
bedroom, the clothes are a livery, the employment is
ridiculous, — paid for, it is true, but brutalizing.
Oh, you believe in the right to humiliate us with
lodging and nourishment, and you imagine that we
are your debtors, and you count on our gratitude !
Very well! we will eat up your substance, fair lady;
we will devour you alive and gnaw your heart-strings
with our teeth.
This Josiana! was it not absurd ? what merit had
she? She had accomplished the wonderful work of
coming into the world as a testimony of the folly of
her father and the shame of her mother. She had
done us the favor to exist, and for her kindness in


340
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
becoming a public scandal, they paid her millions ;
she had estates and castles, warrens, parks, lakes,
forests, and I know not what besides, and with all
that she was making a fool of herself, and verses
were addressed to her! And Barkilphedro, who had
studied and labored and taken pains, and stuffed his
eyes and his brain with great books, who had grown
mouldy in old works and in science, who was full of
wit, who could command armies, who could, if he
would, write tragedies like Otway and Dryden, who
was made to be an emperor, — Barkilphedro had been
reduced to permit this nobody to prevent him from
dying of hunger. Could the usurpation of the rich,
the hateful elect of chance, go farther? They put
on the semblance of being generous to us, of pro-
tecting us, and of smiling on us, and we would drink
their blood and lick our lips after it! That this low
woman of the court should have the odious power
of being a benefactress, and that a man so superior
should be condemned to pick up such bribes falling
from such a hand, — what a frightful iniquity! And
what social system is this which has for its base dispro-
portion and injustice ? Would it not be best to take
it by the four corners, and to throw pell-mell to the
ceiling the damask table-cloth, and the festival, and
the orgies, and the tippling and drunkenness, and the
guests, and those with their elbows on the table, and
those with their paws under it, and the insolent who
give and the idiots who accept, and to spit it all back
again in the face of Providence, and fling all the earth
to the heavens? In the mean time let us stick our
claws into Josiana,


FLAME TO BE SEEN IF MAN TRANSPARENT. 341
Thus dreamed Barkilphedro. Such were the
ragings of his soul. It is the habit of the envious
man to absolve himself, amalgamating with his per-
sonal grievance the public wrongs.
All the wild forms of hateful passions went and
came in the intellect of this ferocious being. At the
corners of old maps of the world of the fifteenth cen-
tury are great vague spaces without shape or name,
on which are written these three words, “ Hic sunt
leones.” Such a dark corner is there also in man.
Passions grow and growl somewhere within us, and
we may say of an obscure portion of our" souls,
“There are lions here.”
Is this scaffolding of wild reasoning absolutely ab-
surd? Does it lack a certain justice? We must
confess it does not.
It is fearful to think that judgment within us is
not justice. Judgment is the relative; justice is the
absolute. Think of the difference between a judge
and a just man.
Wicked men lead conscience astray with author-
ity. There are gymnastics of untruth. A sophist is
a forger, and this forger sometimes brutalizes good
sense.
A certain logic, very supple, very implacable, and
very agile, is at the service of evil, and excels in
stabbing truth in the dark. These are blows struck
by the Devil at Providence.
The worst of it was that Barkilphedro had a pre-
sentiment. He was undertaking a heavy task, and
he was afraid that, after all, the evil achieved might
not be proportionate to the work.


342
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
To be corrosive as he was, to have within himself
a will of steel, a hate of diamond, a burning curiosity
for the catastrophe, and to burn nothing, to decapi-
tate nothing, to exterminate nothing; to be what he
was, — a force of devastation, a voracious animosity,
a devourer of the happiness of others; to have been
created — for there is a creator, whether God or
devil — to have been created Barkilphedro all over,
and to inflict perhaps, after all, but a fillip of the
finger, — could this be possible ? Could it be that
Barkilphedro should miss his aim? To be a lever
powerful enough to heave great masses of rock, and
when sprung to the utmost power to succeed only in
giving an affected woman a bump in the forehead ;
to be a catapult dealing ruin on a pole-kitten ; to
accomplish the task of Sisyphus to crush an ant; to
sweat all over with hate, and for nothing at all, -
would not this be humiliating, when he felt himself
a mechanism of hostility capable of reducing the
world to powder ? To put into movement all the
wheels within wheels, to work in the darkness all
the mechanism of a Marly machine, and to succeed
perhaps in pinching the end of a little rosy finger! He
was to turn over and over blocks of marble, perchance
with the result of ruffling a little the smooth surface
of the court ! Providence has a way of thus expend-
ing forces grandly. The movement of a mountain
often only displaces a molehill.
Besides this, when the court is the dangerous
arena, nothing is more dangerous than to aim at your
enemy and miss him. In the first place, it unmasks
you and irritates him; but besides, and above all, it


344
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
de, — consolation to the
would be most. To vex
such a game becomes eager, even to passion. He
throws himself into the work as if he were composing
an epic. To be very mean, and to attack that which
is great, is in itself a brilliant action. It is a fine
thing to be a flea on a lion.
The noble beast feels the bite, and expends his
mighty anger against the atom. An encounter with
a tiger would weary him less. See how the actors
exchange their parts: the lion, humiliated, feels the
sting of the insect, and the flea can say, “I have in
my veins the blood of a lion.”
However, these reflections but half appeased the
cravings of Barkilphedro's pride, — consolations, pal-
liations at most. To vex is one thing ; to torment
would be infinitely better. Barkilphedro had a
thought which returned to him without ceasing, —
his success might not go beyond just irritating the
epidermis of Josiana. What could he hope for more,
- he so obscure against her so radiant! A scratch
is worth but little to him who longs to see the crim-
son blood of his flayed victim, and to hear her cries
as she lies before him more than naked, without even
that garment the skin! With such a craving, how
sad to be powerless!
Alas, there is nothing perfect !
However, he resigned himself. Not being able to
do better, he only dreamed half his dream. To play
a treacherous trick is an object, after all.
What a man is he who revenges himself for a bene
fit received ! Barkilphedro was a giant among such
men. Usually ingratitude is forgetfulness; with this
man, patented in wickedness, it was fury. The vul-


FLAME TO BE SEEN IF MAN TRANSPARENT. 345
gar ingrate is full of ashes. What was within Bar-
kilphedro? A furnace, - a furnace walled round by
hate, silence, and rancor, awaiting Josiana for fuel.
Never had a man abhorred a woman to such a point
without reason. How terrible! She was his dream,
his preoccupation, his ennui, his rage.
Perhaps he was a little in love with her.


CHAPTER XI.
BARKILPHEDRO IN AMBUSCADE.
To find the vulnerable spot in Josiana, and to
strike her there, was, for all the causes we have just
mentioned, the imperturbable determination of Bar-
kilphedro. The wish is insufficient; the power is
required. How was he to set about it? There was
the question.
Vulgar vagabonds set with care the scene of any
wickedness they intend to commit. They do not feel
themselves strong enough to seize the opportunity
as it passes, to take possession of it by fair means or
foul, and to constrain it to serve them. Deep scoun-
drels disdain preliminary combinations. They start
from their villanies alone, merely arming themselves
all round, prepared to avail themselves of various
chances which may occur, and then, like Barkil-
phedro, await the opportunity. They know that a
ready-made scheme runs the risk of fitting ill into
the event which may present itself. It is not thus
that a man makes himself master of possibilities and
guides them as one pleases. You can come to no
previous arrangement with destiny. To-morrow will
not obey you. There is a certain want of discipline
in chance.


350
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
the hundred chamberlains. She had her portrait
painted on enamel, after the process of Turquet of
Mayerne. This Queen of Prussia had also a younger
illegitimate sister, the Baroness Drika.
One day, in the presence of Barkilphedro, Anne
asked the Russian ambassador some question about
this Drika.
“They say she is rich ? ”
“Very rich.”
“She has palaces ? "
“ More magnificent than those of her sister the
queen.”
“Whom will she marry?”
“A great lord, the Count Gormo.”
“Pretty ?”
“ Charming.”
“ Is she young ?”
“Very young.”
“As beautiful as the queen ? ”
The ambassador lowered his voice, and replied, -
“More beautiful.”
“That is insolent,” murmured Barkilphedro.
The queen was silent; then she exclaimed, -
“Those bastards ! ”
Barkilphedro noticed the plural.
Another time, when the queen was leaving the
chapel, Barkilphedro kept pretty close to her majes-
ty, behind the two grooms of the almonry. Lord
David Dirry-Moir, crossing the ranks of women,
made a sensation by his handsome appearance.
As he passed, there was an explosion of ferninine
exclamations : -


BARKILPHEDRO IN AMBUSCADE.
351
“How elegant! How gallant! What a noble
air! How handsome!”
"How disagreeable !” grumbled the queen.
Barkilphedro overheard this ; it decided him.
He could hurt the duchess without displeasing the
queen. The first problem was solved; but now the
second presented itself.
What could he do to harm the duchess? What
means did his wretched appointment offer to attain
so difficult an object ?
Evidently none.


SCOTLAND, IRELAND, AND ENGLAND.
355
she had an opera-glass, then used by gentlemen
vnly.
This encounter in the noble science was presided
over by Lord Germaine, -great-grandfather, or grand-
uncle, of that Lord Germaine who, towards the end
of the eighteenth century, was colonel, ran away in a
battle, was afterwards made Minister of War, and
only escaped from the bolts of the enemy to fall by a
worse fate, -- shot through and through by the sar-
casm of Sheridan.
Many gentlemen were betting. Harry Bellew, of
Carleton, who had claims to the extinct peerage of
Bella-Aqua, with Henry, Lord Hyde, member of Par-
liament for the borough of Dunhivid, which is also
called Launceston ; the Honorable Peregrine Bertie,
member for the borough of Truro, with Sir Thomas
Colpepper, member for Maidstone; the Laird of
Lamyrbau, which is on the borders of Lothian, with
Samuel Trefusis, of the borough of Penryn; Sir Bar-
tholomew Gracedieu, of the borough of St. Ives, with
the Honorable Charles Bodville, who was called
Lord Robartes, and who was Custos Rotulorum of
the county of Cornwall; besides many others.
Of the two combatants one was an Irishman,
named after his native mountain in Tipperary,
Phelem-ghe-Madone, and the other a Scot named
Helmsgail.
They represented the national pride of each coun-
try. Ireland and Scotland were about to set to,
Erin was going to fisticuff Gajothel ; so that the
bets amounted to forty thousand guineas, besides
the stakes.


356
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
The two champions were naked, excepting short
breeches buckled over the hips, and spiked boots
laced as high as the ankles.
Helmsgail, the Scot, was a youth scarcely nine-
teen, but he had already had his forehead sewn up,
for which reason they laid two and a third to one
on him. The month before he had broken the ribs
and gouged out the eyes of a pugilist named Six-
mileswater. This explained the enthusiasm he cre-
ated. He had won his backers twelve thousand
pounds. Besides having his forehead sewn up,
Helmsgail's jaw had been broken. He was neatly
made, and active. He was about the height of a
small woman, upright, thick-set, and of a stature low
and threatening. And nothing had been lost of the
advantages given him by Nature : not a muscle which
was not trained to its object, pugilism. His firm
chest was compact, and brown and shining like brass.
He smiled, and three teeth which he had lost added
to this smile.
His adversary was tall and overgrown, – that is
to say, weak.
He was a man of forty years of age, six feet high,
with the chest of a hippopotamus, and a mild ex-
pression of face. The blow of his fist would break
in the deck of a vessel, but he did not know how to
use it.
The Irishman, Phelem-ghe-Madone, was all sur-
face, and seemed to have entered the ring to receive,
rather than to give, blows; only it was felt that he
would take a deal of punishment; like underdone
beef, tough to chew and impossible to swallow. He
J weak,


SCOTLAND, IRELAND, AND ENGLAND.
357
was what was termed in local slang “raw meat ;"
he squinted; he seemed resigned.
The two men had passed the preceding night in
the same bed, and had slept together. They had
each drunk port wine from the same glass, to the
three-inch mark.
Each had his group of seconds, — men of savage
expression, threatening the umpires when it suited
their side. Among Helmsgail's supporters was to
be seen John Gromane, celebrated for having carried
an ox on his back; and one called John Bray, who
had once carried on his back ten bushels of flour at
fifteen pecks to the bushel, besides the miller himself,
and had walked over two hundred paces under the
weight. On the side of Phelem-ghe-Madone, Lord
Hyde had brought from Launceston a certain Kilter,
who lived at Green Castle, and could throw a stone
weighing twenty pounds to a greater height than the
highest tower of the castle.
These three men, Kilter, Bray, and Gromane,
were Cornishmen by birth, and did honor to their
county.
The other seconds were brutal fellows, with broad
backs, bowed legs, knotted fists, dull faces ; ragged,
fearing nothing, nearly all jail-birds.
Many of them understood admirably how to make
the police drunk. Each profession should have its
peculiar talents.
The field chosen was farther off than the bear-
garden, where they formerly baited bears, bulls, and
dogs; it was beyond the line of the farthest houses,
by the side of the ruins of the Priory of Saint Mary


358
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
Overy, dismantled by Henry VIII. The wind was
northerly, and biting; a small rain fell, which was
instantly frozen into ice. Some gentlemen present
were evidently fathers of families, recognized as such
by their putting up their umbrellas.
On the side of .Phelem-ghe-Madone was Colonel
Moncreif as umpire, and Kilter as second, to sup-
port him on his knee.
On the side of Helmsgail, the Honorable Pughe
Beaumaris was umpire, with Lord Desertum, from
Kilcarry, as bottle-holder, to support him on his
knee.
The two combatants stood for a few seconds
motionless in the ring, while the watches were
being compared. They then approached each other
and shook hands.
Phelem-ghe-Madone said to Helmsgail, -
“I should prefer going home.”
Helmsgail answered handsomely, —
“The gentlemen must not be disappointed, on any
account.”
Naked as they were, they felt the cold. Phelem-
ghe-Madone shook. His teeth chattered.
Dr. Eleanor Sharp, nephew of the Archbishop of
York, cried out to them, -
“Set to, boys; it will warm you.”
These friendly words thawed them.
They set to.
But neither was angry. There were three inef-
fectual rounds. The Rev. Dr. Gumdraith, one of
the forty Fellows of All Souls College, cried, -
“Spirit them up with gin.”


SCOTLAND, IRELAND, AND ENGLAND.
359
But the two umpires and the two seconds adhered
to the rule; yet it was exceedingly cold.
First blood was claimed.
They were again set face to face.
They looked at each other, approached, stretched
their arms, touched cach other's fists, and then drew
back.
All at once Helmsgail, the little man, sprang for-
ward. The real fight had begun.
Phelem-ghe-Madone was struck in the face, be-
tween the eyes. His whole face streamed with
blood. The crowd cried, -
“ Helmsgail has tapped his claret !”
There was applause. Phelem-ghe-Madone, turning
his arms like the sails of a windmill, struck out at
random. .
The Honorable Peregrine Bertie said, “Blinded ;"
but he was not blind yet.
Then Helmsgail heard on all sides these encour-
aging words, —
“Bung up his peepers !”
On the whole, the two champions were really well
matched; and, notwithstanding the unfavorable
weather, it was seen that the fight would be a
success.
The great giant, Phelem-ghe-Madone, had to bear
the inconveniences of his advantages; he moved
heavily. His arins were massive as clubs, but his
body was a solid mass. His little opponent ran,
struck, sprung, gnashed his teeth ; redoubling vigor
by quickness, from knowledge of the science.
On the one side was the primitive blow of the


360
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
fist, — savage, uncultivated, in a state of ignorance;
on the other side, the civilized blow of the fist.
Helmsgail fought as much with his nerves as with
his muscles, and with as much intention as force.
Phelem-ghe-Madone was a kind of sluggish mauler,
— somewhat mauled himself, to begin with. It
was art against nature. It was cultivated ferocity
against barbarism.
It was clear that the barbarian would be beaten,
but not very quickly. Hence the interest.
A little man against a big one, and the chances
are in favor of the little one. The cat has the best
of it with a dog. Goliaths are always vanquished
by Davids.
A hail of exclamations followed the combatants.
“Bravo, Helmsgail! Good! Well done, High-
lander! Now, Phelem!”
And the friends of Helmsgail repeated their be-
nevolent exhortation, -
“Bung up his peepers !”
Helmsgail did better. Rapidly bending down and
back again, with the undulation of a serpent, he
struck Phelem-ghe-Madone in the sternum. The
Colossus staggered.
“Foul blow!” cried Viscount Barnard.
Phelem-ghe-Madone sank down on the knee of his
second, saying, -
“I am beginning to get warm.”
Lord Desertum consulted the umpires, and said, -
“Five minutes before time is called."
Phelem-ghe-Madone was becoming weaker. Kilter
wiped the blood from his face and the sweat from his
struck with the undnly bending down and


SCOTLAND, IRELAND, AND ENGLAND.
361
body with a flannel, and placed the neck of a bottle
to his mouth. They had come to the eleventh round.
Phelem, besides the scar on his forehead, had his breast
disfigured by blows, his belly swollen, and the fore
part of the head scarified. Helmsgail was untouched.
A kind of tumult arose among the gentlemen.
Lord Barnard repeated, “Foul blow !”
“Bets void !” said the Laird of Lamyrbau.
“I claim my stake!” replied Sir Thomas Colpepper.
And the honorable member for the borough of
St. Ives, Sir Bartholomew Gracedieu, added, “Give
me back my five hundred guineas, and I will go.
Stop the fight.”
Phelem arose, staggering like a drunken man, and
said, —
“Let us go on fighting, on one condition, — that I
also shall have the right to give one foul blow.”
They cried, “Agreed ! ” from all parts of the ring.
Helmsgail shrugged his shoulders. Five minutes
elapsed, and they set to again.
The fighting, which was agony to Phelem, was play
to Helmsgail. Such are the triumphs of science.
The little man found means of putting the big one
into chancery; that is to say, Helmsgail suddenly
took under his left arm, which was bent like a steel
crescent, the huge head of Phelem-ghe-Madone, and
held it there under his armpit, the neck bent and
twisted, while Helmsgail's right fist fell again
and again like a hammer on a nail, only from below
and striking upwards, thus smashing his opponent's
face at his ease. When Phelem, released at length,
lifted his head, he had no longer a face.


362
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
That which had been a nose, eyes, and a mouth,
now looked only like a black sponge soaked in blood.
He spat, and on the ground lay four of his teeth.
Then he fell. Kilter received him on his knee.
Helmsgail was hardly touched ; he had some in.
significant bruises, and a scratch on his collar-bone.
No one was cold now. They laid sixteen and a
quarter to one on Helmsgail.
Harry Carleton cried out :-
“ It is all over with Phelem-ghe-Madone. I will
lay my peerage of Bella-Aqua, and my title of Lord
Bellew, against the Archbishop of Canterbury's old
wig, on Helmsgail."
“Give me your muzzle," said Kilter to Phelem-
ghe-Madone. And stuffing the bloody flannel into
the bottle, he washed him all over with gin. The
mouth reappeared, and he opened one eyelid. His
temples seemed fractured.
“One round more, my friend,” said Kilter; and he
added, “for the honor of the low town."
The Welsh and the Irish understand each other;
still, Phelem made no sign of having any power of
understanding left.
Phelem arose, supported by Kilter. It was the
twenty-fifth round. From the way in which this
Cyclops — for he had but one eye — placed himself in
position, it was evident that this was the last round,
for no one doubted his defeat. He placed his guard
below his chin, with the awkwardness of a failing man.
Helmsgail, with a skin hardly sweating, cried out:
“I'll back myself, a thousand to one."
Helmsgail, raising his arm, struck out; and, what


SCOTLAND, IRELAND, AND ENGLAND.
363
was strange, both fell. A ghastly chuckle was heard.
It was Phelem-ghe-Madone's expression of delight.
While receiving the terrible blow given him by Helms-
gail on the skull, he had given him a foul blow on
the navel.
Helmsgail, lying on his back, rattled in his throat.
The spectators looked at him as he lay on the
ground, and said : “Paid back!” All clapped their
hands, even those who had lost. Phelem-ghe-Madone
had given foul blow for foul blow, and had only
asserted his right.
They carried Helmsgail off on a hand-barrow. The
opinion was that he would not recover.
Lord Robartes exclaimed, “I win twelve hundred
guineas."
Phelem-ghe-Madone was evidently maimed for life,
As she left, Josiana took the arm of Lord David,
an act which was tolerated among people “engaged.”
She said to him, —
“ It is very fine, but — ”
“But what?”
“I thought it would have driven away my spleen.
It has not.”
Lord David stopped, looked at Josiana, shut his
mouth and inflated his cheeks, while he nodded
his head, which signified attention, and said to the
duchess, –
“For spleen there is but one remedy."
“What is it?”
“Gwynplaine.”
The duchess asked, -
“And who is Gwynplaine ?”


BOOK II.
GWYNPLAINE AND DEA.
CHAPTER 1.
WHEREIN WE SEE THE FACE OF HIM OF WHOM
WE HAVE HITHERTO SEEN ONLY THE ACTS.
NATURE had been prodigal of her kindness to
Gwynplaine. She had bestowed on him a mouth
opening to his ears, ears folding over to his eyes, a
shapeless nose to support the spectacles of the grimace
maker, and a face that no one could look upon with-
out laughing.
We have just said that Nature had loaded Gwyn-
plaine with her gifts. But was it Nature ? Had she
not been assisted ?
Two slits for eyes shining with what seemed to be
a borrowed light, a hiatus for a mouth, a snub protu-
berance with two holes for nostrils, a flattened face,
all having for the result an appearance of laughter;
it is certain that Nature never produces such perfec-
tion single-handed.
But is laughter a synonym of joy ?
If, in the presence of this mountebank — for he was
one — the first impression of gayety wore off, and the
man was observed with attention, traces of art were
to be recognized. Such a face could never have been


GWYNPLAINE.
365
created by chance; it must have resulted from inten-
tion. Such perfect completeness is not in Nature.
Man can add nothing to his beauty, but everything
to his ugliness. A Hottentot profile cannot be
changed into a Roman outline, but out of a Grecian
nose you may make a Kalmuck's. It only requires
to obliterate the root of the nose, and to flatten the
nostrils. The dog Latin of the Middle Ages had a
reason for its creation of the verb denasare. Had
Gwynplaine when a child been so worthy of attention
that his face had been subjected to transmutation ?
Why not? Needed there a greater motive than the
speculation of his future exhibition ? According to all
appearance, industrious manipulators of children had
worked upon his face. It seemed evident that a myste-
rious and probably occult science, which was to surgery
what alchemy was to chemistry, had chiselled his flesh,
evidently at a very tender age, and manufactured his
countenance with premeditation. That science, clever
with the knife, skilled in obtusions and ligatures, had
enlarged the mouth, cut away the lips, laid bare the
gums, distended the ears, cut the cartilages, displaced
the eyelids and the cheeks, enlarged the zygomatic
muscle, pressed the scars and cicatrices to a level,
turned back the skin over the lesions while the face
was thus stretched, and from this strong and deep
sculpturing resulted the mask, Gwynplaine.
Man is not born thus.
However it may have been, the manipulation of
Gwynplaine had succeeded admirably. Gwynplaine
was a gift of Providence to dispel the sadness of
man.


366
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
Of what providence? Is there a providence of
demons as well as of God? We put the question
without answering it.
Gwynplaine was a mountebank. He showed him-
self on the platform. No such effect had ever before
been produced. Hypochondriacs were cured by the
sight of him alone. He was avoided by folks in
mourning, because they were compelled to laugh
when they saw him, without regard to their decent
gravity. One day the executioner came, and Gwyn-
plaine made him laugh. Every one who saw Gwyn-
plaine held his sides ; he spoke, and they rolled on
the ground. He was removed from sadness as is
pole from pole, - spleen at the one, Gwynplaine at
the other.
Thus he rose rapidly in the fair-ground and at the
cross-roads to the very satisfactory renown of a
horrible man.
It was Gwynplaine's laugh which created the
laughter of others; yet he did not laugh himself. His
face laughed; his thoughts did not. The extraordinary
face which chance or a special and weird industry had
fashioned for him, laughed alone. Gwynplaine had
nothing to do with it. The outside did not depend
on the interior. The laugh which he himself had not
placed on his brow, on his eyelids, on his mouth, he
could not remove. It had been stamped forever on
his face. It was automatic, and the more irresistible
because it seemed petrified. No one could escape
from this rictus. Two convulsions of the face are
infectious, – laughing and yawning. By virtue of the
mysterious operation to which Gwynplaine had prob-


GWYNPLAINE.
367
ably been subjected in his infancy, every part of his
face contributed to that rictus; his whole physiog-
nomy led to that result, as a wheel centres in the
nave. All his emotions, whatever they might have
been, augmented his strange face of joy, or, to speak
more correctly, aggravated it. Any astonishment
which might seize him, any suffering which he might
feel, any anger which might take possession of him,
any pity which might move him, would only increase
this hilarity of his muscles. If he wept, he laughed ;
and whatever Gwynplaine was, whatever he wished
to be, whatever he thought, the moment that he
raised his head, the crowd, if crowd there was, had
before them one impersonation, - an overwhelming
burst of laughter.
It was like a head of Medusa, but Medusa hilarious.
All feeling or thought in the mind of the spectator
was suddenly put to flight by the unexpected appari-
tion, and laughter was inevitable. Antique art for-
merly placed on the outsides of the Greek theatre a
joyous brazen face called Comedy. It laughed and
occasioned laughter, but remained pensive. All
parody which borders on folly, all irony which bor-
ders on wisdom, were condensed and amalgamated
in that face. The burden of care, of disillusion,
anxiety, and grief, were expressed in its impassive
countenance, and resulted in a lugubrious sum of
mirth. One corner of the mouth was raised, in
mockery of the human race; the other side, in blas-
phemy of the gods. Men confronted that model of
the ideal sarcasm and exemplification of the irony
which each one possesses within him; and the crowd,


368
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
continually renewed round its fixed laugh, died away
with delight before its sepulchral immobility of mirth.
One might almost have said that Gwynplaine was
that dark, dead mask of ancient comedy adjusted
to the body of a living man. That infernal head of
implacable hilarity he supported on his neck. What
a weight for the shoulders of a man, - an eternal
laugh!
An eternal laugh!
Let us understand each other. We will explain.
The Manicheans believed the absolute occasionally
gives way, and that God himself sometimes abdicates
for a time. So also of the will : we do not admit
that it can ever be utterly powerless. The whole of
existence resembles a letter modified in the post-
script. For Gwynplaine the postscript was this :
by the force of his will, and by concentrating all his
attention, and on condition that no emotion should
come to distract and turn away the fixedness of his
effort, he could manage to suspend the everlasting
rictus of his face, and to throw over it a kind of
tragic veil ; and then the spectator laughed no
longer, — he shuddered.
This exertion Gwynplaine scarcely ever made. It
was a terrible effort, and an insupportable tension.
Moreover, it happened that on the slightest distrac-
tion or the slightest emotion, the laugh, driven back
for a moment, returned like a tide, with an impulse
which was irresistible in proportion to the force of
the adverse emotion.
With this exception, Gwynplaine's laugh was
everlasting.


370
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
had given him the resources of a gymnast and an
athlete. His joints, usefully displaced, and fashioned
to bending the wrong way, had received the educa-
tion of a clown, and could, like the hinges of a door,
move backwards and forwards. In appropriating
him to the profession of mountebank, nothing had
been neglected. His hair had been dyed with
ochre once for all, — a secret which has been redis-
covered at the present day. Pretty women use it,
and that which was formerly considered ugly is now
considered an embellishment. Gwynplaine had yel-
low hair. His hair having probably been dyed with
some corrosive preparation, had left it woolly and
rough to the touch. Its yellow bristles, rather a
mane than a head of hair, covered and concealed a
lofty brow, evidently made to contain thought. The
operation, whatever it had been, which had deprived
his features of harmony and put all their flesh into
disorder, had had no effect on the bony structure of
his head. The facial angle was powerful and sur-
prisingly grand. Behind his laugh there was a soul,
dreaming, as all our souls dream.
However, his laugh was to Gwynplaine quite a
talent. He could do nothing with it, so he turned it
to account. By means of it he gained his living.
Gwynplaine, as you have doubtless already guessed,
was the child abandoned one winter evening on the
coast of Portland and received into a poor caravan
at Weymouth.


CHAPTER II.
DEA.
THAT boy was at this time a man. Fifteen years
had elapsed. It was in 1705. Gwynplaine was in
his twenty-fifth year.
Ursus had kept the two children with him. They
were a group of wanderers. Ursus and Homo had
aged. Ursus had become quite bald ; the wolf was
growing gray. The age of wolves is not ascer-
tained like that of dogs. According to Molière,
there are wolves which live to eighty; among others,
the little koupara, and the rank wolf, — the Canis
nubilus of Say.
The little girl found on the dead woman was now
a tall creature of sixteen, with brown hair, slight,
fragile, almost trembling from delicacy, and almost
inspiring fear lest she should break; admirably beau-
tiful, — her eyes full of light, yet blind. That fatal
winter night which threw down the beggar-woman
and her infant in the snow had struck a double
blow; it had killed the mother and blinded the
child. Gutta serena had forever paralyzed the eyes
of the girl, now become woman in her turn. On her
face, through which the light of day never passed,
the depressed corners of the mouth indicated the


372
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
bitterness of the privation. Her eyes, large and
clear, had a strange quality : extinguished forever to
her, to others they were brilliant. They were myste-
rious torches, lighting only the outside. They gave
light, but possessed it not. These sightless eyes
were resplendent. A captive of shadow, she lighted
up the dull place she inhabited. From the depth
of her incurable darkness, from behind the black
wall called blindness, she flung her rays. She saw
not the sun without, but her soul was perceptible
from within.
In her dead look there was a celestial earnestness.
She was the night, and from the irremediable dark-
ness with which she was amalgamated, she came
forth a star.
Ursus, with his mania for Latin names, had chris-
tened her Dea. He had taken his wolf into consul-
tation. He had said to him, “ You represent man, I
represent the beasts. We are of the lower world ;
this little one shall represent the world on high.
Such feebleness is all-powerful. In this manner the
universe shall be complete in our hut in its three
orders, — human, animal, and divine.” The wolf
made no objection. Therefore the foundling was
called Dea.
As to Gwynplaine, Ursus had not had the trouble
of inventing a name for him. The morning of the
day on which he had realized the disfigurement of
the little boy and the blindness of the infant, he had
asked him, “Boy, what is your name?” and the boy
answered, “They call me Gwynplaine.” “Be Gwyn-
plaine, then,” said Ursus.


376
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
alone in the world had responded to desertion by
adoption; that lost in the darkness he had given an
example; that, as if not already sufficiently burdened,
he had added to his load another's misery; that in
this world, which seemed to contain nothing for him,
he had found a duty; that where every one else would
have hesitated, he had advanced ; that where every
one else would have drawn back, he had consented;
that he had put his hand into the jaws of the grave
and drawn out her — Dea. That himself half naked,
he had given her his rags because she was cold ; that
famished, he had thought of giving her food and
drink ; that for one little creature, another little
creature had combated death; that he had fought
it under every form, - under the form of winter and
snow, under the form of solitude, under the form of
terror, under the form of cold, hunger, and thirst,
under the form of whirlwind; and that for her, Dea,
this Titan of ten had given battle to the immensity
of night. She knew that as a child he had done
this, and that now as a man he was strength to her
weakness, riches to her poverty, healing to her sick-
ness, and sight to her blindness. Through the mist of
the unknown by which she felt herself encompassed
she distinguished clearly his devotion, his abnegation,
his courage. Heroism in immaterial regions has an
outline; she distinguished this sublime outline. In
the inexpressible abstraction in which thought lives
unlighted by the sun, Dea perceived this mysterious
lineament of virtue. In the surrounding of dark
things put in motion, which was the only impression
made on her by reality; in the uneasy stagnation of


"OCULOS NON HABET, ET VIDET.”
377
a creature, always passive, yet always on the watch
for possible evil ; in the sensation of being ever de-
fenceless, which is the life of the blind, she felt
Gwynplaine above her, — Gwynplaine never cold,
never absent, never obscured ; Gwynplaine sympa-
thetic, helpful, and sweet-tempered. Dea quivered
with certainty and gratitude, her anxiety changed
into ecstasy, and with her shadowy eyes she contem-
plated on the zenith from the depth of her abyss,
the rich light of his goodness. In the ideal, kind-
ness is the sun; and Gwynplaine dazzled Dea.
To the crowd, which has too many heads to have
a thought, and too many eyes to have a sight, — to
the crowd who, superficial themselves, judge only
of the surface, Gwynplaine was a clown, a merry-
andrew, a mountebank, a creature grotesque, a little
more and a little less than a beast. The crowd knew
only the face.
For Dea, Gwynplaine was the savior who had
gathered her into his arms in the tomb, and borne
her out of it; the consoler who made life tolerable;
the liberator whose hand, holding her own, guided
her through that labyrinth called blindness. Gwyn-
plaine was her brother, friend, guide, support; the
personification of heavenly power, the husband,
winged and radiant. Where the multitude saw the
monster, Dea recognized the archangel. For Dea,
being blind, perceived his soul.


WELL-MATCHED LOVERS.
379
Gwynplaine, we have said, compared himself and
compared Dea.
His existence, such as it was, was the result of a
double and unheard-of choice. It was the point of
intersection of two rays, one from below and one
from above, — a black and a white ray. To the
same crumb, perhaps pecked at at once by the beaks
of evil and good, one gave the bite, the other the
kiss. Gwynplaine was this crumb, an atom wounded
and caressed. Gwynplaine was the product of fatality
combined with Providence. Misfortune had placed
its finger on bim ; happiness as well. Two extreme
destinies composed his strange lot. He had on him
an anathema and a benediction. He was the elect,
cursed. Who was he? He knew not. When he
looked at himself, he saw one he knew not; but this
unknown was a monster. Gwynplaine lived as it
were beheaded, with a face which did not belong to
him. This face was frightful, — so frightful that it
was absurd ; it caused as much fear as laughter; it
was a hell-concocted absurdity; it was the shipwreck
of a human face into the mask of an animal. Never
had been seen so total an eclipse of humanity in a
human face; never parody more complete; never had
apparition more frightful grinned in nightmare; never
had everything repulsive to woman been more hide-
ously amalgamated in a man. The unfortunate heart,
masked and calumniated by the face, seemed forever
condemned to solitude under it, as under a tombstone.
Yet, no! Where unknown malice had done its
worst, invisible goodness had lent its aid. In the poor
fallen one, suddenly raised up, by the side of the re-


380
THE MAN WHO LAUGHŠ.
pulsive, it had placed the attractive; on the barren
shoal it had set the loadstone ; it had caused a soul
to fly with swift wings towards the deserted one; it
had sent the dove to console the creature whom the
thunderbolt had overwhelmed, and had made beauty
adore deformity. For this to be possible it was
necessary that beauty should not see the disfigure-
ment. For this good fortune misfortune was
required. Providence had made Dea blind.
Gwynplaine vaguely felt himself the object of a
redemption. Why had he been persecuted ? He
knew not. Why redeemed ? He knew not. All he
knew was that a halo had encircled his brand.
When Gwynplaine had been old enough to under-
stand, Ursus had read and explained to him the text of
Doctor Conquest,“ de Denasatis," and in another folio,
Hugo Plagon, the passage, “Nares habens mutilas ;'
but Ursus had prudently abstained from “hypothe-
ses,” and had been reserved in his opinion of what it
might mean. Suppositions were possible: the prob-
ability of violence inflicted on Gwynplaine when an
infant was hinted at; but for Gwynplaine the result
was the only evidence. His destiny was to live under
a stigma. Why this stigma ? There was no answer.
Silence and solitude were around Gwynplaine.
All was uncertain in the conjectures which could be
fitted to the tragical reality ; excepting the terrible
fact, nothing was certain. In his discouragement
Dea intervened a sort of celestial interposition be-
tween him and despair. He perceived, melted and
inspirited by the sweetness of the beautiful girl who
turned to him, that horrible as he was, a beautified


CHAPTER V.
THE BLACK CLOUD SHOWS A RIFT OF BLUE.
Thus lived these unfortunate creatures together :
Dea relying, Gwynplaine accepting. Each orphan
was the other's possession ; the feeble girl and the
deformed youth belonged to each other. The wid-
owed were betrothed. An inexpressible thanksgiving
arose out of their distress. They were grateful. To
whom? To the obscure immensity. Be grateful in
your own hearts; that suffices. Thanksgiving has
wings, and flies to its right destination. Your prayer
knows its way better than you can.
How many men have believed that they prayed to
Jupiter, when they prayed to Jehovah! How many
believers in amulets are listened to by the Almighty !
How many atheists there are who know not that
in the simple fact of being good and sad they pray
to God!
Gwynplaine and Dea were grateful. Deformity is
expulsion ; blindness is a precipice. The expelled
one had been adopted ; the precipice was habitable.
Gwynplaine had seen a brilliant light descending
on him, in an arrangement of destiny which seemed
to put in the perspective of a dream a white cloud
of beauty having the form of a woman, a radiant


THE BLACK CLOUD SHOWS A RIFT OF BLUE. 385
divine, and from which results that other mystery, —
confidence. In religions this is the only thing which
is irreducible ; but this irreducible thing suffices.
The great motive power is not seen, - it is felt.
Gwynplaine was the religion of Dea. Sometimes,
lost in her sense of love towards him, she knelt, like
a beautiful priestess before a gnome in a pagoda,
made happy by her adoration.
Imagine to yourself an abyss, and in its centre an
oasis of light, and in this oasis two creatures shut
out of life, dazzling each other. No purity could
be compared to their loves. Dea was ignorant what
a kiss might be, though perhaps she desired it;
because blindness, especially in a woman, has its
dreams, and though trembling at the approaches of
the unknown, does not fear them all. As to Gwyn-
plaine, his sensitive youth made him pensive. The
more delirious he felt, the more timid he became.
He might have dared anything with this companion
of his early youth, with this creature as innocent of
fault as of the light, with this blind girl who saw
but one thing, – that she adored him! But he
would have thought it a theft to take what she
might have given ; so he resigned himself, with a
melancholy satisfaction, to love angelically, and the
conviction of his deformity resolved itself into a
proud purity.
These happy creatures dwelt in the ideal. They
were spouses in it, at distances as opposite as the
spheres. They exchanged in its firmament the deep
effluvium which is in infinity attraction, and on earth
the sexes. Their kisses were the kisses of souls.
VOL. 1. — 25


386
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
They had always lived a common life. They knew
themselves only in each other's society. The infancy
of Dea had coincided with the youth of Gwynplaine.
They had grown up side by side. For a long time
.they had slept in the same bed, for the hut was not
a large bedchamber. They lay on the chest, Ursus
on the floor; that was the arrangement. One fine
day, while Dea was still very little, Gwynplaine felt
himself grown up, and it was in the youth that shame
arose. He said to Ursus, “I will also sleep on the
floor ;” and at night he stretched himself, with the
old man, on the bear-skin. Then Dea wept. She
cried for her bedfellow; but Gwynplaine, become
restless because he had begun to love, decided to
remain where he was. From that time he always
slept by the side of Ursus on the planks. In the
summer, when the nights were fine, he slept outside
with Homo.
When thirteen, Dea had not yet become resigned
to the arrangement. Often in the evening she said,
“Gwynplaine, come close to me; that will put me
to sleep.” A man lying by her side was a necessity
to her innocent slumbers.
Nudity is to see that one is naked. She ignored
nudity. It was the ingenuousness of Arcadia or
Otaheite. Dea, untaught, made Gwynplaine wild.
Sometimes it happened that Dea, when almost reach-
ing youth, combed her long hair as she sat on her
bed, — her chemise unfastened and falling off re-
vealed indications of a feminine outline, and a vague
commencement of Eve,--and would call Gwynplaine.
Gwynplaine blushed, lowered his eyes, and knew not


THE BLACK CLOUD SHOWS A RIFT OF BLUE. 387
The Daphnis de turned his head innocent creature
what to do in presence of this innocent creature.
Stammering, he turned his head, feared, and fled.
The Daphnis of darkness took flight before the Chloe
of shadow.
Such was the idyl blooming in a tragedy.
Ursus said to them, -
“Old brutes, adore each other !”


CHAPTER VI.
URSUS AS TUTOR, AND URSUS AS GUARDIAN.
Ursus added,
“Some of these days I will play them a nasty
trick. I will marry them.”
Ursus taught Gwynplaine the theory of love. He
said to him, —
“Do you know how the Almighty lights the fire
called love? He places the woman underneath, the
devil between, and the man at the top. A match,
– that is to say, a look, — and behold, it is all on
fire."
“A look is unnecessary,” answered Gwynplaine,
thinking of Dea.
And Ursus replied, -
“Booby! do souls require eyes to see each other?”
Ursus was a good fellow at times. Gwynplaine,
sometimes madly in love with Dea, became melan-
choly, and made use of the presence of Ursus as a
guard on himself. One day Ursus said to him, —
“Bah! do not put yourself out. When in love,
the cock shows himself.”
“But the eagle conceals himself,” replied Gwyn.
plaine.
At other times Ursus would say to himself, apart, -


URSUS AS TUTOR AND GUARDIAN.
389
“It is wise to put spokes in the wheels of the
Cytherean car. They love each other too much.
This may have its disadvantages. Let us avoid a
fire. Let us moderate these hearts.”
Then Ursus had recourse to warnings of this
nature, speaking to Gwynplaine when Dea slept, and
to Dea when Gwynplaine's back was turned :-
“Dea, you must not be so fond of Gwynplaine.
To live in the life of another is perilous. Egoism is
a good root of happiness. Men escape from women.
And then, Gwynplaine might end by becoming infatu-
ated with you. His success is so great ! ' You have
no idea how great his success is !”
"Gwynplaine, disproportions are no good. So
much ugliness on one side and so much beauty on
another ought to compel reflection. Temper your
ardor, my boy. Do not become too enthusiastic
about Dea. Do you seriously consider that you are
made for her ? Just think of your deformity and her
perfection! See the distance between her and your-
self. She has everything, this Dea. What a white
skin! What hair! Lips like strawberries! And her
foot! her hand! Those shoulders, with their ex-
quisite curve! Her expression is sublime. She walks
diffusing light; and in speaking, the grave tone of
her voice is charming. But for all this, to think that
she is a woman! She would not be such a fool as
to be an angel. She is absolute beauty. Repeat all
this to yourself, to calm your ardor."
These speeches redoubled the love of Gwynplaine
and Dea, and Ursus was astonished at his want of
success, just as one who should say, “ It is singular


396
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
Happily, Dea was not formed of such clay. The
stuff of which other women are made had not been
used in her construction. She had a rare nature.
The frame, but not the heart, was fragile. A divine
perseverance in love was in the heart of her being.
The whole disturbance which the word used by
Gwynplaine had produced in her, ended in her say-
ing one day, —
“To be ugly, — what is it? It is to do wrong.
Gwynplaine only does good. He is handsome.”
Then, under the form of interrogation so familiar
to children and to the blind, she resumed, -
“To see, — what is it that you call seeing? For
my own part, I cannot see; I know. It seems that
to see, means to hide.”
“What do you mean?” said Gwynplaine.
Dea answered, —
“To see, is a thing which conceals the true.”
“No," said Gwynplaine.
“But, yes,” replied Dea, “since you say you are
ugly."
She reflected a moment, and then said, “Story-
teller !”
Gwynplaine felt the joy of having confessed and
of not being believed. Both his conscience and his
love were consoled.
Thus they had reached, Dea sixteen, Gwynplaine
nearly twenty-five. They were not, as it would now
be expressed, “more advanced” than the first day.
Less even; for it may be remembered that on their
wedding night she was nine months and he ten
years old. A sort of holy childhood had continued


LESSONS IN CLAIRVOYANCE.
397
in their love. Thus it sometimes happens that the
belated nightingale prolongs her nocturnal song till
dawn.
Their caresses went no further than pressing hands,
or lips brushing a naked arm. Soft, half-articulate
whispers sufficed them.
Twenty-four and sixteen! So it happened that
Ursus, who did not lose sight of the ill turn he in-
tended to do them, said, —
“One of these days you must choose a religion.”
“ Wherefore ? ” inquired Gwynplaine.
“That you may marry.”
“ That is already done,” said Dea.
Dea did not understand that they could be more
man and wife than they were already.
At bottom, this chimerical and virginal content,
this innocent union of souls, this celibacy taken for
marriage, was not displeasing to Ursus. He had
said what he had said because he thought it necessary.
But the medical knowledge he possessed convinced
him that Dea, if not too young, was too fragile and
delicate for what he called “Hymen in flesh and
bone.”
That would come soon enough. Besides, were
they not already married ? If the indissoluble existed
anywhere, was it not in their union? Gwynplaine
and Dea! They were creatures worthy of the love
they mutually felt, flung by misfortune into each
other's arms. And as if there were not enough in
this first link, love had survened on misfortune, and
had attached them, united and bound them together.
What power could ever break that iron chain, bound


398
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
with knots of flowers ? They were indeed bound
together.
Dea had beauty, Gwynplaine had sight. Each
brought a dowry. They were more than coupled ;
they were paired; separated solely by the sacred
interposition of innocence.
Though dream as Gwynplaine would, however, and
absorb all meaner passions as he could, in the con-
templation of Dea and before the tribunal of con-
science, he was a man. Fatal laws are not to be
eluded. He underwent, like everything else in nature,
the obscure fermentations willed by the Creator. At
times, therefore, he looked at the women who were
in the crowd, but he immediately felt that the look
was a sin, and hastened to retire, repentant, into his
own soul.
Let us add that he met with no encouragement.
On the face of every woman who looked upon him,
he saw aversion, antipathy, repugnance, and rejection.
It was clear that no other than Dea was possible for
him. This aided his repentance.
.
Pul.


CHAPTER VIII.
NOT ONLY HAPPINESS, BUT PROSPERITY.
What true things are told in stories! The burnt
scar of the invisible fiend who has touched you is
remorse for a wicked thought. In Gwynplaine evil
thoughts never ripened, and he had therefore no
remorse. Sometimes he felt regret.
Vague mists of conscience.
What was this?
Nothing.
Their happiness was complete; so complete, that
they were no longer even poor.
From 1689 to 1704 a great change had taken place.
It happened sometimes in the year 1704, that as
night fell on some little village on the coast, a great
heavy van, drawn by a pair of stout horses, made its
entry. It was like the shell of a vessel reversed, - the
keel for a roof, the deck for a floor, — placed on four
wheels. The wheels were all of the same size, and
high as wagon-wheels. Wheels, pole, and van were
all painted green, with a rhythmical gradation of
shades, which ranged from bottle-green for the
wheels, to apple-green for the roofing. This green
color had succeeded in drawing attention to the
carriage, which was known in all the fair-grounds as


402
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
These two gypsies, picked up by the philosopher
from among the vagabondage of cities and suburbs,
were ugly and young, and were called, by order of
Ursus, the one Phoebe, and the other Venus.
For these read Fibi and Vinos, that we may con-
form to English pronunciation.
Phæbe cooked; Venus scrubbed the temple.
Moreover, on days of performance they dressed
Dea.
Mountebanks have their public life as well as
princes, and on these occasions Dea was arrayed, like
Fibi and Vinos, in a Florentine petticoat of flowered
stuff, and a woman's jacket without sleeves, leaving
the arms bare. Ursus and Gwynplaine wore men's
jackets, and, like sailors on board a man-of-war, great
loose trousers. Gwynplaine had, besides, for his
work and for his feats of strength, round his neck
and over his shoulders, an esclavine of leather. He
took charge of the horses. Ursus and Homo took
charge of each other.
Dea, being used to the Green Box, came and went
in the interior of the wheeled house, with almost as
much ease and certainty as those who saw.
The eye which could penetrate within the structure
and the internal arrangements of this ambulatory
house might have perceived in a corner, fastened to
the planks, and immovable on its four wheels, the
old hut of Ursus, placed on half-pay, allowed to rust,
and from thenceforth dispensed the labor of rolling,
as Homo was relieved from the labor of drawing it.
This hut, in a corner at the back, to the right of
the door, served as bed-chamber and dressing-room


408
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
The Council of Trent was required to put an end
to these familiarities.
Ursus had composed expressly for Gwynplaine
an interlude, with which he was well pleased. It
was his best work. He had thrown his whole soul
into it. To give the sum of all one's talent in the
production is the greatest triumph that any one can
achieve. The toad that produces a toad achieves
a masterpiece. You doubt it; Try, then, to do
as much.
Ursus had carefully polished this interlude. This
bear's cub was entitled “ Chaos Vanquished.” Here
it was : a night scene. When the curtain drew up,
the crowd, massed around the Green Box, saw noth-
ing but blackness. In this blackness three confused
forms moved in the reptile state: a wolf, a bear, and
a man. The wolf acted the wolf; Ursus, the bear;
Gwynplaine, the man. The wolf and the bear repre-
sented the ferocious forces of nature, — unreasoning
hunger and savage ignorance. Both rushed on Gwyn-
plaine. It was chaos combating man. No face
could be distinguished. Gwynplaine fought enfolded
in a winding-sheet, and his face was covered by his
thickly-falling locks. All else was shadow. The
bear growled, the wolf gnashed his teeth, the man
cried out. The man was down; the beasts over-
whelmed him. He cried for aid and succor; he
hurled to the unknown an agonized appeal. He
gave a death-rattle. To witness this agony of the
prostrate man, now scarcely distinguishable from the
brutes, was appalling. The crowd looked on breath-
less; in one minute more the wild beasts would


WHAT TASTELESS PEOPLE CALL POETRY. 409
triumph, and chaos reabsorb man. A struggle -
cries — howlings; then, all at once, silence.
A song in the shadows. A breath had passed,
and they heard a voice. Mysterious music floated,
accompanying this chant of the invisible; and sud-
denly, none knowing whence or how, a white appari-
tion arose. This apparition was a light; this light
was a woman; this woman was a spirit. Dea —
calm, fair, beautiful, formidable in her serenity and
sweetness — appeared in the centre of a luminous
mist. A profile of brightness in a dawn! She was
a voice,-a voice light, deep, indescribable. She sang
in the new-born light; she, invisible, made visible.
They thought that they heard the hymn of an angel
or the song of a bird. At this apparition the man,
starting up in his ecstasy, struck the beasts with his
fists, and overthrew them.
Then the vision, gliding along in a manner difficult
to understand, and therefore the more admired, sang
these words in Spanish sufficiently pure for the Eng-
lish sailors who were present:-
« Ora ! llora!
De palabra
Nace razon,
De luz el son.” 1
Then, looking down as if she saw a gulf beneath,
she went on,-
“Noche, quita te de alli !
El alba canta hallali.” ?
· Pray! weep! Reason is born of the word. Song creates
light.
3 Night, away! the dawn sings hallali.


410
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
As she sang, the man raised himself by degrees;
instead of lying he was now kneeling, his hands
elevated towards the vision, his knees resting on
the beasts, which lay motionless, and as if thunder-
stricken.
She continued, turning towards him, –
“ Es inenester a cielos ir,
Y tu que llorabas reir.” 1
And, approaching him with the majesty of a star,
she added, —
• Gebra barzon ;
Deja, monstruo,
A tu negro
Caparazon." ?
And she put her hand on his brow. Then another
voice arose, deeper, and consequently still sweeter, —
a voice broken and enwrapped with a gravity both ten-
der and wild. It was the human chant responding
to the chant of the stars. Gwynplaine, still in ob-
scurity, his head under Dea's hand, and kneeling on
the vanquished bear and wolf, sang, -
“O ven! ama!
Eres alma,
Soy corazon.” 8
And suddenly from the shadow a ray of light fell
full upon Gwynplaine. Then, through the darkness,
was the monster fully exposed.
1 Thou must go to heaven, and smile, thou that weepest.
? Break the yoke; throw off, monster, thy dark clothing.
8 Oh, come, and love! - thou art soul; I ain heart.


414
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
every evening for Dea, and she was ready to weep
with tenderness while the audience was in convul-
sions of laughter. Those around her were but joyful;
she was happy.
The sensation of gayety due to the sudden shock
caused by the rictus of Gwynplaine was evidently
not intended by Ursus. He would have preferred
more smiles and less laughter, and more of a literary
triumph. But success consoles. He reconciled him-
self every evening to his excessive triumph, as he
counted how many shillings the piles of farthings
made, and how many pounds the piles of shillings;
and besides, he said, after all, when the laugh had
passed, “ Chaos Vanquished ” would be found in the
depths of their minds, and something of it would
remain there.
Perhaps he was not altogether wrong; the founda-
tions of a work settle down in the mind of the pub-
lic. The truth is, that this populace, attentive to the
wolf, the bear, to the man, then to the music, to the
howlings governed by harmony, to the night dissi-
pated by dawn, to the chant releasing the light, ac-
cepted with a confused, dull sympathy, and with
a certain emotional respect, the dramatic poem of
“Chaos Vanquished,” the victory of spirit over mat-
ter, ending with the joy of man.
Such were the vulgar pleasures of the people.
They sufficed them. The people had not the means
of going to the noble matches of the gentry, and
could not, like lords and gentlemen, bet. a thousand
guineas on Helmsgail against Phelem-ghe-Madone.


AN OUTSIDER'S VIEW OF MEN AND THINGS. 421
destiny so reptile ? Shall a man drag himself thus
along, with such adherence to dust and corruption,
with such vicious tastes, such an abdication of right,
of such abjectness that one feels inclined to crush
him under foot? Of what butterfly is, then, this
earthly life the grub?
What ! in the crowd which hungers and which
denies everywhere, and before all, the questions of
crime and shame (the inflexibility of the laws pro-
ducing laxity of conscience), is there no child that
grows but to be stunted, no virgin but matures for
sin, no rose that blooms but for the slime of the
snail ?
His eyes at times sought everywhere, with the
curiosity of emotion, to probe the depths of that
darkness, in which there died away so many useless
efforts, and in which there struggled so much weari-
ness ; families devoured by society, morals tortured
by the laws, wounds gangrened by penalties, poverty
gnawed by taxes, wrecked intelligence swallowed up
by ignorance, rafts in distress alive with the fam-
ished, feuds, dearth, death-rattles, cries, disappear-
ances. He felt the vague oppression of a keen,
universal suffering. He saw the vision of the foam-
ing wave of misery dashing over the crowd of hu-
manity. He was safe in port himself as he watched
the wreck around him. Sometimes he laid his dis-
figured head in his hands and dreamed.
What folly to be happy! How one dreams !
Ideas were born within him. Absurd notions
crossed his brain.
Because formerly he had succored an infant, he


GWYNPLAINE THINKS; URSUS TALKS.
427
ing, the
ubridge
if ugls,
lelm of
lot mis-
d must
pid, or
things
ntrary,
only a
ut it is
· Lord
of the
king
ncient
-horus
is to
power. Why? Because they have riches. Who has
turned over the leaves of the Domesday-book ? It is
the proof that the lords possess England. It is the
registry of the estates of subjects, compiled under
William the Conqueror; and it is in the charge of
the Chancellor of the Exchequer. To copy anything
in it, you have to pay twopence a line. It is a proud
book. Do you know that I was domestic doctor to
a lord, who was called Marmaduke, and who had
thirty-six thousand a year? Think of that, you hide-
ous idiot! Do you know that, with rabbits only
from the warrens of Earl Lindsay, they could feed
all the riffraff of the Cinque Ports? And the
good order kept ! Every poacher is hung. For
two long, furry ears sticking out of a game-bag,
I saw the father of six children hanging on the
gibbet. Such is the peerage. The rabbit of a
great lord is of more importance than God's image
in a man.
“Lords exist, you trespasser, do you see? and we
must think it good that they do; and even if we do
not, what is that to them? The people object, in-
deed! Why, Plautus himself would never have at-
tained the comicality of such an idea! A philosopher
would be jesting if he advised the poor devil of the
masses to cry out against the size and weight of the
lords. Just as well might the caterpillar dispute
with the foot of an elephant. One day I saw a hip-
popotamus tread upon a mole-hill; he crushed it ut-
terly. He was innocent. The great soft-headed fool
of a inastodon did not even know of the existence
of moles. My son, the moles that are trodden on
Com- i
carlia-
zxons
Vor-
fum.
ing's
verly
I ad
The
are
the
the
on !


GWYNPLAINE THINKS; URSUS TALKS.
429
half being at the theological gallery at Cambridge.
I used to read the books seated under the ornamental
portal. These things are only shown to a select
number of curious travellers. Do you know, you
ridiculous boy, that William North, who is Lord
Grey of Rolleston, and sits fourteenth on the bench
of Barons, has more forest-trees on his mountains
than you have hairs on your horrible noddle? Do
you know that Lord Norreys of Rycote, who is Earl
of Abingdon, has a square keep a hundred feet high,
having this device, “Virtus ariete fortior,' — which
you would think meant that virtue is stronger than a
ram, but which really means, you idiot, that courage
is stronger than a battering-machine? Yes, I honor,
accept, respect and revere our lords. It is the lords
who, with her royal majesty, work to procure and pre-
serve the advantages of the nation. Their consum-
mate wisdom shines in intricate junctures. Their
precedence over others I wish they had not; but they
have it. What is called principality in Germany,
grandeeship in Spain, is called peerage in England
and France. There being a fair show of reason for
considering the world a wretched place enough, God
felt where the burden was most galling, and to prove
that He knew how to make happy people, created
lords for the satisfaction of philosophers. This acts
as a corrective. God washes His hands of the whole
affair, and extricates Himself decently from a false
position. The great are great. A peer, speaking of
himself, says 'We.' A peer is a plural. The king
qualifies the peer consanguinei nostri. The peers
1:ave made a multitude of wise laws, among others


GWYNPLAINE THINKS; URSUS TALKS.
431
feel happy when a beautiful vision passes : I have
not the light, but I have the reflection. “A reflec-
tion thrown on my ulcer, you will say. Go to the
devil! I am a Job, delighted in the contemplation
of Trimalcion. Oh, that beautiful and radiant planet
up there! But the moonlight is something. To
suppress the lords was an idea which Orestes, mad
as he was, would not have dared to entertain. To
say that the lords are mischievous or useless is as
much as to say that the State should be revolution-
ized, and that men are not made to live like cattle,
browsing the grass and bitten by the dog. The field
is shorn by the sheep, the sheep by the shepherd.
It is all one to me. I am a philosopher, and I care
about life as much as a fly. Life is but a lodging.
When I think that Henry Bowes Howard, Earl of
Berkshire, has in his stable twenty-four state car-
riages, of which one is mounted in silver and another
in gold, -- good heavens! I know that every one has
not got twenty-four State carriages ! But there is
no need to complain, for all that. Because you were
cold one night what was that to him? It concerns
you only. Others besides you suffer cold and hunger.
Don't you know that without that cold Dea would
not have been blind, and if Dea were not blind she
would not love you? Think of that, you fool! And
besides, if all the people who are lost were to com-
plain there would be a pretty tumult! Silence is
the rule. I have no doubt that the good God imposes
silence on the damned, otherwise Himself would be
punished by their everlasting cry. The happiness of
Olympus is bought by the silence of Cocytus. Then,


432
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
people, be silent! I do better myself, — I approve
and admire. Just now I was enumerating the lords,
and I ought to add to the list two archbishops and
twenty-four bishops. Truly I am quite affected when
I think of it. I remember to have seen at the tithe-
gathering of the Rev. Dean of Raphoe, who combined
the peerage with the church, a great tithe of beautiful
wheat taken from the peasants in the neighborhood,
and which the dean had not been at the trouble of
growing. This left him time to say his prayers. Do
you know that Lord Marmaduke, my master, was
Lord Grand Treasurer of Ireland and High Seneschal
of the sovereignty of Knaresborough in the county of
York? Do you know that the Lord High Chamber-
lain, which is an office hereditary in the family of the
Dukes of Ancaster, dresses the king for his corona-
tion, and receives for his trouble forty yards of crim-
son velvet, besides the bed on which the king has
slept, and that the Usher of the Black Rod is his
deputy? I should like to see you deny this, — that
the senior viscount of England is Robert Brent, cre-
ated a viscount by Henry V. The lords' titles imply
sovereignty over land, except that of Earl Rivers,
who takes his title from his family name. How ad-
mirable is the right which they have to tax others,
and to levy, for instance, four shillings in the pound
sterling income-tax, which has just been continued
for another year, and all the fine taxes on distilled
spirits, on the excise of wine and beer, on tonnage
and poundage, on cider, on perry, on mum, malt, and
prepared barley, on coals, and on a hundred things
besides! Let us venerate things as they are. The


GWYNPLAINE THINKS; URSUS TALKS.
433
clergy themselves depend on the lords. The Bishop
of Man is subject to the Earl of Derby. The lords
have wild beasts of their own, which they place
in their armorial bearings. God not having made
enough, they have invented others : they have created
the heraldic wild boar, who is as much above the
wild boar as the wild boar is above the domestic pig,
and the lord above the priest. They have created
the griffin, which is an eagle to lions, and a lion to
eagles, terrifying lions by his wings, and eagles by his
mane; they have the guivre, the unicorn, the ser-
pent, the salamander, the tarask, the dree, the dragon,
and the hippogriff. All these things, terrible to us,
are to them but an ornament and an embellishment.
They have a menagerie which they call the 'blazon,'
in which unknown beasts roar. The prodigies of the
forest are nothing compared to the inventions of their
pride. Their vanity is full of phantoms, which move
as in a sublime night, armed with helm and cuirass,
spurs on their heels and sceptres in their hands,
saying in a grave voice, We are the ancestors !'
The canker-worms eat the roots, and panoplies eat
the people. Why not? Are we to change the laws ?
The peerage is part of the order of society. Do you
know that there is a duke in Scotland who can ride
ninety miles without leaving his own estate? Do
you know that the Archbishop of Canterbury has a
revenue of forty thousand pounds a year? Do you
know that her majesty has seven hundred thousand
pounds sterling from the civil list, besides castles,
forests, domains, fiefs, tenancies, freeholds, preben-
daries, tithes, rent, confiscations, and fines, which
VOL. I. – 23


434
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS.
bring in over a million sterling? Those who are not
satisfied are hard to please.”
“Yes," murmured Gwynplaine, sadly; "the para-
dise of the rich is made out of the hell of the
poor.”


CHAPTER XII.
URSUS THE POET RUNS AWAY WITH URSUS THE
PHILOSOPHER.
THEN Dea entered. He looked at her, and saw
nothing but her. This is love; one may be carried
away for a moment by the importunity of some other
idea, but the beloved one enters, and all that does
not appertain to her presence immediately fades
away, without her dreaming that perhaps she is
effacing in us a world.
Let us mention a circumstance. In “Chaos Van-
quished,” the word monstro, addressed to Gwynplaine,
displeased Dea. Sometimes, with the smattering of
Spanish which every one knew at the period, she
took it into her head to replace it by quiero, which
signifies “I wish it.” Ursus tolerated, although not
without an expression of impatience, this alteration
in his text. He might have said to Dea, as in our
day Moëssard said to Vissot, “Tu manques de re-
spect au répertoire.”
The Man Who Laughs.
Such was the form of Gwynplaine's fame. His
name, Gwynplaine, little known at any time, had dis-
appeared under his nickname, as his face had disap-
peared under its grin,