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THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
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CRITICAL NOTE
BY
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
In The M an Who Laughs, it was Hugo’s object to “ de-
nounce ” (as he would say himself) the aristocratic principle
as it was exhibited in England; and this purpose, somewhat
more unmitigatedly satiric than that of the two last, must
answer for much that is unpleasant in the book. The re—
pulsiveness of the scheme of the story, and the manner in
which it is bound up with impossibilities and absurdities,
discourage the reader at the outset, and it needs an effort to
take it as seriously as it deserves. And yet when we judge
it deliberately, it will be seen that, here again, the story is
admirably adapted to the moral. The constructive ingenuity
exhibited throughout is almost morbid. Nothing could be
more happily imagined, as a reductio ad absurd'wm of the
aristocratic principle, than the adventures of Gwynplaine, the
itinerant mountebank, snatched suddenly out of his little way
of life, and installed without preparation as one of the
hereditary legislators of a great country. It is with a very
bitter irony that the paper, on which all this depends, is left
to float for years at the will of wind and tide. What,
again, can be finer in conception than that voice from the
people heard suddenly in the House of Lords, in solemn ar-
raignment of the pleasures and privileges of its splendid
occupants? The horrible laughter, stamped forever “ by
order of the king ” upon the face of this strange spokesman
of democracy, adds yet another feature of justice to the
scene; in all time, travesty has been the argument of op-
pression; and, in all time. the oppressed might have made
Y


vi CRITICAL NOTE
this answer: “ If I am vile, is it not your system that has
made me so?” This ghastly laughter gives occasion, more-
over, for the one strain of tenderness running through the
web of this unpleasant story: the love of the blind girl Dea for
the monster. It is a most benignant providence that thus
harmoniously brings together these two misfortunes; it is
one of those compensations, one of those afterthoughts of a
relenting destiny, that reconcile us from time to time to the
evil that is in the world; the atmosphere of the book is
purified by the presence of this pathetic love; it seems to
be above the story somehow, and not of it, as the full moon
over the night of some foul and feverish city.
There is here a quality in the narration more intimate and
particular than is general with Hugo; but it must be owned,
on the other hand, that the book is wordy, and even, now
and then, a little wearisome. Ursus and his wolf are pleas-
ant enough companions; but the former is nearly as much
an abstract type as the latter. There is a beginning, also,
of an abuse of conventional conversation, such as may be
quite pardonable in the drama where need must, but is with—
out excuse in the romance. Lastly, I suppose one must
say a word or two about the weak points of this not im-
maculate novel; and if so, it will be best to distinguish at
once. The large family of English blunders, to which we
have alluded already in speaking of The Toilers of the Sea,
are of a sort that is really indifferent in art. If Shake-
speare makes his ships cast anchor by some seaport of
Bohemia, if Hugo imagines Tom-Tim-Jack to be a likely
nickname for an English sailor, or if either Shakespeare, or
Hugo, or Scott, for that matter, be guilty of “figments
enough to confuse the march of a whole history—-
anachronisms enough to overset all chronology,” " the life of
their creations, the artistic truth and accuracy of their work,
is not so much as compromised. But when we come upon a
passage like the sinking of the “ Ourque ” in this romance,
' Prefatory letter to Peveril of the Peak.


CRITICAL NOTE vii
We can do nothing but cover our face with our hands: the
conscientious reader feels a sort of disgrace in the very read-
ing. For such artistic falsehoods, springing from what I
have called already an unprincipled avidity after effect, no
amount of blame can be exaggerated; and above all, when
the criminal is such a man as Victor Hugo. We cannot for—
give in him what we might have passed over in a third-rate
sensation novelist. Little as he seems to know of the sea
and nautical afi'airs, he must have known very well that
vessels do not go down as he makes the “ Ourque ” go down;
he must have known that such a liberty with fact was against
the laws of the game, and incompatible with all appearance
of sincerity in conception or workmanship.


_ WW W 1W\-—-'~~"Qct n“
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PREFACE

IN England, everything is great, even what is not good,—
even Oligarchy. The English Patriciate is the patriciate
in the absolute sense of the word. No more illustrious, more
terrible, or more vigorous feudality exists. Let us add that
this feudality has been useful at times. It is in England
that the phenomenon of Seigneurie must be studied, as in
France the phenomenon of Royalty must be studied.
The true title of this book should be “ Aristocracy.”
Another book that will follow may, perhaps, be entitled
“ Monarchy.” These two books, if it is given to the author
to finish his task, will precede and introduce another, to be
called “ N inety-Three.”
HAW Hour, 1869.





I.
II.
CHAPTER
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
CONTENTS
VOL. 1.
PART I.—-THE SEA AND THE NIGHT.
I.—TWO PRELIMINARY CHAPTERS.
URsUS..........
THE COMPBACHICOS . . . . . . .
BOOK I.— NIGHT NOT so BLACK As MAN.
PORTLAND BILL . . . . . . . . .
LEIT ALONE . . . . . . . . . .
ALONE . . . . . . . . . . . .
QUEsTIONs. . . . . . .
THE TREE or HUMAN INVENTION . . .
STRUGGLE BETWEEN DEATH AND NIGHT . .
THE NORTH POINT OF PORTLAND . .
PAGE
19
33
39
4-2
47
49
58
59
VII.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
BOOK II.— THE HOOKER AT
SUPERBUMAN LAws . . . . . .
OUR FIRST ROUGH SKETCHES FILLED IN
TROUBLED MEN ON THE TROUBLED SEA
SEA.
A CLOUD DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHERS ENTERS
SCENE .
HARDQUANONNE . . . .
THEY THINK THAT HELP Is
SUPERHUMAN HORRORs .
NIXETNOX.........-
THE CHARGE CONFIDED To A RAGING SEA .
AT HAND . .
0N
64'
67
'71
76
85
87
92
xi


X11
CONTENTS .
CnAr'rn
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
II.
III.
IV.
VI.
PAGE
Tn]: Commr. SAVAGE, 'rHl: S'ronu . . . . . . 96
Tan CAst'rs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
FAQ: To FACE WITH THE Rocx . . . . . . . . . 102
FACE 'ro FAcI: wrrrr Nron'r . . . . . . . . . 105
Owner; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
PoursN'rosum MARE . . . . . . . . . . . 108
THE PROBLEM sonosNLY woaxs 1N SILENCE . 112
THE LAs'r Resoonca . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Tim onnes'r Rasormce . 118
BOOK III.— Tm: CHILD 1N 'rm: SHADOW.
CR‘EBIL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
THE Ermc'r or SNow . . . . . . . . . . . 131
A BunnEN MAKES A Rouon ROAD BOUGHEB . . . 135
ANOTHER KIND or Dssna'r . . . . . . . . . . 139
MiaANrnnorv PLAYS i'rs PRAin . . . . . . . 14-3
Tn: Ameo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

PART II.— BY ORDER OF THE KING.
BOOK I.— Tm.- EvraLAs'rxNo Pneercs or run PAs'r-MAN “men
II.
III.
IV.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
XI.
XII.
MAN.
Loan CLANcKAan . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Loan DAVID DIRBY-MOII . . . . . . . . . . . 178
THE Ducmass JosrANA . . . . . . . . . . . 179
THE LrAnrzn or FAsHIoN . . . . . . . . . . . 189
QUEEN ANNE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
BAanrmznno . . . . . . . . . . . 904.
BARKILPHEDBO oNAws H18 WAY . . . . . . . 210
INFERI. . . . . . 215
HATE Is As STRONG As Lovr: . . . . . . . . 217
THE FLAME WHICH WOULD BE SEEN 1F MAN WERE TRANs-
PARENT . . . . . . 228
BARKILPHEDRO 1N AMBUSCADE I . . 231
ScorLANp, IRELAND, ANo ENGLAND . . . . . . . 985


CONTENTS
X111
Cnamn
I.
II.
'III.
IV.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
XI.
XII.
BOOK II.——Gwrm'r..u1u Arm Dru.
Wr-rnucrx W: or: rm FACE or Inn wnon wr: mum HI‘I‘H-
“To sum oxrx 'rr-rn Ac'rs . . . . . . . . .
DEA................
“ OcoLos xox HABET, u wont” . . . . . . .
WELL-MATCHED Lovass . . . . . . . . . .
THE BLUE SKY 'rimooor-r rm: Bucx Cwon . . . .
Unsos as Turoa, AND Unsus AS GUARDIAN . .
Burmxess GIVES Lassons 1x CLAIBVOYANCE . . . .
N or oxmr Harrmsss, BUT Paosrmnrr . .
Ansunm'rms wrucn Fours wrrnou'r Tns'rn can. Pos’rnr
AN On'rsmnn’s VIEW or MEN AND Tamas . . .
GWYNPLAINE 'rI-rmxs Jus'rrca, AND Ursus srsAKs Tsn'rn
Unsus 'rnn Pos'r DBAGI on Unsus rm: mesornu . .
PM}!
. 24-41
94-9
951
954,
256
260
264
267
. 272
278
. 283
291





THE MAN WHO LAUGHS

PART I
THE SEA AND THE NIGHT

I
TWO PRELIMINARY CHAPTERS
ursus
I
RSUS and Homo were fast friends. Ursus was a man,
I J Homo a wolf. Their dispositions corresponded. 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
fétes, at the corners of streets where passers-by throng,
and out of the desire which people seem to feel to listen to
idle nonsense, and to buy quack medicine. The wolf, gentle
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 varieties capable of domestica-
tion parade before us. It is this feeling that brings so many
“Purple out to view a royal cortége.


2 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Ursus and Home 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 fraternally,
side by side, with the wolf. They had thus grown old to-
gether. 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, or
before the entrances of churches. When the cart drew up
on a fair ground, where the gossips ran up open-r outhed
and the curious formed a circle round the pair, Ursu:
harangued and Homo approved. Then Homo, with a "owl
in his mouth, politely made a collection among the audience.
Thus they earned 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 tricks,
which swelled the receipts. “Above all things, do not de-
generate into a man,” his friend would say to him.
The wolf never hit: the man did, now and then. At
least, that was his intention. He was a misanthrope, and
to increase his misanthropy he had made himself a juggler:
to live, also; for the stomach has to be consulted. Moreover,
this juggler-misanthrope, whether to add to the complexity
of his being or to perfect it, was a doctor. To be a doctor
is nothing: Ursus was also a ventriloquist. You could hear
him speak without his moving his lips. He counterfeited,
so as to deceive you, any one’s accent or pronunciation. He
imitated voices so exactly that you believed you heard the
people themselves. All alone he could simulate the murmur
of a crowd; and this gave him a right to the title of En-
gastrimythos, which he took. He reproduced the notes of.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 3
all kinds of birds,— as of the thrush, the wren, the pipit
lark, otherwise called the grey 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, although
rare, exist. In the last century a man called Touzel, who
‘ imitated the mingled utterances of men and animals, and
who counterfeited all the cries of wild beasts, was attached
to the person of Bufi'on,—- to serve as a menagerie.
Ursus was sagacious, contradictory, odd, and inclined to
the singular expositions which we call fables. He even
pretended to believe in them; and this impudence was a part
of his humour. He read people’s hands; opened books at
random and drew conclusions; told fortunes; taught that it
is dangerous to meet a black mare, and still more dangerous,
as you start a journey, to hear yourself accosted by one
who does not know whither you are going. He called him-
self a dealer in superstitions. He used to say: “ There is
one difference between me and the Archbishop of Canterbury:
I avow what I am.” Hence it was that the archbishop, justly
indignant, summoned him before him one day; but Ursus
cleverly disarmed his Grace by reciting a sermon he had com-
posed 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 varied means. 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 sun-dew; at 0p—
portune 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 “ Jews’ ear.” He knew the


4 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
rush which cures the ox, and the mint which cures the horse.
He was well acquainted with the beauties and virtues of the
herb mandragora, which, as every one knows, is of both sexes.
He had many recipes. He cured burns with salamander 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 that he had once been for a short
time in Bedlam; they had done him the honour to take him
for a madman, but had set him free on discovering that he
was only a poet. This story was probably not true; we all
have to submit to some such absurd reports about ourselves.
The fact is, Ursus was a bit of a savant, a man of taste,
and an old Latin poet. He was skilled in two forms Of
verse,— he Hippocratized and he Pindarized. He could
have vied in bombast with Rapin and Vida. He could have
composed Jesuit tragedies in a style no less successful 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 clas-
sical metaphors at his command. He would say of a mother
followed by her two daughters, “ There is a dactyl; ” of a
father preceded by his two sons, “ There is an anapaest; ” and
of a little child walking between its grandmother and grand-
father, “ There is an amphimacer.” 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
hear 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 epiphomena.” Ursus at a pinch composed
comedies, which he all but acted in recital; this helped to sell
the drugs. Among other works, he composed an heroic
pastoral in honour of Sir Hugh Middleton, who in 1608
brought a river to London. The river was lying peacefully
It,“


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS .3
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 break-
ing up the ground, scooping it out in one place, raising it
in another,—- 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 entered London, which was short
of water. Ursus transformed all these vulgar details into a
fine Eclogue between the Thames and the New River, in
which the former invited the latter to come to him, 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 longing
to converse with some one, he solved 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 im-
prisoned longs to find a vent. To harangue space is an 0ut~
let. To talk out loud when one is alone is as it were to have
a dialogue with the divinity within. It was, as is well known,
a habit with Socrates; he declaimed to himself. Luther did
the same. Ursus took after those great men. He had the
hermaphrodite faculty of being his own audience. He ques—
tioned himself, answered himself, praised himself, blamed
himself. You heard him in the street soliloquizing in his
van. The passers—by, who have their own way of ap—
preciating clever people, used to say, “ He is an idiot.” As
we have just observed, he abused himself at times; but there
were times also when he did himself justice. One day, in
one of these allocutions addressed to himself, he was heard
to cry out: “ I have studied vegetation in all its mysteries,—
in the stalk, in the bud, in the sepal, in the stamen, in the
carpel, in the ovule, in the spore, in the theea, and in the
apothecium. I have thoroughly sifted chromatics, osmosis,


v6 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
and chymosis; that is to say, the formation of colours, of
smell, and of taste.” There was something fatuous, doubt—
less, in this certificate which Ursus gave to Ursus; but let
those who have thoroughly sifted chromatics, osmosis, and
chymosis cast the first stone at him.
Fortunately, Ursus had never gone into the Low Countries;
there they would certainly have weighed him, to ascertain
whether he was of the normal weight, above or below which
a man is a sorcerer. In Holland this weight was sagely fixed
by law. Nothing was simpler or more ingenious. It was a
clear test. They put you in a scale, and the evidence was
conclusive. Too heavy, you were hanged; too light, you
were burned. To this day the scales in which sorcerers were
weighed may be seen at Oudewater; but they are now used
for weighing cheeses. How religion has degenerated! Ursus
would certainly have had a crow to pluck with those scales.
In his travels he kept away from Holland, and he was wise.
Indeed, we believe that he never roved beyond the limits of
Great Britain. , -
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 came over him. So he took the
wolf into partnership, and with him went forth on the high—
ways, living in the open air the great life of chance. He had
a great deal of industry and caution, and great skill in
everything connected with healing operations, restoring the
sick to health, and working wonders peculiar to himself. He
was considered a clever mountebank and a good doctor. As
may be imagined, he passed for a wizard as well: not much
indeed,-— only a little; 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 Lucifer’s salads grew,
and where, as had been proved by the Counsellor De l’Ancre,
there is a risk of meeting in the evening mist a man who comes
out of the earth, “ blind in the right eye, bare-footed, without





“The little house on wheels belonged to Ursus and to the wolf.”
Vol. I , Page 7.
The Man Who Laughs.





THE MAN WHO LAUGHS .7.
a cloak, and with a sword by his side.” But for the matter
of that, Ursus, although eccentric in manner and disposition,
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 abomina-
tions,4— such for instance as speaking German, Hebrew, or
Greek, without having learned them, which is a sign of un—
pardonable wickedness, or of a natural infirmity proceeding
from a morbid humour. If Ursus spoke Latin, it was be-
cause 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 medicine, he
justly preferred Galen to Cardan,— Cardan, although a
learned man, being but an earthworm in comparison with
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 apparel. He owned a lantern, several
wigs, and some utensils suspended from nails, among which
were musical instruments. He possessed, besides, a bearskin
with which he covered himself on his days of grand perform-
ance. He called this putting on full dress. He used to say,
“ I have two skins: this is the real one,” pointing to the bear-
skin.
The little house on wheels belonged to himself and to the
wolf. Besides his house, his retort, and his wolf, he owned
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 the pipe of a cast-iron stove passed so close to his box
as to scorch the wood of it. The stove had two compart-
ments: in one of them Ursus cooked his chemicals, and in the
other big potatoes. At night the wolf slept under the van,


8 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
/
amicably secured by a chain. Homo’s hair was black, that of
Ursus grey. Ursus was fifty,—— unless, indeed, he was 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
pigs and convicts were fed. He ate them sadly, but re—
signedly. He was not tall,— he was long. He was bent and
melancholy. The bowed frame of an old man is the settle-
ment in the architecture 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 consolation
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 a hundred and eighty years ago, when men
were more like wolves than they are now. Not so very much
though.
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 bark
prolonged into a bowl, for a Chilian dog. But no one has
as yet examined the eye-ball of a Chilian dog sufficiently
to determine whether he be not a fox; and Homo was
a 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 occasionally 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 meeting 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


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 9
fished out crawfish, 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 a repugnance to having his hut drawn
by an ass; he thought too highly of the ass for that. More-
over, he had observed that the ass, a four-legged thinker
little understood by men, has a habit of cocking his ears
uneasily when philosophers talk nonsense. In life the ass
counts as 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, and say, “ I have
found the second volume of myself!” Again he said,
“ When I am dead, any one wishing to know me need only
study Homo. I shall leave him as a true copy behind
me.”
The English law, which is not very lenient to beasts of the
forest, might have picked a quarrel with the wolf, and pun—
ished him for his assurance in going freely about the towns;
but Homo took advantage of the immunity granted by a stat-
ute of Edward IV. to servants. “ Every servant in attendance
on his master is free to come and go.” Besides, a certain re-
laxation of the law had resulted with regard to wolves, in con—
sequence 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 taught Homo a portion of his accomplish-
ments,-—~ such as to stand upright, to restrain his rage into
sulkiness, to grow] instead of howl, etc.; and on his part, the
wolf had taught the man what he knew,— to do without a
roof, without bread and fire,—— and tolprefer hunger in the
Woods to slavery in a palace.
This van, which served both as a dwelling and a vehicle,
and which had travelled so many different roads without


10 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
ever leaving Great Britain, had four wheels, with shafts for
the wolf and a cross-bar for the man. The cross-bar came
into use when the roads were bad. The van was strong, al-
though it was built of light boards like a dove-cote. In front
there was a glass door with a little balcony used for orations,
which had something of the character of the platform tem—
pered by the air of a pulpit. At the back there was a
panelled door. By lowering three steps, which turned on a
hinge below the door, access was gained 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 in what colour it was difficult to say, changes 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 de-
ciphered; 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 hundredth part of
its bulk. This is what is called the Wear. Hence it follows that on
fourteen hundred millions of old in circulation throughout the world,
one million is lost annually. This million dissolves into dust, flies away,
floats about, is reduced to atoms, 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 Nature, was fortunately illegible, for it is pos—
sible that the philosophical remarks concerning the circula-
tion of gold might not have been to the taste of the sherifi's, 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. Jefi'eries had become a
breeder of whelps.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 11
III
IN the interior of the van there were two other inscrip—
tions. Above the locker, on a whitewashed plank, a hand,
had written in ink as follows:-——
Tns' ONLY Tamas Nscassnr To Know.
The baron, peer of England, wears a cap with six pearls. The
coronet begins with the rank of viscount. The visoount wears a
coronet of which the pearls are without number. The earl, a coronet
with the pearls upon points, mingled with strawberry leaves placed low
between. The marquis, one with earls and leaves on the same level.
The duke, one with strawberry eaves alone,— no pearls. The royal
duke, a circlet of crosses and eurs-de-lis. The Prince of Wales, crown
like that of the king, but unc osed.
The duke is “most high and most puissant prince,” the marquis and
ear “most noble and puissant lord,” the viscount “noble and puissant
lor ,” the baron “trusty lord.” The duke is “ his Grace;” the other
Peers their “Lordships.” “Most honourable” is higher than “right
honourable.”
Lords who are (peers are lords in their own right. Lords who are
not peers are lor by courtesyz—there are no real lords, excepting
such as are peers.
The House of Lords is a chamber and a court, Concilium at Curio,
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 ossession of a tenure from the king
per Baroniam integram, by full arony. The full barony consists of
thirteen knights’ fees and one third part, each knight’s fee being of
the value of twenty ounds sterling, which makes in all four hundred
marks. The head 0 a barony (caput barom'w) is a castle disposed
by inheritance, as England herself,—— that is to say, descendin to
daughters if there be no sons, and in that case going to the edest
daughter, cwtori: filiabul aliamdé initilfactis.l
1 As much as to say, the other daughters are plrovided for as best may
be. (Note by Ursus on the margin of the we .)


12 THE MAN WHO. LAUGHS
Barons have the degree of lord,—— in Saxon, laford; dominus in high
Latin; Lord/us 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 recedence of knights of the garter. The younger sons do
not. The edest son of a viscount comes after all barons, and pre-
cedes all baronets. Every daughter of a peer is a “Lady.” Other
English girls are plain “Mistress.”
All judges rank below peers. The sergeant wears a lambskin tip—
pet; the judge one of vair, de minuto vario, made up of a variety
of little white furs, always excepting ermine. Ermine is reserved for
peers and the kin .
A lord never ta es an oath, either to the crown or the law. His word
sufiices; he says, “ Upon my honour.”
By a law of Edward t e Sixth, peers have the privilege of com-
mitting manslau hter. A peer who kills a man without premeditation
is not prosecute .
The persons of peers are inviolable.
rance, 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 eer to walk the street
in a cloak, followed by two footmen; he shoul only show himself at-
tended 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. A peer may retain six aliens born, any other Englishman but
four. A peer can have wine custom-free; an earl eight tuns. A peer
is alone exempt from presenting himself before the sherifi" of the cir—
cuit. 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 ad-
journment of the case, if there be not at least one knight on the 'ury.
A peer nominates his own chaplains; a baron appoints three chap ains,
a viscount four, an earl and a marquis five, a duke six. A peer can-
not 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.
If a plebeian strike a lord, his hand is cut oil“.
A lord is very nearly a king; the king is very nearly a god~
The earth is a lordship.
The English address God as “mv lord!”
A peer cannot be held in du—


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 13
Opposite this writing was written a second one, in the
same fashion, which ran thus:—
SATISFACTION WHICH mus'r SUFFICE 'rrrosE WHO HAVE Nornmo.
Henry Auverquerque, Earl of Grantham, who sits in the House of
Lords between the Earl of Jersey and the Earl of Greenwich, has a
hundred thousand a year. To his lordship belongs the palace of Grant-
ham 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 corridor in lumachel of Astracan;
the white corridor in marble of Lani; the black corridor in marble of
Alabanda; the grey corridor in marble of Staremma; the yellow cor-
ridor 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 corridor
in granite of Catalonia; the mourning-hued corridor 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
colours, called “ the courtiers’ corridor,” in motley.
Richard Lowther, Viscount Lonsdale, owns Lowther in Westmore-
land, which has a magnificent approach, and a flight of entrance steps
which seems to invite the ingress of kings.
Richard, Earl of Scarborough, Viscount and Baron Lumley of Lum-
ley Castle, Viscount Lumley of Waterford in Ireland, and Lord Lieu-
tenant and Vice-Admiral 0f 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 matchless fountain. He has,
besides, his castle of Lumley.
Robert Darcy, Earl of Holderness, has his domain of Holderness,
with baronial towers, and large ardens laid out in French fashion,
where he drives in his coach-an -six, preceded by two outriders, as
becomes a peer of England.
Charles Beauclerc, Duke of St. Alban’s, Earl of Burford, Baron
Heddington, Grand Falconer of England, has an abode at Windsor,
regal even in comparison with the king’s.
Charles Bodville Robartes, Baron Robartes of Truro, Viscount Bod-
min and Earl of Radnor, owns Wimpole in Cambridgeshire, which is
really three palaces in one, having three facades, 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
Cardifl", Earl of Montgomery and of Pembroke, Ross of Kendall, Parr,
Fitzhugh, Marmion, St. Quentin, and Herbert of Shurland, Warden of
the Stannaries in the counties of Cornwall and Devon, hereditary vis-
itor of Jesus College, possesses the wonderful gardens at Wilton, where
there are two sheaf-like fountains, finer than those of his most Chris-
tian Majesty King Louis XIV. at Versailles.
Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset, owns Somerset House on the
Thanms, which is equal to the Villa Pamphili at Rome. On the chim-


14. ..THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
ney-piece are seen two porcelain vases of the dynasty of Yuen, which
are worth half a million in French money.
In Yorkshire, Arthur, Lord Ingram, Viscount Irwin, has Temple
Newsam, which is entered under a triumphal arch, and which has large
wide roofs resembling Moorish terraces.
Robert, Lord Ferrers of Chartly, Bourchier and Louvaine, has Staun-
ton Harold in Leicestershire, of which the park is geometrically
planned in the shape of a temple with a facade, and in front of the
piece of water is the great church with the square belfry, which be—
longs to his lordship.
In the county of Northampton, Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland,
member of His Majesty’s Privy Council, possesses Althor , at the
entrance of which is a railing with four columns surmounted y groups
in marble.
Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, has, in Surrey, New Park, ren-
dered magnificent by its sculptured pinnacles, its circular lawn belted
by trees, and its woodland, at the extremity of which is a little moun-
tain, artistically rounded, and surmounted by a large oak, which can
be seen from afar.
Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, ossesses Bretby Hall in
Derbyshire, with a splendid clovk tower, fa 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
hei ht.
Cgharles 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 country-seat which is in the shape
of a capital H, and which rejoices sportsmen with its abundance of
ame.
g 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 lordly pavilions, its belfry in the centre,
and its grand courtyard 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, and which is called milhambres,
that is to say “a thousand men.” On this bed is inscribed, Honi soit
qm' mal y pense‘.
Edward Rich, Earl of Warwick and Holland, is owner of Warwick
Castle, where whole oaks are burnt in the fire—places.
In the parish of Sevenoaks, Charles Sackville, Baron Buckhurst,
Baron Cranfield, Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, is owner of Knowle,
which is as large as a town and is composed of three palaces standing
parallel one behind the other, like ranks of infantry. There are six
gables in steps on the principal frontage, and a gate under a keep with
four towers.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 15
Thomas Thynne, Baron Thynne of Warminster, and Viscount Wey-
mouth, possesses Longleat, in which there are as many chimneys,
cupolas, pinnacles, 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 Escurial 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 stron embattled 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 facade broken b tur-
rets; its park, its fish-ponds, its pheasantries, its sheep—folds, its awns;
its grounds planted with rows of trees; its groves, its walks, its shrub-
beries; its flower-beds and borders, formed in square and lozenge—
shape, and resembling great carpets; its race-courses, and the majestic
sweep for carriages to turn in at the entrance of the house,— belongs
to Robert, Earl Lindsey, hereditary lord of the forest of Waltham.
U Park, in Sussex, a square house, with two 5 mmetrical belfried
pavi ions on each side of the great courtyard, be ongs to the Right
Honourable Forde, Baron Grey of Werke, Viscount Glendale and Earl
of 'I‘ankerville.
Newnham Paddox, in Warwickshire, which has two quadrangular fish-
ponds and a gabled archway with a large window of four panes, be-
longs 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,
reachin to the fields outside London; he is also owner of Chiswick,
where t ere are nine magnificent corps de logis; he also owns Londes-
borough, 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 Gloucester-
shire, a residence from which a number of avenues branch out like rays
from a star. 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 Bols-
vver, with its majestic square keeps; his also, is Haughton, in Notting-
__W , _-, F’A..~_‘~_v ~w-w_w- _> -<
a. . k-v- ... . ._.._-_.-_


16 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
hamshire, where a round yramid, made to imitate the Tower of Babel,
stands in the centre of ahasin of water.
William, Earl of Craven, Viscount Uflington, and Baron Craven of
Hamstead Marshall, owns Combc Abbey 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 intersection of cross-roads in the forest.
Linnaeus, Lord Clancharlie, Baron Clancharlie and Hunkerville, Mar-
quis of Corleone in Sicily, derives his title from the Castle of Clan-
charlie, built in 912 by Edward the Elder, as a defence against the
Danes. Besides Hunkerville House, in London, which is a palace, he
has Corleone Lodge at Windsor, which is another, and eight castle-
wards, one at Burton-on-Trent, with a royalty on the carriage of
plaster of Paris; then Grumdaith, Humble, Moricambe, Trewardraith,
Hell-Kesters (where there is a miraculous well), Phillinmore, with its
turf bogs, Reculver, near the ancient city of Vagniac, Vinecaunton, on
the MoeI-eulle Mountain; besides nineteen boroughs and villages with
reeves, and- the whole of Penneth chase, all of which brings his lord-
ship 40,0001. a year.
The one hundred and seventy—two peers enjoying their dignities un-
der James II. possess among them altogether a revenue of 1372,0001.
sterling a year, which is the eleventh part of the revenue of England.
In the margin, opposite the last name (that of Lin-
naaus, Lord Clancharlie), there was a note in the hand-
writing of Ursus:—
‘ill’tebel; in exile; houses, lands, and chattels sequestrated. It is
we .
IV
Unsos admired Homo. One admires one’s counterpart.
That is a universal law.
To be always raging inwardly and grumbling outwardly
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 approval to no one and
to nothing. The bee did not atone for its sting by its
honey—making; 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. “Evidently,” he
Would say, “the devil works by a spring, and the mistake


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 17
that God made is having let go the trigger.” He approved
of none but princes, and he had his own peculiar way of
expressing his approbation. 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, burst into loud exclama-
tions of admiration before the crowd, and exclaimed: “ It is
certain that the blessed Virgin needs a lamp much more than
those barefooted children there need shoes.”
Such proofs of his loyalty and such evidences of his respect
for established powers probably contributed in no small de
gree to make the magistrates tolerate his vagabond life and
his disreputable alliance with a wolf. Sometimes of an even-
ing, through friendly weakness, he allowed Homo to stretch
his limbs and wander about. The wolf was incapable of an
abuse of confidence, and behaved in society, that is to say
among men, with all the meekness of a poodle. All the
same, if bad-tempered officials had to be dealt with, difficulties
might arise; 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 travelled freely from one end of Great Britain
to the other, selling his philtres, and phials, and performing,
with the assistance of his wolf, his quack mummeries; and
he passed with ease through the meshes of the nets which
the police of that period had spread all over England in or-
der to catch 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 téte-z‘z-téte, into which the wolf
gently thrust his nose. If Ursus could have had his way,
he would have been a Caribbee; that being impossible, he
2


18 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
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 anywhere
long, suffocated him with the sense of being tamed. He
spent his life in moving on. The sight of towns increased
his taste for brambles, thickets, thorns, and caves. His home
was the forest. He did not feel much out of his element in the
murmur of crowded streets, which is' so like the rustling of
trees. The crowd to some extent satisfies our taste for the
desert. What he disliked most in his van was its having a
door and windows, 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.
Ursus did not smile, as we have already said, but he used
to laugh,——- sometimes, indeed frequently, a bitter laugh.
There is consent in a smile, while a laugh is often a refusal.
His chief business was to hate the human race. He was
implacable in this hatred. Having satisfied himself that
human life is a dreadful thing; having observed the super-
position of evils,— kings on the people, war on kings, the
plague on war, famine on the plague, folly on everything;
having proved a certain degree of chastisement in the mere
fact of existence; having recognized that death is a deliver-
ance,—— when they brought him a sick man be cured him;
and he had cordials and beverages to prolong the lives of the
old. 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 vale of tears!” When he
saw a poor man dying of hunger, he gave him all the pence
he had about him, growling 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 in
big letters, but visible from without,—“ Unsus, Pnrmso-
PEER.”


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 19
II
THE COMPRACHICOS
I
HO ever hears the word “ Complachicos ” now, and
who knows its meaning?
The Comprachicos, or Comprapequefios, were a hideous
and nondescript association of wanderers, famous in the
seventeenth century, forgotten in the eighteenth, unheard of
in the nineteenth. The Comprachicos are like the “ suc—
cession powder,” an ancient social characteristic detail. They
are part of old human ugliness. To the great eye of
history, which sees everything collectively, the Comprachicos
are closely connected with the colossal evil of slavery. Joseph
sold by his brethren is one chapter in their history. 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
foot-print of a savage in a forest.
Comprachicos, the same as Comprapequefios, is a compound
Spanish word signifying “ Child-buyers.” The Com—
prachicos traded in children. They bought and sold them.
They did not steal them; the kidnapping of children is
another branch of industry. And what did they make of
these children? Monsters. Why monsters? To laugh at.
The populace must needs laugh; and kings too. The mounte—
bank is wanted in the streets; the jester at the Louvre. The
first is called a Clown; the other, a Fool. The efforts of man
to provide himself with amusement 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.”


20 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
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 a special trade. The
seventeenth century, 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 simper. 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 prove a success, he must
be taken in hand early. The dwarf must be fashioned when
young. We play with childhood. But a well-formed 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 distorted 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 had put a look, their art put a
squint; where God had made harmony, they made discord;
where God had made a perfect picture, they made a carica—
ture; and in the eyes of connoisseurs it was the caricature
that was perfect. They debased animals as well; they in-
vented piebald horses. Turenne rode a piebald horse. In
our own days do we not dye dogs blue and green? Nature
is our canvas. Man has always wished to add something to
God’s work. Man retouches creation, sometimes for better,
sometimes for worse. The Court bufi'oon was nothing but
an attempt to lead man back to the monkey. It was a move
in the wrong direction; a masterpiece in retrogression. At
the same time they tried to make a man of the monkey. Bar—
bara, Duchess of Cleveland and Countess of Southampton,
had a marmoset for a page. Frances Sutton, Baroness Dud—


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 21
ley, 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 bear—
ings, behind which stood, with muzzles high up in the air,
three Cape monkeys in grand livery. A Duchess of Medina—
Celi, at whose toilet Cardinal Pole assisted, had her stockings
put on by an ourang-outang. These monkeys thus raised in
the social scale were a counter-poise to men 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 himself; the dog was the pair of the
dwarf,— it was as if they were coupled with a collar. This
juxtaposition is authenticated by a mass of historic records;
and notably by the portrait of Jeffrey Hudson, dwarf of
Henrietta of France, daughter of Henri IV., and wife of
Charles I.
To degrade man tends to deform him. The degradation
of his condition was completed by disfigurement. Certain
vivisectors of that period succeeded marvellously well in efi'ac-
ing from the human face the divine efligy. Doctor 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 inventor 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 Heidel-
rg, was a remarkable specimen of this science, which was
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.


22 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
III
THE manufacture of monstrosities was practiced on a large
scale, and comprised various branches. The Sultan wanted
them; so did the Pope,— the one to guard his women, the
the other to say his prayers. These were of a peculiar kind,
incapable of reproduction. Scarcely human beings, they were
useful to voluptuousness and to religion. The seraglio and
the Sistine Chapel utilized the same species of monsters; 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 liv—
ing human flesh; this is consequent on the loss of the art of
torture. Men were once virtuosos in that respect, but are so
no longer; the art has become so simplified that it will soon
disappear altogether. In cutting off the limbs of living men,
in opening their bellies and dragging out their entrails, phe—
nomena 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 the aid
of the executioner.
The vivisection of former days was not limited to the man—
ufacture of phenomena for the market-place, of bufl'oons for
the palace, and eunuchs for sultans and popes. It abounded
in varieties. One of its triumphs was the manufacture of
cocks for the King of England.
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, repeat—
ing it as often as was necessary, and thus supplying the place
of a clock. This man had in childhood undergone an operation
of the pharynx, which was part of the art described by Dr.
Conquest. Under Charles II. the salivation caused by the
operation having disgusted the Duchess of Portsmouth, the


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 23
appointment was indeed preserved, so that the splendour of
the crown should not be impaired; but they got an unmuti—
lated man to represent the cock. A retired officer was gen—
erally selected for this honourable employment. Under
James II. the functionary was named William Sampson,
Cock, and received for his crow 91. 2.9. 6d. annually.1 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 at Versailles either an oflicer act-
ing the cock, or a prince acting the turkey. That which
enhanced the royal and imperial dignity in England and
Russia would have seemed to Louis the Great incompatible
with the crown of St. Louis. We know how intense was his
displeasure when Madame Henriette forgot herself 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 remembered, was nearly as much scandalized as Louis
XIV.
18cc Chamberlayne’s “Present State of England,” part i. chap. xiii,
p.179. 1688.


24 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
IV
THE traffic in children in the seventeenth century, as we
have already explained, was connected with a trade. The
Camprachicos engaged in the traffic and carried on the trade.
They bought children, worked a little on the raw material,
and re-sold them afterwards.
The vendors 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. Remem-
ber that it is less than a century ago that the Elector of
Hesse sold his subjects to the King of England, who re—
quired 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 sub-
jects in his shop: “ Come, buy! they are for sale!” In
England, under Jefi'ries, after the tragical episode of Mon—
mouth, there were many lords and gentlemen beheaded and
quartered. Those who were executed left wives and daugh—
ters, 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 transac'
tion. 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 explained, by
the fact that having a wilderness to sow with men, he needed
women as farming implements. Her Gracious Majesty
made a handsome sum out of these ladies. The young sold
dear. We can imagine, with the uneasy feeling which a
complicated scandal arouses, that probably some old duch-
esses were thrown in cheap.
The Comprachicos were also called the Cheylas,-—- a
Hindoo word, which conveys the idea of harrying a nest.
For a long time the Comprachicos made only a pretence of
concealing themselves. There is sometimes a favouring
shadow thrown over iniquitous trades, in which they thrive.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 25
In our own day we have seen an association of this kind in
Spain, under the direction of the ruifian Ramon Selles,
continue from 1834! to 1866, and keep three provinces in
terror for thirty years,— Valencia, Alicante, and Murcia.
Under the Stuarts, the Comprachicos were by no means in
bad odour at Court. On occasions they were used for
reasons of State. For James II. they were almost an
instrumental 'regni. It was a time when 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 for the profit of another.
The Comprachicos had a genius for disfigurement which
recommended them to State policy. To disfigure is better
than to kill. There was, indeed, the Iron Mask, but that
was a dangerous measure. Europe could not be peopled
with iron masks, while deformed mountebanks 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 in-
genious?
The Comprachicos 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 wonder-
ful. They could touch up a little being with such skill that
its father would not have recognized it. Sometimes they
left the spine straight and remade the face. Children des—
tined for tumblers had their joints dislocated in a masterly
manner; you would have said they had been boned. Thus
gymnasts were made. The Comprachicos not only deprived
a child of his natural lineaments, not only took away his face
from the child, but they also took away his memory. At least
they took away all they could of it; the child had no con-
sciousness of the mutilation to which he had been subjected.
The frightful operation left its traces on his countenance,
but not on his mind. The most he could recall was that one
day he had been seized by men; that next he had fallen asleep;


26 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
and then that he had been cured. Cured of what, he did not
know. Of burnings with sulphur and incisions with the iron
he remembered nothing. The Comprachicos deadened the lit—
tle patient by means of a stupefying powder which was
thought to be magical, and which suppressed all pain. This
powder has been known from time immemorial in China, and
is still employed there. The Chinese have been in advance
of us in all our inventions,—— printing, artillery, aérostation,
chloroform. The difference is that the discovery which at
once takes life in Europe and becomes a prodigy and a won-
der, in China remains a chrysalis and is preserved in a death-
like state. China is a museum of embryos.
As we are in China, let us linger a moment to note another
peculiarity. In China, from time immemorial, they have
displayed a marvellous refinement in 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 more or less grotesque por—
celain vase, which is made without top or bottom to allow egress
for the feet and head. During the day the vase is set up—
right, 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 distorted bones
the depressions in the vase. This development in a bottle
continues many years. After a certain time it becomes ir—
reparable. 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!
This is convenient; by ordering your dwarf betimes you
are able to have him of any shape you wish.
V
JAMES II. tolerated the Comprachicos for the very good
reason that he found them useful; at least it happened that
he did so more than once.
We do not always disdain to use what we despise. This
low trade, an excellent substitute sometimes for the higher one


.THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 27
which is called State policy, was censured but not persecuted.
There was no surveillance, but a certain amount of attention.
Sometimes the king went so far as to avow his complicity;
such is the audacity of monarchical terrorism. The disfigured
one was marked with a fleur-de—lis; they took from him the
mark of God, and 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, upon whose forehead the dealer had branded a flaw-
de—lis with a hot iron. In certain cases in which it was con—
sidered desirable to record for some reason the royal origin
of the new position made for the child, they used such means.
England has always done us the honour to utilize the fleur-
de—lis for her personal use.
The Comprachicos, allowing for the shade of difference
which distinguishes a trade from a fanaticism, were analogous
‘to the Stranglers of India. They lived in gangs, and to
facilitate their operations affected somewhat of the Merry-
Andrew. They encamped here and there, but were grave
and religious, bearing no affinity to other nomads, and were
incapable of theft. The people for a long time wrongly con-
founded them with the Moors of Spain and the Moors of
China. The Moors of Spain were counterfeiters; 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 nationalities. English, French, Castil-
ians, Germans, Italians fraternized under the name of Com—
prachicos. A unity of idea, a unity of superstition, and the
pursuit of the same calling made such fusions. In this rov—
ing fraternity those of the Mediterranean seaboard repre-
sented the East, those of the Atlantic seaboard the West.
Many Basques held converse with many Irishmen. The
Basque and the Irishman understand each other, they speak
the old Punic jargon; add to this the intimate relations of
~...-»- '—-\~--—._~..~\-~ _-~- ___.»-. s < ~ .<, k.,|_._.»._.-.__'n>“_
“JHWV W k


28-" vTHE MAN WHO LAUGHS
)1
Catholic Ireland with Catholic Spain,—— relations such that
they resulted in bringing to the gallows in London one who
was almost King of Ireland, the Celtic Lord de Brany.
The Comprachicos were rather a fellowship than a tribe;
rather a residuum than a fellowship. They were all the riff—
rafi' of the universe, having a crime for their trade. They
were a sort of harlequin people, all composed of rags. To
gain a recruit was to sew on another tatter. To appear and
disappear, to wander about, was the Comprachicos’ law of
existence. What is barely tolerated cannot take root. Even
in kingdoms where their business supplied the Courts, and
occasionally served as an auxiliary to the royal power, they
were often ill—treated. Kings made use of their art and then
sent the artists to the galleys. These inconsistencies belong
to the ebb and flow of royal caprice,—“ For such is our good
will and 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 said, 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 contractors in the trade were rich. After
the lapse of two centuries it would be difficult to throw any
light on this point.
They were, as we have said, a fellowship. They had their
laws, their oaths, their formulae,—— almost their 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 Oyarzun, at Urbistondo, at Leso, at Astigarraga.
“ Aguardate nifio, que voy a llamar a1 Comprachicos ” (Take
care, child, or I’ll call the Comprachicos) is the cry with
which mothers frighten their children in that country.
The Comprachicos, like the Zigeuner and the Gipsies, had
appointed places for periodical meetings. Their leaders con-
ferred together from time to time. In' the seventeenth cen-


THE MAN WVHO LAUGHS 29
tury they had four principal points of rendezvous,— one,
the pass of Pancorbo in Spain; one, the glade called the
Wicked Woman, near Diekirsch, in Germany, where there
are two strange has—reliefs, representing a woman with a
head and a man without one; one in France, the hill where the
colossal statue of Massue-la-Promesse stood in the old sacred
wood of Borvo Tomona, near Bourbonne les Bains; and one in
England, behind the garden wall of William Challoner,
Squire of Gisborough in Cleveland, Yorkshire.
VI
THE laws against vagabonds have always been very rigor-
ous in England. In her Gothic legislation England seemed
to be inspired with this principle, Homo errans fem errante
pejor. One of the special statutes classifies the man without
a home as “ more dangerous than the asp, dragon, lynx, or
basilisk ” (atrocior aspide, dracone, lynce, et basilica). For
a long time England troubled herself as much concerning the
Gipsies, of whom she wished to be rid, as about the wolves
of which she had been cleared. In that the Englishman dif—
fered from the Irishman, who prayed to the saints for the
health of the wolf, and called him “ my god-father.”
Nevertheless, in the same way that English law (as we
have just seen) tolerated the wolf, which was tamed, domesti-
cated, and become in some sort a dog, so it tolerated the reg—
ular vagabond, become in some sort a subject. It did not
trouble itself about either the mountebank or the travelling
barber, the quack doctor, the peddler, or the open—air scholar,
as long as they had a trade to live by. Further than this,
and with these exceptions, the kind of freedom which exists
in the wanderer terrified the law. A tramp was a possible
public enemy. That modern thing, the loafer, was then un-
known; that ancient thing, the vagrant, was alone under-
stood_ A suspicious appearance, that indescribable some-
thing- which all understand and none can define, was sufficient
mass—in why society should seize a man by the collar and de-


30 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
mand, “ 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 practiced the cauteri—
zation of vagrancy. Hence, throughout English territory
a veritable loi des suspects was applicable to vagrants (who,
it must be owned, readily became v.nalefactors), and particu—
larly to Gipsies, whose expulsion has erroneously been com—
pared 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 common with
the Gipsies. The Gipsies were a nation; the Comprachicos
were a compound of all nations,——— the lees of a horrible ves-
sel full of filthy waters. The Comprachicos had not, like
the Gipsies, a vernacular of their own; their jargon was a
promiscuous collection of idioms; all languages were mixed
together in their language; they spoke a medley. Like the
Gipsies, they had come to be a people winding through the
peoples; but their common tie was association, 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 Gipsies were a tribe; the
Comprachicos, a freemasonry,—a masonry having not a.
noble aim, but a hideous handicraft. Finally, their religions
differed: the Gipsies 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 Catholics; they were more than
Catholics, they were Romanists; and they were so devoted
in their faith, and so pure, that they refused to associate
with the Hungarian nomads of the comitat of Pesth, com—
manded 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 29th of
August, which is an abomination.
— -»---, ~-- -- _---.-....- _... ,7 ..._ :_...__,___ ___';. _________ __


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 31
In England, so long as the Stuarts reigned, the confeder—
ation of the Comprachicos was (for motives of which we have
already given a glimpse) to a certain extent protected.
James II., a devout man, who persecuted the Jews and tram-
pled out the Gipsies, was a good prince to the Comprachicos.
We have seen why. The Camprachicos were buyers of the
human wares in which he was a dealer. They excelled in dis-
appearances. Disappearances are occasionally necessary for
the good of the State. An inconvenient heir of tender age
whom they took in hand lost his original shape. This facil-
itated confiscation; the transfer of titles to favourites was
simplified. The Comprachicos were, moreover, very discreet,
and very taciturn. They bound themselves to silence and
kept their word, which is very necessary in affairs of State.
There is scarcely an instance of their having betrayed the se-
crets of the king. This was, it is true, greatly to their in-
terest; for if the king had lost confidence in them, they would
have been in great danger. They were thus of use in a polit—
ical point of view. Moreover, these artists furnished singers
for the Holy Father. The Comprachicos were useful for the
“ Miserere ” of Allegri. They were particularly devoted to
the Virgin Mary. All this pleased the Stuarts. James II.
could not be hostile to men who carried their devotion to the
Virgin to the extent of manufacturing eunuchs. In 1688
there was a change of dynasty in England: Orange sup-
planted Stuart; William III. replaced James II.
James II. went away to die in exile; miracles were per—
formed on his tomb, and his relics cured the Bishop of Autun
of fistula,-——a worthy recompense for the Christian virtues
of the prince.
William having neither the same ideas nor the same prac-
tices as James, was severe to the Comprachicos. He did his
best to crush out the vermin. A statute of the early part
of William and Mary’s reign hit the association of child—
buyers hard. It was as the blow of a club to the Comprach—
icos, who were from that time pulverized. By the terms of
this statute, those of the fellowship taken and duly convicted


32 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
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,” signifying
man-slayer. The chiefs, “ supposed to be rich, although
beggars in appearance,” were to be punished in the collis-
trigium, 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 confisca—
tion and imprisonment for life, as for the crime of misprision.
As for the women found among these men, they were to be
punished by the cucking-stool. This is a'sort of see-saw, the
name of which is derived from the French word coquine, and
the German stuhl. English law being‘ endowed with re-
markable longevity, this punishment for quarrelsome women
still exists in English legislation. The cucking—stool is sus-
pended over a river or a pond; the woman is seated upon it.
The chair is then 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, Chamber-
layne.


BOOK I
NIGHT NOT SO BLACK AS MAN

CHAPTER I
ron'rmnn mu.
STRONG north wind blew continuously over the main—
land of Europe, and yet more roughly over England,
during the entire month of December, 1689, and also the
month of January, 1690. Hence the terrible cold weather
which caused that winter 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 ofii-
cial registers, long lists of poor persons, found dead of fam-
ine and cold, 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 village of Stepney by the bailifi' of the
Lord of the Manor. The Thames was frozen over,—— a thing
which does not happen once in a century, as ice forms on it
with difficulty owing to the action of the sea. Coaches rolled
over the frozen river, and a fair was held upon it with booths,
bear-baiting and bull-baiting. An 0x was roasted whole on
the ice. This thick ice lasted two months. The year 1690
exceeded in severity even the famous winters at the beginning
of the seventeenth century so minutely observed by Dr. Gid-
3 33


34 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
eon Delane,~— the same who was, in his quality of apothecary
to King James, honoured 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 inhospitable coves 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 cove, the most dangerous of all which line the bay
during the continuance of certain winds, and consequently the
most lonely (well suited, by reason 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 darkness comes.
It was already night at the bottom of the cliff ; it was still
day at the top. Any one approaching the vessel’s moorings
would have recognized a Biscayan hooker. The sun, con—
cealed all day by the mist, had just set. That deep and
sombre melancholy which might be called longing for the ab-
sent sun already pervaded the scene. As there was no breeze
from the sea, the water of the creek was calm. This was, es-
pecially in winter, a lucky exception. 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, dangerous to leave. This evening, for a wonder, there
was no danger.
The Biscay hooker is of an ancient model, now fallen into
disuse. This kind of craft, 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 Griflin,”
bearing a captain’s flag, and commanded by Lopez de Me—
dina, measured six hundred and fifty good tons, and carried
forty guns. But the merchant and contraband hookers were


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 35
very feeble specimens. Sea—folks held them at their true
value, and considered the model a very sorry one. The rig—
ging of the hooker was made of hemp, sometimes with wire
inside, which was probably intended as a means, however un—
scientific, 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
disadvantage of a small arc of effort. Two wheels in two
pulleys at the end of the tiller corrected this defect, and com—
pensated to some extent for the loss of strength. The com-
pass was well housed in a perfectly square case, and well bal—
anced by its two copper frames placed horizontally, one in-
side the other, on little bolts, as in Cardan’s lamps. There
were both science and cunning in the construction of the
hooker, but untutored science and barbarous cunning. The
hooker was primitive, like the praam and the canoe; was akin
to the praam in stability and to the canoe in swiftness; and,
like all vessels born of the instinct of the pirate and fisher—
man, it had remarkable sea-going qualities, and 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 the close bays of Asturias (which are little more
than enclosed basins, as Pasages for instance) as well as the
open sea. It could sail round a lake, and sail round the
world,—- a strange craft, as good for a pond as for a storm.
The hooker is among vessels what the wagtail is among birds,
—— one of the smallest and yet one of the boldest. The wag—
tail perching on a reed scarcely bends it, and flying away
crosses the ocean.
The hooker of the poorest Biscayan was gilded and painted.
Tattooing was also one of the accomplishments of these peo—
ple, who are still to some extent savage in their tastes. The
superb colouring of their mountains, varied by dazzling snows
and emerald meadows, teaches them the wonderful charm
that ornamentation exerts. They are poverty-stricken and


36 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
yet 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 gay head-dresses of feathers. Their
coaches, the wheels of which you can hear creaking two leagues
o'ff, are illuminated, carved, and decked with ribbons. A
cobbler has a bas-relief on his door; it is only St. 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. The Basques are like the Greeks, children
of the sun; while the Valencian wraps himself, bare and sad,
in his mantle of russet wool, with a hole to pass his head
through, the natives of Galicia and Biscay delight in fine linen
shirts bleached in the dew. Their thresholds and their win-
dows teem with fair and fresh faces, laughing under garlands
of maize; a joyous and proud serenity shines out in their in—
genious arts, in their trades, in their customs, in the dress of
their maidens, in their songs. The mountain, that colossal
ruin, is all aglow in Biscay: the sun’s rays penetrate every
nook and crevice. The wild jaizquivel is full of idylls. Bis—
cay is Pyrenean grace as Savoy represents Alpine grace.
With dangerous bays, with storms, with clouds, with flying
spray, with the raging of the waves and winds, with terror,
with uproar, are mingled boat—women crowned with roses.
He who has seen the Basque country once longs to see it again.
It is a favoured land,—- two harvests a year; villages reso-
nant and gay; a stately poverty; all Sunday the sound of
guitars, dancing, castanets, love-making; houses clean and
bright; storks in the belfries.
But let us return to Portland, that rugged mountain in the
sea. .
The peninsula of Portland, viewed geometrically, 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 exists now only for trade.
The value of the Portland stone was discovered by quarrymen
and plasterers about the middle of the seventeenth century.
Ever since that period what is called Roman cement has been


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 37
made of the Portland stone,-—-a useful industry, enriching
the district but disfiguring the bay. Two hundred years ago
these coasts were being eaten away as a clifl" ; 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 annihilated the creek where the Biscay
hooker was moored. To find any vestige of the little anchor-
ago, 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 clifi's much taller than
its width, was becoming more and more veiled in shadow.
The misty gloom, usual at twilight, became thicker; it was
like the 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 mantle of shadow. A plank extending 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 figures were passing and repassing one another
on this tottering gangway, and in the shadow beyond sev-
eral persons could be dimly discerned standing on the deck.
It was less cold in the creek than out at sea, thanks to the
screen of rock rising to the north of the basin, which did not,
however, prevent the people from shivering. They were
hurrying. The effect of the twilight defined the forms as
though they had been punched out with a tool. Certain in—
dentations in their clothes were visible, and showed that they
belonged to the class called in England, “The ragged.”
The windings of the pathway could be vaguely distinguished
on the side of the cliff. This pathway, full of curves and
angles, almost perpendicular, and better adapted for- goats
than men, terminated at the platform where the plank was


38 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
placed. The pathways of cliffs ordinarily imply a not very
inviting declivity; they plunge downward rather than slope.
This one --—- probably some ramification of a road on the plain
above—was disagreeable to look at, so steep was it. From
below you saw it attain by a series of zig—zags the summit of
the cliff where it passed out on to the high plateau through
a cut in the rock; and the passengers for whom the vessel was
waiting must have come by this path.
No step, no noise, no breath was heard except the stir of
embarkation which was being made in the creek. At the other
side of the roads, at the entrance of Ringstead Bay, you could
just distinguish a fleet of shark-fishing boats, which were evi-
dently 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 badweather expected and danger out at sea. They were
now engaged in casting anchor. The principal boat was
placed in front after the old custom in Norwegian flotillas,
all her rigging standing out black, above the sea; while in
front might be seen the iron rack, 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 driven into the same
corner, the eye beheld nothing on the vast horizon. Not a
house, not a ship. The coast in those days was not inhabited,
and the roads, at that season, were not safe.
In spite of the ominous indications of the weather, the
persons who were going to sail away in the Biscayan urca,
hastened on the hour of departure. They formed a busy and
confused group. To distinguish one from another was diffi—
cult; to tell whether they were old or young was impossible.
The dim evening light intermixed and blurred them; the
mask of shadow was over their faces. There were eight of
them, and there were apparently one or two women among
them whom it was hard to distinguish under the rags and
tatters in which the group was attired,—— clothes which were
I in”- .- ,


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 89
no longer either man’s or women’s. Rags have no sex. A
smaller shadow, flitting to and fro among the large ones, in-
dicated either a dwarf or a child. It was a child.

CHAPTER II
LEFT ALONE
CLOSE observer might have noticed that all wore long
cloaks, torn and patched, but covering them, and if
need be concealing them up to the very eyes,— useful alike
against the north wind and curiosity. They moved with ease
under these cloaks. The greater number wore a handkerchief
tied round the head,—-a sort of rudiment which marks the
commencement 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
considered in the halls of Elizabeth as the court language.
To speak English in the palace of the Queen of England was
deemed almost an impropriety. To adopt partially the man~
ners of those upon whom we impose our laws is very common.
It was thus that Castilian fashions penetrated into England;
while as an offset, English interests crept into Spain.
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 waistcoat, 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 vest is a child’s cloak, the
child was clad in a sailor’s jacket, which reached to his knees.
, _ A»-.y»e-»
M',3W‘JWV Mi”


40 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
By his height you would have supposed 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
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 whisperings interchanged by these creatures was a com-
posite 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 nationalities,
and yet to belong to the same band. The motley group ap-
peared to be a company of comrades, perhaps a gang of ac—
complices. The crew probably belonged to the same brother-
hood.
If there had been a little more light, and if one could have
seen more distinctly, one might have perceived under the
rags of these people rosaries and scapulars half-hidden. One
of the women in the group had a rosary almost equal in 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
Llanandrifi'y. One might also have seen, had it not been so
dark, a gilded figure of Our Lady and Child 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 figurehead, was a lantern,
which at this moment was not lighted,—— an excess of caution
which implied an extreme desire of concealment. This lan-
tern was evidently for two purposes: when lighted, 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, projected in front like the
horn of a crescent. 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 gazed out through a spy—glass
at the horizon. The angel was gilded like Our Lady. In the
cut-water were holes and openings to let the waves pass


THE 'MAN- WHO LAUGHS 41
through, which afi'orded an opportunity for more gilding and
arabesques. Under the figure ofjthe Virgin was written, in
gilt capitals, the word “ Matutina,”— the name of the vessel,
invisible just now on account of the darkness.
Amid the confusion of departure there were thrown down
in disorder, at the foot of the cliff, the goods which the voy—
agers were to take with them, and which, by means of the
plank serving as a bridge across, were being passed rapidly
from the shore to the boat. Bags of biscuit, a cask of fish, a
case of portable soup, three barrels (one of fresh water, one
of malt, one of tar), four or five bottles of ale, an old port-
manteau 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 the birds, but they cannot
do so without abandoning the means of earning a livelihood.
They necessarily possess boxes of tools and instruments of
labour, whatever their trade may be. Those of whom we
speak were taking their baggage with them. No time was
lost; there was one continued passing to and fro from the
shore to the vessel, and from the vessel to the shore. Each
one did his share of the work; one carried a bag, another a
chest. Those of the promiscuous company who were possibly
or probably women, worked like the rest. They overloaded
the child. I
It was doubtful if the child’s father or mother were in the
group, for no sign of interest was vouchsafed him. They
made him work; but that was all. He appeared not a child
in a family, but a slave in a tribe. He waited on every one,
and no one even spoke to him. Still he laboured diligently,
and like all the other members of this strange party 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 stowing of the cargo in the hold was soon finished, and
the moment to put of arrived. The last case had been car-


4.2 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
ried over the gangway, and nothing was left on shore but the
men. The two persons in the group who seemed to be women
were already on board; six persons, the child among them,
were still on the low platform of the cliff. Preparations for
immediate departure were apparent on 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 to be
chief of the six, and who had the spangles on his tattered
clothes. The child rushed towards the plank in order to be
the first aboard. 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 dr0ve him back with his
fist, and followed the third; the fifth, who was the chief,
bounded into rather than sprang aboard the vessel, and as he
jumped in kicked 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
HE child remained motionless on the rock, with his eyes
fixed; no calling out, no appeal. Though this was
unexpected by him, he uttered 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, up which the tide was beginning
to creep, watched the departing bark. It seemed as if he '
realized his position. What did he realize? Darkness.
A moment more, and the vessel had reached the mouth of
, . '


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 43
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. Then it was seen no
more; all was over; the bark had reached the sea.
The child watched its disappearance; he was astonished but
thoughtful. His stupefaction was increased by a sense of
the grim reality of existence. It seemed as if there were ex-
perience in this youthful being. Did he, perchance, already
exercise judgment? Experience coming too early constructs,
sometimes, in the depths of a child’s mind some dangerous
balance, in which the poor little soul weighs God. Feeling
himself innocent, he submitted. There was no complaint; the
irreproachable does not reproach. His rough expulsion drew
from him no sign; he suffered a sort of internal stifi'ening.
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 un—
mixed with dejection, that, in the group which abandoned
him, there was no one who loved him, and no one whom he
loved.
Brooding, the child 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 glanced about him. He was alone. Up to this time there
had never existed for him any other men than those who were
now in the hooker,— those men who had just stolen away.
Strange to say, those men, the only ones he knew, were really
strangers to him. He could not have told who they were. His
childhood had been passed among them, without his having the
consciousness of being one 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 on his feet, scarcely a
garment on his body, not even a piece of bread in his ppcket.
It was winter; it was night. It would be necessary to walk
several miles before a human habitation could be reached. He


44 THE ‘ MAN \VHO LAUGHS
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 had failed him. He was ten years
old.
The child was in a desert, between heights from which he
saw the night descending, and depths where he heard the
waves murmuring. He stretched out his little thin arms and
yawned. Then, suddenly, with the agility of a squirrel, or
perhaps of an acrobat, he turned his back on the creek, and
set to work to climb the cliff. He escaladed the path, left it,
then returned to it, quick and venturesome. He was hurrying
inland, as though he had a destination marked out; neverthe-
less he was going nowhere. He hastened on without an 0b—
ject,—a fugitive before Fate. To climb is the function of
a man; to crawl is that of an animal; he did both.
As the cliffs of 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 jacket, which was much too
big for him, complicated matters, and got in his way. Now
and then on an overhanging crag or in a declivity he came
upon a little ice, which caused him to slip. _ Then, after hang-
ing some moments over a 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 chasm; a tuft of grass which he clutched at the
right moment saved him. He was as mute on the verge of the
abyss as he had been in the company of the men; he gathered
himself up and re—ascended silently. The slope was steep; so
he had to zig-zag in ascending. The precipice seemed to grow
in the darkness, and the summit to recede farther and farther
in prpportion as the child ascended; but at last he reached the
top. He had scarcely set foot on the summit when he began
to shiver. The wind cut his face like a whip-lash, for the


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 45
bitter northwester was blowing. He tightened his rough sail-
or’s jacket about his chest. It was a good coat, called in ship—
language a “ sou’-wester,” because made of a sort of stuff
that allows little of the south—westerly rain to penetrate.
The child, having gained the table-land, stopped, planted
his 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 hid the zenith. On
reaching the summit of the rocky wall he found himself fac-
ing the interior, and he gazed at it attentively. It stretched
before him far as the eye could reach, flat, frozen, and covered
with snow. A few tufts of heather shivered in the wind.
No roads were visible,— no dwelling, 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
suddenly became misty and disappeared from View. The
great dull plains were lost in the white fog. A deep silence
reigned, far-reaching as infinity, hushed 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. 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 in a semicircle of
hills. There was something dreamlike in that nocturnal land—
scape,— a wan disk belted by a dark crescent; the moon some-
times has a similar appearance. From cape to cape, along
the whole coast, not a single spark indicated a hearth with a
fire; not a lighted window, not an inhabited house, was to be
seen. On earth as in heaven there was no light,— not a
lamp below, not a star above. Here and there came sudden
elevations in the broad expanse of water, as the wind dis-
turbed and wrinkled the vast sheet. The hooker was still
visible in the bay, looking like a black triangle gliding over
the water, The “ Matutina ” was making rapid headway;
she seemed to grow smaller every minute. Nothing can oom-
________.,_ ._ _ ____._._ .s—fi.’
W.— _, A. ,


46 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
pare in rapidity with the flight of a vessel disappearing in
the distance. Suddenly she lighted the lantern at her prow.
Probably the darkness closing in around 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 spectral light to the tall black form.
There was a storm in the air; the child took no notice of
it, but a sailor would have trembled. It was one of those
moments when it seems as if the elements were changing into
persons, and that one was about to witness the mysterious
transformation of the wind into the windgod. The sea be—
comes Ocean; its power reveals itself as Will: hence the terror.
The soul of man fears to be thus confronted with the soul of
Nature. Chaos was about to appear. The wind rolled back
the fog, and making a stage of the clouds behind 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 moment anxious barks hastening towards an anchorage
appeared from behind the capes; some were doubling Port-
land Bill, the others St. Alban’s Head. From afar ships
were running in. It was a race for life. Southwards the
darkness had thickened, and clouds full of menace bordered the
sea. The weight of the tempest hanging overhead made a
dreary lull on the waves. It certainly was no time to set
sail.
Yet the hooker had sailed. She was steering due south.
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, put on 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 dread of pursuit from
man than from the wind. The hooker, passing through every
degree of diminution, sank into the horizon. The little star


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 47
which she carried paled into shadow, then disappeared,— this
time for good and all.
At least the child seemed to understand it so, for he ceased
to look at the sea. His gaze reverted to the plains, the moor,
the hills, where it might be possible to find some living
creature. Towards this unknown region he now directed his
steps.

CHAPTER IV
QUESTIONS.
HAT kind of a band was it that had left the child
behind in its flight. Were those fugitives Com~
prachicos?
We have already noted the measures taken by William
III., and passed by Parliament against the malefactors, male
and female, called Comprachicos, otherwise Comprapequeiios,
otherwise Cheylas. There are laws which scatter people to the
four corners of the earth. The law enacted against the Com—
prachicos determined, not only the Comprachicos, but vaga—
bonds of all sorts on a general flight. It was the devil take
the hindmost. A large number of 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 im-
mediate efi'ect of the penal statute was to produce a crowd of
children, found, or rather lost. The reason is evident.
Every wandering gang containing a child was liable to sus-
picion. The mere fact of the child’s presence was in itself
a denunciation. “ They are probably Comprachicos.” This
was the very first idea of the sheriff, of the bailiff, and of the
constable. Hence arrest and inquiry. People simply un—
fortunate, reduced to wander and to beg, were seized with a
terror of being taken for Comprachicos, although they were


48 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
nothing of the kind; for the weak have grave fears of pos-
sible errors in justice. Besides these vagabonds are very
easily scared.
The charge against the Comprachicos was that they traded
in other people’s children. But the promiscuousness caused
by poverty and indigence 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 had received it from God? The child be—
came a danger: they got rid of it; to fly unencumbered was
easier. The parents resolved to leave it,— now in a wood,
now on a beach, now down a well. Many children were found
drowned in cisterns.
Let us add that in imitation of England all Europe hence—
forth hunted down the Comprachicos. The impulse of pursuit
was given. There is nothing like belling the cat. From that
time on the desire to capture Comprachicos caused much
rivalry between the police of the different countries, and the
alguazil was no less watchful than the constable.
One could still see, twenty-three years ago, on a stone of the
gate of Otero, an untranslatable inscription,— the words of
the code outraging propriety. In it, however, the difference
which existed between the buyers and kidnappers of children
is very strongly marked. Here is part of the inscription in
somewhat rough Castilian: “ Aqui quedan las orejas de los
Comprachicos, y las bolsas de los robanifios, mientras que se
van ellos al trabajo de mar.” The confiscation of ears, etc.,
did not prevent their owners from going to the galleys.
Hence ensued a general rout among all vagabonds. They
started frightened; they arrived trembling. On every shore
in Europe their furtive advent was closely watched. It was
impossible for such a band to embark with a child, since to
disembark with one was so dangerous. To lose the child was
a much easier matter.
And this child, of whom we first caught a glimpse in the
shadow of the Portland cliffs, by whom had he been
abandoned? To all appearance by Comprachicos.


THE MAN ' WHO LAUGHS 49
CHAPTER V
'rms run or HUMAN mvnn'nox
IT was about seven o’clock in the evening. The wind Was
diminishing,——a sign, however, of a violent recurrence
later on. The child was on the table—land at the extreme
south end of Portland.
Portland is a peninsula; but the child did not know what
a peninsula was, and had never even heard the name of Port—
land. He knew only one thing; that was that one could walk
until one drops. An idea is a guide; but 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 basis to rest upon but the little piece
of hard, frozen ground where he set his naked feet. In the
great twilight world, open on all sides, what was there for
him? Nothing. Around him was the vastness of human
desertion.
The child crossed the first plateau diagonally, then a
second, then a third. At the end of each plateau the child
came to a break in the ground. The slope was sometimes
steep, but always short; the high, bare plains of Portland
resemble great flagstones overlapping one another. The
south side seems to enter under the protruding slab, the
north side laps over the next one; this made ascents, which
the child stepped over nimbly. From time to time he stopped,
and seemed to hold counsel with himself. The night was be-
coming very dark; his radius of sight was contracting. He
could now see only a few steps before him. Suddenly he
stopped and listened for an instant; then with an almost im-
perceptible nod of satisfaction he turned quickly and directed
his steps towards an eminence of moderate height, which he
dimly perceived on his right, at the end of the plain nearest
4


50 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
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 neither the noise of wind nor of the
sea; nor was it the cry of an animal. He thought that some
one was there, and a few strides brought him to the foot of the
hillock.
Some one was there. That which had been indistinct on
the top of the eminence was now plainly visible. It looked
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 horizontally;
the arm, the thumb, and the forefinger formed a triangle
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 like a chain.
This was the noise the child had heard. Seen closely, the
line proved to be that which the sound indicated,—a chain;
a single chain cable. By that mysterious law which through—
out Nature causes appearances to exaggerate realities, the .
place, the hour, the mist, the mournful sea, the angry clouds
on the distant horizon, added to the affect of this figure, and
made it seem enormous. The mass appended to the chain
presented the appearance of a huge scabbard. There was a
round knot at the top, about which the end of the chain was
fastened. The scabbard was riven asunder at the lower end,
and long shreds hung between the rents. A faint breeze
stirred the chain, and that which was appended to it swayed
gently to and fro.
It was altogether an object to inspire indescribable dread.
Horror, which disproportions everything, increased its di-
mensions, without changing its shape. It was a condensation
of darkness into a definite form. Twilight and moon-rise,
stars setting behind the cliff, the clouds and winds, seemed to
have entered into the composition of this visible nonentity.
The sort of log hanging in the wind partook of the imper-
sonality difi'used over sea and sky, and the darkness completed


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 51
this phase of the thing which had once been man. It was
that no longer.
To be naught but a remainder! — such a thing it is beyond
the power of language to express. To exist no more, yet to
persist in existing; to be in the dread abyss, yet out of it;
to reappear after death as if indissoluble,—- all this makes
it inexpressible. There is a certain amount of impossibility
mixed with such a reality. This being,— was it a being?
This black witness was a remainder, and an awful remainder.
A remainder of what? Of Nature first, and then of society;
zero, and yet total. The wild 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 underwent 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 putrefaction. It is effrontery
in death to display its work; it ofi'ends all the calmness of
shadow when it does its task outside its laboratory, the
grave.
This dead thing 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. A corpse is a pocket which death
turns inside out, and empties. If he ever was an I, where
was that I P There still, perchance; and this was fearful to
think of. Something wandering about, something in chains,
—can one imagine a more mournful lineament in the dark-
ness?
Realities exist here below which serve as issues to the un—
known, which seem to facilitate the egress of speculation, and
at which hypothesis snatches. Conjecture has its compelle


52 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
intrare. In passing by certain places and before certain ob-
jects one cannot help stopping,—— a prey to dreams into the
realms of which the mind enters. 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 silently 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 borrowed 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 storm, to the rain, to the dew, to the reptiles, to
the birds. AH 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; he was a shadow accruing
to the night. After the disappearance of day into the vast
of silent obscurity, he became in lugubrious accord with all
around him; by his mere presence be increased the gloom of
the tempest and the calm of the stars. The unutterable
which is in the desert was condensed in him; waif of an un—
known fate, he commingled 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 melan—
choly, an anxiety in which a conscience seemed to lurk, ap-
propriated with tragic force the whole landscape to that black
figure suspended by the chain. The presence of a spectre in
the horizon is an aggravation of solitude.
This spectre 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,—— 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 testi-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 53
mony in the twilight and the waste; he was in himself a dis-
quieting 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, boundless dreams of shadow.
Who could tell what sinister mysteries lurked behind this
phantom? The illimitable circumscribed by naught—nor
tree, nor roof, nor passer-by—was around the dead man.
When the unchangeable broods over us, when heaven, the
abyss, the life, grave, and eternity appear patent, then it is we
feel that all is inaccessible, all is forbidden, all is sealed. When
infinity opens to us, terrible indeed is the closing of the gate
behind. '

CHAPTER VI
STRUGGLE BETWEEN DEATH AND NIGHT
HE child stood before this thing with staring eyes, dumb
and wondering. To a man it would have been a gib—
bet; 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 mysterious horrors are manifold. There
was one on the summit of that hill. The child took one step,
then another; he ascended, wishing all the while to descend;
and he approaChed, wishing all the while to retreat. When he
got close under the gibbet, he looked up and examined the
spectre. It was tarred, and here and there it shone. The
child could distinguish the face. That too was coated with
pitch; and this mask, which appeared viscous and sticky,
"tied its aspect even in the night shadows. The child saw


54 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
the month, which was a hole; the nose, which was a hole; the
eyes, which were holes.
The body was wrapped, and apparently corded up, in
coarse canvas, soaked in naphtha. The canvas was mouldy
and torn. A knee protruded through it; a rent disclosed the
ribs. The face was the colour of earth; slugs, wandering
over it, had traced across it vague ribbons of silver. The
skull, cracked and fractured, gaped like a huge rotten apple.
The teeth were still human, for they retained a laugh; the
remains of a cry seemed to linger in the open mouth. There
were a few hairs of heard on the cheek. The inclined head
had an air of attention. Some repairs had recently been
made; 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’s feet. The barefooted
child looked at the shoes.
The wind, which had become more and more restless, was
now and then interrupted by those pauses which foretell the
approach of a storm. For the last few minutes it had al—
together ceased to blow. The corpse no longer stirred; the
chain was as motionless as a plumbline. Like all new-comers
into life, and taking into account the peculiar influences of
his fate, the child no doubt felt within him that awakening
of ideas characteristic of early years, which endeavours to
open the brain and which resembles the pecking of the young
bird in the egg. But all that there was in his little conscious—
ness 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, produced the effect of tears. However, thanks
to the pitch, the ravages of death, if not annulled, had been
greatly retarded. That which hung before the child was a
thing of which great care was taken. The man was evidently


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 55
precious; and though they had not cared to keep him alive,
they had cared to 'preserve him dead. The gibbet was old
and worm—eaten, although strong, and had been in use many
years.
It was the 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 a fine thing; by renewing
it they were spared the necessity of making too many fresh
examples. In those days they placed gibbets from point to
point along the coast, as nowadays they do beacons. The
hanged man did duty as a lantern. After his fashion, he
guided his comrades, the smugglers, who from far out at sea
perceived the gibbets. There is one, first warning; another,
second warning. It did not however stop smuggling; but
public order is made up of such things. The fashion lasted in
England up to the beginning of the present century. In
1822 three men could still be seen hanging in front of Dover
Castle. But, for that matter, the preserving process was em-
ployed not with smugglers alone. England treated robbers,
incendiaries, and murderers in the same way. Jack Painter,
who set fire to the government storehouses at Portsmouth, was
hanged and tarred in 1776. L’Abbé Coyer, who calls him
Jean le Peintre, saw him in 1777; Jack Painter was still hang-
ing 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, however, they were obliged to replace it by another.
The Egyptians used to value the mummy of the king; 8.
plebeian mummy can also be of service, it seems.
The wind, having great power on the hill, had cleared it of
all snow. Herbage was now reappearing on it, interspersed
here and there with a few thistles; the hill was covered with
that close, short grass which grows by the sea, and makes the
tops of cliffs resemble green cloth. Under the gibbet, on the
very spot over which hung the feet of the executed criminal,
was a. long thick tuft, uncommon on such poor soil. Corpses,


56 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
crumbling there for centuries past, accounted for the beauty
of the grass. Earth feeds on man. '
A dreary fascination held the child spell-bound. He only
dropped his head a moment when a nettle, which felt like an
insect, stung his leg; then he looked up again,—-— looked up at
the face which was looking down on him. It appeared to re-
gard him the more steadfastly because it had no eyes. It was
a comprehensive glance, having an indescribable fixedness, in
which there was both light and darkness, and which emanated
from the skull and teeth as well as from 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
being looked at.
Little by little the child himself was becoming petrified.
He no longer moved. A deadly torpor was stealing over him.
He did not even perceive that he was losing consciousness,
though he was becoming benumbed and lifeless. Winter was
silenty 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
insidious reptile, was creeping over him. The drowsiness re-
sulting from snow steals over one like a dim tide. The child
was being slowly invaded by a stagnation resembling that of
the corpse. He was on the point of falling under the gibbet.
He no longer knew whether he was standing upright or not.
The end always impending, no transition between to be and
not to be, the return to the crucible, the slip possible every
minute,-— such is life! Another instant, and the child and
the dead would be victims of the same obliteration.
The spectre seemed to understand this, and not to wish it.
Suddenly it moved; one would have said it was warning the
child. The wind was beginning to blow again. Nothing
stranger than this dead man in motion could be conceived of.
The corpse at the end of the chain, swayed by the invisible
gust, assumed an oblique position; rose on the left, then fell
back; reascended on the right, and then fell and rose with slow
and mournful precision. A weird game of see-saw; it seemed


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 57
as though one saw in the darkness the pendulum of the clock of
Eternity.
This continued some time. The child felt himself waking
up at the sight; for even through his increasing numbness
he experienced a keen sensation of fear. The chain with
every oscillation made a creaking sound, with hideous regu—
larity. It seemed to take breath, and then to resume. This
creaking 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 quickened its dismal
oscillations; it no longer swung, it tossed. The chain, which
had been creaking, now shrieked; it seemed as if its shriek was
heard. If it was a call, it was obeyed. From the depths of
the horizon came a rushing sound: it was the sound of
wings.
An incident now occurred, one of the weird incidents peculiar
to graveyards and solitudes. It was the arrival of a flock
of ravens. Black flying specks pricked the clouds, pierced
the mist, increased in size, came nearer, all hastening towards
the hill and uttering shrill cries. It was like the approach
of a Legion. The winged vermin of darkness alighted on
the gibbet; the child drew back in terror. 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
pleased announcement of putrefaction; in it you can fancy
you hear the grave speak. The child was even more overcome
with terror than with cold.
Then the ravens were silent. Finally one of them flew
down upon the skeleton. This was the signal; they all pre-
cipitated themselves upon it. There was a cloud of wings,
then their ranks closed up, and the skeleton disappeared under
a swarm of black objects struggling in the darkness. Just
then the corpse moved. Was it the corpse, or was it the wind?
It made a frightful bound. The hurricane, which was in-
creasing, came to its aid. The skeleton fell into convulsions.
The squall, already blowing fiercely, seized hold of it, and


58 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
dashed it about in all directions. It became horrible; it began
to struggle,— an awful puppet, with a gallows’ chain for a
string. It seemed as if some one had seized the string, and
was playing with the mummy; it leaped about as if it would
fain dislocate itself. The birds frightened, flew off ; it was
as if an explosion had scattered the unclean creatures. Then
they returned and a fresh struggle began.
The dead man seemed endowed with hideous vitality. The
winds lifted him as though they meant to carry him away.
He seemed to be struggling and to be making efforts to es-
cape, but his iron collar held him fast. The birds adapted
themselves to all his movements, retreating, then striking
again,— scared but desperate. The corpse, moved by every
gust of the wind, had shocks, starts, fits of rage: it went, it
came, it rose, it fell, driving back the scattered swarm. The
fierce, assailing flock would not let go their hold, and grew
stubborn; the spectre, as if maddened by their attacks, re—
doubled its blind chastisement of space. At times the corpse
was covered by talons and wings; then it was free. There
were disappearances of the horde; then sudden furious re-
turns. The birds seemed frenzied. Thrusting of claws.
thrusting of beaks, croakings, rendings of shreds which were
no longer flesh, creakings of the gibbet, shudderings of the
skeleton, rattlings of the chain, the voices of the storm and
tumult,-—— what conflict more fearful? A hobgoblin warring
with devils, a combat with a spectre!
At times, the storm redoubling its violence, the hanged
man revolved as if upon a pivot, turning every way at once,
as if trying to run after the birds. The wind was on his side,
the chain against him. It was as if dark-skinned deities were
mixing themselves up in the fray. The hurricane took part
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.
As the child was gazing at this nightmare, he suddenly
trembled in every limb; a shiver traversed his frame; he stag-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 59
gered, tottered, nearly fell; recovered himself, pressed both
hands to his forehead, as if he felt his forehead a support.
Then, with hair streaming in the wind, he descended the hill
with long strides, his eyes closed, himself almost a phantom,
leaving that horror of the night behind him.
CHAPTER VII
THE noa'rn POINT OF PORTLAND
HE child 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 would have 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 after him, that possibly the
very gibbet itself was descending the hill, running after the
dead man; he feared that he should 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. This
child had 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 difficulty as one in a dream.
During the three hours or so since he had been deserted, his
onward progress, still vague, had changed in character. At
first it was a search; now it was a flight. He was no longer
conscious of hunger or cold; he felt only fear. One instinct
had given place to another. To escape was now his one
desire,—- to escape. From what? From everything. On
all sides life seemed to enclose him like a horrible wall. If he
could have fled from everything, he would have done so. But


60 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
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 around him. There was no
hill, no gibbet, no flying crows visible now. The fog had re-
sumed possession of the horizon. The child continued his
way; but now he no longer ran, but walked. To say that
this meeting with a corpse had made a man of him was not far .
from the truth. The gibbet which had so terrified him still
seemed to him an apparition; but terror overcome is strength
gained, and he felt himself stronger. Had he been of an age
to probe self, he would have discovered a thousand other germs
of meditation; but the reflection of children is shapeless, and
the most they feel is the bitter aftertaste of that which, obscure
to them, the man later on calls indignation. Let us add that
a child has the faculty of promptly accepting the conclusions
of a sensation; the distant boundaries which amplify painful
subjects escape him. A child is protected by the very limit
of his understanding from emotions which are too complex.
He sees the fact, and little else. The difficulty of being
satisfied with half-formed ideas does not exist so far as he is
concerned. It is not until later that experience comes, with
its brief, to conduct the lawsuit of life. Then he confronts
groups of facts which have crossed his path; the understand-
ing, cultivated and enlarged, draws comparisons; the memo~
ries of youth reappear like the traces of a palimpsest after
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 varied, however, and leads to good
or evil according to natural disposition.
The child had run quite a quarter of a league, and walked
another quarter, when suddenly he felt the cravings of hunger.
A thought which altogether eclipsed the hideous apparition
on the hill occurred to him,— that he must eat. Happily


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 61
there are in man brute instincts which serve to lead him back
to reality. But what to eat, where to eat, how to eat? He
felt in his pockets mechanically, well knowing that they were
empty. Then he quickened his pace, without knowing whither
he was going. He was hastening towards a possible shelter.
This faith in a shelter is one of the convictions rooted by God
in man; to believe in a shelter is to believe in God.
On that snow—clad plain, however, there was nothing re-
sembling a roof. Yet the child went on, and the waste con—
tinued bare as far as eye could reach. 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 the aboriginal inhabitants
had dwelt long ago,-—- men who had slings for weapons, dried
cow-dung for fuel, for a god the idol Heil standing in a glade
at Dorchester, and for a trade the fishing of that grey coral
which the Gauls called plin, and the Greeks Isidis plocamos.
The child made his way along as best he could. Destiny is
made up of cross-roads; an option of path is sometimes dan—
gerous. This little creature had an early choice of doubtful
chances. He continued to advance, but although the muscles
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. Instinctively he directed his course east—
wards. Sharp stones had wounded his heels; had it been day-
light, blood-stains might have been seen in the foot—prints he
left in the snow. He recognized no landmarks; for he Was
crossing the plain 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 probably sailed
in some fisherman’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 the creeks of Easton. That route
intersected the one the child was now following; but it was im-
possible for him to recognize the road.
On the plain of Portland there are here and there occasional


62 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
strips of elevated land, ending abruptly at the shore, where
they plunge straight down into the sea. The wandering child
had now reached one of these culminating points and stopped
on it, hoping that a broader view might furnish some helpful
indications. He tried to see around him. Before him, in
place of an horizon, was a vast livid opacity. He looked at
this attentively, and under the intentness of his gaze objects
became less indistinct. At the base of a distant eminence to
the eastward (a moving and wan sort of precipice, which re-
sembled a cliff of the night) crept and floated some dim black
specks, some mere shreds of vapour. The pale opacity was
fog, the black shreds were smoke. Where there is smoke there
must be men. The child turned his steps in that direction.
He saw some distance of 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, probably connecting the plains in the horizon with 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 Cheshil.
The child began now to descend the side of the plateau.
The descent was difficult and rough. It was (with less rug-
gedness, however) the reverse of the ascent he had made on
leaving the creek. Every ascent is balanced by a decline; after
having clambered up, he now crawled down. He leaped from
one rock to another at the risk of a sprain, and 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 tufts
of weeds and furze, thick with thorns, the points of which ran
into his fingers. Sometimes he came to an easier declivity,
where he took breath as he descended; then came to a
precipice again, where each step was fraught with peril. In
descending precipices every movement is a problem. One
must be skilful under penalty of death. These problems the
child solved with an instinct which would have won him the
admiration of apes and mountebanks. The descent was steep
and long. Nevertheless he was nearing the Isthmus, of which


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 63
from time to time he caught a glimpse. Now and then, as
be bounded or dropped from rock to rock, he pricked up his
ears, his head erect the while 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 the roar of the
winds, preceding that fearful northern blast, which is heard
rushing from the pole, like an invasion of trumpets. At the
same time the child felt on his brow, on his eyes, and 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, then eddying wildly and heralding a
snow—storm. The child was soon covered with them. The
snow—storm, which for the last hour had been raging on the
sea, had now reached the land, and was slowly invading the
plains.


BOOK II
THE HOOKER AT SEA,
CHAPTER I
SUPERHUMAN LAWS
HE snow-storm is one of the greatest mysteries of the
ocean. It is the most obscure of things meteorological;
obscure in every sense of the word. It is a mixture of fog
and storm; and even in our own day 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 eifluvium. Air and water
are two nearly identical liquid masses, entering into the com—
position 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; eflluvium is a current. The
wind is visible in clouds, the wave is visible in foam; eflluvium
is invisible. From time to time, however, it says, “ I am
here.” Its “ I am here ” is a clap of thunder.
The snow-storm offers a problem analogous to the dry fog.
If the solution of the callina of the Spaniards, and the quobar
of the Ethiopians be possible, assuredly that solution will be
achieved by attentive observation of magnetic eflluvium.
But for eflluvium a host of circumstances would remain un~
explained. Strictly speaking, the changes in the velocity of
64s


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 65
the wind, varying from three feet per second to two hundred
and twenty feet, would explain the variations of the waves
rising from three inches in a calm sea to thirty-six feet in a
raging one. {Qtrictly speaking the horizontal direction of the
winds, even in a squall, enables us to understand how it is that
a wave thirty f .-t high can be fifteen hundred 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, at the Equator, are they highest in the middle of the
sea? Wherefore these deviations in the swell of the ocean?
This is somethhig which magnetic efliuvium, combined with
terrestrial rotation and sidereal attraction, can alone explain.
Is not this mysterious complication needed to explain an
oscillation of the wind veering, for instance, by the west from
southeast to northeast, then suddenly returning in the same
great curve from northeast to southeast, 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 close proximity of the Pole.
Storms in those latitudes result less from disorder of the winds
than from submarine electrical disturbances. In the year
1866 the transatlantic cable was disturbed at regular intervals
in its workings for two hours in the twenty—four,— from noon
to two o’clock,—— by a sort of intermittent fever. Certain
compositions and decompositions of forces produce certain
phenomena which force themselves on the calculations of the
seamen under penalty of shipwreck. The day that naviga—
tion, now a routine, shall become a branch of mathematics; the
day we shall, for instance, seek to know why it is that hot
winds sometimes come from the north, and cold winds from
the south; the day when we shall understand that diminutions
of temperature are proportionate to oceanic depths; the day
when we shall realize that the globe is a vast load—stone
polarized in immensity, with two axes (an axis of rotation,
5


66 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
and an axis of efliuvium, intersecting each other at the centre
of the earth), and that the magnetic poles turn the geo-
graphical poles; when those who risk life will choose to risk
it scientifically; when the captain shall be a meteorologist,
and the pilot a chemist,— then will many catastrophes be
‘ avoided. The sea is as magnetic as it is aquatic; a host of
unknown forces float in its liquid waves. To behold in the
sea only a mass of water is not to behold it at all. The sea
is an ebb and flow of fluid, complicated by magnetic and
capillary attractions even more than by hurricanes. Molecular
adhesion manifested among other phenomena by capillary at—
traction, although microscopic, takes in the ocean its place in
the grandeur of immensity; and the wave of efiiuvium some—
times aids, sometimes counteracts, the wave of the air and the
wave of the waters. He who is ignorant of electric law is
ignorant of hydraulic law; for the one intermixes with the
other. It is true there is no study more difficult nor more ob—
scure; it verges on empiricism, just as astronomy verges
on astrology; and yet without this study there is no such
thing as real 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.
Storms are the nervous attacks and delirious frenzies of the
sea. The sea has its ailments. Tempests may be compared
to maladies. Some are fatal, others are not; some may be
escaped, others cannot. A snow-storm is considered extremely
dangerous on the sea. Jarabija, one of the pilots of Magel-
lan, termed it “ a cloud issuing from the devil’s sore side.” 1
Surcouf said: “ 11 y a du trousse-galant dans cette tempéte-
la.” 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; nev-
lUna nube salida del malo lado del diablO.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 67
_ __~ _,-_~. .-\_-~~ 1.“. T -\__-.¢-w~\.~\_.fi... ...~» s-‘ < v
\,,,__,',_ ,M'~~' - ,’ ,__ _
ertheless, at times they glide, one might almost say tumble,
into our climates.
The “ Matutina,” as we have seen, plunged resolutely into
the perils of the night,— perils greatly increased by the im-
pending storm. She braved them with a sort of tragic
audacity, for it must be remembered that she had received due
warning.
CHAPTER II
con man noucn SKETCHES FILLED IN
HILE the hooker was in the gulf of Portland, there
was very little sea; the ocean, though gloomy, was al-
most still, and the sky was yet clear. The wind was very
little felt on the vessel, for the hooker hugged the cliff as
closely as possible, it serving as a screen to her.
There were ten on board the little Biscayan felucca, three
men in the crew, and seven passengers, two of whom were
women. In the light of the open sea (which changes twi-
light into day) all the figures on board were clearly visible.
Besides, they were not hiding now; they were all at ease; each
one resumed his natural manner, spoke in his own voice, showed
his face: departure was to them a deliverance.
The motley nature of the group was apparent. The
women were of an uncertain age. A wandering life produces
premature old age, and indigence is made up of wrinkles.
One of the women was a Basque of the Dry-ports; the other,
with the large rosary, was an Irish woman. They wore that
air of indifference common to the wretched. They had
squatted down c10se to each other when they got on board, on
chests at the f00t of the mast. They talked to each other.
Irish and Basque are, as we have said, kindred languages.
The Basque woman’s hair was scented with onions and basil.


as THE MAN .WHO LAUGHS
The skipper of the hooker was a Basque of GuipuZCoa. One
sailor was a Basque from the northern slope of the Pyrenees;
the other was from the southern slope,— that is to say, they
were of the same race, although the first was French and the
latter Spanish. The Basques acknowledge no official country.
“ My mother is called the mountain.” 1 as Zalareus, the
muleteer, used to say. Of the five men on the hooker, one
was a Frenchman of Languedoc, one a Frenchman of Prov-
ence, one a Genoese; one, the old man who wore a sombrero
without a hole for a pipe, appeared to be a German. The
fifth, the chief, was a Basque of the Landes from Biscarrosse.
It was he who had with a kick of his heel cast the plank into
the sea just as the child was going aboard the hooker. This
man, robust, agile, quick in movement, covered, as may be
remembered with trimmings, slashings, and glistening tinsel,
could not keep still, but sat down, rose up, and continually
walked 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 sailors, all
four Basques, spoke sometimes Basque, sometimes Spanish,
sometimes French,— these three languages being common on
both slopes of the Pyrenees. But generally speaking, all ex-
cept the women talked something like French, which was the
foundation of their slang. The French language, about this
period, began to be chosen by the peoples as the happy me-
dium between the excess of consdnants in the north and the
excess of vowels in the south. In Europe, French was the
language of commerce, and also of felony. It will be re-
membered that Gibby, a London thief, understood Cartouche.
The hooker, a fine sailor, was making rapid progress; still,
ten persons, besides their baggage, were a heavy cargo for a
vessel 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
lMi madrc se llama Montana.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 69
sufiicient 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 a Basque, and always and everywhere he must succour
a Basque. Such is Pyrenean fraternity.
While the hooker was in the gulf, the sky, although threat—
ening, did not frown enough to cause the fugitives any un—
easiness. They were flying swiftly along, they were escap-
ing, and they'were noisily gay. One laughed, another sang;
the laugh was dry but free, the song was low but careless.
The Languedocian cried, “ Caoucagno!” 1 He was a long—
shore-man, a native of the waterside village of Gruissan, on
the southern side of the Clappe,-——a bargeman rather than a
mariner, but accustomed to navigate the inlets of Bages, and
to draw the drag—net full of fish over the salt sands of St.
Lucie. He was of the race that wears a red cap, makes com—
plicated signs of the cross after the Spanish fashion, drinks
wine out of goat—skins, eats scraped ham, kneels down to blas-
pheme, and adjures his 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 at need prove a useful ad-
dition to the crew.
The Provencal in the caboose was punching 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 Provencal threw peas, little bits of bacon cut in squares,
and pods of red pimento,—— concessions made by the eaters of
bouillabaisse to the eaters of olla podrida. One of the bags
of provisions lay beside him unpacked. Over his head he
had lighted an iron lantern, glazed with talc, which swung
on a hook from the ceiling; near it from another hook swung
the weather-cock halcyon.” While he made the broth, the Pro-
lc'omgne expresses the highest pitch of satisfaction in Narbonne.
2There was a popular belief in those days that a dead halycon hung
by the beak always turned its breast to the quarter whence the wind
was blowing.


70 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
vencal put the neck of a gourd into his mouth, and now and
then swallowed a draught of aguardiente. It was one of
those gourds covered with wicker, broad and flat, with han-
dles, which used to be hung at the side by a strap, and which
were then called hip-gourds. Between each gulp he mum-
bled one of those country songs about nothing in particular.
One needs, to make such a song, no more than to see (even
in imagination) a hollow road, a hedge; in a meadow, through
a gap in the bushes, the shadow of a horse and cart, elon-
gated in the sunset, and from time to time, above the hedge,
the end of a fork loaded with hay appearing and disappear-
mg.
According to the state of one’s mind, a departure is either
a relief or the reverse. All seemed lighter in spirits ex-
cept the old man of the party. This old man, who looked
more German than anything else, although he had one of
those unfathomable faces in which nationality is lost, was
bald; and he was so grave that his baldness might have been
a tonsure. Every time he passed 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, half hid his closely
fitting coat, tight, compact, and hooked up to the neck like
a cassock. His hands seemed inclined to cross each other, as
if habituated to an attitude of prayer. He had what might
be called a wan countenance; for the countenance is above
all things a reflection, and it is an error to believe that an
idea is colourless. That countenance was evidently the re-
flection of a strange mental 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 be-
low the scale of the tiger or of rising above that of man.
Such chaotic souls exist. There was something inscrutable
in this old man’s face. In his impassibility, which was per—
haps only on the surface, there was portrayed a twofold pct—
rifaction,—- the petrifaction of heart proper to the hangman,


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 71
and the petrifaction of mind proper to the mandarin. One
might have said (for the monstrous has its mode of being
complete) that all things were possible to him, even emotion.
In every savant there is something of the corpse, and this
man was a savant. One saw 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 he was a severe man withal,—— nothing of the hypocrite,
nothing of the cynic; a tragic dreamer also. He was one
of those men whom crime leaves pensive. He had the brow
of an incendiary tempered by the eyes of an archbishop; his
sparse grey locks had turned to white over his temples. The
Christian was evident in him, complicated with the fatalism
of the Turk. Chalkstones deformed his fingers, which were
skeleton—like in their thinness. The stiffness of his tall frame
was grotesque. He had his sea-legs on; he walked slowly
about the deck, not looking at any one, with an air at once
stern and sinister. His eyeballs were filled with the fixed
stare of a soul groping in darkness and afflicted with violent
compunctions of conscience. From time to time the chief of
the band, abrupt and alert, and making sudden turns about
the vessel, came to the old man and whispered in his ear.
He answered with a nod. It might have been the lightning
consulting the night.

CHAPTER III
TBOUBLED MEN ON THE TROUBLED SEA
WO men on board the craft were absorbed in thought,—
the old man, and the captain of the hooker, who must
not be mistaken for the chief of the band. The captain was
occupied by the sea; the old man by the sky. The former
did not lift his eyes from the waters; the latter kept close


72 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
watch of the firmament. The captain’s anxiety was the state
of the sea; the old man seemed to distrust the heavens. He
scanned the stars through every break in the clouds.
It was the hour when day still lingers, but when a few
stars begin to pierce the twilight. The horizon was singular,
the mist upon it varied. A haze predominated on land, clouds
at sea. The captain, noting the rising billows, had every—
thing made taught 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 that they sup-
ported firmly the futtock—shrouds,— precautions of a man
who means to carry a press of sail at all hazards. The
hooker was not trimmed, being two foot by the head; this was
her weak point. 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 wind which
was not unfavourable, 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
considerable, the hooker seemed to lie closer to the wind than
she really did. The breeze was not a-beam, nor was the
hooker close—hauled; but one cannot ascertain the true course
made, except when the wind is abaft. When one perceives
long streaks of clOuds meeting in a point on the horizon,
one may be sure that the wind is in that quarter. But
this evening the wind was variable; the needle fluctuated.
The captain distrusted the erratic movements of the vessel.
He steered carefully but resolutely, luifed her up, watched her
coming-to, prevented her from yawing and from running
into the Wind’s eye ;' noted the leeway, 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 constantly on the lookout for


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 73
squalls from off the land he was hugging; and above all he
was cautious to keep her sails full,—— the indications of the
compass being uncertain from the small size of the instrument.
The captain’s eyes, frequently lowered, remarked every
change in the waves. Once, however, 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 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 of them is visible.”
No fears troubled the other fugitives. Still, when the first
hilarity they felt at 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 freezing cold. It was im-
possible to establish themselves in the cabin; it was much too
narrow and too encumbered with 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 passengers were obliged to remain on deck,
a state of things to which these wanderers easily resigned
themselves. Open—air habits make it easy for vagabonds to
settle themselves for the night. The open air (la belle étoile)
is their friend, and the cold helps them to sleep,— sometimes
to die. But to-night, as we have seen, there was no belle
étoile.
The Languedocian and the Genoese, while waiting for
supper, rolled themselves up near the women, at the foot of
the mast, in some tarpaulins which the sailors had thrown
them. The old man remained at the bow motionless, and ap—
parently insensible to the cold. The captain of the hooker,
from the helm where he was standing, uttered a sort of gut.-
tural call somewhat 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 :—


74 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
“ Etcheco Jaiina.” These two words, which mean “ tiller
of the mountain,” form with these old Cantabri a solemn pref-
ace to any subject which should command attention. Then,
the captain having pointed the old man out to the chief, the
dialogue continued in Spanish; though it was not a very
correct dialect, being that of the mountains. Here are the
questions and answers: '
“ Etcheco jaiina, que es este hombre?”
“ Un hombre.”
“ Que lenguas habla? ”
“ Todas.”
“ Que cosas sabe? ”
“ Todas.”
“ Qual pats? ”
“ Ningun, y todos.”
“ Qual dios? ”
“ Dios.”
“ Como le llamas?”
“ El tonto.”
“ Como dices que le llamas?”
“ El sabio.”
“ En vuestre tropa que esta? ”
“ Esta lo que esta.”
“ El gefe? ”
“ No.9,
“ Pues que esta? ”
“ La alma.” 1
1 “Tiller of the mountain, who is that man?”
“ A man.”
“\hihat tongue does he speak?”
“ A I.”
“What things does he know?”
‘S All.”
“What is his country?”
“None and all.”
“Who is his God?”
i‘ God.”
“What do you call him?”
“ The madman.”
“What do you say you call him?”


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS ’75
The chief and the captain parted, each to continue 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 splashes of gall. Here and there a level
space between the waves showed cracks and stars, like a pane
of glass broken by stones; and in the centre of these stars, as
in a revolving orifice, trembled a phosphorescent gleam, like
that feline reflection of vanished light which shines in the
eyeballs of owls.
Proudly, like a strong, bold swimmer, the “ Matutina ”
crossed the dangerous Shambles shoal. This bank, a hid-
den obstruction at the entrance of Portland roads, is not a
barrier but an amphitheatre, its benches cut out by the circling
of the waves. An arena, round and symmetrical, as high as
a Jungfrau, only submerged; an oceanic coliseum, seen by
the diver in the vision-like transparency which engulfs him,—
such is the Shambles shoal. There hydras fight, leviathans
meet. There, says the legand, at the bottom of the gigantic
shaft, are the wrecks of ships, seized and sunk by the huge
Kraken, also known as the devil-fish. These spectral real-
ities, unknown to man, are indicated at the surface only by a
slight ripple.
In this nineteenth century the Shambles bank is in ruins;
the breakwater recently constructed has overthrown and mu-
tilated, by the force of its surf, that high submarine struc—
ture, 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 is more subservient to man
than man imagines-
“ The wise man.”
“ In your hand, what is he?”
“ He is what he is.”
“ The chief?”
(I No.”
“ Then what is he? ”
“ The soul."


76 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
CHAPTER IV
A CLOUD DIFFERENT FROM THE ornnas nurses on THE scans
HE old man whom the chief of the band had called first
the Madman, then the Sage, now never left the fore-
castle. Since they crossed the Shambles shoal, his attention
had been divided between the heavens and the waters. He
looked down, he looked upwards, and above all watched the
northeast. The captain gave the helm to a sailor, stepped
over the aft hatchway, crossed the gangway, and went on to
the forecastle. He approached the old man, but not from
the front; he passed a little behind him, with elbows resting
on his hips, with outstretched hands, his head on one side, with
open eyes and arched eyebrows, and a smile in the corners of
his mouth,—— an attitude of curiosity hesitating between mock-
ery and respect. The old man, either because it was his
habit to talk to himself, or because 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 calcu-
lated is marked in this century by four stars,—-- the Polar,
Cassiopeia’s Chair, Andromeda’s Head, and the star Algenib,
which is in Pegasus. But not one of them is visible.”
These words followed one another mechanically, and were
scarcely articulated, as if he did not care to pronounce them.
They floated out of his mouth and dispersed. Soliloquy is
the smoke exhaled by the inmost fires of the soul.
The captain broke in: “ Sefior!”
The old man, perhaps rather deaf as well as very thought-
ful, 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 atmosphere is lighter.
The cold, dense wind r“ the sea rushes in to replace it.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 77
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 real 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 captain bowed, but the old man saw him not. The
latter, who wore what resembled an Oxford or Gottingen uni-
versity gown, did not relax his haughty and rigid attitude.
He observed the waves 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 amidst their turmoil, and teach them
something. There was in him both pedagogue and sooth- -
sayer. He seemed an oracle of the deep. He continued his
soliloquy, which was perhaps intended to be heard: -—
“We might try, 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 produces 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 captain bowed a second time, and said, “ Sefior! ”
The old man’s eyes rested on him; he had turned his head
without moving his body. “ Call me Doctor.”
“ Master Doctor, I am the captain.”
“ Just so,” said the doctor. The doctor, as henceforward
we shall call him, appeared willing to converse: “ Cap—
tain, have you an English sextant?”
“ No",
“ Without an English sextant you cann0t take an altitude
at all.”
“ The Basques,” replied the captain, “ took altitudes be-
fore 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.”


78 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
“ When? ”
“ Just now.”
“ 3’
“By the log.”
“ Did you take the trouble to look at the triangle?”
“ Yes-,9
“ Did the sand run through the glass in exactly thirty sec-
onds? ”
“ Yes.’,
“ Are you sure that the sand has not worn the hole between
the globes?”
“ Yes.”
“ Have you proved the sand-glass by the oscillations 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.” i
“ 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? ”
6‘ Yes-’9
“ 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.”
“ Have you taken into account the resistance of the rope
supporting the shot to the waves?”
cs Yes'”


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 79
“What was the result?”
“ The resistance of the water was one hundred and seventy
pounds.”
“That’s 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 pos-
sible.” -
“ Yes, as near as I can.”
“ Beware of gusts and currents. The first cause the sec—
ond.” ‘
“ Yes: the traitors!”
“ No abuse! The sea understands. Insult nothing; be
satisfied with watching.”
“ I have watched, and I am still watching. Just now the
tide is running against the wind; by-and-by, when it turns,
we shall be all right.”
“Have 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.”
“ 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 a certainty is
better.”
“ Christopher 1 guessed.”
“ When there is a fog and the needle revolves treacherously,
1 Columbus.


80 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
you can never tell on which side you should look out for
squalls; and the end of it is that you know neither the real
nor apparent day’s work. An ass with his chart is better
off than a wizard with his oracle.”
“ There is no fog 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 favour-
able.”
“ 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 a mess that you will find it hard to get
out of.”
“ Yes; but all goes well at present.”
The doctor’s eyes were fixed on the northeast. The cap-
tain continued: ——
“ Let us once reach the Gulf of Gascony, and I can answer
for our safety. Ah, I am at home there! I know it well,
my Gulf of Gascony! It is a little basin, often very boister-
ous; but there I know every sounding and the nature of the
bottom,— mud opposite San Cipriano, shells opposite Ciz-
arque, sand of Cape Pefias, little pebbles off Boncaut de
Mimizan; and I know the colour of every pebble.”
The captain broke off ; the doctor was no longer listening.
He was gazing at the northeast. Over that icy face passed
an,extraordinary expression. All the agony of terror pos—
sible to a mask of stone was depicted there. From his mouth
escaped the word, “ Ha! ”
His eyes were dilated with horror as he perceived a speck
on the horizon. Then he added, under his breath, “ It is
well. As for me, I do not object.”
The captain looked at him.
The doctor went on talking to himself, or to some one in
the deep: “ Yes, I say.” Then he was silent, and fixed his
eyes with renewed attention on that which he was watching,
and said: “ It is coming from afar off, but it will come none
the less surely.”


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 81
The are of the horizon which engrossed the visual orbs and
thoughts of the doctor, being opposite to the west, was illu-
minated by the transcendent reflection of twilight, as if it
were day. This are, limited in extent, and surrounded by
streaks of greyish vapour, was uniformly blue, but of a leaden
rather than cerulean blue. The doctor pointed to this atmos-
pheric arc, and said:
“ Captain, do you see? ”
6‘ ”
“ That.”
“ What? ”
“ Out there.”
“ A blue spot? Yes.”
“ What is it? ”
“ An opening in the heavens.”
“ For those who go to heaven; for those who go elsewhere
it is another aifair,”—-— and the doctor emphasized these enig—
matical words with an appalling expression which was unseen
in the darkness.
A silence ensued. The captain, 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 continued to point,
like a sign—post, to the dark spot in the sky.
The captain 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 doc-
tor; “ and it’s a snow-cloud,” he added.
“La nube de la nieve,” said the captain, 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 captain again turned his attention to the horizon.
Continuing to observe the cloud, he muttered between his
teeth: —-
“ One month of squalls, another of wet; January with its
6


82 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
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 water-spout is a monster,” said the doctor, add-
ing, after a pause, “ here it comes.”
He continued: “ Several winds are getting together,—
a strong wind from the west, and a gentle wind from the
east.”
“ That last is a deceitful one,” said the captain.
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 almost
simultaneously over the horizon. He continued, in musing
tones: “ Every minute the fatal hour draws nearer. The will
of Heaven is about to be manifested.”
The captain again asked himself this question, “ Is he a.
madman? ”
“ Captain,” began the doctor, without taking his eyes oil"
the cloud, “ have you often crossed the Channel?”
“ This is the first time.”
“ How is that? ”
“ Master Doctor, my usual cruise is to Ireland. I sail from
Fontarabia to Black Harbour, or to the Achill Islands. I
go sometimes to Braich-y-Pwll, a point on the Welsh coast.
But I always steer outside the Scilly Islands. I do not know
this sea at all.”
“ That’s unfortunate. 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 of water 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


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 83
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 cannot do.”
“ Why not? ”
“ On account of the wind.”
“ We’ll try.”
“ The squall is close upon us.”
“ We’ll sound, Master Doctor.”
“ You could not even bring-to.”
“ Trust in God.”
“ Take care what you say. Do not utter that dread name
lightly.”
“ 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
experience in these waters?”
“ My first.”
“ Very well; in that case listen, Captain.”
The tone of the word “listen ” was so commanding that
the captain made an obeisance: “ Master Doctor, I am all at-
tention.”
“ Port your helm, and haul up on the starboard tack.”
“ What do you mean?”
“ Direct your course westward.”
“ Caramba! ”
“ Direct your course westward.”
“ Impossible! ”
“As you will. What I tell you is for the sake of the
others. As for myself, I am indifferent.”
“ But, Master Doctor, steer west?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“ The wind will be dead against us.”
“ Yes, Captain.”
“ She’ll pitch like the devil.”


84 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
“ Moderate your language. Yes, Captain.”
“ The vessel would be in irons.”
“ Yes, Captain.”
“ That means very likely the mast will go.”
“ Possibly.”
“ And yet you wish me to steer westward? ”
“ Yes-,9
“ I cannot.”
“ In that case settle your reckoning with the sea.”
“ The Wind ought to change.”
“ It will not change to-night.”
“ Why not? ”
“ Because it is a wind twelve hundred leagues in length.”
“Make headway against such a wind? Impossible!”
“ Steer westward, I tell you.”
“ I’ll try; but in spite of everything she will fall off.”
“ That’s the danger.”
“ The wind is driving us towards the east.”
“ Don’t go to the east.”
“ Why not? ”
“ Captain, do you know what is sure death for us? ”
“ No.”
“ Death is the east.”
“ I’ll steer west.”
This time the doctor, having turned right round, looked
the captain 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 captain pondered in amaze: “ What do you mean? ”
The doctor did not answer. His countenance so expressive
a moment before was now reserved. His eyes became vacu-
ous; he did not seem to hear the captain’s wondering question.
He was now engrossed by his own thoughts. His lips let fall,
as if mechanically, in a low murmuring tone, these words:
“ The time has come for sullied souls to purify themselves.”
The captain elevated his chin scornfully. “ He is more


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 85
madman than sage,” he growled, as he moved off. Never-
theless he steered westward.
But both the wind and the sea were increasing.

CHAPTER V
HABDQUANONNE
HE appearance of the clouds was becoming ominous. In
the west as in the east the sky was now nearly covered
with dark, angry clouds, which were rapidly advancing in
the teeth of the wind. These contradictions are part of the
Wind’s vagaries. The sea, which had been clothed in scales a
moment before, now were a skin,— for such is the nature of
this aquatic monster. It was no longer a crocodile, it was a
boa-constrictor. Its lead-colored skin looked immensely
thick, and was crossed by heavy wrinkles. Here and there,
on its surface, bubbles of froth, like pustules, gathered and
then burst. The foam was like leprosy. It was at this mo—
ment that the hooker, still seen from afar by the child, lighted
her signal.
A quarter of an hour elapsed. The captain looked around
for the doctor; he was no longer on deck. Directly the
captain left him, the doctor bent his somewhat ungainly form
and entered the cabin, where he sat down near the stove, on
a block. He took a shagreen ink—bottle and a cordwain
pocket—book from his pocket; extracted from the pocket—book
a parchment folded four times, old, stained, and yellow;
opened the sheet, took a pen out of his ink-case, laid 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, set to writing on the back of the parchment. Though
the rolling of the waves inconvenienced him, he wrote on thus;
for some time.


86 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
As he wrote, the doctor noticed the gourd of aguardiente,
which the Provencal tasted every time he added a grain of
pimento to the puchero, as if he were consulting with refer-
ence to the seasoning. The doctor noticed the gourd, not be-
cause it was a flask of brandy, but because of a name which
was plaited in.the wicker—work, with red rushes on a white
background. 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 never observed this gourd before; did it belong to
Hardquanonne? ”
“ Yes,” the cook answered,-—“ to our poor comrade, Hard-
quanonne.”
“ To Hardquanonne, the Fleming of Flanders? ”
‘6 Yes.,’
“ The same who is in prison?”
“ Yes.’,
“ In the dungeon at Chatham? ”
“ Yes, it is his gourd," replied the cook. “ He is a friend
of mine, and I keep it ;' I 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 Ion again, and continued labo—
riously tracing somewhat straggling lines on the parchment.
He was evidently anxious that his hand—writing should be very
legible. At last, notwithstanding 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 tem-
pest.
The doctor rose and approached the stove, meeting 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,
——~—-T~—~_~_. 4;—
e can?!


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 87
and replaced the pocket-book and the ink-horn in his pocket.
The stove was not the least ingenious piece of interior econ-
omy in the hooker. It was judiciously isolated, yet the pot
oscillated wildly. The Provencal watched it closely.
“Fish broth,” said he.
“For the fishes,” replied the doctor, as he went on deck
again.

CHAPTER VI
THEY THINK THAT HELP rs AT HAND
HROUGH his growing pre—occupation, the doctor
dreamily reviewed the situation; and any one near
him might have heard these words drop from his lips: “ Too
much rolling, and not enough pitching.” Then he again rc-
lapsed into thought, as a miner into his shaft. His meditation
in nowise interfered with his watch of the sea. The contem-
plation of the sea is in itself a reverie.
The travail of the eternally tortured waters was commenc-
ing. A wail of lamentation arose from the whole main.
Confused and ominous preparations were going on in space.
The doctor noted each detail, though there was no sign of
scrutiny in his face. One does not scrutinize hell. A vast
commotion, as yet half latent, but visible through the tur-
moils in space, increased and irritated the winds, the vapours
and the waves more and more. Nothing is so logical and yet
nothing appears so erratic as the ocean. Self-dispersion is
the essence of its sovereignty, and one of the elements of its
redundance. The sea is ever for or against. It knots, that
it may unravel itself; one of its waves attacks, the other re-
lieves. There is nothing so truly wonderful as the waves.
Who can paint the alternating hollows and elevations, the
heaving bosoms, the majestic outlines? Who can describe the
thickets of foam, the blendings of mountains and dreams?


88 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
The indescribable is everywhere there, in the rending, in the
frowning, in the anxiety, in the perpetual contradiction, in the
chiaroscuro, in the pendants of the clouds, in the ever-chang-
ing curves, in the disaggregation without rupture, in the
mighty uproar caused by all that overhanging tumult!
The wind had just veered around to the north, and its
violence was so favourable and useful in driving them away
from England that the captain of the “ Matutina ” had made
up his mind to set all sail. The hooker dashed through the
foam at a gallop, 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 seemed not to see them, and dreamed
on.
Every vestige of day had faded away. This was the mo-
ment when the child, watching from the distant cliff, lost sight
of the hooker. Up to that time his gaze had been riveted upon
the vessel. Did that look exert any influence over the vessel’s
fate? When the hooker was lost to sight in the distance, and
when the child could no longer see aught of it, he went north
and the ship went south. Both were plunged in darkness.
CHAPTER VII
SUPERHUMAN Hoaaoas
T was with wild rejoicing and delight that those on board
the hooker saw the hostile land recede and lessen be—
hind them. By degrees the dark ring of ocean rose higher,
dwarfing in the twilight Portland, Purbeck, Tineham, Kim-
meridge, the Matravers, the long lines of dim cliffs, and the
coast dotted with lighthouses. England disappeared. The
fugitives had now nothing around them but the sea.
All at once the darkness became frightful. There was no


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 89
longer space; the sky became as black as ink, and closed in
round the vessel. The snow began to fall slowly, only a few
flakes at first. They might have been ghosts. Nothing else
was visible. A snare lurked in every possibility.
It is in this cavernous darkness that in our climate the
Polar water—spout makes its appearance. A great muddy
cloud, resembling the belly of a hydra, hung over the ocean,
its livid base adhering to the waves in some places. Some
of these adherences resembled pouches with holes, pumping
up the sea, disgorging vapour, and refilling themselves with
water. Here and there these suctions raised cones of foam
on the sea.
The boreal storm 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
reefed, not a jib lowered; 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
the storm, the hooker behaved as if she were out in moderate
weather, without any further precaution than keeping her
head to the billows, with the wind broad on the bow so as to
avoid being caught broadside on. This prudential measure
,would have availed her nothing in case of the Wind’s shifting
and taking her aback.
A deep rumbling sound was audible in the distance. The
roar of ocean,— what can be compared to it? It is the great
brutish howl of the universe. What we call matter,-— that un-
searchable organism, that amalgamation of incommensurable
energies, in which can occasionally be detected an almost im-
perceptible 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 between speech and thunder. That cry is the hurricane.
Other and different voices, songs, melodies, clamours, tones,
proceed from nests, from broods, from pairings, from nup—


90 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
>N-,,,'/
tials, from homes. This trumpet-blast comes out of the
Naught, which is All. Other voices express the soul of the
universe; this expresses its brute power. It is the howl of the
formless; it is the inarticulate uttered by the indefinite; it
is a thing full of pathos and of terror. Those clamours re—
sound above and beyond man. They rise, fall, undulate;
form waves of sound; constitute 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 hoarse-
ness 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 palpita-
tion endures, suffers, accepts, rejects. For the most part it
talks nonsense; it is like an attack of chronic sickness. We
fancy that we are witnessing the descent of supreme evil into
the infinite. At moments we seem to discern a reclamation
of the elements, some vain effort of chaos to re-assert itself
over creation. At times it is a despairing moan; the void
bewails and justifies itself. It is the pleading of the world’s
cause: we can fancy that the universe is engaged in a law—
suit; we listen, we try to grasp the reasons given, the re-
doubtable for and against. Such a moaning among the
shadows has the tenacity of a syllogism. Here is a vast field
for thought; here is the raiso'n d’étre of mythologies and
polytheisms. To the terror of these wild murmurs are added
superhuman outlines melting away as they appear,— Eu—
‘ menides which are almost distinct, throats of furies shaped in
the clouds, Plutonian, chimeras almost defined. No horrors
can equal those sobs, those laughs, those tricks of tumult,
those inscrutable questions and answers, those appeals to un-
known aid. Man is utterly bewildered in the presence of that
awful incantation; he bows under the enigma of those Dra—
conian intonations. What latent meaning have they;
what do they signify; what do they threaten; what do they
implore? It would seem as though all bonds were loosened.
Vociferations from precipice to precipice, from air to water,


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 91
from wind to wave, from rain to rock, from zenith to nadir,
from stars to foam; the abyss unmuzzled,— such is this tu-
mult complicated by some mysterious contest with evil con—
sciences.
The loquacity of night is not less lugubrious than its si-
lence. One feels in it the wrath of the unknown. Night is
a presence. The presence of what? For that matter we
must distinguish between night and the shadowy. In the
night there is the absolute; in the shadowy, the multiple.
The night is one, the shadowy is made up of many. In this
infinite and indefinite shadowy lives something or some one;
but that which lives there forms part of our death. After
our earthly career, when the shadowy will be clear to us, the
life which is beyond will seize us; meanwhile it appears to
touch and try us. Obscurity is a pressure. Night is, as
it were, a hand placed on our soul; at certain hideous and
solemn hours we feel that which is beyond the wall of the
tomb encroaching on us.
Never does this proximity of the unknown seem more im-
minent than in storms at sea. The horrible combines with
the fantastic. The possible interrupter of human actions,
the old Cloud—compeller, has it in his power to mould, in what—
soever shape he chooses, the changing elements, the wild in-
coherence, and aimless force. That mystery the tempest is
ever accepting and executing some unknown change of real
or apparent will. Poets in all ages have called the waves ca-
pricious; but there is no such thing as caprice. The discon—
certing enigmas in Nature which we call caprice, and in hu—
man life chance, are the results of unseen and incomprehen-
sible laws.
“3”.” - ,. _.-:1--v-V-:_:--~~___;~wq~:T.-_Mv\,~~, \_:__~..__~_, _ _


92 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
CHAPTER VIII
mx ET nox
HE chief 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, darkness above,— an
horizon walled in with smoke; a zenith roofed with crape.
The tempest resembles a cathedral hung with mourning; but
there is no light in that cathedral,— no phantom lights on the
crests of the waves, no spark, no phosphorescence, naught
but a dense shadow. The polar cyclone differs from the trop-
ical cyclone, inasmuch as the one sets fire to every light, and
the other extinguishes them all. The world is suddenly con-
verted into a vaulted 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 mingles with this dissemination.
Blackness crumbling into whiteness, the furious into the ob-
scure, all the tumult of which the sepulchre is capable, a
whirlwind under a catafalque,— such is the snow-storm. Un—
derneath trembles the ocean, forming and reforming over
portentous depths. 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.
There are no thunder-claps; 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 proceed—
ing 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 danger is difficult. It would be
wrong, however, to consider shipwreck inevitable. The Dan-
an—u‘flf-_p'. "flu-P'- ,- ,—-;~


94 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
especially were doing wonderful work. The sky and sea
were like ink compared with the 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 larboard—became so many open
mouths vomiting black foam into the sea. The women had
taken refuge in the cabin, but the men remained on deck; the
blinding snow eddied round, the surge mingling with it.
At that moment the chief of the band, standing abaft and
holding with one hand to the shrouds, and with the other
taking off the kerchief 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, 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 clamour 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. They distinctly heard through the dark-
ness the tolling of a bell. .
CHAPTER IX
THE CHARGE CONFIDED TO A RAGING SEA
HE captain, 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 star'
board.”


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 95
The firm and measured voice of the doctor replied: “ You
have not land to starboard.”
“But we have!” shouted the captain.
“ ,’
“ But that bell tolls from the land.”
“That bell,” said the doctor, “ tolls from the sea.”
A shudder passed over these daring men; the haggard
faces of the two women appeared above the companionway
like two hobgoblins conjured up; the doctor took a step for-
ward, separating his tall form from the mast. From the
gloomy depths of night again resounded the dreary tolling
of the bell.
The doctor resumed: “ Half-way between Portland and the
Channel Islands there is in the midst of the sea a buoy, placed
there as a. warning. The buoy is moored by chains to a rock,
and floats on the top of the water. To the buoy is affixed
an iron trestle, and across the trestle is hung a bell. In bad
weather heavy seas toss the buoy, and the bell rings. That
is the hell you hear.”
The doctor, after pausing to allow an unusually violent
gust of wind to subside, continued: “ To hear that bell in a
storm, when a nor’—wester is blowing, is to be lost. Where—
fore? For this reason: you hear the bell because the wind
brings the sound to you. The wind is blowing from the north-
West, and the rocks of Alderney lie to the east of us. You
hear the bell only because you are between the buoy and the
breakers. It is upon those rocks that 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 might pass close to the buoy without
knowing it. We are out of our course. That bell is ship-
wreck sounding the tocsin. Listen!”
As the doctor spoke, the bell, soothed by a lull of the storm,
rang out slowly, stroke by stroke; and its dismal voice seemed
to testify to the truth of the old man’s words. It was per-
haps their death-knell. All listened breathlessly,——- now to the
voice, now to the bell.


96 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
CHAPTER X
THE COLOSSAL SAVAGE, THE s'roaM
N the mean time the captain had caught up his speaking-
trumpet: “ Cargate todo, hombres! Let go the sheets,
man the down-hauls, lower ties and brails! Let us steer t0
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 buoy, a kind
of bell-tower on the deep, was removed in 1802. There are
yet alive very aged mariners who remember hearing it. It
forewarned, but rather too late.
The orders of the captain were obeyed. The Languedo-
cian made a third sailor. All bore a hand. Not satisfied
with brailing up, they furled the sails; secured the clew-lines,
bunt—lines, and leech-lines; clapped preventor-shrouds on the
block-straps, which thus might serve as back—stays. They
braced the mast; they battened down the ports and bull’s
eyes, which is a method of walling up a ship. These evolu-
tions, though executed in a lubberly fashion were neverthe—
less thoroughly 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 and waves
increased. The billows ra-n mountains high.
The hurricane, like an executioner hastening to his victim,
began to dismember the craft. There came, in the twinkling
of an eye, a dreadful crash; the top-sails 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 also succumbed, although they were turned
in and strongly stoppered. The ‘magnetic currents common


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 97
to snow-storms hastened the destruction of the rigging; it
broke as much from the efi'ects of these as from the violence
of the wind. Most of the chain gear, fouled in the blocks,
ceased to work. The bows and stern quivered under the ter-
rific shocks. One wave washed overboard the compass and its
binnacle; a second carried away the boat, which like a box
slung under a carriage had been, in accordance with the
quaint Asturian custom, lashed to the bowsprit; a third
breaker wrenched off the sprit-sail 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 broken mast, all bristling with splin-
ters, ropes, blocks, and yards, cumbered the deck; in falling,
it had stove in a plank of the starboard gunwale. The cap-
tain, still firm at the helm, shouted: “While we can steer,
we have a chance! The lower planks hold good. Axes,
axes! Overboard with the mast! Clear the decks!”
Both crew and passengers worked with the excitement 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 captain, “ take a rope’s end and lash
me to the helm.”
They bound him to the tiller.
him he laughed, and shouted,—
“ Bellow, old hurdy—gurdy! bellow!
ofl’ Cape Machichaco!”
And when secured, he clutched the helm with that strange
hilarity which danger awakens, crying out,—
“ All goes well, my lads! Long live our Lady of Buglose!
Let us steer west.”
An enormous wave came down abeam, and dashed against
the vessel’s side. There is always in storms a tiger-like wave,
a billow fierce and decisive, which after 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
While they were fastening
I’ve seen your equal
,~,-.


98 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
entire deck of the “Matutina.” A loud noise was heard
above the confusion of darkness and waters. When the
spray cleared oft“, and the stern again rose to view, the cap-
tain and the helm had disappeared. 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? ”
To this defiant exclamation there followed another cry:
“ Let go the anchor! Save the captain!”
They rushed to the capstan and let go the anchor. Hook—
ers carry but one. In this case the anchor reached the bot-
tom, but only to be lost; the bottom 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 only the cable end pro—
truding from the hawse-hole. From this moment the hooker
became a wreck. The “ Matutina ” was irrevocably disabled.
The vessel, 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.
The howling of the wind became more and more frightful.
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 condition 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,
nor crack; and she had not a single drop of water in the hold.
This was lucky, as the pump, being out of order, was useless.
The hooker pitched and rolled frightfully in the seething bil-
lows. The vessel had throes as of sickness, and seemed to be
trying to belch forth the unhappy crew. Helpless they
clung to the rigging, to the transoms, to the shank painters,


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 99
to the gaskets, to the broken planks (the protruding nails
of which tore their hands), to the warped riders, and to all
the rugged projections on the stumps of the masts. From
time to time they listened: the tolling of the bell came over
the waters fainter and fainter,—— one might have supposed
that too was in distress. Finally the sound died away alto-
gether.
\Vhere were they,—— at what distance from the buoy? The
sound of the bell had frightened them; its silence terrified
them. The northwester drove them forward in perhaps a
fatal course. They felt themselves wafted on by maddened
and ever-recurring gusts of wind. The wreck sped forward
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 density of the snow-
storm, there loomed a red light.
“ A lighthouse!” cried the crew.
CHAPTER XI
THE GASKETS
T was the Caskets Light.
A lighthouse of the nineteenth century is a high cylinder
of masonry, surmounted by scientifically constructed machinery
for throwing light. The Casket lighthouse in particular is
a white tower supporting three light-rooms. These three
chambers revolve on clock—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, which is formed of eight wide
simple lenses in range, having above and below it two series
-< M,--,~._.~- MM‘ Hv—w~~ ‘. —~._-~-~~\__ y-»~~- “I ~~_1."—-~_q_ .


100 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
of dioptric rings; it is protected from the violence of the
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 constructed. Everything about it is
plain, exact, bare, precise, correct. A lighthouse is a mathe-
matical figure.
In the seventeenth century a lighthouse was a sort of orna—
ment to the sea—shore. The architecture of a lighthouse
tower was magnificent and extravagant. It was covered with
balconies, balusters, lodges, alcoves, weather-cocks,-—~ nothing
but masks, statues, foliage, volutes, reliefs, figures large and
small, medallions with inscriptions. “ Pax in bello,” said the
Eddystone lighthouse. (We may as well observe, by the
way, that this declaration of peace did not always disarm
the ocean. Winstanley repeated it on a lighthouse which he
constructed at his own expense, on a wild spot near Ply-
mouth. The tower being finished, he shut himself up in it
to have it tried by the tempest. The storm came, and car—
ried off the lighthouse and Winstanley in it.) Such ex-
cessive adornment afforded 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. On
the sides of the lighthouse there jutted out, clinging to the
walls among the arabesques, engines of every description, use-
ful and useless,—— windlasses, tackles, pullies, 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 standards, danderoles, banners, flags, and pennons, which
rose from stage to stage, from story to story,—a medley of
all hues, all shapes, all heraldic devices, all signals, all con-
fusion, up to the light-chamber, making in the storm a gay

'4’, __,,... .. .-, NW .~~p--~.- -_. , .


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 101
riot of colour about the blaze. This insolent light on the
brink of the abyss seemed to breathe defiance, and inspired
shipwrecked men with a spirit of daring.
But the Caskets Light was not one of this kind. It was
at that period a primitive sort of lighthouse. Henry I. built
it after the loss of the “White Ship.” It was an unpre-
tending tower perched upon a rock and surmounted with a
brazier enclosed by an iron railing,—- a head of hair flaming
in the wind. The only improvement made in this lighthouse
since the twelfth century was a pair of forge~bellows worked
by a pendulum and a stone weight, which had been added to
the light—chamber in 1610.
The fate of the sea—birds that chanced to fly against these
old lighthouses was more tragic than those of our days. The
birds dashed against them, attracted by the light, and fell
into the brazier, where they could be seen struggling like
black spirits in a hell; at times they would fall back again
between the railings upon the rock, smoking, lame, blind,
like half—burnt flies out of a lamp.
To a f ull—rigged ship in good trim, answering readily 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, paralyzed and inert, with no de-
fence against the fury 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 lighthouse reveals the end,
points out the spot where it is doomed to disappear, and casts
a ghastly light upon the place of burial. In short, it is but
a funeral torch to illumine- the yawning chasm, to warn
against the inevitable. What more tragic mockery!


102 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
CHAPTER XII
FACE 'ro race WITH THE 1001
HE wretched people on board the “ Matutina ” soon
understood the derisive character of this warning. The
sight of the lighthouse raised their spirits at first, then over-
whelmed them with despair. 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
raving must be borne.
The nor’-wester was driving the hooker on the Caskets.
They were nearing them; escape was impossible. They were
drifting 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. They heard the dull sound of the
waves being sucked within the submarine caves of the steep
rock. They made out, near the lighthouse, a deep cut be-
tween two granite walls,— the narrow passage leading into
the ugly, wild-looking little harbour, supposed to be full of
the skeletons of men and carcasses of ships. It looked like
the mouth of a cave, rather than the entrance of a port.
They could hear the crackling of the flames high up within
the iron grating. A 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 ledge, blurred at first in outline, now stood out in
bold relief,-—a medley of rocks with peaks, crests, and
vertebrae. As they neared it, the appearance of the reef be—
came more and more forbidding. One of the women, the
Irishwoman, told her beads wildly.
The chief was now acting as captain; for the Basques are
wWMr MM NW,» W'th ,__. ,.
.E h


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 103
equally at home on the mountain and the sea; they are hold
on the precipice, and inventive in catastrophes. They were
nearing the cliff. They were about to strike. Suddenly
they came so close to the great rock north of the Caskets that
it shut out the lighthouse from their view. They saw nothing
but the rock and a red glare behind it. The huge rock loom-.
ing in the mist was like a gigantic black woman with a hoodr
of fire. This 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—giulmets. The chief looked at
the Biblet and shouted,—
“A man with a will to take a rope to the rock! Who
can swim?”
No answer. No one on board knew how to swim, not even
the sailors,-—~ an ignorance not uncommon among seafaring
people. A beam nearly freed from its lashings was swinging
loose. The chief seized it with both hands, crying,—
“ Help me 1 ”
They unlashed the beam. They had now at their disposal
the very thing they wanted. Abandoning the defensive they
assumed the offensive. It was a long beam of solid oak,
sound and strong, useful either as a support or as ‘a
weapon, as a lever for a burden or a battering 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, and aimed
straight as a lance towards a projection of the cliff. It was
a dangerous manoeuvre. To strike at a mountain is au—
dacious indeed; the six men might 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 en-
countered. Several 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 like a culprit. A relent—
less wave rushed in; it ended the respite. It caught the


104 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
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 arm—pits, but they did not feel them.
The wave dashed the hooker against the rock. Then came
the shock. It came under the cloud of foam which always
hides such catastrophes. When the spray fell back into the
sea, when the waves rolled back from the rock, the six men
were rolling about the deck, but the “ Matutina ” was floating
alongside the rock, clear of it. The beam had stood fast and
turned the vessel aside. The sea was running so fast that in
a few seconds the hooker 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 neighbourhood of Cape Winterton,
and under the command of Captain Hamilton, it was the ap-
pliance of such a lever against the dangerous rock Branodu—
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 decomposed that changes in direction can
be easily effected, or at least are possible even in the most
violent collisions. The whole secret of avoiding shipwreck, is
to try and pass from the secant to the tangent. Such was
the service the beam rendered to the hooker; it had done the
work of an oar, had taken the place of a rudder. But the
manoeuvre once performed could not be repeated. The beam
was overboard; the shock of the collision had wrenched it out
of the men’s hands, and it was lost in the waves. To loosen
another beam would have been to dismember the hull.
The hurricane swept the “ Matutina ” on. The light
paled in the distance, faded, and disappeared. There was
something moumful in its extinction. Layers of mist grad-
ually sank down upon the now uncertain light; its rays died
in the waste of waters; the flame floated, struggled, sank, and
lost its form. It might have been a drowning creature. The


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 105
brazier dwindled to the snuff of a candle; then naught re-
mained save a faint uncertain glimmer. It was like the
quenching of light in the pit of night.
The bell which had threatened was dumb; the lighthouse
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 mighty deep.
CHAPTER XIII
FACE TO FACE wrrn NIGHT
GAIN was the hooker running with the shadow into 1m-
measurable darkness. The “ Matutina,” escaped from
the Caskets, sank and rose from billow to billow, a respite, but
in chaos. Spun around by the wind, tossed by all the thou—
sand motions of the wave, she reflected every mad oscillation
of the sea. She scarcely pitched at all,—- a terrible symptom
in a ship in distress. Wrecks merely roll; pitching is a sign
of strife. The helm alone can turn a vessel to the wind.
Liists, whirlwinds, gales, motion in all directions, n'o shelter,
gulf succeeding gulf, no horizon visible, intense blackness for
background,—- through all these the hooker drifted. To
have got free of the Caskets, to have escaped the rock, was a
victory for the shipwrecked men; but it was a victory which
left them in a sort of stupor. They had raised no cheer; at
sea such an impudence is not repeated twice. To throw down
a challenge where they could not cast the lead, would have
been too serious 0. jest. The shipwreck averted was an im-
possibility achieved; they were petrified by it. By degrees,
however, they began to hope again. Such are the mirages
of the soul! There is no distress so complete but that even in
the most critical moments the inexplicable sunrise of hope is


106 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
seen in its depths. These poor wretches were ready to declare
to themselves that they were saved. The words were almost
on their lips.
But suddenly something terrible appeared before them in
the darkness. On the port bow arose a tall, perpendicular,
opaque mass, a square tower as it were. They gazed at it,
open-mouthed. The storm was driving them straight towards
it. They knew not what it was. It was the Ortach rock
emerging from the depths of ocean.

CHAPTER XIV
OBTACH
ANGER was imminent again. After the Caskets comes
Ortach. The storm is no artist; brutal and all-
powerful, it never varies its appliances. The darkness is in-
exhaustible; its snares and perfidies never come to an end.
As for man, he soon comes to the end of his resources. Man
exhausts his strength, the abyss never. The shipwrecked men
turned towards the chief, their hope. He could only shrug
his shoulders. Dismal contempt of helplessness.
The Ortach, a single huge rock, rises in a straight line
eighty feet above the angry beating of the waves. Waves
and ships break against it. An immovable cube, it plunges
its rectilinear planes into the numberless serpentine curves of
the sea. At night it looks like an enormous block resting on
the folds of a huge black sheet. In time of storm it awaits
the stroke of the axe,—— that is, the thunderbolt. But there
is never a thunderbolt during a snow-storm. True, the ship
has a bandage over her eyes; she is like one prepared for the
scaffold. As for the lightning—bolt which puts one quickly
out of one’s misery, that is not to be hoped for.
The “ Matutina,” little better now than a log upon the wa.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 107
ters, 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 misery. The destruc-
tion they thought they had left behind them confronted them
again. The reef reappeared from the bottom of the sea.
Nothing had been gained.
The Caskets are a gofl'ering iron with a thousand sub-
divisions; the Ortach is a solid 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 like 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 intense 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 — The wave
did pass 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 out of the breakers. The Ortach faded
from their view, as the Caskets had done. It was their second
victory. For the second time the hooker had verged on de-
struction, and had drawn back in time.

--u—_—-_-_-"-__.-\ 1 I .


108 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
CHAPTER XV
PORTENTOSUM MARE
EANWHILE 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 how their
heads, the women had obstinately refused to go below again.
No one, however hopeless, but wishes, if shipwreck be in-
evitable, 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 to a
strait may be known by the boiling appearance of the waves.
And it was so in this case, for they were unconsciously skirting
the coast of Alderney. Between the Caskets and Ortach on
the west and Alderney on the east, the sea is cramped and
hemmed in. In this uncomfortable position the sea sufl'ers
like anything else; and when it suffers, it is irritable. Conse-
quently, that channel is a thing to fear. The “ Matutina ”
was in that channel now.
Imagine under the sea a tortoise shell as big as Hyde
Park or the Champs Elysées, of which every striature is a
shoal, and every embossment a reef. Such is the western ap-
proach of Alderney. The sea covers and conceals this ship-
wrecking apparatus. On this conglomeration of submarine
breakers the cloven waves leap and foam; in calm weather a
chopping sea, in storms a chaos reigns. The shipwrecked
men observed this new complication without endeavouring to
explain it to themselves. 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. What was that shoal? They


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 109
shuddered. They would have shuddered even more had a
voice answered them, “ Alderney! ”
No other isle is so well defended against man’s approach
as Alderney. Below and above water it is protected by a
savage guard, of which Ortach is the outpost. To the west
are Burhou, Sauteriaux, Anfroque, Niangle, Fond du Croc,
Les Jumelles, La Grosse, La Clanque, Les Eguillons, Le
Vrac, La Fosse-Maliere; to the east Sauquet, Hommeau
Floreau, La Brinebetais, La Queslingue, Croquelihou, La
Fourche, Le Saut, Noire Pute, Coupie, Orbue. These are
hydra—headed monsters of the protecting reef. One of these
reefs is called Le But,— the Goal,——- as if to imply that every
voyage ends there. This obstruction, simplified by night
and sea, looked to the shipwrecked men like a single dark
belt of rocks, a sort of blot on the horizon.
Shipwreck'is the height 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, and yet o’ershadowed by death;
to be a prisoner in space; to be walled in between sky and
ocean; to have the infinite overhead like a dungeon; to be
encompassed by the treacherous winds and waves; 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 seems 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 extermina—
tion. The grain of sand in the desert, the foam-flake on the
sea, are fearful symptoms. Omnipotence takes no care to hide
its atom; it changes weakness into strength; and it is with
the infinitely little that the infinitely great crushes you. It
is with its drops that the ocean overwhelms you. You feel
you are a plaything. A plaything: ghastly epithet!


110 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
The “ Matutina ” was a little above Alderney, which was
not an unfavourable position; but she was drifting towards
its northern point, which was fatal. As a bent bow dis-
charges its arrow, the nor’-wester was shooting the vessel
towards the northern cape. Off that point, a little beyond
the harbour of Corbelets, is that which the seaman of the Nor—
man archipelago call a “ singe,”— that is, a current. The
“ singe ” is a furious kind of current. A wreath of funnels
in the shallows produces a wreath of Whirlpools on the sur-
face. You escape one only to fall into another. A ship
caught hold of by the “ singe ” whirls round and round until
some sharp rock cleaves her hull; then the shattered vessel
stops, her stern rises from the waves, the bow completes the rev-
olution in the abyss, the stern sinks in, and the entire wreck
is sucked down. The circle of foam broadens, and nothing is
seen on the surface of the waves but a few bubbles here and
there.
The three most dangerous currents in the whole channel
are — one close to the well-known Girdler Sands; one at J er—
sey between the Pignonnet and the Point of Noirmont; and
that of Alderney.
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 situations of extreme danger men
are endowed with second sight. Without knowing exactly
what awaited them, they approached the spot with horror.
How could they double that cape? They had no means of
doing it. Just as they had seen, first the Caskets, then Or-
tach, loom up before them, they now saw the point of Alder-
ney, all of steep rock. It was like a number of giants rising
up one after another to offer them battle. Charybdis and
Scylla make but two; the Caskets, Ortach, and Alderney make
three. The phenomenon of the horizon, invaded by the
rocks, was again repeated with the grand monotony of the
deep. The battles of the ocean have the same sublime tautol-
ogy as the combats of Homer. Each wave, as they neared
it, added twenty cubits to the apparent cape, already greatly

"*0,va w I .7


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 111
magnified by the mist; the fast decreasing distance seemed
to render destruction more and more inevitable. They were
on the edge of the seething'current already! The first ripple
that seized them would drag them in; another wave sur-
mounted, and all would be over!
Suddenly the hooker was driven back, as if by a blow
from 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 Alder-
ney. She was again on the open sea. Whence had come
the succour? From the wind. The breath of the storm
had changed its direction. The wave had made them its
toy; now it was the Wind’s turn. They had saved them-
selves from the Caskets. Ofi' Ortach it was the wave which
had been their friend; now it was the wind. The wind had
suddenly veered from north to south. A sou’-wester had
succeeded the nor’-wester. The current is the wind in the
waters; the wind 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 whims of ocean are incomprehensible; they are, perhaps,
an embodiment of the perpetual. When one is at their mercy'
one can neither hope nor despair. They do and then undo.
The ocean amuses itself. Every shade of wild, untamed fe-
rocity is phased in the vast and cunning sea, which Jean
Bart used to call “ that big brute.” To its claws and their
gashings succeed soft intervals of velvet paws. Sometimes
the storm hurries on a wreck, at others it works out the prob-
lem with care; it might almost be said that it lingers over it.
The sea can afford to take its time, as its victims learn to
their cost.
We must own that occasionally these lulls in the torture
announce deliverance. Such cases are rare. However this
may be, men in extreme peril are quick to believe in rescue.
the slightest cessation in the storm’s threats is sufficient,—
thcv tell themSelves that they are out of danger. After be-
lieving themseh'es as good as buried, they announce their


112 THE MAN \VHO LAUGHS
resurrection. It appears that their luck has turned; they de-
clare themselves satisfied; they are saved; they cry quits with
God.
The sou’-wester set in with a whirlwind. Shipwrecked
men have never any but rough helpers. The “ Matutina”
was dragged rapidly out to sea by the remains of her rigging,
like a dead woman trailed by the hair. It was like the free-
dom granted by Tiberius, at the price of violation. The
wind treated with brutality those whom it saved; it rendered
service with fury; it gave help without pity. The wreck
was breaking up under the severity of its deliverers. Hail-
stones, big and hard enough to charge a blunderbuss, smote
the vessel; at every rise and fall of the waves these hail-
stones rolled about the deck like marbles. The hooker, whose
deck was almost even with the water was being beaten out of
shape by the heavy sea and its clouds of spray. On board
it each man was for himself. They clung on as best they
could. As each sea swept over them, it was with a sense of
surprise that they saw that all were still there. Several
had their faces torn by splinters. Happily despair makes
stout hands. In terror a child’s hand has the grasp of a
giant; agony makes a vice of a'woman’s fingers; a girl in
her fright can almost bury her rose—coloured fingers in a
piece of iron. With hooked fingers they hung on somehow,
as the waves dashed over them; but each wave increased their
fear of being swept away.
But their fears were suddenly relieved.
CHAPTER XVI
THE PROBLEM SUDDENLY WORKS IN SILENCE
HE hurricane ended as abruptly as it began. In a min-
ute or two there was no longer sou’-wester or nor’—
wester in the air. The fierce claricns of space were mute.
The whole of the water-spout had poured from the sky with-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 113
out any sign of diminution, as if it had slided perpendicularly
into a gulf beneath. Snow—flakes took the place of hail-
stones; the snow began to fall slowly. There was no more
swell; the sea quieted down.
Such sudden cessations are peculiar to snow-storms. The
electric influence exhausted, everything becomes still,—— even
the sea, which in ordinary storms often remains agitated for
a long time. In snow-storms it is not so. There is then no
prolonged disturbance in the deep. Like a weary 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 own time, on the occasion of the memorable hurricane
of July 27, 1867, at Jersey the wind, after fourteen hours’
fury, suddenly relapsed into a dead calm. '
In a few minutes the hooker was floating on sleeping waters.
At the same time (for the last phase of these storms resem—
bles the first) the crew 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 around the vessel. Walls
of inky blackness surrounded the “ Matutina,” and with the
grim deliberation of an encroaching iceberg were slowly but
surely closing in around her. In the zenith nothing was visi—
ble ; a lid of fog seemed to be closing down upon the vessel. It
was as if the hooker were at the bottom of an unfathomable
abyss. The sea was like a puddle of molten lead. No move-
ment was perceptible in the waters,—— ominous immobility!
The ocean is never less tame than when it is still as a pool.
All was silence, stillness, darkness. Perchance the silence
of inanimate objects is taciturnity. The deck was horizontal,
with an insensible slope to the sides. A few broken planks
were sliding about. The block on which they had lighted
the tow steeped in tar, in place of the signal-light which had
been Washed away, no longer swung at the prow, and no
longer let fall burning drops into the sea. What little
8 .


114 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
breeze remained in the clouds was noiseless. Then snow fell
thickly, softly, and almost perpendicularly. No sound of
breakers could be heard. The quiet of midnight was over all.
This profound peace succeeding such terrific tempests and
frenzied efforts was, for these poor creatures so long tossed
about, an unspeakable comfort; it was as though the punish—
ment of the rack had ceased. It seemed an assurance that
they would be saved. They regained confidence. All that
had been fury was now tranquillity. It appeared to them
a pledge of peace. Their wretched hearts swelled with hope.
They were able to let go the end of rope or beam to which
they had clung, to rise, straighten themselves up, and stand
erect, and move about. They felt inexpressibly relieved.
There are in the depths of darkness such phases of para-
dise, preparations for other things. It was evident that they
were delivered from the storm, from the foam, from the wind,
from the uproar. Henceforth all the chances were in their
favour. 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 im-
portant feat was to have been able to keep afloat until the
cessation of the tempest. They said to themselves, “ It is
all over now.”
Suddenly they found that all was indeed over. One of
the sailors, the northern Basque, Galdeazun by name, going
down into the hold to look for a rope, came hurriedly up
again and exclaimed,—
“ The hold is full!”
“ Of what?” asked the chief.
“ Of water,” answered the sailor.
“ What does that mean?” cried the chief.
“ It means,” replied Galdeazun, “ that in half an hour we
shall be at the bottom of the sea.”


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 115
CHAPTER XVII
THE LAST masormcn
WHERE was a hole in the keel. A leak had been sprung.
When it happened no one could tell. Was it when
they touched the Caskets? Was it off Ortach? Was it when
they were whirled about on the shoal west of Alderney? It
was most probable that they had struck against some hidden
rock, the shock of which they had not felt in the midst of
the convulsive fury of the wind which was tossing them about.
When one has tetanus who would feel a pin-prick?
The other sailor, the southern Basque, whose name was Ave
Maria, also went down into the hold, and returning to the
deck said: “ There are six feet of water in the hold;” and
added, “ In less than forty minutes we shall sink.”
Where was the leak? They could not find it. It was bid-
den by the water which was filling the hold. The vessel had
a hole in her hull somewhere below the water-line, quite for—
ward in the keel. Impossible 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 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 enough.”
“ Let some one steer for it.”
“ We have no pilot.”
“Take the tiller yourself.”
“ We have lost the tiller.”


116 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
“ Let’s rig one out of the first beam we can lay .hands on.
Nails —— a hammer —— quick — some tools.”
“ The carpenter’s box went 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 that and row.”
“ The boat is gone too.”
“ We’ll row the wreck.”
“ We have lost all our oars.”
“ We’ll have to depend upon our sails then.”
“ We have lost our sails, and the mast as well.”
“ We’ll rig one up with a pole and a tarpaulin. Let’s get
out of this, and trust to the wind.”
“ There is no wind.”
The wind, indeed, had deserted them, the storm had fled,
and its departure, which they had believed to 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 fury of the storm, bearing them on-
ward, might have enabled them to reach land; but no wind
now meant no 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 armour; there are resources against the
violence which is often off its guard, and often hits wide of
the mark. But nothing can be done against a calm; there
is nothing tangible which you can lay hold upon. The winds
are like Cossacks: stand your ground and they will disperse.
Calms remind one of the executioner’s pincers.
The water crept up higher and higher in the hold; and
as it rose, the vessel sank,——— slowly but surely. Those on
board the wreck of the “ Matutina ” felt that most hopeless
of catastrophes,-—~— an inert catastrophe undermining them.
The grim certainty of their fate petrified them. No


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 117
stir in the air, no movement on the sea. The motionless
is the inexorable. Absorption was sucking them down si—
lently. Through the depths of the silent waters—~without
anger, without passion, not willing, not knowing, not caring
—— the fatal centre of the globe was drawing them downwards.
It was no longer the wide-open mouth of the sea, the fierce
jaws of the wind and the wave, that threatened them; it was
as if the wretched beings had under them the black gulf of
the infinite. They felt themselves slowly sinking into ob—
livion. The distance between the deck and the water was
lessening,—— that was all. They could calculate her disap-
pearance to the moment. It was the exact reverse of sub—
mersion by the rising tide. The water was not rising towards
them, they were sinking into it. They were digging their
own grave. Their own weight was their sexton. Their
fate was sealed, not by the laws of man, but by the laws of
Nature.
The snow continued to fall, and as the wreck was now per-
fectly motionless, it was covered as with a winding-sheet.
The hold was becoming fuller and deeper. There was no
way of getting at the leak. They had struck a light and
fixed three or four torches in holes as best they could. Gal-
deazun brought some old leathern buckets, and they tried to
bale the hold out, standing in a row to pass the buckets 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 differ-
ence in quantity between the water which was making its way
in and that which they returned to the sea was ludicrous; for
a hogshead that entered, a glassful was baled out; so they
did not improve their condition. It was like a miser trying
to spend a million, half-penny by half—penny.
The chief said, “ Let us lighten the wreck.”
During the storm they had lashed together the few cheats
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


118 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
trunks belonged to the Basque woman, who could not re-
press a groan as she saw it going, exclaiming,——
“ Oh, my new cloak lined with scarlet! Oh, my poor open-
work stockings! Oh, my silver earrings to wear at Mass on
May-day!”
The deck cleared, the cabin had next to be seen to. It
was greatly encumbered, as the reader may remember, by the
luggage belonging to the passengers, and by the bales be—
longing to the sailors. They took the luggage, and threw it
over the gunwale. They carried up the bales, and cast them
into the sea. The lantern, the barrels, the sacks of provi—
sion's, the bales, and the water-butts, even the pot of soup,—
all went over into the waves. They unscrewed the nuts of the
iron stove, in which the fire had long since gone out, hoisted
it on deck, dragged it to the side of the‘vessel, and threw
it overboard. 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 looked to see how
much the wreck had settled down.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE HIGHEST ansouncn
. HE wreck being lightened was sinking more slowly, but
none the less surely. The hopelessness of their situa-
tion was without mitigation; they had exhausted. their last
resource. -
“ Is there anything else we can throw overboard?” asked
one.
The doctor, whom everyone had forgotten, rose from the
companion-way and answered: “ Yes.”
“What?” asked the chief.
W H ,4, _.__.a. ___'?-— 0 ~-1 H




“Let us throw our crimes into the sea.”
The M an Who Laughs.


Vol. I , Page 119.





THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 119
“Our crime,” replied the doctor.
They shuddered, and all cried out: “ Amen.”
The doctor standing up, pale as death, raised his hand to
heaven, saying: “ Kneel down.”
They all prepared to kneel.
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 cease to think of safety; let us think only of
salvation. Our last crime,-— the crime which we committed,
or rather completed, just now,— 0 wretched beings who are
listening to me, it is that which is overwhelming us! For
those who leave intended murder behind them, it is the height
of audacity to tempt the mighty deep. 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 upon us. It is well. Regret
nothing, however. There, not far off in the darkness, are the
sands of Vauville and Cape La Hogue on the coast of France.
There was but one possible shelter for us,-— that was Spain.
France was no less dangerous to us than England. Our de-
liverance from the sea would have led only to the gibbet. We
had no alternative but to be hanged or drowned. God has
chosen for us; let us give him thanks. He has vouchsafed
us the grave which cleanses. Brethren, the hand of God is
in it. Remember that we just now did our best to send that
child on high, and that at this very moment, as I speak, there
is, perhaps, in the world above a soul accusing us before a
Judge whose eye is upon us. Let us make the best use of this
last respite; let us make an effort, if time be granted us, to
repair, as far as possible, the evil we have done. If the child
survives us, let us do what we can to aid him; if he is dead,
let us seek his forgiveness. Let us cast our sins from us. Let
us ease our consciences of this load. Let us pray that our
souls be not cast out from the presence of Almighty God, for
that is the worst of shipwrecks. Bodies go to the fishes,
souls to the Evil One. Have pity on yourselves. Knee]
down, I tell you. Repentance is the only bark which never


120 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
sinks. You have lost your compass; you have gone sadly
astray; but you can still pray.”
The wolves had become lambs: such transformations often
occur at the hour of death. Even tigers lick the crucifix.
When the dark portals of the grave yawn, to believe is diffi-
cult, not to believe is impossible. However unsatisfactory
the different religious creeds of mankind may be, no matter
how little they correspond with his conception of the life
hereafter, the boldest soul quails when the moment of final
dissolution comes. There must be something that begins when
this life ends. This thought impresses itself upon the mind
of the dying.
Death is the end of each man’s term of probation. In
that fatal hour he realizes the burden of responsibility that
rests upon eVery human soul. That which has been decides
what is to be. The past returns, and enters into the future.
The known becomes as terrifying as the unknown; it is the
confusion of the him which so terrifies the dying man.
These poor wretches had abandoned all hope so far as this
life was concerned, so they turned their thoughts to the other.
Their only remaining chance was in its dark shadow, and
they understood this fact perfectly. “ Speak, speak!” they
cried out to the doctor; “ there is no one else to tell us. 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 shores of the unknown
world beyond the tomb. Being the wisest among you, my
danger is greater than yours. You do well to leave the choice
of the bridge to him whose burden is the heaviest. For knowl—
edge only increases one’s responsibility. How much time have
we left?” '
Galdeazun looked at the water-mark, and answered: “ A
little more than a quarter of an hour.”
“Good,” said the doctor.
The low roof of the companion-way on which he was lean-
ing served as a sort of table. The doctor took from his
pocket his inkhorn and pen, and drew from his pocket—book


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 121
a piece of parchment, the same on 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 extin-
guished 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, set the
pen and inkhorn on the top of the companion-way, unfolded
the parchment, and said: “ Listen.”
Then in the midst of the sea, on the sinking deck (a sort
of quaking 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 flickering
light 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 explanation, the
doctor would stop, and repeat, either in French, 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—Way, seized his pen, and on a clear margin
which he had carefully left at the bottom of what he
had written, he signed himself: “ Gerhadus 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 Irish
woman, who not knowing how to write, made a cross. The
doctor, by the side of this cross, wrote, “ Barbara Fermoy,
of Tyrrif Island, in the Hebrides.” Then he handed the
pen to the chief of the band. The chief signed, “ Gaizdorra:
Captal.” The Genoese signed himself under the chief’s
name, “ Giangirate.” The Languedocian signed, “ Jacques


122 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Quartourze: alias the Narbonnais.” The Provencal signed,
“ Luc-Pierre Capgaroupe, of the Galleys of Mahon.”
Under these signatures the doctor added a note: “ Of the
crew of three men, the captain having been washed overboard
by a sea, but two remain, and they have signed.”
The two sailors afl'ixed their names underneath the note.
The northern Basque signed himself, “ Galdeazun.” The
southern Basque signed, “ Ave Maria: Thief.”
Then the doctor said: “ Capgaroupe.”
“ Here,” said the Provencal.
“ Have you Hardquanonne’s flask?”
“ Yes-3,
“ 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 into the sea. The sloping edges of the ship were cov—
ered by a thin wave, which was rising. All were crowded
on the centre of the deck.
The doctor dried the ink on the signatures by the flame
of the torch, and folding the parchment into a narrower
compass than the diameter of the neck, put it into the flask,
and called for the cork.
“ I don’t know where it is,” said Capgaroupe.
“ Here is a piece of rope,” said Jacques Quartourze.
The doctor corked the flask with a bit of rope, and asked
for some tar. Galdeazun went forward, extinguished the
signal-light, took the vessel which had held it from the
stern, and brought it, half full of burning pitch, to the doc—
tor. The flask containing the parchment which they had
all signed was carefully corked and tarred over.
“ It is done,” said the doctor.
And from every mouth, faltered in every language, came
as if from the tomb such dismal utterances as
“ Ainsi soit—il ! ”
“ Mea culpa ! ”
“ Asi sea I ”


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 123
"‘ Aro rai'! ”
“ Amen ! ”
It was as though the gloomy voices of Babel were resound-
ing 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. Reach-
ing the side, he looked into space, and said, in a deep voice: i
“ Bist du bei mir? ” Perchance he was addressing some
phantom.
The wreck was sinking. All the others stood as in a dream.
Prayer mastered them by main force. They not only knelt,
they cowered. There was something involuntary in their
contrition; they wavered as a sail flaps with the breeze
fails.
And the'haggard group took by degrees, with clasping of
hands and prostration of foreheads, various attitudes expres—
sive of profound humiliation. Some strange reflection of the
deep seemed to soften their villainous features.
The doctor returned towards them. Whatever his past
may have been, the old man was truly great in the presence
of the catastrophe. He was not a man to be taken unawares.
Brooding over him was the calm of a silent horror; on his
countenance was the majesty of God’s will comprehended.
This old and thoughtful outlaw unconsciously assumed the
air of a pontiff.
“ Listen to me,” he said solemnly. He contemplated the
waste of water for a moment, and added: “ We are about 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. It was extin-
guished: eVery glimmer of light had disappeared. Nothing
remained but the dense, unfathomable gloom. It was like
the very grave itself.
In the darkness, the doctor was heard saying: “Let us
pray.”


124 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
All knelt down. It was no longer on the snow, but in
the water that they knelt. They had but a few minutes more
to live. The doctor alone remained standing. The flakes of
snow falling on him had sprinkled him as if with white tears,
and made him plainly visible against the background of dark-
ness. He made the sign of the cross and raised his voice,
while beneath his feet he felt that almost imperceptible os-
cillation which precedes the moment in which a wreck is about
' to founder. He said:—
“ Pater noster qui es in crelis.”
“ Notre Pére qui étes aux cieux,” the Provencal repeated
in French.
“ Ar nathair ata ar neamh,” repeated the Irish woman in
Gaelic, understood by the Basque woman.
“ Sanctificetur nomen tuum,” continued the doctor.
“ Que votre nom soit sanctifié,” said the Provencal.
“ Naomhthar hainm,” said the Irish woman.
“ Adveniat regnum tuum,” continued the doctor.
“ Que votre regne arrive,” said the Provencal.
“ Tigeadh do rioghachd,” said the Irish woman.
As they knelt, the water had risen to their shoulders.
“ Fiat voluntas tua,” the doctor went on.
“ Que votre volonté soit faite,” stammered the Provencal.
“ Deuntar do thoil ar an Hhalamb,” cried the Irish woman
and Basque woman.
“ Sicut in coelo, sicut in terra,” said the doctor.
No voice answered him. He looked down. Every head
was under water. They had allowed themselves to be drowned
on their knees.
The doctor took in his right hand the flask which he had
placed on the companion-way and raised it high above his
head. The wreck was going down. As he sank, the doctor
murmured the rest of the prayer. For an instant his shoul-
ders 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.
Then his arm disappeared; there was no more of a ripple
‘ m"""'“ m "M/' "‘H" '1": 1"“.77 '7"


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 125
on the sea than there would have been on a cask of oil. The
snow continued to fall.
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
cansn.
HE storm was no less severe on land than on sea. The
same wild strife among the elements had taken place
around the abandoned child. The weak and innocent be-
come their sport in the exhibitions of frantic rage in which
they sometimes indulge. Shadows see not, and inanimate
things have not the clemency they are supposed to possess.
On the land there was but little wind; yet there was an in—
explicable dumbness in the cold. There was no hail; but the
thickness of the falling snow was fearful. Hail—stones 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 tiny particles slowly heaped one upon another that
the snow—flake becomes an avalanche and the knave a crim-
inal.
The child continued to advance in the mist: mist, like snow,
is full of treachery. Though ill-fitted to cope with all these
perils, he had succeeded in reaching the bottom- of the de—
scent, and had gained Chesil. Without knowing it he was
on an isthmus, with water on either side; so that he could not
lose his way in the fog, in the snow, or in the darkness, with-
out falling into the deep waters of the gulf on the right
126


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 127
hand, or into the raging billows of the sea on the left. He
was travelling on, in blissful ignorance, between these two
abysses.
The Isthmus of Portland was at that time extremely sharp
and rugged. No sign of its former configuration remains
to—day. Since the idea of manufacturing Portland stone
into cement was first conceived, the cliffs have been subjected
to operations which have completely changed their original
appearance. Calcareous lias, slate, and trap are still to be
found there, rising from layers of conglomerate like teeth
out of a gum. But the pickaxe has broken up and leveled
those bristling, rugged peaks which were once the homes of
the eagles. The summits no longer exist where the labbes
and the skua gulls used to flock, soaring, like the envious, to
sully high places. In vain you seek the tall monolith called
Godolphin,-— an old British word signifying “ white eagle.”
In summer you may still gather on these cliffs (pierced and
perforated like a sponge) rosemary, pennyroyal, wild hyssop,
and sea-fennel, which when infused makes a good cordial, and
that herb full of knots, which grows in the sand and from
which they make matting; but you no longer find grey am—
ber or black tin, or that triple species of slate,— one sort
green, one blue, and the third the colour of sage—leaves. The
foxes, the badgers, the otters, and the martins have taken
themselves off; on the cliffs of Portland, as well as at the ex—
tremity of Cornwall, where there were at one time chamois,
none remain. The people still fish in some inlets for plaice
and pilchards; but the shy salmon no longer ascend the
Wey, between Michaelmas and Christmas, to spawn. Nor
can one see there, as during the reign of Elizabeth, those
nameless birds as large as hawks, who cut an apple in two,
but ate only the pips. You never meet those crows with
yellow beaks, called in English Cornish choughs (pyrrocoraw
in Latin), who mischievously 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


128 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
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 the Portland cliffs, so changed nowadays
as to be scarcely recognizable the absence of forests precluded
nightingales; and 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 which nibbled the salt
grass there two centuries ago were small and tough, and
coarse of fleece, as became Celtic flocks brought there by gar—
lic-eating shepherds who lived to a hundred, and who at the
distance of half a mile could pierce a cuirass with their yard—
long arrows. 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 disintegrate the very stones. The
Isthmus of Portland two hundred years ago was a huge
mound of sand, with a vertebrated spine of rock. At pres-
ent this tongue of land bears a railway, terminating in a
pretty cluster of houses, called Chesilton, and there is a Port-
land station. Railway carriages roll where seals used to
crawl.
The child’s danger had now assumed a different form.
What he had had to fear in the descent of the cliff was falling
to the bottom of the precipice; in the isthmus his fear was -
of falling into the holes. After contending with the preci-
pice, he had now to contend with pitfalls. Everything on
the sea-shore is a trap; the rock is slippery, the strand is full
of quicksands. Resting-places are but snares. It is walking
on ice which may suddenly crack and yawn with a fissure,
through which you will disappear. The ocean has false stages
below, like a well-arranged theatre. .
The long backbone of granite, from which both sides of
the isthmus slope, is difficult of access. It is hard to find there
what, in scene—shifters’ language, are termed “ practicables.”
Man need expect no hospitality from the ocean,-— from the

il“k.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 129
rock no more than from the wave; the sea is kind to the bird
and the fish alone. Isthmuses are especially bare and
rugged; the wave, which wears and undermines them on either
side, reduces them to the simplest form. Everywhere there
were sharp ridges, cuttings, frightful fragments of torn
stone yawning with many points like the jaws of a shark,
breakneck places of wet moss, rapid slopes of rock ending in
the sea. Whosoever undertakes to cross an isthmus encoun—
ters at every step huge blacks of stone as large as houses, in
the shape of shin-bones, shoulder—blades, and thigh-bones,—
the hideous anatomy of dismembered rocks. It is not with-
out reason that these stria of the sea~shore are called ribs.
The wayfarer must escape as he best can out of the confu~
sion of these ruins. It is like journeying over the bones of an
enormous skeleton.
Imagine a child put to this Herculean task! Broad day
light might have aided him; but it was night. A guide was
necessary but he was alone. All the vigour of manhood would
not have been too much; but he had only the feeble strength
of a child. In default of a guide, a footpath might have
aided him; but there was none. By instinct he avoided the
sharp ridge of rock, and kept as near the strand as possible.
It was there that he met with the pitfalls. They were multi—
plied 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, because the most deceptive. 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 might perhaps
prove to be his grave. But he did not hesitate. He went
round the rocks, avoided the crevices, guessed at the pit-
falls, and followed the twistings and turnings caused by
such obstacles; yet he went on. Though unable to advance
in a straight line, he walked with a firm tread. _ He patiently
retraced his steps if necessary; he managed to tear himself
in time from the horrid bird—lime of the quicksands; he
shook the snow ofi' him; more than once he, entered the water
9


130 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
up to the knees, and directly be left it his wet knees Were
frozen by the intense cold of the night; he walked rapidly
in his stiffened garments, yet he took care to keep his sailor’s
coat dry and warm on his chest. He was still tormented by
hunger.
' The chances of the abyss are illimitable. Everything is
possible in it, even salvation; an issue may be found, though
it be invisible. How the child, wrapped in a smothering
winding-sheet of snow, lost on a narrow elevation between two
jaws of an abyss, managed to cross the isthmus is something
he could not himself have explained. He slipped, climbed,
rolled, searched, walked, persevered,——— that is all; that, in-
deed, is the secret of all triumphs. At the end of less than
half an hour he felt that the ground was rising. He had
reached the other shore. Leaving Chesil, he had gained terra
firm. The bridge which now unites Sandford Castle with
Smallmouth Sands did not then exist. It is probable that in
his gropings he had re-ascended as far as Wyke Regis, where
there was then a tongue of sand, a natural road crossing
East Fleet.
The isthmus lay behind the child now; but he found him-
self still face to face with the tempest, with the cold, andwith
the night. Before him stretched the plain, shrouded in impen-
etrable gloom. He examined the ground seeking a footpath.
Suddenly he bent down: he had discovered in the snow some—
thing that looked like a track. It was indeed a track,— the
imprint of a foot. The print was clearly cut in the whiteness
of the snow, which rendered it distinctly visible. He examined
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 and another.
The footprints followed one another at the distance of a step,
and stuck across the plain to the right. They were still
fresh, and but slightly covered with snow. A woman had
just passed that way. This woman was walking in the direc-
tion where the child had seen the smoke. With his eyes fixed
on the footprints, he set to work to follow them.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 131
CHAPTER II
THE EFFECT or snow
HE child followed in this track for some time but unfor—
tunately the footprints became more and more indis-
tinct, for the snow was falling thick and fast. It was at the
very same time that the hooker was encountering the furious
snow-storm at sea. The child, in distress like the vessel, but in
a different fashion, had, in the inextricable confusion of
shadows that rose up before him, no guide but the foot-
steps in the snow, and he held to it as the thread of the
labyrinth.
Suddenly, whether the snow had filled them up entirely,
or for some other reason, the footsteps ceased. All became
even, level, smooth, without a stain, without an irregularity.
There was now nothing but a white mantle drawn over the
earth, and a black one over the sky. It seemed as if the
pedestrian must have flown away. The child, in despair,
bent down and searched; but in vain. As he arose he fancied
that he heard 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
not a sound, but rather the shadow of a sound. He looked,
but saw nothing. Solitude, wide and naked, stretched before
him. He listened: that which he had thought he heard had
faded away. Perhaps it had been only fancy. He still
listened: all was silent. He went on his way again, walking
on at random, with nothing thenceforth to guide him.
As the child moved away the noise began again. This
time he could doubt no longer. It was a groan, almost a sob.
He turned and peered eagerly into the darkness, but saw noth-
ing. The sound arose once more. It was the most penetrat-
ing piercing, yet feeble voice imaginable, for it certainly was


132 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
a voice. It arose from a soul. There was a strange pal-
pitation in the murmur; nevertheless, it seemed uttered almoat
unconsciously. It was an appeal from some one in suffering,
and yet from some one who was scarcely conscious of that
suffering or the appeal for relief. The cry—perhaps a
first breath, perhaps a last sigh -— was equally removed from
the rattle which ends life and the wail with which it com—
mences. It breathed a gloomy supplication from the depths
of night. The child gazed intently everywhere,“ far, near,
on high, below. There was no one in sight. He listened.
The voice arose again; he heard it distinctly. The sound
somewhat resembled the bleating of a lamb. Then he was
frightened, and thought for an instant of flight. The sound
arose again; this was the fourth time. It was strangely
miserable and plaintive; one felt that after that last effort,
which was more mechanical than voluntary, the cry would
probably be extinguished. It was an expiring exclamation,
instinctively appealing to the amount of aid lying dormant
. in space. It was an agonized appeal to a possible Provi—
dence.
The child advanced in the direction from which the sound
seemed to proceed. Still he saw nothing. He advanced
again, watchfully. The wail continued; inarticulate and con-
fused as it was, it had become clear, almost vibrating. The
child was near the voice; but where was it? While he was
hesitating between an impulse which urged him to fly and an
instinct which commanded him to remain, 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, low,
long, and narrow, like the mound over a grave,— a sepulchre
in a white church-yard. At the same time the voice cried out
again. It was from beneath the undulation that it pro—
ceeded. ' The child crouched down beside the undulation, and
with both his hands began to clear it away. Beneath the snow
which he removed the lines of a human form soon became
visible, and suddenly in the hollow he had made a pale face
appeared.





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revealing a wre
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Vol. I , Page 133
The Man Who Laughs.





THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 183
The cry had not proceeded from this face, for the eyes were
shut, and the mouth, though open, was full of snow. The
form remained motionless; it stirred not under the benumbed
hands of the child. He shuddered when he touched it. It
was a woman’s form. Her dishevelled hair was mingled with
the snow; she was dead.
Again the child set to work to brush 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 that
stirred. The child swiftly cleared away the snow, revealing
a wretched little body -— thin, and icy cold, but 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. Its attenuated
limbs, which yet contained a little warmth, and its feeble
breath, had somewhat melted the snow. A nurse would have
said that the baby was five or six months old; but perhaps it
might be a. year old, for growth, in poverty suffers deplorable
drawbacks, which sometimes even produce rachitis. When
the baby’s face was exposed to the air it gave a cry, the con—
tinuation of its moan of distress. For the mother not to have
heard that sob proved her irrevocably dead. The child took
the infant in his arms.
The stiffened body of the mother was a fearful sight. A
spectral light seemed to proceed from her face. Her parted,
breathless lips seemed to be forming in the mysterious lan-
guage of shadows her answer to the questions put to the dead
by the Invisible. The ghastly reflection of the icy plains
was on her countenance. There was a youthful forehead
under the brown hair, an almost indignant knitting of
the eyebrows, pinched nostrils, closed eye—lids, the lashes
glued together by the rime, and from the corners of
the eyes to the corners of the mouth extended a channel
of frozen tears. The snow lighted up the corpse. Winter
and death are not unlike; the corpse is a human circle. The
7~ ~—\-.._. A-_.__» ‘M._.. ‘.-_.


134 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
nakedness of the dead woman’s 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 had fled, and maternal majesty was there instead of vir-
ginal purity. At the point of one of the nipples was a white
pearl. It was a drop of frozen milk.
Let us explain at once. On the plain over which the de-
serted boy was passing a beggar woman, nursing her infant
and searching for a refuge, had lost her way a few hours
before. Benumbed with cold she had fallen on the snow, and
was unable to rise again. The falling snow covered her. As
long as she was able she had clasped her little girl to her
bosom; and thus she died.
The infant had tried to suck the marble breast of the
mother. 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 had frozen, while under
the snow the child, more accustomed to the cradle than the
tomb, had wailed despairingly. The deserted child had heard
the cry of the dying child. He disinterred it. He took it in
his arms.
When the infant found herself in his arms she ceased cry—
ing. 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 death, for a
corpse communicates death; its numbness is infectious. The
infant’s feet, hands, arms, knees, seemed paralyzed by cold.
The boy felt the terrible chill. He had on him one garment
dry and warm,— his pilot jacket. He placed the infant on
the breast of the corpse, took off his jacket, wrapped the in—
fant in it, which he took up again in his arms; and then, al-
most naked, under the blast of the north wind which covered
him with eddies of snow—flakes, carrying the infant, he con~
tinued his journey. The little one having succeeded in again

, q—r_-—__.-_._


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 135
finding the boy’s cheek, again applied her lips to it; and,
soothed by the warmth, she fell asleep. First kiss of those
two souls in the darkness!
The mother lay there on her back upon the snow, her face
turned up to the night; but perhaps at the moment when the
boy stripped himself to clothe the little girl, the mother saw
him from the depths of infinity.

CHAPTER III
A BURDEN MAKES A ROUGH ROAD aouomm
T was a little more than four hours since the hooker 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 carrying in his
arms. He was exhausted by fatigue and hunger, yet ad—
vanced more resolutely than ever, though with less strength
and an added burden. He was now almost naked. The few
rags which remained upon him, hardened by the frost, were
sharp as glass, and cut his skin. He was colder, but the in—
fant was warmer. That which he lost was not thrown away,
but was gained by her. He found that the poor infant en-
joyed the comfort, which to her was a renewal of life. He
continued to advance. From time to time, still holding his
burden securely, he bent down, and taking a handful of snow
rubbed his feet with it, to prevent their being frost-bitten.
At other times, his throat feeling as if it were on fire, he put
a little snow in his mouth and sucked it; this for a moment
assuaged his thirst, but later changed it into fever,——- a relief
which oroved only an aggravation.


136 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
The storm had become appalling in its violence. Deluges
of snow are possible; this was one. The tempest scourged
the shore at the same time that it up—tore the depths of ocean.
This was, perhaps, the very moment when the distracted
hooker was going to pieces in its battle with the breakers.
The boy travelled on in this cutting north wind, still to-
wards the east, over wide surfaces of snow. He knew not
how the hours passed. For a long time he had ceased to see
the smoke. Such indications are soon efl'aced in the night;
besides, it was long past the hour when fires are put out. He
had, perhaps, made a mistake, and it was possible that neither
town nor village existed in the direction in which he was
travelling. Doubting, he yet persevered. Two or three times
the little infant cried, at which times he adopted in his gait
a rocking movement, and the girl was soothed and silenced;
she ended by falling into a sound sleep. Shivering himself,
he felt to see if she were warm, and frequently tightened the
folds of the jacket round her neck, so that the frost could
not get in through any opening, and so 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,
drifted by the wind, was so deep that it almost ingulfed him,
and he had to struggle through it, half buried. He walked
on, however, working away the snow with his knees. Having
passed the ravine, he reached the high lands swept by the
winds, where the snow was 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 froze in his hair,
stiffening it into icicles.
The boy now felt the approach of another danger. He
did not dare to sit down and rest; for he knew that if he did
so he Would never rise again. He was overcome by fatigue,
and even the weight of the snow would, as in the case of the
dead woman, have held him to the ground, while the ice would
have glued him alive to the earth. He had tripped on the
sides of precipices, and had recovered himself; he had stum-
bled into holes, and got out again,~—- but now the slightest


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 137
fall would be death; a false step would prove fatal. He
must not slip; yet everything was slippery; everywhere there
was rime and frozen snow. The little creature whom he car-
ried made his progress fearfully difficult; she was not only
a burden which his weariness and exhaustion made excessive,
but was also an encumbrance in that she occupied both his
arms,-— and to him who walks over ice, arms serve as a nat-
ural and necessary balancing-pole. The boy was obliged to
do without this balance—pole. He did do without it and ad—
vanced, bending under his burden, not knowing what would
become of him. The infant that he carried was the drop
causing the cup of distress to overflow; yet he advanced, reel-
ing at every step, and accomplishing, without spectators, mi-
racles of equilibrium.
Without spectators? We repeat that unseen eyes perhaps
watched him on this perilous path,— the eyes of the mother
and the eyes of God!
The boy staggered, slipped, recovered himself, tightened
his hold on the infant, and drawing the jacket closer about
her covered her head with it, and staggered on again. 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 now stand upon what was then a barren waste.
Sometimes less than a century changes a steppe into a city.
Suddenly, a lull having occurred in the icy blast which
was blinding him, the boy perceived, at a short distance in
front of him, a cluster of roofs and of chimneys, 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 inefi‘able encouragement of hope. The watch of
a ship which has wandered from her course feels some such
emotion when he cries, “ Land ho!” He quickened his pace.
He would soon be among living creatures; there was no longer
anything to fear. There glowed within him a sudden
warmth,--- security; his terrible ordeal was nearly over;


138 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
thenceforward there would be neither night nor winter nor
tempest. It seemed to him that he had left all such misery
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 ofi" them. A dead man might gaze thus
on what was visible through the half-open cover of his sepul-
chre. There were the chimneys of which he had seen the
smoke; no smoke arose from them now.
It was not long before the boy reached the houses. He
came to the outskirts of a town,—- an open street. At that
period the barring of streets at night had been nearly aban-
doned. The street began by two houses. In those two houses
neither candle nor lamp was visible; nor in the whole street,
nor in the whole town, as far as eye could reach. The house
to the right was a roof rather than a house; nothing could
be more squalid. The walls were of mud, the roof was of
straw, and there was more thatch than wall. An immense
nettle, springing from the bottom of the wall, reached up to
the roof. The hovel had but one door, which was like that
of a dog-kennel, and a window which was but a hole. Both
were shut up; but at the side an inhabited pig-sty told that
the house also was inhabited. The house on the left was
large, high, and built entirely of stone, with a slated roof.
That too was closed; it was the rich man’s home, opposite that
of the pauper.
The boy did not hesitate; he approached the great mansion.
The double door of massive oak, studded with large nails, was
of the kind that leads one to expect that behind it there is an
armory of bolts and locks. An iron knocker was attached to
it. He raised the knocker with some difficulty, for his be-
numbed hands were stumps rather than hands, and knocked
once.. No answer. He knocked again,— twice this time; no
movement was heard in the house. He knocked a third time;
still .there was no sound. He saw that they were all asleep,
or did not mean to get up. Then he turned to the hovel.
He picked up a small stone out of the snow, and knocked with
it against the low door; there was no answer. He raised him-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 139
self on tiptoe, and knocked with his stone 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
appeal of the wretched.
The boy decided to push on farther, and make his way
down the street in front of him,—a street so dark that it
seemed more like a gulf between two cliffs than the entrance
to a town.

CHAPTER IV
ANOTHER KIND OF DESERT
T was Weymouth which the boy had just entered. Wey—
mouth then was not the respectable and fine Weymouth
of to—day.
Ancient Weymouth could not boast, like the present one,
of an irreproachable rectangular quay, with an inn and a
statue in honour of George III.,—— and this owing to the fact
that George III. had not then been born. For the same rea—
son, they had not yet fashioned on the side of the green hill
to the east, by cutting away the turf and leaving the chalky
soil exposed to the view, the “ White Horse,” an acre long,
bearing the king upon his back,-— still another work of art in
honour of George III. These honours, however, were de-
served. George III., having lost in his old age the mind he
had never possessed in his youth, was not responsible for the
calamities of his reign. He was little better than an idiot.
So why not erect statues to him?
Weymouth, a hundred and eighty years ago, was about as
symmetrical as a game of spillikins in confusion. In legends
it is said that Astaroth travelled about the world, carrying
on her back a wallet which contained everything, even good


140 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
women in their houses. A goodly number of sheds thrown
pell-mell from her bag would give an idea of quaint old Wey-
mouth,—— the good women in the sheds included. The Music
Hall remains as a specimen of the buildings of that day.
The whole town was composed of shapeless, overhanging
buildings,— some with pillars, leaning one against the other
for support against the sea—wind, and leaving between them
narrow and winding lanes and passages, often flooded by the
cquinoctial tides. A heap of grandmother houses crowded
round a grandfather church, such was Weymouth; 0. sort of
old Norman village washed ashore on the coast of England.
The traveller who entered the tavern, now replaced by the
hotel, instead of paying his twenty-five francs for a fried sole
and a bottle of wine, had to suffer the humiliation of eating
a pennyworth 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 upper stories and in the roofs a lighted
window-pane; but all were closed and dark. At intervals he
knocked atv the doors. No one answered. Nothing so
hardens the heart as for its owner to be snug and warm in
bed. The noise and the shaking had at last awakened the
infant. The boy knew this because he felt her suck his cheek.
She did not cry, believing him her mother. He was about
to turn and wander through 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 the Trinity schools.
This passage led him to the water’s edge, where there was a
roughly built quay with a parapet, and on 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 communicates with the harbour.
Weymouth, a hamlet, was then a suburb of Melcombe
Regis, a city and port; now Melcombe Regis is a parish of
Weymouth. The village has absorbed the city. It was the


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 141
bridge which did the work. Bridges are strange instruments
of suction, which absorb a population, and often swell one
river-bank at the expense of its opposite neighbour.
The boy went to the bridge, which at that period was a
covered wooden 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 Melcombe 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 locked and barred; the windows
were covered with shutters. Every precaution had been taken
to avoid being aroused by disagreeable surprises. The little
wanderer was suffering the indefinable depression caused by a
sleeping town. Sleep has gloomy associates beyond this life:
the decomposed thoughts of the sleepers float above them in a
mist and combine with the possible, which perhaps has also
the power of thought, as it floats in space. Hence comes be—
wilderment. Dreams, which may be compared to clouds, in-
terpose 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. Mysterious and
diffused existences amalgamate themselves with life in sleep,
that counterpart of death. Even he who sleeps not, feels a
medium full of sinister life press upon him. The surround-
ing chimera, in which he suspects a reality, impedes him.
The waking man, wending his way amidst the sleep-phantoms
of others, has, or imagines that he has, a vague fear of contact
with the invisible, and feels at every moment the obscure pres-
sure of a hostile encounter which immediately dissolves. A
sleeping town has something of the effect of a forest.

. ._..._ __-


142 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
This is what is called being afraid without cause. Very
naturally, a child is even more susceptible to this feeling than
a man. The uneasiness of nocturnal fear, increased by the
spectral houses, increased the weight of the burden under
which the boy was struggling. He entered Conycar Lane,
and perceived at the end of that passage the Backwater,
which he mistook 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 he knocked violently at any house that he hap-
pened to pass. His blows, on which he was expending his
last energies, were faint and irregular,—- now ceasing for a
time, now renewed as if in irritation. One voice answered,—
that of Time. Three o’clock tolled slowly behind him from
the old belfry of St. Nicholas. Then silence reigned again.
That no inhabitant should have opened his lattice may ap-
pear surprising. But we must remember that in January,
1790, they were just over a 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 boy felt the coldness of men more deeply than the cold-
ness of the night. The coldness of men is intentional. He
felt a sinking of heart which he had not experienced on the
plain. Now he had entered into the midst of life, and yet re-
mained alone. This was the height of misery. He had un-
derstood the pitiless desert, but the unrelenting town was too
much to bear. The hour, the strokes of which he had just
counted, had been another blow. It seemed to be a declara-
tion of indifference, and as if Eternity were saying, “ What
does it matter to me? ” He stopped, and it is probable that
in that miserable minute he asked himself whether it would
not be better to lie down there and die; but the little girl
leaned her head against his shoulder, and fell asleep again.
This blind confidence drove him on once more. He whom
all supports were failing felt that he was himself a basis of
support. Irresistible summons of duty! Neither such ideas


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 143
nor such a situation belonged'to his age. It is probable that
he did not well understand them; it was merely a matter of
instinct. He set out 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 zig-zags through lanes,
and at the end of a winding passage found himself in a rather
wide, open space. It was a piece of unimproved land,—
probably the spot where Chesterfield Place now stands. The
houses ended there. He perceived the sea on his right, and
scarcely anything more of the town on his left.
What wcruld become of him? Here was the country again!
To the east great inclined planes of snow indicated the wide
slopes of Radipole. Should he continue his journey; should
he advance and re—enter the solitude; or should he turn back
and re-enter the town. How was he to choose between the
mute plain and the deaf city? The poor little despairing
wanderer cast a piteous glance around him.
Suddenly he heard an ominous sound.

CHAPTER V
MISANTHBOPY PLAYS ITS PRANKS
STRANGE and alarming grinding of teeth reached the
boy through the darkness. It was enough to drive one
back; but he advanced. To those to whom silence has become
dreadful, even a howl is comforting. That fierce growl re-
assured him; that threat was a promise. There must be
some creature alive and awake there, though it might be a
wild beast. He advanced in the direction whence the snarl
had come.
The boy turned the corner of a wall, and, behind it, in the
sepulchral light made by the reflection of snow and sea, he
saw a, thing placed as if for shelter. It was a cart; that is,


144 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
unless it Was a hovel. It had wheels, so it was a carriage; it
had a roof, so it was a dwelling. From the roof arose a
funnel, and out of the funnel came 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 revealed a light inside the van.
The boy approached. The creature that had growled evi—
dently perceived his approach, and became furious. It Was
no longer a growl which he had to encounter, it was a roar.
He heard a sharp sound, 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 instant a head was put through the window.
“ Be quiet there!” said the head.
The mouth was silent. The head began again:--
“ Is anybody there? ”
“ Yes,” the child answered.
“ Who is it? ”
“ Me.,,
“ You? Who are you? Where did you come from?”
“ I am tired,” said the child.
“ What time is it? ”
“ I am cold.”
“ What are you doing here? ”
“ I am hungry.”
“ Every one cannot be as happy as 0. lord,” the head re-
plied. “ Go away.”
The head was withdrawn and the window closed.
The boy folded the sleeping infant closer in his arms, and
summoned up all his strength to resume his journey; he had
already taken a few steps, and was hurrying away. But
as the window of the wagon closed, the door opened; a step
was let down, and the voice which had spoken to the boy cried
out angrily from the interior of the van,—
“ Well! why don’t you come in? ”
The boy turned back.
“ Come in,” resumed the voice. “ Who ever heard of a


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 145
fellow like this,——a fellow who is hungry and cold, and yet
who does not come in? ”
The boy, at once repulsed and invited, stood motionless.
“ You are told to come in, you young rascal,” the voice
continued. '
The boy made up his mind, and placed one foot on the
lowest step. There was a loud growl from under the van.
The boy drew back; the gaping jaws had reappeared.
“ Be quiet ! ” cried the voice of the man.
The jaws retreated, the growling ceased.
“ Come up! ” continued the man.
The boy with some difficulty climbed up the three steps,
his movements being impeded by the infant that was so
completely enveloped in the jacket that nothing could be dis-
tinguished of her, and she was little more than a shapeless
bundle. He ascended the three steps; and having reached the
threshold, stopped. There was no light in the van except
that which proceeded from the opening at the top of the
stove, in which sparkled a peat fire. On the stove stood'a
porringer and a saucepan, apparently containing something
to eat, for a savory odour was perceptible. The inside was
furnished with a chest, a stool, and an unlighted lantern which
hung from the ceiling. There were also a number of hooks
on the walls, from which all sorts of things hung; and there
were shelves upon which stood rows of glasses and bottles, a
granulator, an alembic, and other chemical instruments, as
well as cooking utensils. The van was oblong in shape, the
stove being in front. It was not even a little room into which ,
the boy entered,—- it was only a big box. There was more
light outside from the snow than inside from the stove.
Everything in the van was indistinct and misty; neverthe-
less, the reflection of the fire on the ceiling enabled the spec-
tator to read in large letters,—
ussus, rmnosormsa.
The bay, in fact, was entering the abode of Homo and
Ursus. It was the former that he had just heard growling.
10


146 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Having reached the threshold, he perceived near the stove
a tall, smooth-faced, thin old man dressed in grey, whose
head, as he stood erect, touched the roof. The man could
not have raised himself on tiptoe. The van was just his
height.
“ Come in!” said the man, who was Ursus. The boy en-
tered.
“ Put down your bundle.”
The boy placed his burden carefully on the top of the chest,
for fear of awakening and terrifying his charge. -
The man continued: “ How gently you put it down!
You could not be more careful if it were a case of relics.
Are you afraid of tearing a hole in your rags? What are
you doing in the streets at this hour, you vagabond? Who
are you? Answer! But, no; I forbid you to answer. You
are cold; warm yourself as quick as you can,” and he shoved
him by the shoulders in front of the fire.
“ How wet you are! You’re frozen through! A nice
state you are in to enter a man’s house! Take off those rags,
you villain!” and as he hastily tore off the boy’s rags with
one hand, 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 some clothes,” he
added gruflly. He picked up a woollen rag, and chafed be-
fore the fire the limbs of the exhausted and bewildered child,
who at that moment felt as if he were seeing and touching
heaven. ' *
The limbs having been rubbed, the man next wipedlithe boy’s
feet. \
“ You ’re all right!” he exclaimed. “ I was fooli‘ienough
to fancy you had frozen your hind—legs or fore-paws\ You
will not lose the use of them this time. Dress yourself ! ”
The boy put on the shirt, and the man slipped the knitted
jacket over it. '1
“ Now —” The man pushed the stool forward and'; made
the boy sit down; then he pointed with his finger to this por-
ringer which was smoking upon the stove. What the; child


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 147
saw in the porringer was again heaven to him,— namely, a
potato and a bit of bacon.
“ You are hungry — eat! ” said the man; and he took from
the shelf a crust of 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, as
he placed the porringer on the child’s lap. “ Gobble that
up!” he exclaimed imperiously.
Hunger overcame astonishment. The boy began to eat.
He devoured rather than ate the food.
“ Not so fast, you horrid glutton!” grumbled the man.
“Isn’t he a greedy scoundrel? When such scum are hun—
gry, they eat in a revolting fashion. You should see a lord
sup. In my time, I have seen dukes eat; they don’t eat like
the common herd. They drink, however. Come, you pig!
stuff yourself!”
The deafness which is the concomitant of a hungry stom-
ach caused the child to take little heed of these violent epi-
thets, tempered as they were by such beneficent charity of
action. For the moment he was absorbed by two ecstasies,——
food and warmth.
Ursus continued his imprecations, muttering to himself:
“ I have seen King James supping in proprid persond, in the
Banqueting House adorned with the paintings of the
famous Rubens. His Majesty touched nothing. This
beggar here gorges himself. 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 ha-
rangued 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, competi—
tion between the fools in the street and myself. 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 away, hell-
born boy! tear and crunch! We have fallen on times when


148 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
nothing can equal the cynicism of spongers. Fatten at my
expense, parasite! This wretched boy is more than hungry;
his is not appetite, it is ferocity. 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. By-the-bye, I am hungry myself. I declare, all this
is very disagreeable. I have worked far into the night.
There are times in a man’s life when he is hard pressed; I
was to—night, by hunger. I was alone. I made a fire. I
had but one potato, one crust of bread, a mouthful of bacon,
and a drop of milk, and I put it to warm. I said to myself,
‘ How good it smells!’ I fancy I am going to eat, when 10
and behold! this crocodile drops in at the very moment; he in-
stalls himself between my food and myself. See how my
larder is devastated! Eat, pike! eat, you shark! How many
teeth have you in your jaws? Guzzle, wolf-cub!—no, I
withdraw that word; I respect wolves. Swallow up my food,
you boa! I have worked all day, and far into the night,
on an empty stomach; my throat is sore; my pancreas is in
distress; my entrails are torn; and my reward is to see an-
other 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 but.
The man listened. “ You cry, sycophant! Why do you
3,
The boy turned towards him; it was evident that it was
not he who had cried. He had his mouth full. Yet the cry
continued. The man went to the chest.
“ So it is your bundle that wails! Vale of Jehoshaphat!
Who ever heard of a screeching 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 an-
other of them. When is this to end? Who is this! To
arms! Corporal, call out the guard! Here is another in—


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 149
truder in the camp! What have you brought me, thief?
Don’t you see it is thirsty? The little one must have a drink.
So, now, I shall not even have the milk!”
He took down from the things lying in disorder on the
shelf a roll of linen, a sponge, and a phial, muttering sav—
agely, -“ What an infernal scrape this is!” Then he looked
at the infant. “ ’T is a girl! one can tell that by her scream;
and she too is drenched to the skin!”
He dragged off as he had done from the boy the tatters in
which the infant was tied up rather than dressed, and swathed
her in a rag, which though of coarse linen was clean and dry.
This rough and hurried toilet made the infant angry. “ How
atrociously she screeches ! ” he exclaimed.
He hit off a long narrow piece of sponge, tore from the
roll a square piece of linen, took the saucepan containing the
milk from the stove, filled the bottle with milk, pushed the
sponge half—way down into its neck, covering the protruding
end with linen, tied it with a bit of thread, applied his cheeks
to the phial to be sure that it was not too hot, and then seiz-
ing under his left arm the bewildered infant which was still
crying, said:
“ Come! take your supper, creature! Let me suckle you,”
at the same time putting the neck of the bottle to its mouth.
The little infant drank greedily. He held the phial at the
necessary incline, grumbling,—
“ They are all the same, the cowards! While they get all
they want they are quiet!”
The child drank so ravenously, and seized so eagerly this
breast offered by a cross-grained Providence, that she was
taken with a violent fit of coughing.
“ You are going to choke! ” growled Ursus. “ A fine gob-
bler this one is too!”
He drew away the sponge which she was sucking, allowed
the cough to subside, and then replaced the phial to her lips,
saying, “ Suck! you little wretch! ”
In the meantime the boy had laid down his fork. Seeing
the infant drink made him forget to eat. The moment he—


150 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
fore, while he ate, the expression on his face was satisfaction;
now it was gratitude. He watched the infant’s renewal of
life; and the completion of the restoration begun by himself
filled his eyes with an ineifable brilliancy. Ursus went on
muttering angry words between his teeth. The boy now and
then lifted to him eyes moist with the deep emotion which the
poor little being felt, but was unable to express.
“ Eat, eat, I tell you!” Ursus said to the boy, savagely.
“ And you?” said the boy, 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? As
there was not enough for. me, there cannot be too much for
you.”
The boy took up his fork, but did not eat.
“ Eat!” shouted Ursus. “ What have you to do with me?
Who speaks of me? Wretched little barefooted clerk of Pov—
erty Parish! eat it all up, I tell you! You are here to eat,
drink, and sleep; eat, or I will kick you out, both of you.”
The boy, at this threat, began to eat again. He had not
much trouble in finishing what was left in the porringer.
Ursus muttered to himself now: “ This building is badly
constructed. The cold comes in through that window-pane.”
A pane had indeed been broken in front, either by a jolt of
the van or by a stone thrown by some mischievous boy. Ursus
had placed a piece of paper over the fracture, but it had
become unpasted, letting in the wind again. He was seated
on the chest; the infant, cradled in his arms, was sucking
rapturously at the bottle, in the blissful somnolency of cheru—
bim before their Creator and infants at their mothers’ breast.
“ She is surfeited!” said Ursus; and he added: “After
this, preach sermons on temperance!”
The wind tore from the pane the plaster of paper, and
blew it across the van; but this mattered little to the children
who were entering life anew. While the little girl drank, and
the little boy ate, Ursus grumbled to himself 2——
“ Intemperance begins in the infant in swaddling clothes.
Vv’hat useless trouble Bishop Tillotson gives himself, thun-
'._.._.-'_J__;; ‘


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 151
dering against excessive drinking !— What an odious draught
of wind! and then my stove is old, and allows enough smoke
to escape to give you trichiasis. Fire has its inconveniences
as well as cold; one cannot see clearly.— That creature over
there abuses my hospitality. Well, I have not been able to
distinguish the animal’s face yet.— Comfort is wanting here.
By Jove! I am a great admirer of exquisite banquets in well
closed rooms! I have missed my vocation; I was born to be
a sensualist. The greatest of sages was Philoxenus, who
wished to possess the neck of a crane, in order to enjoy the
pleasures of the table longer.— Receipts to-day, naught;
nothing sold all day. Inhabitants, servants, and tradesmen,
here is the doctor; here are the drugs! You are losing your
time, old friend; pack up your physic,— every one is well,
down here. Accursed town, where everybody is well! The
skies alone have diarrhoea! How it snows! Anaxagoras
taught that the snow was black; and he was right, cold being
blackness: ice is night. What a hurricane! I can fancy the
delight of those at sea. A hurricane is like the passage of
demons; it is the row the tempest—fiends make in galloping
and rolling head—over-i' eels over our bone—boxes. In the cloud
this one has a tail, that one has horns, another flame for a
tongue, another claws to its wings, another 21 lord chan-
cellor’s paunch, another an academician’s pate: each new gust
is a fresh demon. Zounds! there are folks at sea, that is cer-
tain. 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 harbour these trav-
ellers? The universal distress sends its spatterings even as
far as my poverty; into my cabin fall hideous drops of the
far—spreading scum of mankind. I am the victim of 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, the wind penetrating through every cranny, not a
half-penny,-—- and bundles_are brought to me which set to
howling! I open them, and find beggars inside! Is this


152 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
fair? Besides, the laws are violated. See, a vagabond with
a vagabond child! Mischievous pick—pocket, evil-minded
abortion! so you walk the streets after curfew? 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 lord walks
out at night with my lady, with the thermometer at fifteen
degrees below the freezing-point, bare-headed and bare—footed.
You should understand that such things are forbidden. There
are rules and regulations, you lawless wretches! Vagabonds
are punished; honest folks who have houses are guarded and
protected. Kings are the fathers of their people. 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. Order must be maintained in a 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 rufiian! 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
coal-s to dry up this lake,—— and coals at twelve farthings, the
miners’ standard! How am I going to manage to fit three
into this van? My career is ended; there is nothing left for
me now but to become a wet—nurse. I am going to have on
my hands the weaning of the future beggardom of England.
It seems destined to be my employment, ofiioe, and function
to bring up the offspring of that colossal Prostitute, Misery;
to bring to perfection future gallows’ birds, and teach young
thieves the forms of philosophy. The tongue of the wolf is
the warning of God! And to think that if I had not been
eaten up by creatures of this kind for the last thirty years,
I should be rich, and Homo would be fat; I should have a
medicine-chest full of rarities, as many surgical instruments
as Doctor Linacre surgeon to King Henry VIII., divers ani-
mals of all kinds, Egyptian mummies and similar curiosities;
I should be a member of the College of Physicians, and have
the right of using the library built in 1652 by the celebrated


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 153
Hervey, and of studying in the lantern of that dome whence
you can see the whole of London; I could continue my ob-
servations of solar obfuscation, and prove that a caliginous
vapour arises from the planet.— Such was the opinion of
John Kepler, who was born the year before the Massacre of
St. Bartholomew, and who was mathematician to the em—
peror.—— The sun is a chimney which sometimes smokes; so
does my stove; hence my stove is as good as the sun. Yes,
I should have made my fortune; my career would have been
a very different one. I should not be the insignificant fel-
low 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 ages, sexes,
humours, and conditions that wise men of all periods have not
hesitated to despise, and whose absurdities and passions are
detested even by the most charitable. Oh, I am weary of
existence! After all, one does not live long; this human life
is soon over. But no,—- it is long. At intervals, in order
that we may not become too discouraged, and that
we may have the stupidity to consent to endure existence,
and not profit by the magnificent opportunities to hang our-
selves which ropes and nails afford, Nature pretends to take
a little care of man—~not tosnight, though! The rogue
- causes the wheat to spring up, ripens the grape, gives song
'0 the nightingale. From time to time we get a ray of sun-
shine 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 all my supper up, you thief! ”
The infant, whom he was holding tenderly in his arms all
the while he was vituperating it, shut its eyes languidly,—— a
sign of repletion.
Ursus examined the phial, and grumbled: “ She has drunk
it all up, the impudent creature! ”
He arose, and holding the infant in his left arm, with his
right he raised the lid of the chest and drew out a bear—skin,
WAN _
W'““* ""““""'~~~""°'_i
“v V ..


154. THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
——the one he called his real skin, as the reader may remem-
ber. While he was doing this he heard the other child eating,
and glanced at him sideways.
“ I shall have my hands full if I have to feed that growing
glutton,” he muttered. “ 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 movements so as
not to disturb the sleep into which the infant was just sink-
ing. Then he laid her down on the fur, on the side of the
chest next the fire. Having done so, he placed the phial on
the stove, and exclaimed, “ I’m confoundedly thirsty myself ! ”
He looked into the pot. There were a few mouthfuls of
milk left in it; he raised it to his lips. As he was about to
drink, his eye fell on the little girl. He replaced the pot on
the stove, took the phial, 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.
“ I’m hungry and thirsty all the same,” he observed. Then
he added: “ When one cannot get bread, one must drink
water.”
Behind the stove there was a jug with the spout broken off.
He took it and handed it to the boy. “ Do you want a.
drink? ”
~ The boy drank, and then went on eating. Ursus seized
the pitcher again, and raised it to his mouth. The tem—
perature of the water which it contained had been greatly
modified by the proximity of the stove. He swallowed a.
mouthful and made a grimace. Then he said :—
“ Water! pretending to be pure, thou resemblest false
friends. Thou art warm at the top and cold at the 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. “ Now, a word with you. The


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 155
mouth is not made only for eating; it is made for speaking.
Now that you are warmed and stuffed, you beast, give an ac-
count of yourself. You are going to answer my questions.
Where did you come from? ”
“ I do not know,” the boy replied.
“ Why do you say 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 even his relatives desert him.”
“ I have no relatives.”
“ Have a care! I don’t like people who sing a tune of fibs.
You must have relatives, since you have a sister.”
“ She is not my sister.”
“ She is not your sister?”
“ N0.”
“ Who is she then?”
“ It' is a baby that I found.”
“ Found? ”
“ Yes.,,
“ What! did you pick her up? ”
“ Yes-9,
“ Where? If you lie I’ll thrash you within an inch of your
life!”
“ I found her on the breast of a woman who was lying dead
in the snow.”
“ When? ”
“ About an hour ago.”
“ Where? ”
“ A league from here.”
The arched brows of Ursus contracted and assumed that
pointed shape which characterizes emotion on the brow of a
philosopher. “ Dead! Lucky for her! We had better leave
her in the snow. She is better oft“ there. In which direc—
tion? ”
“ In the direction of the sea.”
“Did you cross the bridge? ”
“ Yes",
“0“ -1 __.>.wfm..~\ .. . \ L-____. M ~. » ~\/ ~ . ~ \ \ --.‘_.


156 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Ursus opened the window at the back of the van and looked
out. The weather had not improved. The snow was fall—
ing thick and fast. He shut the window. Then he filled the
broken pane with a rag, heaped the stove with peat, 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 here,” he said.
The boy obeyed, and stretched himself at full length by the
side of the infant. Ursus rolled the bear-skin over the two
chidren, 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 on 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 return. Go to sleep.”
Then letting down the steps, he called Homo. He was
answered by a loving growl. Ursus, holding the lantern in
his hand, descended. The steps were replaced, the door was
reclosed. The children were left alone.
From without, a voice, the voice of Ursus, said: “ Say,
you, boy, who have just eaten up my supper, are you already
asleep? ”
“ No,” replied the child.
“ Well, if she cries, give her the rest of the milk.”
The clanking of a chain was heard, and the sound of a.
man’s footsteps, mingled with the soft patter of an animal’s
paws, died away in the distance. A few minutes after, both
children were sound asleep. Such dreams as are prone to
visit beings of that age floated from one to the other; beneath
their closed eyelids there shone, perhaps, the light of the
spheres. If the word “ marriage ” were not inappropriate to
the situation, they were husband and wife after the fashion of
the angels. Such innocence in such darkness, such purity in


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 157
such an embrace, such foretastes of heaven, are possible only
to childhood, and no immensity approaches the greatness of
little children. The fearful perpetuity of the dead chained
beyond life, the mighty animosity of the ocean to a wreck,
the whiteness of the snow over buried bodies, do not equal
in pathos tWO children’s mouths meeting divinely in sleep,— a
meeting which is not eVen a kiss: a betrothal perchance; per-
chance a catastrophe. The unknown overhangs this juxtapo-
sition. It charms, it terrifies,—— who knows which? It stays
the pulse. Innocence is greater than virtue; innocence is holy
ignorance. They slept; they were at peace; they were warm.
The nakedness of their interlaced bodies imaged the virginity
of their souls. They lay there, as it were, on the bosom of the
infinite Father of all.

CHAPTER VI
THE AWAKING
SAD, pale light penetrated the van. It was the frozen
dawn. That wan light which throws into relief the
mournful reality of objects that are blurred into spectral
forms by the night did not waken the children, so soundly
were they sleeping. The van Was warm. Their breathings
alternated like two peaceful Waves. There was no longer
any hurricane without. The light of dawn was slowly taking
possession of the horizon; the constellations were being extin-
guished, like candles blown out one after the other,——— only a
few large stars resisted. The deep~toned song of the Infinite
was coming from the sea. The fire in the stove was not quite
out. The twilight changed gradually 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 forgetful—
uess_ He lay in a state of semi-stupor, without knowing


158 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
where he was or what was around him, and without making
any effort to remember, gazing at the ceiling, and setting him-
self an aimless task as he dreamily surveyed the letters of
the inscription, “ Ursus, Philosopher,” which, as he did not
know how to read, he examined without the power of decipher-
ing. The sound of a key grating in the lock of the door
caused him to turn his head. The door turned on its hinges,
the steps were let down. Ursus was returning. He ascended
the steps, his extinguished lantern in his hand. At the same
time the patter of four paws was heard on the steps. It was
Homo, following Ursus, who had also returned to his home.
The frightened boy gave a sudden start as the wolf opened
his mouth, disclosing two rows of glistening white teeth. The
animal stopped when he had got half way up the steps, and
placed both fore—paws inside the van, leaning on the thresh-
old, like a preacher with his elbows on the edge of the pulpit.
He sniffed at the chest from afar, not being in the habit of
finding it occupied as it then was. At last he made up his
mind to enter. The boy, seeing the wolf in the van, jumped
out of the bear-skin, and placed himself in front of the in-
fant, who was sleeping as soundly as ever.
‘ Ursus had just hung the lantern up on the nail in the ceil-
ing. Silently, and with mechanical deliberation, he unbuckled
the belt which held his case, and replaced it on the shelf.
He looked at nothing, and seemed to see nothing. His eyes
were glassy. Something had evidently moved him deeply.
His thoughts at length found vent, as usual, in a rapid flow
of words.
“ Better off, doubtless! Dead! stone dead!” he solilo—
quized. .
He bent down, and put a shovelful of turf-mould into the
stove; and as he poked the peat, he growled out:
“ I had great trouble in finding her. She was buried un-
der two feet of snow. Had it not been for Homo, who sees
as clearly with his nose as Christopher Columbus did with
his mind, I should still be there, digging at the avalanche,
and playing hide—and-seek with Death. Diogenes took his
_. ,- ~-- .. 1.“. Q» ,/- TN,- Fn.“ .--_~-<- .. -_.-1_l,:_- _ _’_|


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 159
lantern and sought for a man; I took my lantern and sought
for a woman. He found a sarcasm; I found mourning.
How cold she was! I touched her hand,-— it was like 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 convenient
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 lick—
ing it. He licked it so softly that he did not wake the little
infant.
Ursus turned round. “ Well done, Homo! I shall be
father, and you shall be uncle.” .
Then he betook himself again to mending the fire with
philosophical care, without pausing in his soliloquy, however.
“Adoption! It is settled; Homo is willing.” 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 head dropped, as if beneath a burden. Raising
his eyes a moment afterwards they met those of the just—
awakened boy, who was listening.
“ What are you laughing at?” Ursus demanded abruptly.
“ I am not laughing,” replied the boy. ‘.
Ursus looked at him intently for a few minutes. “ Then
you are frightful to look upon! ” he exclaimed. ‘
The interior of the van, on the previous night, had been so
dark that Ursus had not seen the boy’s face at all. 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 shuddered from head to foot. “ You are laughing,
I say!” Then seizing the boy with a grasp which would


160 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
have been one of fury had it not been one of pity, he asked
him, roughly: “ Who did that to you? ”
“ I don’t know what you mean,” the boy replied.
“ How long have you had that laugh?”
“ I have always been thus,” said the child.
Ursus turned away, saying in a low voice, “ I thought that
work was out of date now.”
He took from under the head of the infant, very softly, so
as not to awaken her, the book which he had placed there for
a pillow. “ Let us see Conquest,” he murmured.
He turned the pages with his thumb, stopped at a certain
one, and read: “ ‘ De Denasatis,’ it is here.” And he con—
tinued: “ ‘ Bucca fissa usque ad aures, gengivis denudatis,
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 advisable to inquire too deeply into a case
of the kind. We will remain on the surface; laugh on, 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 bottle from the stove,
gave it to her to suck. Then the sun rose above the horizon.
Its brilliant rays shone through the window straight into the
face of the infant, which was turned towards it. Her eye—
balls, fixed on the sun, reflected its light like two mirrors.
The eyeballswere immovable, the eyelids also.
“ Look! ” exclaimed 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
I
HERE Was, in those days, an old tradition. That tra—
dition was Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie. Linnaeus Baron
Clancharlie, a contemporary of Cromwell, was one of the few
peers of England who accepted the republic. The reason
of his acceptance of it might, for Want of a better, be found
in the fact that for the time being the republic Was triumph-
ant. It was a matter of course that Lord Clancharlie should
adhere to the republic as long as the republic was in power;
but after the close of the revolution and the fall of the par-
liamentary gorernment, Lord Clancharlie had persisted in his
fidelity to it. It would have been easy for the“ noble Patrician
to re-enter the reconstituted upper house,-—- the repentant
being ever gladly welcomed at restorations, and Charles II.
being a kind prince enough to those who returned to their
11 161


162 THE MAN \VHO LAUGHS
allegiance to him; but Lord Clancharlie had quite failed to un-
derstand what one owes to circumstances. While the nation
was overwhelming with acclamations the king who had come
to resume possession of England; while a united parliament
was recording its verdict; while the people were rapturously
saluting the monarchy; while the dynasty was rising anew
amidst a glorious and triumphant recantation,-—- at the n10—
ment when the past was becoming the future, and the future
was becoming the past, that nobleman remained obdurate.
He turned his head resolutely away from all these tempta-
tions and voluntarily exiled himself. Though he might have
been a peer, he preferred being an outlaw. Years had passed,
and he had grown old in his fidelity to the dead republic,
and was therefore loaded with the ridicule which is the nat—
ural reward of such folly.
Lord Clancharlie had retired to Switzerland, where he in-
habited a sort of lofty ruin on the banks of Lake Geneva. He
had chosen his abode in the most rugged nook of the lake, be—
tween Chillon, Bonnivard’s dungeon, and Vevay, Ludlow’s
burial-place. The rugged Alps, filled with winds and clouds,
were around him: and he lived there, hidden in the wide
shadows cast by the mountains. He was rarely seen by any
one. The man was out of his country, almost out of his cen—
tury. At that time no resistance to the established power was
considered justifiable. England was happy. A restoration
is like the reconciliation of husband and wife; prince and
nation return to each other,— no state of things can be more
gracious or more pleasant. Great Britain beamed with joy;
to have a king at all was a great deal; but it was a great
deal more to have such a charming one. Charles II. was an
amiable man, fond of pleasure, yet able to govern; a great
man, too,-— at least in the opinion of Louis XIV. He was
essentially a gentleman. Charles II. was greatly admired by
his subjects. He made war upon Hanover for reasons best
' known to himself; at least, no one else knew them. He sold
Dunkirk to France,—a piece of State policy. The Whig
peers, concluding whom Chamberlain says, “ The cursed re-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 163
AWWN] _
\--~~.M r...- n. \ ‘” ' _
public had infected with its stinking breath several of the
high nobility,” had had the good sense to bow to the in-
evitable, 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 one thinks
- of all this, the glorious reign, the excellent king, the august
princes given back by divine mercy to the people’s love; when
one remembers that such persons as Monk, and later on Jef—
feries, had rallied round the throne; that they had been suit-
ably rewarded for their loyalty and zeal by the most splendid
appointments and the most lucrative offices; that Lord Clan-
charlie could not be ignorant of this, and that it only de-
pended on himself to be seated by their side, glorious in his
honours; 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 enthusiastic; that the
court was gallant, gay, and magnificent,— if by chance, far
from these splendours, in some melancholy, indescribable half—
light, like nightfall, that old man, clad in the same garb as the
common people, was observed standing on the shore of the
lake, pale, absent-minded, heedless of the storm and of the
winter’s cold, walking as if at random, his eye fixed on the
ground, his white hair waving in the wind, silent, pensive,
solitary, who could forbear to smile? Was not such a being
nothing more or less than a madman?
Thinking of Lord Clancharlie, of what he might have been
and what he was, one proved oneself very charitable if one only
smiled. Many persons laughed aloud, others could not re—
strain their wrath. It is easy to understand how greatly men
of sense were shocked by the insolence which his isolation
evinced. There was one extenuating circumstance: Lord
Clancharlie had never had any brains. Every one agreed on
that point.
II
IT is disagreeable to see one’s fellow-creature obstinate.
Imitations of Regulus are not popular, and public opinion
/
AU»


1641 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
holds them in some derision. Stubborn people are so many
reproaches, and we have a right to laugh at them. Besides,
to sum up, are these perversities, these rugged notches, really
virtues? Is there not a good deal of ostentation in these ex-
cessive parades of self—abrogation and honour? Are they
not mere show and pretence? Why this pretence of solitude
and exile? To carry nothing to extremes is the wise man’s
maxim. Oppose if you choose, blame if you will, but de-
cently,— crying out all the while, “ Long live the King!”
The greatest of virtues is common-sense. What falls ought
to fall, what succeeds ought to succeed. Providence acts ad-
visedly; it crowns him who deserves the crown. Do you pre-
tend to know better than Providence? When matters are set-
tled; when one régime has replaced another; when success is
the scale in which truth and falsehood are weighed,— then
doubt is no longer possible. The honest man goes over to the
winning side; and although it may happen to serve his for-
tune 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 consented to
serve it? Would not everything come to a standstill? To
keep his place is the duty of a good citizen. Learn to sacri-
fice your secret preferences. Appointments must be filled, and
some one must sacrifice himself. To yield prompt obedience
to the powers that be is truly laudable. The retirement of
public officials would paralyze the State. What, banish your—
self? How weak! Set yourself up as an example? What
vanity! Defy established authority? 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 also could be in-
tractable and untamable, and do worse things than you; but
we prefer to be sensible people. Because I am a Trimalcion,
do you think that I could not be a Cato? What nonsense!


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 165
III
NEVER was a situation more clearly defined or more de-
cisive 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 ir—
regularities had been committed. British preponderance had
been created. With the aid of the Thirty-Years’ war, Ger—
many 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 forced to pay a fine of eight millions;
Algiers and Tunis had been attacked, Jamaica conquered,
Lisbon humbled; French rivalry had been encouraged in Bar—
celona, and Masaniello in Naples; Portugal had been made
fast to England; the seas had been cleared of Barbary pirates
from Gibraltar to Crete; maritime domination had been es-
tablished 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 Tromp, who had beaten the Spanish,—
was defeated 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 Navigation Act,
England had taken possession of the sea-coast of the world.
Through the ocean she commanded the world. At sea the
Dutch flag humbly saluted the British flag; France, in the
person of the Ambassador 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. A single regi-
ment of the Protector’s Ironsides excited as much terror in
Europe as an entire army. Cromwell used to say, “ I mean
the Republic of England to be respected, as the Republic of


166 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Rome was respected. Delusions were no longer held sacred;
speech was free, the press was free. In the public street men
said what they listed; they printed what they pleased with-
out control or censorship. The equilibrium of thrones had
been destroyed. The whole order of European monarchy, of
which the Stuarts formed a link, had been overturned.
But at last England had escaped from this odious order of
things, and had won forgiveness for it. The indulgent
Charles II. had issued the proclamation of Breda; he had
kindly consented to ignore the period of English history in
which the son of the Huntingdon brewer placed his foot on
the neck of Louis XIV. England said its med culpd, and
breathed again. The cup of joy was, as we have just said,
full; gibbets for the regicides adding to the universal delight.
A restoration is charming, but a few gibbets are not out of
place, and it is necessary to satisfy the public conscience.
To be good subjects was thenceforth the people’s sole ambi—
tion. The spirit of lawlessness had been expelled. Loyalty
was re—established. Men had recovered from the follies of
politics; they sneered at revolution, they jeered at the re—
public; and as to those times when such strange words as
Right, Liberty, Progress, had been in every one’s mouth, why,
they laughed at such bombast! How admirable this return
to common-sense was! England had been in a dream. What
joy to be free from 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 im-
agine a city ruled by its citizens? Why, the citizens are the
team, and the team cannot act as 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. Besides, how tyran-
nical this pretended liberty is! As for me, I wish to enjoy
myself, not to govern. It is a bore to have to vote; I want
to dance. How providential that we have a prince to take
care of us all! How kind the king is to take so much trou-
ble for our sakes! Besides, he is to the manner born; he
._.‘-¢_->_.“' 4. . r," kw‘ m:’-p,t~w»~


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 167
knows what’s what; it ’s his business. Peace, war, legisla-
tion, 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. They have a place in pol—
icy; from them come two essential things,—— the army and the
budget. To be liable .to contribute, and to be liable to serve,
—is not that enough? What more can they want? They
are the military and the financial arm,—a magnificent role.
The king reigns for them, and they must reward him accord—
ingly. Taxation and the civil list are the salaries paid by
the people and earned by the prince. The people give their
blood and their money, in return for which they are gov—
erned. To wish to govern 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 play the dog. How kind of him!
Why are the people ignorant? _Because it is good for them
to be ignorant. Ignorance is the guardian of Virtue. Where
there are no possibilities of improvement there is no ambition.
The ignorant man is in useful darkness, which, suppressing
sight, suppresses covetousness: hence innocence. He who
reads, thinks, he who thinks, reasons. But not to reason is
duty and happiness as well. These truths are incontestable;
society is based on them.
These sound social doctrines had been re-established in Eng—
land. At the same time a correct taste in literature was re-
viving. Shakspeare was despised, Dryden admired. “ Dry-
den is the greatest poet of England, and of the century,” said
Atterbury, the translator of “ Achitophel.” This was about
the time when M. Huet, Bishop of Avranches, wrote to Sau—
maise, who had done the author of “ Paradise Lost” the
honour to refute and abuse him: “ How can you trouble
yourself about so mean a thing as that Milton?” Every-
thing was falling into its proper place: Dryden above, Shak—
speare below; Charles II. on the throne, Cromwell on the gib-
bet. England was raising herself out of the shame and the
excesses of the past. It is a great happiness for nations to be


168 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
led back by monarchy to good order in the State and good
taste in letters.
It is hard to believe that such benefits should not be appre-
ciated. 'To turn the cold shoulder to Charles IL, to reward
with ingratitude the magnanimity which he displayed in as-
cending the throne,——- was not such conduct abominable?
Lord Linmeus Clancharlie had inflicted this vexation upon
honest men. To sulk at his country’s happiness,—— alack,
what folly! We know that in 1650 Parliament had drawn
up this form of declaration: “ I promise to remain faith-
ful to the republic, without king, sovereign, or lord.” Under
pretext of having taken this monstrous oath, Lord Clancharlie
was living out of the kingdom, and in the face of the general
rejoicing thought that he had the right to be sad. He had a.
profound esteem for that which was no more, and was ab—
surdly attached to the former state of things. To excuse him
was impossible; even the most charitably disposed abandoned
him. Some had done him the honour to believe that he had
entered the republican ranks only to observe more closely the
flaws in the republican armour, and to smite it the more surely
when the day should come to strike for the sacred cause of
the king. These lurkings in ambush for the convenient hour
to stab the enemy 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 favourably; but, in the face
of his strange persistence in republicanism, people were obliged
to lower their estimate of him. Evidently Lord Clancharlie
was confirmed in his convictions; that is to say, he was an
idiot!
The explanation given by the indulgent wavered between
puerile stubbornness and senile obstinacy. The severe and
the just went much further; they cursed the name of the rene-
gade. 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, who was this Lord Clancharlie? A deserter. He had left
his camp, that of the aristocracy, for that of the enemy, the
people. This faithful man was a traitor. It is true that he

-'.-r;_:~. ‘ ‘_ " M'" .v'


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 169
was a traitor to the stronger side and faithful to the weaker;
it is true that the camp repudiated by him was the camp of the
conqueror, and the camp adopted by him the camp of the
vanquished; it is true that by his treason he lost everything,—
his political privileges and his home, his title and his coun-
try. He gained nothing but ridicule, he attained no benefit
but exile. But what does all this prove? Merely that he
was a fool. Plainly a fool and a traitor in one. Let a man
be as great a fool as he likes, provided he does not set a bad
example. Fools need only be civil, and in consideration
thereof they may aim at being the basis of monarchies.
The narrowness of Clancharlie’s mind was incomprehensi-
ble. 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 a disgrace to his
country; the attitude he assumed was downright felony. Ab-
sence was an insult. He held aloof from the public happi--
ness as from the plague. In his voluntary banishment he
merely sought a refuge from the national rejoicing. Over the
widespread gladness at the revival of the monarchy, denounced
by him as a lazaretto, he was the black flag. What! could
he thus look askance at order re-established, a nation exalted,
and a religion restored? Why cast a shadow over such seren-
ity? Take umbrage at England’s contentment! Must he
be the one blot in the clear blue sky? Protest against a na-
tion’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 Crom-
well, so long as one found one’s way back into the right path
with Monk. Take Monk’s case. He is in command of the re-
publican army. Charles IL, having been informed of his
honesty, 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
honour of having saved society, becomes very rich, sheds a


170 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
glory over his time, and is created Knight of the Garter, witli
a prospect of being buried in Westminster Abbey. Such is
the reward of British fidelity!
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 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 of it in 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 an in-
firmity. Distrust scruples; they drag you too far. Exag—
gerated fidelity is like a ladder leading into a cavern,— one
step down, another, then another; and there you are in the
dark. The clever re-ascend; fools remain there. Conscience
must not be allowed to practise such austerity. If it is, it is
sure to relapse eventually into the depths of political prudery,
as in Lord Clancharlie’s case. Such principles result in one’s
ruin. He was walking, with his hands behind him, along the
shores of the Lake of Geneva. A fine way of getting on!
In London they sometimes spoke of the exile. He was tried
before the tribunal of public opinion. They pleaded for and
against him. The cause having 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 deserve praise. They naturally calumniated him a
little. The obstinate are repulsive to the compliant. Men
of sense, anxious for good places at court, and weary of his
disagreeable attitude, took pleasure in saying, “ If he has not
rallied to the throne, it is because he has not been sufficiently
paid,” etc. “ He wanted'the chancellorship which the king
has given to Hyde.” One of his old friends even went so far
as to whisper, “ He told me so himself.”
Remote as was the solitude of Linnaeus Clancharlie, a little


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 171
of this talk reached him now and then through other outlaws
whom he met, and through that old regicide, Andrew Brough—
ton, who lived at Lausanne. Clancharlie confined himself to
an imperceptible shrug of the shoulders, a sign of profound
disgust with him. On one occasion he added to the shrug
these few words, uttered in a low voice, “ I pity those who
believe such things.”
IV
CHARLES 11., good man! scorned him. The happiness of
England under Charles II. was more than happiness, it was
enchantment. A restoration is like an old oil painting re—
varnished. All the past reappeared, good old manners re—
turned, beautiful women reigned and governed. Evelyn no-
tices it. We read in his journal, “ Luxury, profaneness, con-
tempt 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 a grum—
bling Puritan, tainted with republican notions. He did not
appreciate the profitable example set by kings in those grand
Babylonian gaieties, which, after all, provide employment for
the poor. He did not understand the utility of vice. Here
is a maxim: Do not extirpate vice, if you want to have
charming women; if you do, you are like idiots who destroy
the chrysalis while they delight in the butterfly.
Charles II., as we have said, scarcely remembered that a
rebel called Clancharlie existed; but James II. was more mind-
ful of him. Charles II. governed gently, it was his way; we
may add that he did not govern the worse on that account.
A sailor sometimes makes, on a rope intended to battle the
wind, a slack knot which he leaves to the wind to tighten.
Such is the stupidity of the storm and of a nation. The
slack knot soon becomes a tight one. So did the govern-
ment of Charles II.
Under James II. the throttling began,—— a necessary throt-
tling of what remained of the revolution. James II. had a
_._,,-v-:M._'~ fi_—§~_ KW


172 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
laudable ambition to be an efficient king. The reign of
Charles II. was, in his opinion, but an attempt at restoration.
James wished for a still more complete restoration of the old
order of things. In 1660, he deplored that they had con-
fined themselves to the hanging of ten regicides. He was a
more genuine reconstructor of authority. He infused vigour
into serious principles. He installed true justice, which is
superior to sentimental declamations, and attends, above all
things, to the interests of society. In his protecting severi-
ties we recognize the father of the State. He inthi‘s‘ted the
hand of justice to Jefferies and its sword to Kirke, That
useful colonel one day hung and rehung the same man, a re-
publican; asking him each time: “Will you renounce the
republic? ” The villain, having each time said “ No,” was
finally despatched. “ I hanged him four times,” 'Said Kirke
complacently. The renewal of executiOns is a sure sign of
power in the executive authority. Lady Lisle, who,
she had sent her son to fight against Monmouth, bad case
ceale'd tWo rebels in her house, was executed; another rebel,
having been honourable enough to declare that an anabaptist
female had given him shelter, Was pardoned, and the woman
was burned alive. Kirke, on another occasion, gaVe a town
to understand that he knew its principles to be republican, by
hanging nineteen burgesses.
These reprisals w‘ere certainly legitimate, for it must be re-
membered that under Cromwell they cut off the noses and ears
of the stone saints in the churches. James IL, who had had
the good sense to choose Jefi'eries and Kirke, was a prince im-
bued with true religion; he practised mortification in the ugli—
ness of his mistresses; he listened to le Pere la Colombiere, a.
preacher almost as unctuous as le Pere Cheminais, but-with
more fire, who had the glory of being, during the first part of
his life, the counsellor of James II., and during the latter part
the ideal of Marie Alacoque. It was probably due to this
strong religious nourishment that later on James II. was en—
abled to bear exile with dignity, and to exhibit, in his retire—
ment at Saint Germain, the spectacle of a king rising su-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 173
perior to adversity, calmly touching for king’s evil, and con-
versing with Jesuits.
It will be readily understood that such a king would trou-
ble himself to a considerable extent about such a rebel as Lord
Linnaeus Clancharlie. Hereditary peerages have a certain
hold on the future, and it was evident that if any precautions
were necessary with regard to that lord, James II. was not the
man to hesitate.

CHAPTER II
LORD DAVID many—Mom
I
0RD LINNEUS CLANCHARLIE had not always
been old and proscribed; he had had his period of
youth and passion. We know from Harrison and Pride that
Cromwell, when young, loved women and pleasure,— a taste
which generally (another aspect of the “ woman question ”)
betrays a seditious man. Distrust the loosely clasped girdle
(Male pracimctum 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 republic, just as his
father was going into exile; hence he had never seen his father.
This illegitimate son 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 playing the owl in
Switzerland, made up her mind, being a beauty, to give up
sulking, and was forgiven for that Goth her first lover, by
one who was undeniably a polished gentleman, and at the
same time a royalist,—— no less a person, in fact, than the king


1741 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
himself. She had been the mistress of Charles II. but a short
time, sufficiently long, however, to have 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 di-
vinity, the office of keeper of the stick,—— which made that
young man, boarded at the king’s expense, by a natural revul-
sion of feeling an ardent adherent of the Stuarts. Lord
David was for some time one of the hundred and seventy
sword—bearers; afterwards, entering the corps of pensioners,
he became one of the forty who hear the gilded halberd. He
had, besides being one of the noble company instituted by
Henry VIII. as a body-guard, the privilege of placing the
dishes on the king’s table. Thus it was that while his father
was growing grey in exile, Lord David was prospering 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 the young
man obtained permission to call himself David Lord Dirry-
Moir, from an estate which he inherited from his mother
(who had just died) in that great forest of Scotland, where
lives the krag, a bird which scoops out a nest with its beak in
the trunk of the oak.
H
James II. was a king, and pretended to be a great general.
He loved to surround himself with young ofiicers. He showed
himself frequently in public on horseback, in a helmet and
cuirass, with a huge projecting wig hanging below the helmet
and over the cuirass,— a sort of equestrian statue of imbecile
war. He took' a fancy to young Lord David; he liked the
royalist for being the son of a republican. A renegade father
does not injure 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 gentle-
man of the bedchamber sleeps near the king every night, on a
_ . ._, 4 r , ,-_ ~~r~ rp‘m- "-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 175
bed which is made up for him. There are twelve gentlemen,
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. The usher of the black rod
bowed down to the earth before him. That usher, under
James II., was the Chevalier Duppa. Mr. Baker, who was
clerk of the crown, and Mr. Brown, who was clerk of the Par-
liament, also bowed low before Lord David. The court of
England, which is magnificent, is a model of hospitality.
Lord David presided, as one of the twelve, at banquets and re-
ceptions. He had the glory of standing behind the king on
ofi'ertory days, when the 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 sacra-
ment except 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 he is years old, 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 doc-
tors without permission from the council 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 soldier. He
was a brave lord, well-made, handsome, generous, and ma—
jestic in look and in manner. His person was like his quality.
He was tall in stature, as well as exalted in birth. At one time
he stood a chance of being made groom of the stole, which


176
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
would have given him the privilege of putting the king’s shirt
on his Majesty: but to hold that office it was necessary to be
either prince or peer. Now, to create a peer is a serious thing,
inasmuch as it is first necessary to create a peerage; and that
makes many people jealous. It is a favour,—— but a favour
that gains the king one friend and one hundred enemies, with-
out taking into account that the one friend becomes ungrate—
ful. James II. was not inclined to create peerages, but he
transferred them freely. The transfer of a peerage produces
no sensation; it is simply the continuation of a name. The
friendly monarch had no objection to raising Lord David
Dirry-Moir to the upper house, provided he 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 Clan—
charlie, the most important of which was that he had died.
Death does men this much good,~— it makes them the sub-
ject of conversation for a time. People told what they
knew, or what they thought they knew, about the last years
of Lord Linnaeus. What they said was probably a mixture of
hearsay and conjecture. If these tales were to be credited,
Lord Clancharlie’s republicanism was intensified towards the
end of his days to the extent of marrying (strange obstinacy
on the part of the exile!) Ann Bradshaw, the daughter of
a regicide: they were precise about the name. This lady had
died, it was said, 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 Clancharlie. These re-
ports, however, were extremely vague in form, and were ru-
mours rather than facts. Circumstances which happened in
Switzerland in those days were as remote from the England
of that period as those which take place in China from the
2!.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 177
England of to-day. Lord Clancharlie must have been fifty—
nine at the time of his marriage, they said, and sixty at the
birth of his son, and must have died shortly after, leaving his
infant bereft both of father and mother. This was possible,
perhaps, but improbable. They added that the child was
beautiful as the day,— just as we read in all the fairy tales.
King James put an end to these rumours (which must have
been entirely without foundation) by declaring, one fine morn-
ing, Lord David Dirry-Moir sole and positive heir in default
of legitimate issue, and by his royal pleasure, of Lord Lin-
naeus Clancharlie, his natural father, the absence of all other
issue and descent being established; and patents of this grant
were duly registered in the House of Lords. By these patents
the king instated Lord David Dirry-Moir in all the titles,
rights, and prerogatives of the late Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie,
on the sole condition that Lord David should wed, when she
attained a marriageable age, a certain girl who was at that
time a mere infant a few months old, and whom the king in her
cradle had created a duchess, no one knew exactly why,—— or,
rather, every one knew why. This little infant was called the
Duchess Josiana. Spanish names were then all the rage in
England. One of Charles II.’s bastards was called Carlos
Earl of Plymouth. It is likely that Josiana was a contrac-
tion for Josefa-y-Ana. Josiana, however, may have been a
name,-—-— the feminine of Josias. One of Henri III.’s gentle-
men was called Josias du Passage. It was to this little duch-
ess that the king granted the peerage of Clancharlie. She
was a peeress till there should be a peer; the peer was to be
her husband. The peerage was founded on a double castle-
ward, the barony of Clancharlie and the barony of Hunker-
ville; besides, the barons of Clancharlie were, as a reward
for some ancient deed of prowess, and by royal license, Mar-
quises of Corleone in Sicily.
Peers of England cannot bear foreign titles. There are,
nevertheless, exceptions; thus Henry Arundel, Baron Arun—
del of Wardour, was, as well as Lord Clifford, a Count of the
Holy Roman Empire, of which Lord Cowper is a prince.
12


178 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
The Duke of Hamilton is Duke of Chatelherault, in France;
Basil Fielding, Earl of Denbigh, is Count of Hapsburg, of
Lauffenberg, and of Rheinfelden, in Germany. The Duke
of Marlborough was Prince of Mindelheim in Suabia, just as
the Duke of Wellington was Prince of Waterloo in Belgium.
This same Lord Wellington was also a Spanish Duke of
Ciudad Rodrigo, and Portuguese Count of Vimiera.
There were in England, and there are still, both entailed
and unentailed estates. The lands of the Lords of Clan-
charlie were all entailed. These lands, burghs, bailiwicks,
fiefs, rents, freeholds, and domains, adherent to the peerage
of Clancharlie—Hunkerville, now belonged provisionally to
Lady Josiana; and the king declared that, once married to
J osiana, Lord David Dirry-Moir should be Baron Clancharlie.
Besides the Clancharlie inheritance, Lady Josiana had her
own private fortune. She possessed great wealth, much of
which was derived from the gifts of Madame sans queue——
- in other words, Madame —-to the Duke of York. Henrietta
of England, Duchess of Orleans, the lady of highest rank
in France after the queen, was called M adame sans queue.
IV
HAVING prospered under Charles and James, Lord David
continued to prosper under William. His Jacobite feelings
did not reach to the extent of following James into exile.
While he continued to love his legitimate king, he had the
good sense to serve the usurper; he was, moreover, although
sometimes disposed to rebel against discipline, an excellent
officer. He exchanged from the land to the sea forces,
and distinguished himself in the White Squadron; he rose
in it to be what was then called captain of a light frigate.
Altogether he was a very fine fellow, extremely elegant in
his vices; a bit of a poet, like everybody else at that epoch;
a good servant of the State and a good servant to the
prince; assiduous at feasts, at ladies’ receptions, at cer-
emonials, and in battle; servile in a gentlemanly way, and


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 1‘79
yet haughty in the extreme; with eyesight dull or keen,
according to the object examined; in manner obsequious or
arrogant as occasion required; frank and sincere on first
acquaintance, with the power of assuming the mask after—
wards; very observant of the smiles and frowns of his royal
master; careless before a sword’s point; always ready with
heroism and complacency to risk his life at a sign from
his Majesty; capable of any insult but of no impoliteness;
a man of courtesy and etiquette, proud of kneeling at great
regal ceremonies; of a gay valour; a courtier on the sur-
face, a paladin below; and young at forty-five. Lord
David sang French songs charmingly,— an elegant ac-
complishment which had delighted Charles II. He loved elo—
quence and fine speaking, and was a great admirer of
those celebrated discourses which are called the funeral or—
ations of Bossuet. From his mother he had inherited almost
enough to live on,— about £10,000 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 horseback he
wore loose boots of cow-hide, which turned over, with spurs.
He had hats like nobody else’s, unheard-0f lace, and bands
of which he alone had the pattern.
CHAPTER III
THE nucmzss JOSIANA
I
N 1705, although Lady J osiana was twenty-three and Lord
I David forty-four, the wedding had not yet taken place,
and that for the best reason in the world. Did they hate
each other? Far from it; but what cannot escape you in-


180 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
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 seemed to him to be a prolongation of
youth. Middle-aged young men abounded in those rakish
times; they grew grey as young fops. The wig was an ac—
complice; later on, powder became the auxiliary. At fifty—
five Lord Charles Gerrard, Baron Gerrard, one of the Ger-
rards of Bromley, filled London with his successes; the young
and pretty Duchess of Buckingham, Countess of Coventry,
made a fool of herself for love of the handsome Thomas
Bellasys, Viscount Fauconberg, who was sixty-seven. Men
quoted the famous verses of Corneille, the septuagenarian, to
a girl of twenty, beginning, “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.
Josiana and David were carrying on a flirtation of a
peculiar kind. They did not love, they pleased, each other.
To be in each other’s society sufiiced them: why hasten the
conclusion? The novels of those days carried lovers and
engaged couples only to that stage which was the most
becoming. Besides, Josiana, while she knew herself to be a
bastard, felt herself a princess, and carried her authority over
lhim with a high hand in all their arrangements. She had
a fancy for Lord David. He was handsome; but she cared
very little about that. She considered him elegant: that
was the all-important thing. To be fashionable is every-
thing. Caliban, fashionable and magnificent, would dis-
tance 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 was proud of his horses, his dogs, his losses at play,
and especially of 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 pos-


_THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 181
seas Josiana would be to mount to the stars; but this did
not prevent him from postponing the ascent until the fol-
lowing year. He waited patiently in the ante—chamber out-
side Josiana’s heart; and this suited both of them. Every
one at court commended the good taste of this delay. Lady
Josiana said, “ It is a pity that I should be obliged to marry.
Lord David,— I, who would desire .nothing better than to
be in love with him!”
Josiana was “ the flesh” personified. It would be difficult
to conceive of a more magnificent creature. She was very
tall,——- too tall. Her hair was of that tint which might be
called red gold. She was plump, fresh, strong, and rosy,
and possessed of immense boldness and wit. She had eyes
which were too eloquent. She had neither lovers nor chas-
tity. She walled herself around with pride. Men! fie! a
god alone would be worthy of her,—a god or a monster.
If virtue consists in impregnability, then Josiana was the
most virtuous of women, though by no means the most
innocent. She disdained intrigues; but she would not have
been displeased had she been suspected of some, provided that
they had been of a brilliant character proportionate to the
merits of one so exalted as herself. She thought little of
her reputation, but a great deal of her glory. To appear
yielding, and yet be unapproachable, is perfection. Josiana
felt herself majestic and material. Hers was a cumbrous
type of beauty. She usurped rather than charmed; she
trod upon hearts; she was of the earth earthy. She would
have been as much astonished to find a soul in her bosom
as to see wings on her back. She discoursed learnedly on
Locke; she was polite; she was even suspected of knowing
Arabic.
To be flesh and to be a woman are two very different
things. Where a woman is vulnerable,—— on the side of pity
for instance, which so readily turns to love,— Josiana was
not. Yet she was not unfeeling. The old comparison of
flesh with marble is absolutely false. The beauty of flesh
consists in not being marble. Its beauty is. to palpitate,


182 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
to tremble, to blush, to bleed; to have firmness without hard-
ness; to be white without being cold; to have its sensations
and its infirmities. Its beauty is to be life, and marble is
death. Flesh, when it attains a certain degree of beauty,
has almost a claim to the right of nudity; it conceals itself
in its own dazzling charms as in a veil. He who looked upon
J osiana nude, would have perceived her outlines only through
a sort of halo. She would have shown herself without hesi-
tation to a satyr or a eunuch. She had the self—possession
of a goddess. To have made her nudity a torment to an ever—
pursuing Tantalus, would have been a delight to her.
The king had made her a duchess, and Jupiter a Nereid.
In admiring her you felt yourself becoming at once a pagan
and a lackey. She seemed to have emerged from the foam
of the ocean. In her there was mmething of the wave of
' chance, of the patrician, and of the tempest. She was
well read and accomplished. Never had a passion ape
proached her, yet she had sounded them all. She felt an
instinctive loathing of their realization, and at the same
time a longing for them. If she had stabbed herself, it
would, like Lucretia, not have been until afterwards. She
was a virgin stained with every defilement of an imaginary
sort. She was a possible Astarte embodied in a real Diana.
She was, in the insolence of her high birth, at once tempting
and inaccessible. Nevertheless, she might find it amusing 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 momentary infatuation for Louis de Bouf-
fiers, who used to break horse-shoes between his fingers. She
regretted that Hercules was dead. She lived in some unde-
fined expectation of a voluptuous and supreme ideal.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 183
Morally, J osiana brought to one’s mind the line of Horace,
Desinit in piscem,——
“ Un beau torse dc femme en hydre se terminc.”
Hers was a noble neck, a splendid bosom, tranquilly heaving
over a proud and arrogant heart, a glance full of life and
light, a countenance pure and haughty; but (who knows?)
below the surface was there not, in a semitransparent and
misty depth, an undulating, supernatural prolongation, per~
chance deformed and dragon-like,—— proud virtue ending
in vice in the depths of dreams?
II
WITH all that she was a prude. It was the fashion. Re-
member Elizabeth. Elizabeth was of a type that prevailed '
in England for three centuries,— the sixteenth, seventeenth,
and eighteenth. Elizabeth was more than English, she was
Anglican. Hence the deep respect of the Episcopalian
Church for that queen,—a respect resented by the Church
of Rome, which counterbalanced it with a dash of excom-
munication. In the mouth of Sixtus V., when anathematiz-
ing Elizabeth, malediction turned to madrigal: “Un gran
cervello di principessa,” he says. Mary Stuart, less con-
cerned with the church and more with the woman part of
the question, 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 wish-
ing to lose the liberty of being made love to.” Mary Stuart
toyed 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 Elizabeth 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 style; had in her wardrobe three thousand
dresSes and cestumes, of which several were for the character


184, THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
of Minerva and Amphitrite; esteemed 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 honour with her clinched fists; used to send
Dudley to the devil, beat Burleigh the Chancellor, who would
cry (poor old fool l), spat on Mathew, collared Hatton, boxed
the ears of Essex, showed her legs to Bassompierre,—— and was
a virgin. 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 even 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 Wesley, casts down her eyes a little at the remem—
brance of that past age; she is vexed at the memory, yet
proud of it.
Amidst such manners as these, a taste for deformity ex-
isted, especially among women, more especially among beauti—
ful women. What was the use of being beautiful if one
did not possess a baboon? What was the charm of being
a queen if one could not bandy words with a dwarf? Mary
Stuart had “ been kind ” to the handy-legged Rizzio. Maria A
Theresa of Spain had been “ somewhat familiar ” with a ne-
gro; hence the “ black abbess.” In the alcoves of the great
century a hump was the fashion: witness the Marshall of
Luxembourg; and before Luxembourg, Condé, “ such a
pretty little man!” Beauties themselves might be ill-made
without detriment; that was admitted. Anne Boleyn had
one breast bigger than the other, six fingers on one hand,
and a projecting tooth; La Valliere was handy-legged,—
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
1 Regina Saba coram reg: crura denudavit— Schicklardus in Prwmia
Tarioh J eraici, f. 65.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 185
high rank who was not a sort of monster. Every Agnes
was a Melusina at heart. They were women by day and
ghouls by night. They sought the scaffold to kiss the heads
of the newly beheaded on their iron stakes. Marguerite de
Valois, the grandmother of prudes, wore, fastened to her
belt, the hearts of her dead lovers in tin boxes, padlocked. In
the eighteenth century the Duchess de Berry, daughter of
the Regent, was herself an obscene and royal type of all
these creatures.
These fine ladies, moreover, knew Latin. From the six-
teenth century this had been accounted a feminine accomplish-
ment. Lady Jane Grey had carried the fashion to the ex—
tent of knowing Hebrew. The Duchess 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 by reason of his
Catholicism, and Josiana did not care to risk her peerage.
Thus it was that while she was a Catholic among her inti—
mate friends and the refined of both sexes, she was outwardly a
Protestant for the benefit of the riff-raff. This is a pleas—
ant view to take of religion. You en 0y all the good things
connected with the Episcopalian Church, and later on you
die, like Grotius, in the odour of Catholicity, with the glory
of having a mass said for you by 1e Pere Pectau.
Although plump and healthy, Josiana was, we repeat, a
perfect prude. At times, her sleepy and voluptuous way of
dragging out the end of her phrases was like the creep-
ing of a tiger’s paws in the jungle. When one has not got
Olympus, one must be content with the Hotel de Rambouillet.
Juno resolves herself into Araminta. A pretension to divinity
not admitted, creates afi'ectation. Instead of thunder—claps
there is impertinence. The temple shrivels into the boudoir.
Unable to be a goddess, one becomes a graven image. Be-
sides, there is in prudery a certain pedantry which is pleas-
ing to women. The coquette and the pedant are near neigh-
bours. Their kinship is visible in the fop. The subtile is
derived from the sensual. Gluttony affects delicacy; a.


186 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
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
eventually, but she disdains—for the present.
Josiana had an uneasy conscience. She felt such a lean—
ing towards immodesty that she was a prude. The very
pride which causes us to shrink from certain vices leads us
into others of an entirely different character. It was the
excessive effort to be chaste which made J osiana a prude. To
be too much on the defensive evinces a secret desire for at—
tack; the truly modest woman is not strait-laced. Josiana
shut herself up in the arrogance of the exceptional circum—
stances of her rank, meditating, perhaps, all the while some
sudden lapse from it.
It was the dawn of the eighteenth century. England was
a sketch of what France was during the regency. Walpole
and Dubois were not unlike. Marlborough was fighting
against his former king, James II., to whom it was said he
had sold his sister, Miss Churchill. Bolingbroke was in the
height and Richelieu in the dawn of his glory. Gallantry
found a certain medley of ranks convenient. Men were made
equal by their vices as they were later on, perhaps, by their
ideas. Degradation of rank, an aristocratic prelude, began
what the revolution was to complete. It was not very far
from the time when Jélyotte was seen sitting publicly in
broad daylight, on the bed of the Marquise d’Epinay. It is
true (for manners re-echo each other) that in the sixteenth
century Smeton’s nightcap had been found under Anne
Boleyn’s pillow.
If the word woman signifies frailty, never was woman so
womanly as then. Never, covering her frailty by her charms,
and her weakness by her omnipotence, has she claimed abso-
lution more imperiously. In making the forbidden the per—
mitted fruit, Eve fell; in making the permitted the forbidden
fruit, she triumphs. That is the climax. In the eighteenth


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 187
century the wife bolts out her husband. She shuts herself
up in Eden with Satan. Adam is left outside.
III
ALL Josiana’s instincts impelled her to yield herself wan-
tonly rather than to give herself legally. To surrender one’s
self thus, is considered a sure indication of genius, recalls
Menalcas and Amaryllis, and is almost a literary act.
Mademoiselle de Scudéry, aside from the charm of ugliness
(for ugliness has its charm), could have had no other mo-
tive for yielding to Pélisson.
The maiden a sovereign, the wife a subject,—- such was
the old English notion. Josiana was deferring the hour of
subjection as long as she could. She must eventually marry
Lord David, since such was the royal pleasure. It was a
necessity, doubtless; but what a pity! Josiana appreciated
Lord David, and showed him off. There was between them
a tacit agreement neither to conclude nor to break off the
engagement. They eluded each other. This method of
making love—one step in advance, and two back—is ex-
pressed in the dances of the period, the minuet and the
gavotte.
It is unbecoming to be married; it fades one’s ribbons,
and makes one look old. An espousal is a dreary absorption
of brilliancy. A woman handed over to you by a notary,
how commonplace! The brutality of marriage creates
definite situations, suppresses the will, kills choice; has a
syntax, like grammar; replaces inspiration by orthography;
makes love a dictation; disperses all Life’s mysteries; dimin-
ishes the rights both of sovereign and subject; by a turn
of the scale destroys the charming equilibrium 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
before marriage man is the slave, woman the queen. To
make Love prosaically decent, how gross! to deprive it of all
impropriety, how dull!


188 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Lord David was no longer young. Forty is an age that
tells upon a man. He was not conscious of the fact, how-
ever, and really looked only a little over thirty. He con—
sidered 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 which is less rare
than is generally 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 her-
self 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 at the present
day. She wore great dresses of velvet, satin, or moire, some
composed of fifteen or sixteen yards of material with em-
broideries of gold and silver, and round her waist
many knots of pearls, alternating with other precious stones.
She was extravagant in gold lace. Sometimes she wore an
embroidered cloth jacket, like a bachelor. She rode on a.
man’s saddle, notwithstanding the invention of side-saddles
introduced into England in the fourteenth century by Anne,
wife of Richard H. She washed her face, arms, shoulders,
and neck in sugar dissolved in white of egg, after the Cas—
tilian fashion. There came over her face when any one
talked cleverly in her presence an appreciative smile of sin-
gular grace. She was free from malice, and rather good-
natured than otherwise.

e. ._ . _~\4_-__,1 ,._.._ '. V ...- _ -- _. _- _ _


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 189
CHAPTER IV
THE LEADER or rssmon
OSIANA 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 mention one feat of Lord David: he was daring
enough to wear his own hair. The reaction against the wig
was beginning. Just as in 1824 Eugene Devéria 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, although Price Devereux was
Viscount Hereford, and a peer of England. He was insulted;
but the deed was well worth the insult. In the hottest part
of the row Lord David suddenly appeared without his wig
and in his own hair. Such conduct shakes the foundations
of society. Lord David was insulted even more grossly than
Viscount Hereford; yet he held his ground. Price Devereux
was the first, Lord David Dirry-Moir was the second to
do this. It is sometimes more difficult to be the second than
the first. It requires less genius, but more courage. The
first, intoxicated by the novelty, may ignore the danger; the
second sees the abyss, and rushes into it. Lord David flung
himself into the abyss of no longer wearing a wig. Later on
these gentlemen found many imitators. Following the ex—
amples of these two revolutionists, men summoned up sufficient
courage to wear their own hair, and powder was introduced
as an extenuating circumstance.
In order to establish an important period of history before
we pass on, we should remark that the first blow in the war
of wigs was really struck by a Queen,— Christina of Sweden,
who wore man’s clothes, and who appeared in 1680, with her


190 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
hair of golden brown, powdered, and brushed up from her
head. She had besides, says Misson, a slight beard. The
Pope, in his turn, by a bull issued in March, 1694, had
lessened the popularity of the wig, by taking it from the
heads of bishops and priests, and by ordering churchmen to
let their hair grow.
Lord David, then, did not wear a wig, and he did wear
cow-hide boots. Such deeds of prowess 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 aristocratic clubs. He founded
several resorts of fashionable society,— of which one, the
Lady Guinea, was still in existence in Pall Mall, in 1772.
TheLady Guinea was a club in which all the youth of the
peerage congregated. They gambled there; the lowest stake
allowed was a rouleau of fifty guineas, and there was never
less than twenty thousand guineas on the table. 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, breast-plates of leather to protect
their rufi'les, and on their heads, to shelter their eyes from the
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, wore their coats hindside before, for
luck.
Lord David was a member of the Beefsteak Club, the Surly
Club, and of the Splitfarthing Club; of the Cross Club, and
of 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 members agreed to fight, not
about a beautiful woman, but about an ugly man. The hall
of the club was adorned by hideous portraits,—- Thersites,


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 191
Triboulet, Duns, Hudibras, Scarron; over the chimney Was
:Esop, between two men,—- Cocles and Camoéns,— each blind
in one eye (Cocles being blind in the left, and Camoéns in 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 smallpox, 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.
Since the restoration of Charles IL, revolutionary clubs
had been abolished. The tavern in the little street by Moor-
fields 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 to the health of Cromwell out of the
skull of a calf. To republican clubs had succeeded mo-
narchical clubs. In them people amused themselves with de-
cency. There was the Hell-fire Club, where they played at
being impious. It was a joust of sacrilege; hell was put up
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 re-
turn 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 big, stalwart Welshman named Gogangerdd, ex-
pired at the third butt. This looked serious. An inquest
was held, and the jury returned the following verdict:
“ Died of enlargement of 'the heart, caused by excessive drink-
ing.” Gogangerdd had certainly drunk the contents of the
pot of porter.
There was the Fun Club. Fwn is like cant, and like hu-
mour,—~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 portraits, poison the dog,
put the cat in the aviary, is called “ having a bit of fun.”
To give bad news which is untrue, whereby people put on


192 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
mourning by mistake, is fun. It was fun to cut a square
hole in the Holbein at Hampton Court. A member of the
Fun Club would have deemed it a grand achievement to have
broken the arm of the Venus of Milo. Under James II. a.
young millionaire nobleman who had during the night set fire
to a thatched cottage,-—- a feat which made all London shriek
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 men of the highest rank,
used to run about London during the hours when the citizens
were asleep, pulling shutters off their hinges, cutting the
pipes of pumps, filling up cisterns, digging up cultivated
plots of ground, putting out lamps, sawing through the
beams which supported houses, and breaking 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 in—
stance) your house is now and then somewhat damaged dur-
ing the night, or a fence broken, or the knocker twisted off
your door. If. it were the poor 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 a
so—called emperor, who wore a crescent on his forehead, 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 ac-
complish this object, all sorts of means were resorted to. In
becoming a Mohawk, the members took an oath to that effect.
To injure at any price, no matter when, no matter whom,
no matter where, was a matter of duty. Every member of
the Mohawk Club was bound to possess some 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 his sword. Others knew how to make a man


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 193
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 of them; the gentle—
man he turned his back upon chastised him for it by a prick
of his sword, which made him spring round; another prick
in the back warned the fellow that a person of noble blood
was behind him,-— and so on, each one wounding him in turn;
when the man, hemmed in by the circle of swords and covered
with blood, had turned and danced about enough, they had
him beaten by their servants in order to divert his mind.
Others “punched the lion;” that is, they gain stopped a
passer-by, 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 the pastimes of the rich idlers of London about
the beginning of the eighteenth century. The idlers of
Paris also had theirs. About that time M. de Charolais was
firing his gun at a citizen who chanced to be standing on his
own threshold. Youth has had its amusements from time
immemorial.
Lord David Dirry-Moir would gleefully set fire to a cot—
tage of wood and thatch, just like the others; and scorch the
inmates a little; but he always rebuilt their houses in stone.
He assaulted two ladies. One was unmarried,— he gave her
a portion; the other was married,— he had her husband ap—
pointed chaplain. Many praiseworthy improvements were
due to him in cock-fighting. It was marvellous to see Lord
David dress a cock for the pit. Cocks lay hold of each other
by the feathers, as men seize each other by the hair. Lord
David, therefore, made his cock as bald as possible. With a
pair of scissors he cut off all the tail feathers, and all the
feathers on the head and shoulders as well as 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. “ That is for the enemy’s eyes,” he would say.
Then lée scraped its claws with a penknife, sharpened its nails,
1


194 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
fitted steel gaft's on its spurs, spat on its head and spat on its
neck,— anointing it with spittle, as they used to rub oil over
athletes; then set it down in the pit, a formidable opponent,
exclaiming, “ That ’s the way to make a cock an eagle; a
bird of the poultry-yard a bird of the mountain.”
Lord David attended prize—fights, and was their living law.
On great occasions 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 strike fair, but suggesting all sorts of strate-
gems; advising him as he fought, wiping away the blood,
raising him when overthrown, placing him on his knee, put-
ting the mouth of the brandy bottle between his teeth, and
from his own mouth, filled with water, blowing a fine rain into
his eyes and ears,—— a thing which revives even a dying man.
' If he was referee, he saw that there was no foul play; pre-
vented any one, whomsoever he might be, from assisting the
combatants, excepting the seconds; declared the man beaten
who did not fairly face his opponent; saw that the time be-
tween the rounds did not exceed half a minute; prevented
butting, declaring whoever resorted to it beaten; and forbade
a man’s being hit when down. All this scientific knowledge,
however, did not make him a pedant, or destroy his ease of
manner in society.
When Lord David was referee, rough, pimple—faced, un-
shorn friends of either combatant never dared to come to the
aid of the failing man ; nor in order to upset the chances of the
betting jump over the barrier, enter the ring, break the ropes,
pull down the stakes, or interfere in any way in the contest.
He was one of the few referees they dared not attempt to
bully.
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 a child of him. The problem was to turn that human
rock from a defensive to an offensive state. In this he ex—
-r.rra—tra¢: <4; 1'-:5;=‘=r= . m. . s. ..__——(J' *1. 1.:' Vtgg'”. "" “11%


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 195
celled. Having once adopted the Cyclops, he never left him.
He became his nurse; he measuredout his wine, weighed his
meat, and counted his hours of sleep. It was he who in-
vented the athlete’s admirable rules, afterwards reproduced
by Morely: in the morning, a raw egg and a glass of sherry;
at twelve, some slices of a leg of mutton, almost raw, with
tea; at four, 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 lost sight of him, keeping
him out of every danger,— runaway horses, carriage-wheels,
drunken soldiers, and pretty girls. He watched over his vir—
tue. This maternal solicitude was continually adding some
new accomplishment to the 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 than this devotion? In this way he was also pre-
paring himself for the public life to which he would be called
later on. It is no easy matter to become an accomplished gen-
tleman.
Lord David Dirry-Moir was passionately fond of open-air
exhibitions, of shows, of circuses with wild beasts, of the cara-
vans 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
frequented the taverns and low haunts of London and the
Cinque Ports. In order to be able at need, and without com-
promising his rank in the white squadron, 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 people clung 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, and with whom he mixed,
held him in high esteem, without ever dreaming that he was
a lord. They called him Tom-Jim-Jack. Under this name
he was quite famous and very popular among the dregs of
the people. He played the blackguard in a masterly style,


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 197
could have been more awkward than Anne in directing affairs
of State. She let things happen as they would. Her entire
policy was hare-brained. She excelled in bringing about
great catastrophes from little causes. When a desire to rule
seized her, she called it giving “ a stir with the poker.” She
would say with an air of profound thought, “ No peer can
keep his hat on before the king except De Courcy, Baron
Kingsale, an Irish peer.” Or, “ It would be an injustice if
my husband were not to be Lord High Admiral, since my
father was.” And she made George of Denmark Lord Ad-
miral of England and of all her Majesty’s plantations. She
was incessantly exhaling bad humour; she did not explain
her thought, she exuded it. There was something of the
Sphinx in this goose.
Anne rather liked rough fun, teasing, and practical jokes.
Could she have made Apollo a hunchback, it would have de-
lighted her; but she would have left him a god. Good-
natured, her plan was to allow no one to despair, and yet to
worry everybody. She often had 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 pocket which she wore
in her skirt a little round box of chased silver, on which was
her portrait in profile, between the two 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 col-
oured her mouth, she would laugh. She was greedily fond
of the flat Zealand ginger-bread cakes; she was proud of be—
ing fat.
More of a Puritan than anything else, Anne would never-
theless 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 went over to England, and proposed to Queen
Anne to build in London a theatre finer than that of the King
of France,—— with which idea the queen was immediately


198 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
charmed. Like Louis XIV., she liked to be driven at a gal-
lop. Her teams and relays would sometimes do the distance
between London and Windsor in less than an hour and a
quarter.
II
IN Anne’s time, no meeting was allowed without the per-
mission of two justices of the peace. The convening of
twelve persons, even if it were only to eat oysters and drink
porter, was a felony. Under her reign, comparatively mild
in other respects, impressing for the navy was carried on with
extreme violence,—a gloomy evidence that the Englishman
is a subject rather than a citizen. For centuries England
sufi'ered under this kind of tyranny, which gave the lie to
all the old charters of liberty, and which France considered
a good cause for triumph and indignation. What in some
degree diminishes the triumph is, that while sailors were being
impressed in England, soldiers were being impressed in
France. In every great town of France, any able-bodied
man, going through the streets about 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 in London, and the astrologers (there were
some left; witness Louis XIV., who was born with the assist-
ance of an astrologer, and swaddled in a horoscope) pre-
dicted 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 god-father. To be the god—
child of the Pope was no longer possible in England; a mere
primate is but a poor sort of god-father. Anne had to put


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 199
up with it, however. It was her own fault; why was she a
Protestant?
Denmark had paid for Anne’s virginity (virginitas empta,
as the old charters expressed it) by a dowry of £6,250 a
year, secured on the bailiwick of Wardinburg and the island
of Fehmarn. She followed, without conviction and by
routine, the traditions of William. The English under this
régime born of a revolution enjoyed as much liberty as they
could lay hands on between the Tower of London, in which
the orators were incarcerated, and the pillory, in which the
writers were placed. 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, especially at court, was to talk
French. There was never a ban mot but in French. Anne
paid a deal of attention to the coinage of the realm, espe-
cially to the copper coins, which are the common and popular
ones; she wanted to cut a great figure on them. Six differ-
ent farthings were struck during 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, Bella et pace.
Her father, James II., was blunt and cruel; she was brutal.
At the same time she was really mild au fond,— a contradic—
tion which only appears such. A fit of anger metamorphosed
her. Heat sugar, and it will boil.
Anne was popular. England likes female rulers. France
excludes them. Why? One reason is apparent at once; per-
haps there is really no other. With English historians Eliz-
abeth 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 of it, and we are not going to oppose the idea.
Elizabeth was a virgin tempered by Essex; Anne, a wife
complicated by Bolingbroke.


200 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
III
ONE idiotic habit of the people'is to attribute to the king
what they do themselves. They fight: whose is the glory?
The king’s. They pay: whose is the generosity? The
king’s. Then the people love him for being so rich. The
king receives a crown from the poor, and gives them back a
farthing. How generous he is! The colossus which is really
only the pedestal contemplates the pygmy which is really the
statue. How great this myrmidon is! He is on my back.
A dwarf has an excellent way of making himself taller than
a giant: it is to perch himself on his shoulders. But that
the giant should allow it, there is the wonder; and that he
should admire the height of the dwarf, there is the folly.
Ah, the simplicity of mankind!
The equestrian statue, reserved for kings alone, is an ex—
cellent figure of royalty: the horse is the people. Only, the
horse becomes transfigured by degrees. It begins as an ass;
it ends as a lion. Then it throws its rider; and you have
1642 in England and 1789 in France. Sometimes it de—
vours him; and you have 1649 in England, and 1793 in
France. That the lion should relapse into the donkey is as-
tonishing; but it is so. This was occurring in England. It
had resumed the pack-saddle; namely, idolatry of the crown.
Queen Anne, as we have just observed, was popular. What
was she doing to make herself so? Nothing. Nothing!—
that is all that is asked of the sovereign of England. He
receives for that nothing £1,250,000 a year. In 1705, Eng-
land, which had had but thirteen men—of—war under Elizabeth
and thirty—six under James I., counted a hundred and fifty in
her fleet. The English had three armies,—— five thousand men
in Catalonia, ten thousand in Portugal, fifty thousand in
Flanders; and besides, was paying £1,666,666 a year to mo—
narchical and diplomatic Europe,— a sort of prostitue which
the English people has always had in keeping. Parliament
having voted a patriotic loan of thirty—four million francs of
annuities, there had been a rush to the exchequer to subscribe


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 201
it. England was sending a squadron to the East Indies,
and a squadron to the West of Spain under Admiral Leake,
without mentioning the reserve of four hundred sail under
Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel. England had lately annexed
Scotland. It was the interval between Hochstadt and Ramil—
lies, and the first of these victories was foretelling the second.
England, in its cast of the net at Hochstadt, had made pris—
oners of twenty-seven battalions and four regiments of
dragoons, and deprived France of one hundred leagues of
country,— France, who was drawing back dismayed from
the Danube to the Rhine. England was stretching out her
hand towards Sardinia and the Balearic Islands; she was
bringing into her ports in triumph ten Spanish line-of-battle
ships, and many a galleon laden with gold. Hudson’s Bay
and Straits were already partially relinquished by Louis XIV.
It was believed that he was about to give up his hold on
Acadia, St. Christopher’s, and Newfoundland; and that he
would be only too happy if England would but allow the
King of France to catch a few cod of Cape Breton. Eng
land was about to inflict upon him the mortification of com—
pelling him to demolish the fortifications of Dunkirk. Mean-
while, she had taken Gibraltar, and was taking Barcelona.
What great things accomplished! How was it possible to re-
fuse Anne admiration for taking the trouble of living at the
period?
From a certain point of view, the reign of Anne seems to
be a reflection of the reign of Louis XIV. In that great
race called “ history,” Queen Anne certainly bears some re-
semblance to the French monarch. Like him, she played at a
great reign; she had her monuments, her arts, her victories,
her captains, her men of letters, her privy purse to pension
celebrities, her gallery of chefs-d’aeu'vre, side by side with
those of his Majesty. Her court, too, was a cortége, with the
features of a triumph, an order, and a march. It was a
miniature copy of all the great men of Versailles, who were
not giants themselves. In it there is enough to deceive the
eye; add “ God save the Queen,” which might have been taken


202 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
from Lulli, and the ensemble becomes an illusion. Not a
personage is missing. Christopher Wren is a very passable
Mansard; Somers is as good as Lamoignon; Anne has 8. Ba-
cine in Dryden, a Boileau in Pope, a Colbert in Godolphin, a
Louvois in Pembroke, and a Turenne in Marlborough.
Heighten the wigs and lower the foreheads: the Whole effect
is solemn and pompous, and the Windsor of the time bears
a faded resemblance to Marly. Still, the whole was effem-
inate, and Anne’s Pere Tellier was called Sarah Jennings.
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 Tartufi'e is unmasked by Swift just
in the same way as the Catholic Tartufi'e is denounced by
Moliére. Although the England of that period quarrels and
fights with 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 ap—
peared in 1702, as Louis XIV. declined. It is one of the
curiosities of history that the rise of this pale planet coin-
cides with the setting of the purple planet, and that at the
very time France had the Sun king England should have had
the Moon queen.
One fact is well worthy of note. Louis XIV., although
they waged war upon him, was greatly admired in England.
“ He is just the kind of a king they need in France,” said
the English. The love of the English for their own liberty
is mingled with a certain acceptance of servitude for others.
Their favourable opinion of the chains which bind their
neighbours sometimes amounts to enthusiasm for the despot
next door.
To sum up, Anne rendered her people human; as the
French translator of Beeverell’s book repeats three times, with
graceful reiteration, in the sixth and ninth page of his dedi—
' cation and the third of his preface.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 203
IV
QUEEN ANNE bore the Duchess Josiana a slight grudge,
-—— for two reasons. Firstly, because she thought the Duch-
ess Josiana handsome. Secondly, because she thought the
Duchess Josiana’s betrothed handsome. Two reasons for
jealousy are sufficient for a woman; one is suflicient for a
queen. Let us add that she bore her a grudge for being her
sister.
Anne did not like women to be pretty. She considered
it contrary to good morals. As for herself, she was ugly,
-—-not from choice, however. She derived a part of her re-
ligion from that ugliness. Josiana, beautiful and philo-
sophical, was a cause of vexation to the queen. A pretty
duchess is not a desirable sister to an ugly queen.
There was another grievance,— Josiana’s “improper ”
birth.
Anne was the daughter of Anne Hyde, a simple gentle-
woman, lawfully but vexatiously married by James II. when
Duke of York. Anne, having this inferior blood in her
veins, felt herself but half royal; and Josiana, having come
into the world irregularly, drew closer attention to the in—
correctness, less great, but really existing, in the birth of
the queen. The daughter of a mésalliance disliked to see the
daughter of bastardy so near her. It was an unpleasant re—
minder. Josiana had a right to say to Anne, “ My mother
was at least as good as yours.” Of course at court no one
said so, but they evidently thought it. This was a bore for
her Royal Majesty. Why did this Josiana exist? What
had put it into her head to be born? What good was a
Josiana? Some relationships are detrimental.
Nevertheless, Anne smiled on J osiana. Perhaps she might
even have liked her, bad she not been her sister.


204 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
CHAPTER VI
BARKILPHEDBO
T is well to know what people are doing, and a certain sur-
veillance is wise.
Josiana had Lord David watched by a creature of hers,
whom she thought she could trust, and whose name was
Barkilphedro. Lord David had Josiana secretly watched by
a creature of his, of whom he felt sure, and whose name was
Barkilphedro. Queen Anne, for her part, kept herself se-
cretly informed of the actions and conduct of the Duchess
Josiana, her bastard sister, and of Lord David her future
brother-in-law (on the left hand), by a creature of hers
whom she trusted implicitly, and whose name was Barkil-
phedro.
Barkilphedro had not always held the magnificent position
of whisperer into three ears. He was an old servant of the
'Duke of York. He had tried to be a clergyman, but had
failed. The Duke of York, an English and Roman prince,
compounded of royal Popery and legal Anglicanism, had his
Catholic household and his Protestant household, and might
have pushed Barkilphedro in 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 cer—
tain reptile souls; and some roads are impracticable, so that
one must crawl flat on one’s belly.
An obscure but fattening servitude had long made up
Barkilphedro’s existence. Service is something; but he
wanted power besides. He was, perhaps, about to attain it
when James II. fell; then he had to begin all over again.
There was no chance for him under William III., a sullen
prince, exercising in his mode of reigning a prudery which


,THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 205
he believed to be probity. Barkilphedro, when his protector
James II. was dethroned, did not lapse at once into rags.
There is a something which survives deposed princes, and
which feeds and sustains their parasites. The remains of the
exhaustible sap causes leaves to live on for two or three days
on the branches of the uprooted tree; then, all at once, the
leaf yellows and dries up: and thus it is with the courtier.
Thanks to that embalming process which is called legitimacy,
the prince himself, although fallen and cast away, is pre~
served; it is not so with the courtier, who is much more dead
than the king. The king over yonder is a mummy; the cour-
tier here is a phantom. To be the shadow of a shadow is
leanness indeed. Hence Barkilphedro became famished; then
he took up the character of a man of letters. But he was
thrust out 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 dis-
tress he possessed. He had, besides, the talent of the termite,
-—-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 anecdotes of fidelity, and of touching stories,
he pierced the Duchess Josiana’s heart.
Josiana took a liking to this man of poverty and wit,—
an interesting combination. She introduced 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 sometimes even spoke to him. Barkilphedro knew
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 cus-
tom. The day came when Fabre d’Eglantine said to the
Duchesse de Rohan: “ N’est-tu pas la Chabot? ”
For Barkilphedro to be “thee’d” and “ thou’d” was a
triumph; he was overjoyed by it. He had aspired to this


206 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
contemptuous familiarity. “ Lady Josiana thees~and-thous
me,” he would say to himself; and he would rub his hands.
He profited by this theeing-and-thouing to make further
progress. He became a constant attendant in Josiana’s pri-
vate rooms,— in no way troublesome, unnoticed; in fact, the
duchess would almost have changed her shift before him. All
this, however, was precarious. Barkilphedro was aiming at
an assured position. A duchess is only a half-way house; an
underground passage which did not lead to the queen was not
worth boring.
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. “ Among the offices to which >
thou art unsuited, which dost thou desire? ”
“ That of cork-drawer of the bottles of the ocean.”
J osiana’s laughter redoubled. “ What meanest thou?
Thou art jesting.”
“ 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 appoint-
ment of that kind?”
“ Yes, madam.” _
“ That is news to me. Go on.”
“ There is such an appointment, however.”
“ Swear it by the soul which thou dost not possess.”
“ I swear it.”
“ I do not believe thee.”
“ Thank you, madam.”


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 207
“ Then thou wishest -- Say it again.”
“ To uncork the bottles of the ocean.”
“ That is a situation which can give you very little trou-
ble. It is like grooming a bronze horse.”
“ Very nearly.”
“ Nothing to do. Well, ’t is a situation that would suit
thee. Thou art just about equal to it, I should judge.”
“ You see I am good for something.”
“ Come! thou art talking nonsense. Is there such an ap-
pointment? ”
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 what thou tellest me any news? I know all that as
well as thou?”
“ But here is something your Grace does not know. In
the sea there are three kinds of things,—— those at the bot-
tom, laga'n; those which float, flotsam; those which the sea
casts up on the shore, jetsam.”
“ And then? ”
“ These three things—lagan, flotsam, and jetsam—be-
long to the Lord High Admiral.”
“ And then? ”
“ Your Grace understands.”
“ No.”
“ All that is in the sea, all that sinks, all that floats,
all that is cast ashore,—— all belongs to the Admiral of Eng-
land.”
“ Everything! Really? And then?”
“ Except the sturgeon, which belongs to the king.”
“ I should have thought,” said Josiana, “ that everything
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.”


208 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
“ ‘ Prizes of the sea ’ is the name given to such treasure
trove.”
“ Be it so.”
“It is boundless. There is always something floating,
something being cast up. It is the contribution of the sea,—
the tax which the ocean pays to England.”
“ With all my heart. But pray conclude.”
“ Your Grace understands that in this way the ocean cre—
ates a department.”
“ Where? ”
“ At the Admiralty.”
“ What department? ”
“ The Sea-Prize Department.”
“ Well? ”
“ The department is subdivided into three oflices,—— Lagan,
Flotsam, and Jetsam; and there is an oflicer in each.”
“ And then? ”
“A ship at sea writes to give notice on any subject to
those on land,— that it is sailing in such a 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 oflicer; if it be cast up on
shore, it concerns the jetsam oflicer.”
“ And wouldst thou like to be the jetsam officer? ”
“ Precisely so.”
“ 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 prefer—
ence 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


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 209
oonger-fishing on the strand of Epidium Promontorium, was
brought to Queen Elizabeth; and a parchment drawn out of
it gave information to England 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 chimney of
the wooden house built in the island and left by the Dutch-
men, who were all dead; and that the chimney was built of a
barrel with the end knocked out, sunk into the roof.”
“ I don’t understand much of thy rigmarole.”
“Be it so. Elizabeth understood. A country the more
for Holland was a country the less for England. The bot—
tle which had given the information was considered of im-
portance; and thenceforward an order was issued that any-
body who should find a sealed bottle on the sea—shore should
take it to the Lord High Admiral of England, under penalty
of the gallows. The Admiral intrusts the opening of such
bottles to an officer, who presents the contents to the Queen,
if there be any reason for so doing.”
“ Are many such bottles brought to the Admiralty?”
“But few. But it ’s all the same. The appointment
exists. There is a room and lodgings at the Admiralty for
the official.”
“ And what is one paid for this kind of doing nothing?”
“ 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 being poor.”
“ Thou shalt have the place.”
A week afterwards, thanks to Josiana’s exertions and to
the influence of Lord David Dirry-Moir, Barkilphedro was
14


210 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
installed at the Admiralty,—- safe thenceforward, drawn out
of his precarious existence, lodged, and boarded, with a sal
ary of a hundred guineas.

CHAPTER VII
BAEKILPHEnEo GNAWB ms WAY
HERE is one essential thing,— that is to be ungrate-
ful. Barkilphedro did not fail in this particular.
Having received so many benefits from Josiana, he had nat-
urally but one thought,— to revenge himself upon her.
When we add that J osiana was beautiful, great, young, rich,
powerful, and illustrious, while Barkilphedro was ugly, little,
old, poor, dependent, obscure,— he must necessarily revenge
himself for all this as well. When a man is made of dark—
ness, how can he forgive so many beams of light?
Barkilphedro was an Irishman who had denied Ireland,—
a had type. Barkilphedro had but one thing in his favour,
—that he had a very big belly. A big belly passes for a
sign of kind-heartedness; but this belly was only an addition
to Barkilphedro’s hypocrisy, for the man was full of malice.
What was Barkilphedro’s age? Any age whatever; that
is to say, the age necessary for the project of the moment.
He was old in his wrinkles and grey hairs, young in the
activity of his mind; he was at once active and ponderous,——
a sort of hippopotamus-monkey. A royalist, certainly; a
republican,—-— who knows? A Catholic, perhaps; a Protes-
tant, without doubt. For Stuart, probably; for Brunswick,
evidently. To be For is a power only on condition of being
at the same time Against. Barkilphedro practised this wis-
dom.
The appointment of drawer of the bottles of the ocean
was not as absurd as Barkilphedro had appeared to make


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 211
out. The complaints (which would in these times be termed
denunciations) of Garcia Fernandez, in his “ Followers of
the Sea,” against the stealing of jetsam, called right of
wreck, and against the pillaging of wreck by the inhabitants
of the sea—coast, had created a sensation in England, and had
secured for the shipwrecked this reform,—— that their goods,
chattels, and property, instead of being stolen by the coun—
try-people, were confiscated by the Lord High Admiral. All
the débris of the sea cast upon the English shore (merchan-
dise, broken hulls of ships, bales, chests, etc.) belonged to
the Lord High Admiral; but —— and here was revealed the im-
portance of the place solicited by Barkilphedro — the floating
receptacles containing messages and information received par-
ticular attention at the Admiralty. Shipwrecks excite Eng-
land’s deep solicitude. Navigation being her chief occu—
pation, shipwrecks are one of her greatest causes of anxiety.
England is kept in a state of perpetual anxiety by the sea.
The little glass bottle cast into the waves from the doomed
ship contains intelligence precious from every point of view,
—intelligence concerning the ship; intelligence concerning
the crew; intelligence concerning the place, the time, the
manner of shipwreck; intelligence concerning the winds which
broke up the vessel; intelligence concerning the cur-
rents which bore the floating flask ashore. The office
filled by Barkilphedro has been abolished more than a cen—
tury, but it had its utility. The last holder was William
Hussey, of Doddington in Lincolnshire. The man who held
it was a sort of guardian of the sea. All the closed and
sealed vessels, bottles, flasks, jars, cast upon the English coast
by the tide, were brought to him. He alone had the right
to open them; he was the first to learn the secrets they con—
tained; he put them in order, and ticketed them with his
signature. The expression “ loger un papier au grefi'e,” 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 examiners
of the Admiralty office who were sworn to secrecy, and who


212 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
signed, conjointly with the holder of the jetsam office, the
official report of the opening. But these officials being
pledged to secrecy, Barkilphedro was invested with consid—
erable discretionary power. It depended upon him, to a cer-
tain extent, to suppress a fact or bring it to light.
These frail floating messages were far from being as rare
and insignificant as Barkilphedro had asserted. Some
reached land with very little delay; others, after many years.
It depended on the winds and the currents. The fashion of
casting bottles into the sea is rather out of date 'now, like
that of thank offerings; but in those religious times, those
who were about to die were glad thus to despatch their last
thoughts to God and men, and at times these messages from
the sea were plentiful at the Admiralty. A parchment pre-
served 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.
Court appointments are the drop of oil in the widow’s
cruse, they are ever on the increase. Thus it is that the
porter has become chancellor, and the groom constable. The
special officer charged with the appointment desired and ob-
tained by Barkilphedro was usually a confidential man; Eliz-
abeth 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,— at least, what
was called the humble entrance (humilis intro‘itus),— and even
into the bedchamber; for it was the custom that he should
inform the monarch, on occasions of importance, of the ob-
jects found, which were often very curious,— the wills of
men in despair, farewells to fatherland, revelations of falsified
logs, bills of lading, crimes committed at sea, legacies to the


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 213
crown, etc,-— and should account 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 to speak Latin,
used to ask Tonfield, of Coley in Berkshire, jetsam officer in
her reign, when he brought her one of these papers cast up
by the sea: “ Quid mihi scribit Neptunus? ”
The way had been eaten, the insect had succeeded. Bar-
kilphedro had at last reached the queen. This was all he
wanted. Was it in order that he might make his fortune?
No. It was to destroy that of others. A much greater
satisfaction. To destroy affords some persons unspeakable
delight. To be imbued with a vague but implacable desire
to destroy, and never to lose sight of that desire, is not a
characteristic of every one; but Barkilphedro possessed this
fixity of purpose in an eminent degree. He clung to his re—
solve with all the tenacity of a bull—dog. To feel himself
inexorable afforded him no end of grim satisfaction. So
long as he had a victim in his clutches, or a certainty of in—
juring him in his soul, he asked nothing more. He shivered
content if he knew that his neighbour was suffering with the
cold.
Catesby, the colleague of Guy Fawkes, in the Popish pow-
der plot, said: “ I would n’t miss seeing Parliament blown
upside down for a million sterling.” Barkilphedro was that
meanest and most terrible of things,-— an envious man.
There is always room for envy at court. Courts abound in
impertinent people, in idlers, in rich loungers hungering for
gossip; in those who seek for needles in haystacks; in triflers,
in banterers bantered; in witty ninnies, who cannot do with-
out converse with an envious man. What a refreshing thing
the evil you hear about others is! Envy is good stuff to
make a spy of. There is a profound analogy between that
natural passion envy and that social function espionage.
The spy hunts on some other person’s account, like the dog;
the envious man hunts on his own account like the cat. The
envious man is generally a fierce man; but Barkilphedro was


214, THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
singularly cautious and reserved. He guarded his secret well,
and racked himself with his hate. Enormous basenes im-
plies enormous vanity. He was liked by those whom he
amused, and hated by all others; but he felt that he was
scorned by those who hated him, and despised even by those
who liked him. He restrained himself; all his gall simmered
noiselessly. He was a silent prey of the Furies. He had a
talent for swallowing everything. Paroxysms of internal
rage convulsed him, fierce fires smouldered unseen in his breast.
He was a smoke-consuming man of passion. The surface was
serene. He was kind, prompt, easy, amiable, obliging.
Never mind to whom, never mind where, he bowed with every
breath of wind; he bowed to the earth. What a source of
fortune to have such a reed for a spine!
Such crafty and venomous beings are not so rare as is be-
lieved. We live surrounded by ill-natured, crawling things.
Why are such malevolent creatures allowed to exist? A nat-
ural question! The dreamer continually puts it to himself,
and the thinker never solves it. Hence the sad eye of the
philosophers ever fixed upon that mountain of darkness which
is destiny, and from the top of which the colossal spectre of
evil casts handfuls of serpents over the earth.
Barkilphedro’s body was obese, and his face lean,-— a broad
chest and a bony countenance. His nails were grooved and
short, his fingers knotty, his thumbs flat, his hair coarse, his
temples wide apart; and his broad, low forehead was that of a
murderer. His small eyes were nearly hidden by his bushy
eyebrows. His long, sharp, and flabby nose nearly met his
mouth. Barkilphedro, properly attired as an emperor, would
have certainly resembled Domitian. His muddy, sallow face
might have been modelled in slimy paste; his immovable cheeks
were like putty; he had all kinds of ugly wrinkles; the angle
of his jaw was massive, his chin heavy, his ears coarse. In re—
pose, and seen in profile, his upper lip was raised at an acute
angle, showing two teeth. Those teeth seemed to glare at
you; for the teeth can glare, just as the eye can bite. Pa-
tience, temperance, continence, reserve, self-control, amenity,


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 215
deference, gentleness, politeness, sobriety, chastity, completed
and finished Barkilphedro; but he degraded these virtues
by possessing them.
In a short time Barkilphedro gained a firm foothold at
court.
CHAPTER VIII
INFEBI
HERE are two ways of gaining a foothold at court,—
in the clouds, and one is august; in the mud, and one
is powerful. In the first case, you belong on Olympus. In
the second case, you belong in the private closet. He who
belongs on Olympus has but the thunderbolt to serve him;
he who is in the private closet has the police at his command.
The private closet contains all the instruments of govern—
ment, and sometimes (for it is a traitor) its chastisements as
well. Generally it is less tragic. It is there that Alberoni
admires Vendome. Royal personages willingly make it their
place of audience; it takes the place of the throne. Louis
XIV. receives the Duchess of Burgundy there; Philip V. is
shoulder to shoulder there with the queen. The priest pene—
trates into it. The private closet is sometimes a branch of
the confessional; therefore it is that at court there are un—
derground 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 Oliver 1e Daim, the
barber. If you would be glorious under Marie de Medicis, be
Sillery, the Chancellor; if you would be a person of consid—
eration, be Hannon, the maid. If you would be illustrious
under Louis XV., be Choiseul, the minister;-if you would be
formidable, be Lebel, the valet. Given Louis XIV., Bon-
temps who makes his bed is more powerful than Louvois who
raises his armies, and Turenne 'who gains his victories. Take


216 THE hIAN WHO LAUGHS
Pere Joseph from Richelieu, and you have little left. There
is mystery at least; his eminence in scarlet is magnificent, his
eminence in grey is terrible. What power in being a worm!
All the Narvaez combined with all the O’Donnells achieve less
than one Sister Patrocinio. Of course, the condition of this
power is littleness. If you would remain powerful, remain
petty,— be nothing. The serpent in repose, twisted into a
circle, is a figure at the same time of the infinite and of
naught.
One of these ignoble opportunities had fallen to Barkil—
phedro. He had crawled where he wanted. Vermin can get
in anywhere. Louis XIV. had bugs in his bed and Jesuits
in his policy. There is no incompatibility in this. In this
world, 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 afiinity between
extreme elevation and extreme debasement. It is the scullion
who directs; nothing is easier of comprehension. It is the
person below who pulls the string. No position could be more
convenient. He is the eye, and he has the ear. He is the
eye of the government; he has the ear of the king. To have
the ear of the king is to draw and shut at will the bolt of the
royal conscience, and to throw into that conscience whatever
one wishes. The mind of a king is your cupboard; if you
are a rag-picker, itvis your basket. The ears of kings are
not their own; consequently the poor devils are not altogether
responsible for their actions. He who is not master of his
own thoughts is not accountable for his own deeds.
A king obeys -— what? Any evil spirit buzzing from out—
side in his ear; a noisome fly of the slums. This buzzing rules
him. A reign is a dictation: the loud voice is the sovereign;
the muffled voice is the sovereignty. Those who know how
to distinguish this mufiied voice in a reign, and to hear its
whispers, are the real historians.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 217
CHAPTER IX
HATE 1s AS STRONG as LOVE
UEEN ANNE had several of these ignoble advisers
around her. Barkilphedro was one. He also se-
cretly 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.,
who was in love with Henrietta his sister-in-law, and Henri-
etta, who was in love with Louis XIV. her brother-in—law,
he as Louis’s secretary, without the knowledge of Henrietta,
and as Henrietta’s without the knowledge of Louis, wrote
the questions and answers of both the love-making marion-
ettes.
Barkilphedro was so cheerful, so compliant, so incapable
of espousing the cause of any one, so ugly, so mischievous,
that it was quite natural that a regal personage should soon
be unable to do without him. Once Anne had tried Barkil-
phedro, she would have no other flatterer. He flattered her
as they flattered Louis the Great, by disparaging her neigh—
bours. “ The king being ignorant,” says Madame de Mont—
chevreuil, “ one is obliged to sneer at the savants.” To
poison the sting, from time to time, is the acme of art. Nero
loves to see Locusta at work. .
Royal palaces are very easily entered; a pretext suflices.
Barkilphedro, having found this pretext, his position with
the queen soon became the same as that with the Duchess
Josiana,—— that of an indispensable domestic animal. A wit-
tieism ventured one day immediately led to a perfect under—
standing of the queen’s character, and a correct estimate of
her kindness of heart. The queen was greatly attached to
her Lord Steward, William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire,
who was very stupid. This lord, who had obtained every


218 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
' —v_¢-v;=-_ur~'
Oxford degree and yet did not know how to spell, one fine
morning committed the folly of dying. To die is a very im—
prudent thing at court, for then there is no further restraint
in speaking of you. The queen, in the presence of Barkil-
phedro, lamented the event, finally exclaiming, with a sigh:
“ It is a pity that so many virtues should have been borne
and served by so poor an intellect.”
“ Dieu veuille avoir son ane!” whispered Barkilphedro, in
a low voice, and in French.
The queen smiled. Barkilphedro noted the smile, and con-,
cluded that biting pleased her. Free license had been given
to his spite. From that day he thrust his curiosity every—
where, and his malignity with it. No one ventured to oppose
him, so greatly was he feared. He who can make the king
laugh makes all the others tremble. He was a cunning ras—
cal. Every day he worked his way forward -— underground.
Barkilphedro became a necessity; and many great persons
honoured him with their confidence, to the extent of intrust-
ing him with their disgraceful commissions. There are wheels
within wheels at court. Barkilphedro became, the motive
power. Have you ever noticed, 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, trusted him so im—
plicitly that she had not hesitated to intrust him with a pass-
key, by means of which he was able to enter her apartments
at any hour. This excessive license of insight into private
life was in fashion in the seventeenth century; it was called
“ giving the key.” Josiana had given two of these confi—
dential 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 startling incidents. La Ferté, suddenly
drawing back the bed-curtains of Mademoiselle Lafont, found
inside Sainson of the Black Musketeers.
Barkilphedro excelled in making those cunning discoveries
which place the great in the power of the humble. Like
1-- ,,
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"I' A 1


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 219
every perfect spy, the cruelty of the executioner and the
patience of a micograph entered largely into his composition.
He was a born courtier. Every courtier is a noctambulist.
The courtier prowls about in the night with a dark—lantern
in his hand. He lights up the spot he wishes, and remains
in darkness himself. What he is seeking 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 aspire. Irony aimed at
any one except themselves has a charm for them. The talent
of Barkilphedro consisted in a perpetual dwarfing of the
peers and princes to the advantage of her Majesty’s stature,
thereby increased proportionately.
The pass-key held by Barkilphedro was made with a dif—
ferent set of wards at each end,'so as to open the private
apartments in both Josiana’s favourite residences,— Hun-
kerville House in London, and 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 above his head, and a carved lion and unicorn beneath
his feet. From Hunkerville House, in an easterly wind, you
could hear the bells of St. Marylebone. Corleone Lodge was
a Florentine palace of brick and stone, with a marble colon—
nade, built on pilework, at Windsor, near the head of the
wooden bridge, and having one of the finest courts in Eng—
land. In this last palace, near Windsor Castle, Josiana was
within the queen’s reach. Nevertheless, Josiana liked it.
Barkilphedro’s influence over the queen, though apparently
so insignificant, was deeply rooted. To exterminate these
noxious weeds from a court is extremely difficult, for though
they have taken a deep root, they offer no hold above the
surface. To root out a Roquelaure, a Tribulet, or a Brum—
mel, 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 unknown,— his existence remains


220 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
ignored; the name of Barkilphedro has not reached as far
as history. All the moles are not caught by the mole-trap-
per. Barkilphedro, having once been a candidate for orders,
had studied a little of everything. Skimming all things re-
sults in naught. One may be a victim of the omnis res scibilis.
Having the vessel of the Dana'ides in one’s head is the misfor-
tune of a legion 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 a vacuum. Into empti-
ness, where Nature puts love, the mind often puts hate.
There is such a thing as hating merely for the sake of hating.
A man hates because he must do something. Gratuitous
hatred,— what a strange expression! It means hate which
is in itself its own reward. The bear lives by licking his
claws,-—- not indefinitely, of course; the claws must be re—
victualled,— something must be put into them. A hatred
of mankind in general is sweet, and suffices for a time; but
one must eventually have a definite object. An animosity
diffused over all creation is exhausting, like every solitary
pleasure. Hate without an object is like a shooting-match
without a target; what lends interest to the game is a heart
to be pierced. One cannot hate solely for the honour of it;
some seasoning is necessary,— a man, a woman, somebody, to
destroy.
This service of making the game interesting, of offering
an aim, of adding a zest to hatred 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
uselessly winged lark, of being a victim unwittingly reared
for murder by a master-mind,— all this exquisite and hor-
rible service, of which the person rendering it is unconscious,
Josiana rendered Barkilphedro. Thought is a projectile.
Barkilphedro had, from the very first, aimed at Josiana the
evil intentions which were in his mind. An intention and a
carbine are alike. Barkilphedro aimed at Josiana, directing
all his secret malice against the duchess. That astonishes

wwrwsfl‘ --’-/-.....‘A


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 221
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 wounded in the heart; the spot where
that enigma lies is hard to wound. But she could be wounded
in the head; that is, in her pride. It was there that she
deemed herself strong, and that she was really very weak.
Barkilphedro had found this out. If Josiana had been able
to read his mind clearly, if she had been able to distinguish
what lay in ambush behind his smile, that proud woman would
have trembled. Fortunately for the tranquillity of her sleep,
she was in complete ignorance of the man’s real character.
The unforeseen lurks one knows not where. There is no
such thing as petty hatred; hatred is always dangerous, even
in the smallest creature. An elephant hated by even an ant
is in danger. -
Barkilphedro did not know as yet what he was going to
do to Josiana; but he had made up his mind to do some-
thing. To have come to this decision was a great step taken.
To crush Josiana utterly would have been too great a tri-
umph. He could not hope for that; but to humiliate her,
wound her, bring her to grief, redden her proud eyes with
tears of rage,-—- what happiness! He counted on it. Tena-
cious, diligent, faithful to the torment of his neighbour, not
to be moved from his purpose,— Nature had not formed him
for nothing. He understood how to find the flaw in Josiana’s
golden armour, and how to make the blood of this goddess
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 ungrate-
f ul one. He hates the sun that lights and warms him.
Zoilus hated that benefactor of mankind, Homer. To inflict
on J osiana what would nowadays be called vivisection; to have
her, all convulsed, on his anatomical table; to dissect her alive,
at his leisure, in some surgery; to cut her up, bit by bit, while
she shrieked with agony,--— this dream delighted Barkilphe—
dro! To arrive at this result it was necessary to sufi'er some


222 THE MAN YVHO LAUGHS
himself he did so willingly. We may pinch ourselves with
our own pincers; the knife as it shuts cuts our fingers,—
what does that matter? That he should partake of J osiana’s
torture was a matter of little moment. The executioner han-
dling the red—hot iron, when about to brand a prisoner, does
not mind a little burn. As another suffers so much, he suffers
nothing. To see the victim’s writhings makes the inflicter
forget his own pain. Destroy, by all means, come what may !
To plot evil against others is mingled with an acceptance
of some responsibility. We risk ourselves in the danger which
We are bringing upon another, because the chain of events
sometimes, of course, brings unexpected accidents. This does
not stop the really malicious man. His enjoyment is pro—
portionate to the victim’s agony. The malicious man de-
lights only in the sufferings of others; 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 feelings should be possible makes one
shudder. Our dark side is unfathomable. Supplies emquis,
—“ exquisite torture ” (the expression is in Bodin 1),—— has
perhaps this terrible triple sense: search for the torture, suf—
fering of the tortured, delight of the torturer. Ambition,
appetite,—— all such words signify some one sacrificed for
some one’s gratification. Can it be that the outpourings of
our wishes flow naturally in the direction to which we most
incline, that of evil? One of the hardest labours of the just
man is to expunge malevolence from his soul. Almost all
our desires, when closely examined, contain what we dare not
avow. In the thoroughly wicked man this malevolence exists
in hideous perfection. So much the worse for others signi-
fies so much the better for himself. Oh, the deep depravity
of the human heart!
Josiana, with that sense of security which results from
ignorant pride, had a supreme contempt for all danger.
The feminine power of disdain is extraordinary. Josiana’s
1300]: W. p. 196.
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THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 22s
was unreasoning, involuntary, and confident. Barkilphedro
was in her eyes so contemptible that she would have been as-
tonished had any one hinted at such a thing as danger from
that source. So she went and came and laughed before this
man who was watching her with evil eyes, hiding his time.
In proportion as he waited, his determination to imbitter
this woman’s life augmented. In the mean time he gave him—
self excellent reasons for his determination. It must not be
supposed that scoundrels are deficient in self-esteem; they
enter into details with themselves in their lofty monologues,
and they carry matters with a high hand. True, this Josi-
ana 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
him. Yes; that he, Barkilphedro, almost a clergyman, of
varied and profound talents, a learned man, with the mate—
rial in him for a bishop, should have to spend his time reg—
istering nasty, patience-trying shards; that he should have
to pass his life in the garret of a register—office, gravely un-
corking stupid bottles incrusted with all the nastiness of the
sea, deciphering musty parchments, dirty wills, and other
illegible stuff of the kind,— was all the fault of this Josiana.
Worst of all, this creature “ thee’d” and “thou’d” him!
And should he not revenge himself? Should he not punish
such conduct? In that case, there would be no such thing as
justice here below!

CHAPTER X
THE FLAME WHICH WOULD BE SEEN IF MAN WERE
TRANSPARENT
HAT! this woman; this extravagant thing; this libidi—
nous dreamer; this bold creature under a princess’s
coronet; this Diana through pride, not yet captured merely
because chance had so willed it; this illegitimate daughter


224 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
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, but who had she been poor would have
been a prostitute,— this appropriator of a proscribed man’s
goods, this overbearing strumpet, because one day, he, Bar-
kilphedro, had not money enough to buy his dinner, and to
get a lodging, had had the impudence to seat him at the
corner of a table in her house, 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 mat-
ter?-— a little better than her valets, a little worse than her
horses. She had taken advantage of his distress (his, Bar-
kilphedro’s) in hastening to do him a pretended favour,—— a
thing which the rich do in order to humiliate the poor, and
attach them to their pretended benefactors like curs led by a
string. Besides, what had the service she rendered him cost
her? A service is worth what it costs, and no more. She
had too many rooms in her house, so she came to Barkilphe—
dro’s aid! A great boon, indeed! Had she eaten a spoonful
the less of turtle soup for it? Had she deprived herself of
any of her superfluous luxuries? No. She had only added
another to them,— a good action like a ring on her finger,—
the relief of a man of wit, the patronage of a clergyman.
She could give herself airs; say, “ I lavish kindness; I fill
the mouths of men of letters; I am his benefactress. How
lucky 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 which Barkilphedro owed
to Josiana,— by Jove! a petty appointment that! Josiana
had made Barkilphedro what he was! She had created him!
Be it so. 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 hunch—
back to the mother who bore him deformed. Behold your
privileged ones, your folks overwhelmed with fortune, your
parvenus, your favourites of that horrid step—mother, For-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 225
tune! And here, Barkilphedro, a man of talent, was obliged
to wait on staircases, to bow to footmen, to climb to the top of
the house at night, to be courteous, assiduous, pleasant, re-
spectful, and to have a respectful grimace ever on his face!
Was it not enough to make him gnash his teeth with rage!
And all the while she was putting pearls round her neck, and
making amorous poses for that fool Lord David Dirry-Moir,
——- the hussy!
Never let any one do you a service; he is sure to abuse the
advantage it gives him. Never allow yourself to be found in
a state of starvation,— some one will relieve you. Because
Barkilphedro was starving, this woman had thought it a suf-
ficient pretext to give him bread; from that moment he was
her servant! A craving of the stomach, and you are chained
for life! To be under obligations is to be a slave. The
happy, the powerful, make use of the moment you stretch
out your hand to place a penny in it; and in your hour of
need they make you a slave, and a slave of the worst kind,—
the slave of an act of charity; a slave forced to love the en-
slaver. What infamy! what want of delicacy! what a blow
to your self-respect! Then all is over. You are condemned
for life to consider this man good, that woman beautiful; to
approve, to applaud, to admire, to worship; to prostrate
yourself; to blister your knees by long genufiections; to
sugar your words when you are gnawing your lips with anger,
when you are smothering your cries of fury, and when you
have within you more savage turbulence and more bitter foam
than the ocean! It is thus that the rich make slaves of the
poor. The slime of this good action performed towards you
bedaubs and bespatters you with mud for evermore.
The acceptance of alms is irremediable. Gratitude is par-
alyzing. A benefit has a sticky and repugnant adherence
which deprives you of free movement. Those odious, opulent,
and spoiled creatures whose pity has thus injured you are
well aware of this. It is done,— you are their creature; they
have bought you! How? By a bone taken from their dog
and cast to you! they have flung the bone at your head; you
15


226 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
have been stoned as well as fed. It is all one. Have you
gnawed the bone,“ yes or no? You have had your place
in the dog-kennel just the same; then be thankful,— be eter-
nally thankful. Adore your masters; kneel on indefinitely.
A benefit implies an understood inferiority accepted by you.
It means that you feel them to be gods and yourself a poor
devil. Your humiliation increases their importance; your
cringing form makes theirs seem more upright; there is an
impertinent inflection in the very tones of their voices. Their
family matters, their marriages, their baptisms, their child-
bearings, their progeny, all concern you. A wolf-cub is born
to them; well, you have to compose a sonnet; you are a poet
because you are so low. Is n’t it enough to make the stars
fall? A little more, and they would make you wear their
old shoes!
“ Whom have you got there, my dear? How ugly he is!
Who is that man? ”——“ I do not know. A sort of scholar,
whom I feed.” Thus converse these idiots, without even low-
ering their voices. You hear, and remain mechanically ami-
able. If you are ill, your masters will send for the doctor,—
not their own; occasionally they may even inquire after you.
Being of entirely different clay from you, and so immeasur-
ably far above you, they are affable; their superiority makes
them condescending; they know that equality is impossible.
At table they give you a little nod; sometimes they abso-
lutely know how your name is spelt! They only show that
they are your protectors by walking unconsciously over all
the delicacy and susceptibility you possess. They treat you
with good-nature. Is all this to be borne?
No doubt Barkilphedro was eager to punish Josiana. He
must teach her with whom she had to deal! Oh, my rich
lords and ladies! merely because you cannot eat up every-
thing; because opulence causes indigestion, seeing that your
stomachs are no bigger than ours; because it is, after all, bet—
ter to distribute the remainder than to throw it away,-— you
exalt a morsel flung to the poor into an act of munificence.
You give us bread, you give us shelter, you give us clothes,

W i A J I “P?” ’~./-717'": —


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 227
you give us employment; and you carry audacity, folly, cru-
elty, 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 think you have a right to humiliate us with lodging
and nourishment, and you imagine that we are your debtors,
and count on our gratitude? Very well! we will eat up your
substance; we will devour you alive, and tear your heart—
strings with our teeth.
This Josiana! was it not absurd? What merit did she
possess? She had accomplished the wonderful feat of coming
into the world as a testimony to the folly of her father and
the shame of her mother. She had done us the favour to
exist; and for her kindness in 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
laboured and taken pains, and stufl'ed 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 Dry—
den; who was made to be an emperor,—— Barkilphedro had
been reduced to allowing this nobody to prevent him from
dying of hunger! Could the usurpation of the rich, the hate-
ful, spoiled darlings of fortune go further? They put on a
semblance of being generous to us, of protecting us, and we
smile,— we who would gladly drink their blood and lick our
lips afterwards! That this low woman of the court should
have the presumption to patrouize him, and that such a su—
perior man as himself should be obliged to accept such gifts
from such a hand,—— what a frightful iniquity! What kind
of a social system is this which is founded on such gross in-
justice? Would it not be best to take it by the four corners,
and to throw pell-mell t0 the ceiling the damask table-cloth,
and the festival and the orgies, and the tippling and drunk-


228 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
enness, 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 fling it all back in
the face of Providence! In the mean time let us vent our
wrath on Josiana.
Thus mused Barkilphedro; such were the ravings of his
soul. It is the habit of the envious man to absolve himself of
public wrongs with his own personal grievances. All the
wilder forms of hateful passions racked the mind of this fero—
cious being. In the corners of old maps of the world pub-
lished in the fifteenth century are big vacant spaces, without
shape or name, on which are written these three words: “ Hic
sunt leones.” There is a similar corner in the human soul.
Passions rage and growl somewhere within us, and we truly
may say of the dark side of our souls that “ there are lions
here.”
Is this chain of reasoning absolutely absurd? Does it lack
a certain amount of justice? We must confess it does not.
It is fearful to think that the judgment within us is not jus-
tice. Judgment is relative; justice is absolute. Think of
the difference between a judge and a just man. Wicked men
lead conscience astray with authority. There are gymnastics
of untruth. A sophist is a forger, and this forger sometimes
brutalizes good sense. A certain very supple, very impla-
cable, and very agile logic is at the service of evil, and ex-
cels in stabbing truth in the dark. These are blows aimed
by the devil at Providence.
The worst of it was that Barkilphedro had a presentiment
of failure. He was undertaking a difficult task, and he was
afraid that, after all, the evil achieved might not be propor-
tionate to the work. To be as full of corrosion as he'was;
to possess a will of steel; to be imbued with such an intense
hatred and wild longing for the catastrophe,— and yet to
burn nothing, to decapitate nothing, to exterminate nothing!
To possess such powers of devastation, such voracious animos—
ity; to have been created (for there is a creator, whether God
or devil), Barkilphedro,-— and to inflict perhaps after all


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 229
only a tap of the finger! Could this be possible? Could it
be that Barkilphedro would 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 af-
fected woman a bump in the forehead; to accomplish the task
of Sisyphus, and crush only an ant; to sweat all over with
hate, and for nothing,— would not this be humiliating, when
he felt himself a murderous engine 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 perhaps only succeed in pinching the
tip of a little rosy finger! He must turn huge blocks of mar-
ble over and over, perchance with no other result than ruf-
fling the smooth surface of the court a little! Providence
has a way of expending its forces grandly. The movement
of a mountain often only displaces a mole-hill!
Besides, when the court is the arena, nothing is more dan—
gerous 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 displeases the master. Kings do not like the un-
skilful. Let us have no contusions, no ugly gashes; kill any-
body, but give no one a bloody nose. He who kills is clever;
he who wounds is awkward. Kings do not like to see their
servants lamed; they are displeased if you chip a porcelain
jar on their chimney-piece, or a courtier in their cortége.
The court must be kept neat; break and replace,— that does
not matter. Besides, all this agrees perfectly with the taste
of princes for scandal. Speak evil, do none; or if you do,
let it be in grand style. Stab, do not scratch, unless the pin
be poisoned. This would be an extenuating circumstance,
and was, we may remember, the case with Barkilphedro.
Every malicious pygmy is a phial in which is enclosed
Solomon’s dragon. The phial is microscopic in size; the
dragon is immense,—— a formidable condensation, awaiting the
gigantic hour of dilation; ennui consoled by the premedita-
tion of explosion! The prisoner is larger than the prison.
A latent giant,——- how wonderful! 8. minnow which contains


230 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
a hydra! To be this fearful magical box, to contain within
himself a Leviathan, is to the dwarf both a torture and a de-
light.
Nor would anything have caused Barkilphedro to let go
his hold. He was hiding his time. Would it ever come?
Who knows? He was certainly watching for it. Self-love
is mixed up in the malice of the very wicked man. To make
holes and gaps in a fortune higher than your own; to under-
mine it at all risks and perils, carefully concealed, yourself,
I the while,— is, we repeat, extremely exciting. The player at
such a game becomes eager, even to passion; he throws him—
self 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 tries to vent his rage upon
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!”
These reflections, however, only half appeased the cravings
of Barkilphedro’s pride; they were poor consolation. To
annoy is one thing; to torment would be infinitely better.
One thought haunted Barkilphedro incessantly: he might not
succeed in doing more than slightly irritate Josiana’s epi-
dermis. What more could he hope for,——— he being so ob-
scure, and she so far above him! A mere scratch is but little
satisfaction to him who longs to see the crimson blood of his
flayed victim, and to hear her cries as she lies before him
worse than naked, without even the natural covering of her
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 something after all.
What a man is he who revenges himself for a benefit re-
ceived! Barkilphedro was a giant among such men. Us-
ually, ingratitude is forgetfulness; with this man, steeped in
wickedness, it was fury. The ordinary ingrate is full of


THE MAN WHO'LAUGHS 231
ashes: what was in Barkilphedro? A furnace,—a furnace
walled around with hate, silence, and rancour, awaiting Josi-
ana for fuel! Never had a man abhorred a woman to such
an extent without cause. How terrible! He thought of her
all day and dreamed of her all night. Perhaps he was a little
in love with her.

CHAPTER XI
BARKILPHEDRO IN AMBUSCADE
0 find the vulnerable spot in Josiana, and to strike her
there, was, for the causes we have just mentioned, the
imperturbable determination of Barkilphedro. The wish,
however, was not enough; the power to accomplish it was also
necessary. How was he to set about it? That was the ques-
tion.
Vulgar vagabonds set with care the scene of any wick-
edness they intend to commit. They do not feel themeslves
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. Cunning scoundrels disdain preliminary combi-
nations; they start out to perform their villainies alone, after
arming themselves thoroughly, prepared to avail themselves
of any chances which may occur, and then, like Barkilphedro,
aWait the opportunity. They know that a ready—made
scheme runs the risk of fitting ill into the events which may
present themselves. It is not thus that a man makes him-
self master of possibilities, and guides them as one pleases.
You can make no arrangements with destiny; to-morrow will
not obey you. There is a great want of discipline about
chance; therefore they watch for it, and summon it suddenly,
authoritatively, on the spot,——— no plan, no sketch, no rough
model, no ready-made shoe ill-fitting the unexpected; they
plunge headlong into the dark. To turn to immediate and
"A. c‘": ;
43,-. ,n._
~


282 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS

rapid profit any circumstance that can aid him is the quality
which distinguishes the able scoundrel, and elevates the vil-
lain into the demon. To make yourself master of circum—
stances, that is true genius. The real scoundrel strikes you
with the first stone he can pick up. Clever malefactors count
on the unexpected, that strange accomplice in so many
crimes; they grasp the incident and leap on it: there is no
better Ara poetica for this species of talent. Meanwhile be
sure with whom you have to deal; survey the ground care-
fully.
With Barkilphedro the ground was Queen Anne. Barkil—
phedro approached the queen, and so close that sometimes he
fancied he heard the monologues of her Majesty. Sometimes
he was present at conversations between the sisters; neither
did they forbid his slipping in a word now and then. He
profited by this to disparage himself,—a way of inspiring
confidence. One day in the garden at Hampton Court, be-
ing behind the duchess, who was behind the queen, he heard
Anne enunciate this sentiment:—
"‘ Brute beasts are fortunate; they run no risk of going
to hell.”
“ They are there already,” replied Josiana.
This answer, which bluntly substituted philosophy for re-
ligion, displeased the queen. If, perchance, there was any
meaning in the observation, Anne felt that she ought to ap—
pear shocked.
“ My dear,” said she to Josiana, “ we talk of hell like a
couple of fools. We had better ask Barkilphedro about it.
He ought to know all about such things.”
“ As a devil? ” said Josiana.
“ As a beast,” replied Barkilphedro, with a bow.
“ Madam,” said the queen to Josiana, “ he is cleverer than
we.”
For a man like Barkilphedro to approach the queen was
to obtain a hold on her. He could say, “ I hold her.” Now,
he wanted a means of taking advantage of his power for his
own benefit. He had a foothold in the court. To be set-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 233
tled there was a fine thing; no change could now escape him.
More than once he had made the "queen smile maliciously.
This was equivalent to having a license to shoot. But was
there any preserved game? Did this license to shoot permit
him to break the wing or the leg of one like the sister of her
Majesty? The first point to make clear was, did the queen
love her sister? One false step would lose all. Barkilphe-
dro watched.
Before he plays, the player examines his cards. What
trumps has he? Barkilphedro began by comparing the ages
of the two women,——— Josiana, twenty-three; Anne, forty—one.
So far so good; he held trumps. The moment that a woman
ceases to count her age by springs, and begins to count by
winters, she becomes cross. A dull rancour possesses her
against the age of which she carries the marks. Fresh—
blown beauties, perfumes for others, are to such a one but
thorns. Of the roses she feels but the prick. It seems as if
all the freshness is stolen from her, and that beauty decreases
in her because it increases in others.
To profit by this secret ill—humour, to deepen the furrows
on the face of this woman of forty, who was a queen, seemed
a good game for Barkilphedro. Envy excels in exciting
jealousy, as a rat lures the crocodile from its hole. Barkil—
phedro fixed his wise gaze 0n Anne. He saw into the queen,
as one sees into a stagnant pool. The marsh has its trans-
parency. In dirty water we see vices; in muddy water we
see stupidity. Anne’s mind was like muddy water. Em~
bryos of sentiments and larvae of ideas moved sluggishly
about in her thick brain. They were not distinct: they had
scarcely any outline,—— but they were realities, though shape-
less. The queen thought this; the queen. desired that,—— tov
decide what, was the difficulty. The confused transforma-'
tions which go on in stagnant water are difiicult to study.
The queen though habitually reserved, sometimes made sud—
den and stupid revelations. It was on these that it was nec-
essary to seize; he must take advantage of them on the mo-
ment. How did the queen feel towards the Duchess Josiana?


234 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Did she wish her good or evil? This was the problem. Bar-
kilphedro set himself to solve it. This problem solved, he
might venture further.
Divers chances served Barkilphedro,-—— his constant watch—
fulness above all. Anne was, on her husband’s side, slightly
related to the new Queen of Prussia, wife of the king with
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 Prussian ambassador some question about this
Drika.
“ They say she is rich,” the queen remarked.
“ Very rich.”
“ She has palaces?”
“ More magnificent than those of her sister, the queen.”
“ Whom will she marry?”
“ A great lord, the Count Gormo.”
“ Is she pretty? ”
“ Charming.”
“ Is she young?” ' ¢_
“ Very young.”
“ As beautiful as the queen?”
The ambassador lowered his voice, and replied, “ Much
more beautiful.”
“ How outrageous!” murmured Barkilphedro.
The queen was silent, then she muttered angrily, “ These
bastards!”
Barkilphedro noticed the plural.
Another time, when the queen was leaving the chapel, Bar-
kilphedro kept close to her Majesty, behind the two grooms
of the almonry. Lord David Dirry—Moir, as he passed down
between the two lines of ladies created quite a sensation by
his lordly appearance. As he passed there was a chorus of
feminine exclamations,—
“ How elegant! How gallant! What a noble air! How
handsome!”


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 235
“ How disagreeable!” grumbled the queen.
Barkilphedro overheard this; it satisfied him. He could
hurt the duchess without displeasing the queen.
The first problem was solved; but now the second pre-
sented itself. What could he do to harm the duchess?
What means did his wretched appointment offer to attain so
difficult an object? Evidently none.
CHAPTER XII
SCOTLAND, IRELAND, AND ENGLAND
ET us note a circumstance. Josiana had le tour. This
is easily understood when we reflect that she was, al-
though illegitimate, the queen’s sister,— that is to say, a
princely personage.
To have le tour,— what does it mean? Viscount St. John,
otherwise Bolingbroke, wrote as follows to Thomas Lennard,
Earl of Sussex: “ Two things mark the great: in England,
they have le tour; in France, le pour.” When the king of
Francetravelled, the courier of the court stopped at the halt—
ing-place in the evening, and assigned lodgings to his Majes-
ty’s suite. Among the gentlemen some had an immense priv-
ilege. “ They have le pour,” says the “ Journal Historique ”
for the year 1694, page 6; “ which means that the quarter—
master who marks the billets puts pour before their names,
as ‘ Pour M» 1e Prince de Soubise; ’ instead of which, when
he marks the lodging of one who is not royal, he does not
put pour, but simply the name, as ‘ Le Duc de Gesvres,’ ‘ Le
Due de Mazarin.’ ” This pour on a door indicated a prince
or a favourite. A favourite is worse than a prince. The
king granted le pour, like a blue ribbon or a peerage.
Avoir le tour in England was less glorious, but more tangi-
ble. it was a sign of intimacy with the reigning sovereign.


236 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Any persons who, either by reason of birth, or royal favour
were likely to receive direct communications from majesty,
had in the wall of their bedchamber a shaft, in which a bell
was adjusted. The bell sounded, the shaft opened, a royal
missive appeared on a gold plate or on a velvet cushion, and
the shaft closed. This was at once secret and solemn, mys-
terious as well as familiar. The shaft was used for no other
purpose; the sound of the bell announced a royal mes-
sage.
No one could see who brought it; it was of course merely a
page of the king or queen. 'Leicester await le tour under
Elizabeth; Buckingham under James I. Josiana had it un—
der Anne, though not much in favour. Never was a priv-
ilege more ~envied. This privilege entailed additional ser—
vility; the recipient was more of a servant. At court that
which elevates, degrades. Avoir le tour was said in French,
-——this circumstance of English etiquette having, probably,
been borrowed from some old French play.
Lady Josiana, a virgin peeress as Elizabeth had been a
virgin queen, led (sometimes in the city, and sometimes in
the country, according to the season) an almost princely life,
and kept nearly a court, at which Lord David was courtier,
with many others. Not being married, Lord David and
Lady Josiana could show themselves together in public with-
out exciting ridicule; and they did so frequently. They
often went to plays and race-courses in the same carriage, and
sat together in the same box. They were chilled by the im—
pending marriage, which was not only permitted to them, but
imposed upon then; but they felt an attraction for each other’s
society. The privacy permitted to the engaged has a fron—
tier easily passed. From this they abstained: that which is
easy is in bad taste.
The best pugilistic encounters then took place at Lam-
beth, a parish in which the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury
has a palace (though the air there is unhealthy) and a rich
library open at certain hours to decent people. One evening
in winter there was in a meadow there, the gates of which


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 237
were locked, a fight, which Josiana, esCorted by Lord David,
attended.
“ Are women admitted? ” she had asked.
“ Sunt fasminae magnates!” David had responded.
The free translation of this is, “ Plebeian women are not.”
The literal translation is, “ Great ladies are.” A duchess
goes everywhere. This is why Lady Josiana saw a boxing—
match.
Lady Josiana made only this concession to propriety,—
she dressed like a man, a very common custom at that period;
women seldom travelled otherwise. Out of every six persons
who travelled by the coach from Windsor one or two were
women in male attire,—a certain sign of high birth. Lady
Josiana betrayed her quality in one way,— she had an opera—
glass, then used by gentlemen only.
Lord David, being in company with a woman, could not
take any part in the match himself, and merely assisted as one
of the audience. This encounter in the noble science of box—
ing 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
from the regiment which he commanded, but who was after—
wards made minister of war, and only escaped from the shells
of the enemy to fall by a worse fate,—— shot through and
through by Sheridan’s sarcasms. Many gentlemen were bet-
ting,— Harry Bellew of Carleton, who had claims to the ex-
tinct peerage of Bella-aqua, with Henry, Lord Hyde, mem-
ber of Parliament for the borough of Dunhivid, which is also
called Launceston; the Honorable Peregrine Bertie, member
for the borough of Truro, with Sir Thomas Colpepper, mem-
ber for Maidstone; the Laird of Lamyrbau, which is on the
borders of Lothian, with Samuel Trefusis, of the borough of
Penryn; Sir Bartholomew Gracedieu, of the borough of Saint
Ives, with the Honourable 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


238 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
his native mountain in Tipperary, Phelem-ghe-Madone; and
the other a Scot, named Helmsgail. They represented the
national honour of each country. Ireland and Scotland were
about to encounter each other; Erin was going to fisticuff
Gajothel. So that the bets amounted to over forty thousand
guineas, besides the stakes. 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 nineteen, but
he had already had his forehead sewn up, for which reason
they laid two and one third to one on him. The month be—
fore he had broken the ribs and gouged out the eyes of a
pugilist, named Sixmileswater; this explained the enthusiasm
he created,— 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, erect, thick set, and of a
stature low and threatening. None of the advantages given
him by nature had been lost; 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 the loss
of three teeth added to the effect of his smile.
Phelem~ghe—Madone, the Irishman, was tall and over—
grown,— that is to say, weak. He was a man about forty
years of age, six feet high, with the chest of a hippopotamus,
and a mild expression of face. A blow from his fist would
shatter the deck of a vessel; but he did not know how to use
his strength. He was all surface, and seemed to have en-
tered the ring to receive, rather than to give, blows. Only
it was felt that he could bear a deal of punishment,—— like
underdone beef, tough to chew, and impossible to swallow.-
He 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 party of seconds,—— men of savage expression, threaten-
_-1__-,. ‘_,.l4.-r,_,- ____,.,-\’,- ,f, . q V~..,.
1 w. n~¢-~ ~—$-_._-____,__ r.“


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 239
mg the umpires when it suited their side. Among Helms-
gail’s supporters was to be seen John Gromane, celebrated
for having carried an ex on his back; and also one called
John Bray, who had once carried on his back ten bushels of
flour, at fifteen peeks to the bushel, besides the miller him—
self, and had walked over two hundred yards 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 honour to their country. The other seconds
were brutal fellows, with broad backs, bowed legs, knot-
ted fists, dull faces; ragged, fearing nothing, nearly all
jail-birds. Many of them understood admirably how to
get the police drunk; each profession requires its special tal-
ents.
The field chosen was farther off than the bear-garden,
where they formerly baited bears, bulls, and dogs; it was be—
yond the line of the farthest houses, by the side of the ruins
of the Priory of Saint Mary Overy, dismantled by Henry
VIII. The wind was northerly, and biting; a slight 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 support him on his knee.
On the side of Helmsgail, the Honourable 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.
“ I should prefer going home,” remarked Phelem-ghe-Ma-
done to Helmsgail.
“ The gentlemen must not be disappointed, on any ac-
count,” Helmsgail answered handsomely.


240 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Naked as they were, they felt the cold. Phelem-ghe-Ma-
done shook. His teeth chattered.
Doctor Eleanor Sharpe, 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 of the two men had his blood up; there were three in-
effectual rounds.
The Rev. Doctor Gumbraith, one of the forty Fellows of
All Souls’ College, cried, “ Spirit them up with gin! ”
But the two umpires and the two seconds adhered to the
rules, although it was exceedingly cold.
First blood was claimed. The combatants were again set
face to face. They looked at each other, approached,
stretched their arms, touched each other’s fists, and then drew
back. All at once Helmsgail, the little man, sprang forward:
the real fight had begun. Phelem-ghe-Madone was struck
in the face, between the eyes. His whole face streamed with
blood.
The crowd cried, “ Helmsgail has tapped his claret!”
There was wild applause. Phelem-ghe-Madone, turning
his arms like the sails of a windmill, struck out at random.
The Honourable Peregrine Bertie said, “ Blinded!” but the
man was not blind yet.
Then Helmsgail heard on all sides these encouraging
words: “ Bung up his peepers!”
On the whole, the two champions were really well matched;
and notwithstanding the unfavourable weather, it was evi-
dent that the fight would be a success. The burly giant,
Phelem-ghe-Madone, had to bear the inconvenience of his ad-
vantages; he moved heavily. His arms were massive as clubs;
but his chest was a mass. His little opponent ran, struck,
sprang, gnashed his teeth; redoubling vigour by quickness,
from knowledge of the science. On the one side was the
primitive blow of the fist,— savage, uncultivated, in a state
of ignorance; on the other side was the civilized blow of the
fist. Helmsgail fought as much with his nerves as with his
muscles, and with far more skill than strength; Phelem-ghe-
""-"“'""=-' '


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 241
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.
Put a little man against a big one, and the chances are
in favour of the little one. The cat generally has the
best of it with a dog. Goliaths are always vanquished by
Davids.
A chorus of encouraging exclamations cheered on the com—
batants: —
“ Bravo, Helmsgail
“ Good! well done, Highlander!”
“ Now, Phelem! ”
And the friends of Helmsgail repeated their benevolent ex-
hortation: “ Bung up his peepers ! ” '
Helmsgail did better. Rapidly bending down and back
again, with the undulating movement of a serpent, he struck
Phelem-ghe-Madone in the sternum. The Colossus stag-
ered.
“ Foul blow!” cried Viscount Barnard.
Phelem-ghe-Madone sank down on the knee of his second,
saying: “.1 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 body with a
flannel, and placed the neck of a bottle to his month. 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.
“ Foul blow!” repeated Viscount Barnard.
“ Bets void!” said the Laird of Lamyrbau.
“ I claim my stake!” replied Sir Thomas Colpepper.
“ (igve me back my five hundred guineas, and I will go.
|”


242 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Stop the fight! ” added the honourable member for the bor-
ough of St. Ives, Sir Bartholomew Gracedieu.
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-Ma-
done, and held it there under his armpit, the neck bent and
twisted, while the Scot used his right fist 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 Phe-
lem, released at last, lifted his head, he no longer possessed a
face. That which had been a nose, eyes, and a mouth now
looked like a black sponge soaked in blood. He spat, and
four of his teeth fell to the ground. Then he also fell. Kil-
ter raised him on his knee.
Helmsgail was hardly touched: he had some insignificant
bruises, and a scratch on his collar bone.
No one was cold now. They bet sixteen and a quarter to
one on Helmsgail. Harry Carleton cried out,—
“ It is all over with Phelem-ghe~Madone. I’ll bet my peer-
age 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-Ma-
done. And stuffing the bloody flannel into the bottle, be
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 honour of the low town.”
The Welshman and the Irishman understand each other,
though Phelem gave no sign of having any power of under-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 243
standing left. He 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 awk-
wardness of a failing man.
Helmsgail, with a skin hardly sweating, cried out: “ I’ll
back myself, a thousand to one.” Then raising his arm,
struck out.
Strange to say, both men went down. A ghastly chuckle
was heard. It was Phelem-ghe-Madone’s expression of de-
light. 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 done what he had a right to do; 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,”——- saying to
him,—
“ It was very fine; but -—”
“ But what? ”
“ I thought it would have driven away my ennui; but it
hasn’t.”
Lord David stopped, looked at Josiana, shut his mouth,
and inflated his cheeks, while he nodded his head, as if to sig-
nify, “ Indeed?” Then he said,—
“ There is but one effectual cure for ennui.”
“ What is that? ” asked Josiana.
“ Gwynplaine,” replied Lord David.
“ And who is Gwynplaine? ” asked the duchess.


BOOK II
GWYNPLAINE AND DEA
CHAPTER I
WHEREIN WE SEE THE FACE OF HIM OF WHOM WE HAVE EITH-
ERTO SEEN ONLY THE ACTS
ATURE had been prodigal in her kindness to Gwyn-
plaine. She had given him a mouth opening to his
ears, ears folding over to his eyes, a shapeless nose to sup—
port the spectacles of the grimace-maker, and a face that no
one could look upon without laughing.
We have just said that Nature had loaded Gwynplaine with
her gifts. But was it Nature? Had she not been assisted?
Two slits for eyes, a hiatus for a mouth, a snub protuberance
with two holes for nostrils, a flattened face,—— all producing
the effect of violent laughter,— certainly Nature never pro—
duced such perfection single-handed. But is laughter a syn-
onym of joy?
If in the presence of this mountebank (for he was one) the
first impression of gaiety wore off, and the man’s counte—
nance was examined closely, traces of art were recog—
nizable. Such a face could never have been created by
chance; it must have been the result of intention. Such per—
fection of detail is not found in Nature. Man can do noth-
ing to create beauty, but everything to produce ugliness.
A Hottentot profile cannot be changed into a Roman out-
line, but out of a Grecian nose you may make a Calmuck’s;
244s


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 245
it is only necessary to obliterate the root of the nose, and to
flatten the nostrils. The Latin of the Middle Ages had a
reason for its creation of the verb denasa're.
Had Gwynplaine when a child been so worthy of attention
that his face had been subjected to a complete transforma-
tion? Why not? Was any more powerful motive needed
than the profits which would accrue from his future exhibi-
tion? According to all appearance, industrious manipulators
of children had worked upon his face. It seemed evident that
a mysterious and probably occult science (which was to sur-
gery what alchemy was to chemistry) had chiselled his flesh,
evidently at a very tender age, and created this countenance
intentionally. This science, clever with the knife and skilled
in the use of anaesthetics and ligatures, had enlarged the
mouth, cut away the lips, laid bare the gums, distended the
ears, displaced the eyelids and the cheeks, enlarged the zygo-
matic muscle, pressed the scars and cicatrices to a level, and
turned back the skin over the lesions while the face was thus
distorted,—- from all which resulted that wonderful and ap-l
palling work of art, the mask which Gwynplaine wore.
The manipulation of Gwynplaine had succeeded admirably.
Gwynplaine was a gift of providence to dispel the sadness of
man. Of which providence? Is there a providence of de—
mons as well as of God? We put the question without an-
swering it. '
Gwynplaine was a mountebank. He exhibited himself on
the platform. No such effect had ever before been produced.
Hypochondriacs were cured by the mere sight of him. He
was avoided by folks in mourning, because they were com-
pelled to laugh when they saw him, without regard. to their
decent gravity.
One day the chief executioner came to see him, and
Gwynplaine made him laugh. People who saw Gwynplaine
were obliged to hold their sides; he spoke, and they
rolled on the ground. He was as far removed from sadness
as pole is from pole: spleen at the one, Gwynplaine at the
other. Consequently on fair-grounds and village—greens he


246 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
speedily gained the enviable appellation of “ that horrible
man.”
It was Gwynplaine’s laugh that so excited the mirth of
others; yet he did not laugh himself. His face laughed; his
thoughts did not. The extraordinary face which chance, or
a special weird industry, had fashioned for him laughed of
itself; Gwynplaine had nothing to do with it. The exterior
did not depend on the interior. The laugh which he himself
had not placed on brow and eyelids and month, he was power—
less to remove. It had been stamped indelibly on his face;
it was automatic, and the more irresistible because it seemed
petrified. No one could escape the powerful effect of this
grimace. Two convulsions of the face are infectious,—
laughing and yawning. By reason of the mysterious opera-
tion to which Gwynplaine had probably been subjected in his
infancy, every part of his face contributed to that grin; his
whole physiognomy led to that result, as a wheel centres in
the hub. All his emotions augmented this strange expression;
or, to speak more correctly, aggravated it. Any astonish-
ment which might seize him, any suffering which he might
feel, any anger which might take possession of him, any pity
which might move him, only increased this hilarity of his mus-
cles. 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 hila—
rious. Every serious feeling or thought in the mind of the
spectator was suddenly put to flight by the unexpected ap-
parition, and laughter was inevitable.
Antique art formerly placed on the exterior of the Greek
theatre a joyous brazen face, called Comedy; it laughed and
occasioned laughter, but remained pensive. All mirth which
borders on folly, all irony which borders on wisdom, were
condensed and amalgamated in that face. Intense anxiety,
disappointment, disgust, and chagrin were all depicted in the
rigid features; but a ghastly smile wreathed the lips, impart-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 247
ing an expression of lugubrious mirth to the entire counte-
nance. One corner of the mouth was curled upward in mock—
ery of the human race; the other, in blasphemy of the gods.
Those who eagerly crowded around to gaze at this grim ex-
emplification of the covert sarcasm and irony which dwells
in every human breast, nearly died with laughter at the sepul-
chral immobility of the sneering smile.
One might almost have said that Gwynplaine was that dark,
dead mask of ancient comedy, adjusted to the body of a living
man; that he supported on his neck that infernal head of im-
placable hilarity. What a weight for the shoulders of a man,
— an everlasting laugh!
An everlasting laugh! That we may be understood we will
explain that the Manicheans believed that even the absolute
occasionally gave way; that God himself sometimes abdicates
for a time. But we do not admit that the will can ever be
utterly powerless. The whole of existence resembles a letter
modified in the postscript. For Gwynplaine the postscript
was this: by force of will, by concentrating all his attention,
and allowing no emotion to impair the intentless of his effort,
he could manage to suspend the everlasting rictus of his face,
and to throw over it for a moment a kind of tragic veil; and
then the spectator no longer laughed,—~ he shuddered. This
exertion Gwynplaine scarcely ever made; it was a terrible ef-
fort, and an insupportable tension. Moreover, it happened
that on the slightest distraction or change of emotion, the
laugh, driven away for a moment, returned like the tide, with
an impulse which was irresistible in proportion to the force of
the adverse emotion. With this exception Gwynplaine’s
laugh was everlasting.
On first seeing Gwynplaine, everybody laughed. When
they had laughed they turned away their heads. Women
especially shrank from him with horror. The man was
frightful. The paroxysms of laughter was a sort of spon-
taneous tribute paid to his deformity; they yielded to it
gladly, but almost mechanically. Besides, when once the
novelty was over, Gwynplaine was intolerable for a woman to


248 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
see, and impossible to contemplate long. Yet he was tall,
well—made, agile, and in no way deformed except in his face.
This strengthened the presumption that Gwynplaine was
rather a creation of art than a work of Nature. Gwynplaine,
beautiful in figure, had probably been equally beautiful in
face. At his birth he had doubtless resembled other infants,
and the body had been left intact, and the face alone been
retouched. Gwynplaine had been made to order,— at least,
that was probably the case. They had left him his teeth:
teeth are necessary to a laugh; the death’s head retains them.
The operation performed on him must have been frightful.
That he had no remembrance of it was no proof that it had
never been performed. Surgical sculpture of the kind could
never have succeeded except on a very young child, and con-
sequently one who had little consciousness of what happened
to him, and who might easily take a wound for an illness.
Besides, we must remember that they had in those times
means of putting patients to sleep, and of suppressing all
suffering; only then it was called magic, while now it is called
anaesthesia.
Besides this face, those who had brought him up had given
him the resources of a gymnast and an athlete. His joints
had been skilfully dislocated, and trained to bend the wrong
way; so that they could move backward and forward with
equal ease, like the hinges of a door. In preparing him for
the profession of mountebank nothing had been neglected.
His hair had been dyed ochre colour once for all,——a secret
which has been rediscovered at the present day. Pretty
women avail themselves of it, and that which was formerly,
considered ugly is now considered an embellishment. Gwyn-
plaine’s hair had probably been dyed with some corrosive
preparation, for it was very woolly and rough to the touch.
The yellow bristles, a mane rather than a head of hair, cov-
ered 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 awry,
had had no effect on the contour of the head. The facial
.41.. .»_JI1 _ J‘-


p THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 24.9
angle was powerful and symmetrical. Behind his laugh there
was a soul, dreaming, as all souls dream. Besides, this laugh
was quite a talent to Gwynplaine. He could not prevent it,
so he turned it to account. He earned his living by it.
Gwynplaine, as you have already probably guessed, was
the child abandoned one winter evening on the coast of Port—
land, and subsequently sheltered by Ursus at Weymouth.
CHAPTER II
DEA
HAT boy was now a man. Fifteen years had elapsed.
It was 1705. Gwynplaine was in his twenty-fifth
year.
Ursus had kept the two children with him. They formed
one family of wanderers. Ursus and Homo had aged.
Ursus had become quite bald; the wolf was growing grey.
The age of wolves is not known like that of dogs. Accord-
ing to Moliere, there are wolves which live to eighty,— among
others the little koupara, and the rank wolf, the Cam's nubilus
of Say. 3
The little girl found on the dead woman was now a tall!
creature of sixteen, with brown hair, slight, and exceedingly
fragile in appearance, but wonderfully beautiful, with eyes
full of brilliancy, though sightless. 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. Amaurosis had dimmed forever the eyes
of the girl, now become a woman in her turn. On her face,
through which the light of day never passed, the depressed
corners of the mouth indicated the bitterness of the privation.
Her eyes, large and clear, had this strange characteristic:
extinguished forever to her, to others they were brilliant.


250 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
They were mysterious torches lighting only the outside; the)r
gave light, but possessed it not. These sightless eyes were
resplendent. This prisoner of darkness illumined the dull
place she inhabited. From the depths of her incurable dark-
ness, 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 gaze there was a celestial
earnestness. She was the spirit of night, and from the
irremediable darkness with which she was enshrouded she
shone a star.
Ursus, with his mania for Latin names, had christened
her Dea. He had taken his wolf into consultation. 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 above. Such feebleness is all powerful. So shall the
three orders of the universe be represented in our humble
abode,-—— the human, the animal, and the divine.” The wolf
made no objection. Therefore the foundling was called Dea.
As to Gwynplaine, Ursus had not had the trouble of invent-
ing a name for him. The morning of the day on which he
had realized the disfigurement of the little boy and the blind-
ness of the infant, he said to him:—
“ Boy, what is your name?”
“ They call me Gwynplaine,” answered the boy.
“ Be Gwynplaine, then,” said Ursus.
If there be such a thing as summing up human misery, it
seemed to have been summed up in Gwynplaine and Dea.
Each seemed to have been born in a sepulchre,-— Gwynplaine
of the horrors of it, Dea of the gloom. There was something
of the phantom in Dea, and something of the spectre in
Gwynplaine. For Gwynplaine, who could see, there was a
heartrending possibility, to which Dea, who was blind, would
never be subjected—the chance of comparing himself with
other men; and to one in Gwynplaine’s situation, to compare
himself with other men was to understand himself no longer.
It is distressing, indeed, to be devoid of sight like Dea; but
it is much more distressing to be an enigma to oneself, to
a“,_
. dual“? ' '-_'F-‘f
..-..-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 251
see the universe, and not to be able to see oneself, -— as was
the case with Gwynplaine. Dea had a veil over her,—— dark-
ness; Gwynplaine wore a mask,— his face. And, strange to
say, it was with his own flesh that Gwynplaine was masked.
What his own face had been like he knew not: that face
was gone forever. They had affixed a false self to him. His
brain lived, and his face was dead; he did not even remem-
ber to have ever seen it. While Dea’s isolation was terrible, '
because she could see nothing, Gwynplaine’s isolation was even
more terrible because he could see everything. For Dea,
creation never exceeded the limits of touch and hearing; for
Gwynplaine, life was to have mankind ever before him and
— beyond him. Dea was debarred from light of the world;
Gwynplaine was debarred from the light of life,— from all
that makes life desirable. They were certainly two terribly
unfortunate creatures; they seemed to be beyond the pale of
hope. N0 observer could fail to feel boundless pity for them.
How terribly they must have suffered! Surely, no such dire
misfortunes had ever before befallen two innocent human be-
ings, and conspired to make their life a hell!
And yet these two were perfectly happy. The loved each
other. Gwynplaine adored Dea; Dea idolized Gwynplaine.
“ How handsome you are!” she often remarked to him.
CHAPTER III
“ OCULOS NON HABE'I‘, n'r VIDET ”
NLY one woman on earth saw Gwynplaine. That was
the blind girl. She had heard what Gwynplaine had
done for her, from Ursus, to whom the lad had described
his rough journey from Portland to Weymouth, and the
many sufferings which he had endured after he was deserted
by the gang. She knew that when she was an infant lying
w-m‘ ..~ -_-..--.-~_.\ .. W . .\ -x


252 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
upon her dead mother’s breast, sucking a corpse, a child very
little larger than herself had found her; that this being, ex-
iled and as it were crushed by the refusal of the world to aid
him, had heard her cry; that though all the world was deaf to
him, he had not been deaf to her; that this child, alone, weak,
cast off, without any resting-place here below, dragging him-
self over the waste, exhausted by fatigue, had accepted from
the hands of night a heavy burden,-—- another child; that he,
who had nothing to expect of Fate, had charged himself with
another destiny; that naked, in anguish and distress, he had
made himself a Providence; that when Heaven failed, he had
opened his heart; that though lost himself, he had saved her;
that having neither roof-tree nor shelter he had been an asy-
lum; that he had made himself mother and nurse; that he
who was thus alone in the world had responded to desertion by
adoption; that lost in the darkness he had set an example;
that as if not sufficiently burdened already be had added to
his load another’s misery; that in this world, which seemed to
contain no hope 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 con~
sented; that he had put his hand into the very jaws of the
grave and drawn her, Dea, out; 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
poor 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 years had bravely battled with the elements.
She knew that as a child he had done all this, and that now
as a man he was strength to her weakness, riches to her pov-
erty, healing to her sickness, and sight to her blindness. She
was fully conscious of his devotion, self-abnegation, and cour—
age. Moral heroism possesses an even more potent charm
than physical heroism; and in the abstraction in which


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 253
thought lives, when unlighted by the sun, Dea clearly per-
ceived these heroic virtues. In the environment of dark ob-
jects set in motion, which was the sole impression the realities
of life made upon her; in the uneasy quietude of a creature
necessarily passive, yet ever on the watch for possible danger;
in the sensation of being ever defenceless, which is the life
of the blind,—- Dea felt Gwynplaine ever beside her: Gwyn-
plaine, never indifl'erent, never cold, never gloomy, but al-
ways sympathetic, sweet-tempered, and helpful. Dea fairly
trembled with happiness and gratitude; her anxiety changed
into ecstasy, and with her mind’s eye she gazed up from the
depths of her abyss to the glad light of his goodness in the
zenith.
Kindness is the sunshine of the spiritual world; so it is
little wonder that Gwynplaine quite dazzled poor Dea. To
the crowd, which has too many heads to have a thought, and
too many eyes to have a clear vision,— to the crowd who,
superficial themselves, judge only by the surface, Gwyn-
plaine was a clown, a merry-andrew, a mountebank, a gro-
tesque creature, very little more or less than a beast. The
crowd knew only the face. For Dea, Gwynplaine was the
saviour who had gathered her up in his arms in the tomb,
and borne her out of it; the consoler who made life tolerable;
the liberator, whose hand guided her through that labyrinth
called blindness. Gwynplaine was her brother, friend, guide,
support; the personification of heavenly power, the husband,
winged and resplendent. Where the multitude saw the mon-
ster, Dea recognized the archangel. This was because Dea,
beinglplind, could see the soul.


254 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
CHAPTER IV
WELL-MATCHED LOVERS
RSUS, being a philosopher, understood all this, and ap-
proved of Dea’s infatuation. The blind see the in-
visible. He said, “ Conscience is vision.” Then, looking at
Gwynplaine, he murmured, “ Half-monster, but demi-god,
nevertheless.”
Gwynplaine, on the other hand, was madly in love with
Dea. There is the invisible eye,—- the spirit; and the visible
eye,—— the pupil. He saw her with the visible eye. Dea was
dazzled by the ideal; Gwynplaine, by the real. Gwynplaine
was not ugly; he was frightful. He saw his contrast be-
fore him: in proportion as he was terrible, Dea was lovely.
He was the personification of the horrible; she was the em-
bodiment of grace. Dea was a dream. She seemed a vision
scarcely embodied. In her Grecian form; in her delicate and
supple figure, swaying like a reed; in her shoulders, on which
might have been invisible wings; in the modest curves which
indicated her sex, to the soul rather than to the senses; in
her fairness, which amounted almost to transparency; in the
earnest and quiet serenity of her look, divinely shut out from
earth; in the sacred innocence of her smile,— she was almost
an angel, and yet a woman.
Gwynplaine’s existence might be compared to the point
of intersection of two rays; one from below and one from
above,—-—a black and a white ray. The same crumb may
perhaps be peeked at, at once, by the beaks of evil and good,
-—- one giving a bite, the other a kiss. Gwynplaine was this
crumb,—- an atom, at once wounded and caressed. Misfor—
tune had laid its hand upon him, and happiness as well. He
had on him an anathema and a benediction. He was one
of the elect, and one of the accursed. Who was he? He
knew not. When he looked at himself, he saw one he knew


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 255
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 transformation of a human face into the
mask of an animal. Never had there been such a total eclipse
of humanity in any human face, never a more complete cari—
cature; never had a more frightful apparition grinned in
nightmare; never had everything that is repulsive to woman
been more hideously amalgamated in a man. The unfortu—
nate heart, masked and calumniated by the face, seemed for-
ever condemned to solitude under it, as under a tombstone.
Yet, no! When unknown malice had done its worst, invisible
goodness lent its aid. It had caused a soul to fly with swift
wings towards the deserted one; it had sent the dove to con—
sole 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 disfigurement.
To bring about this good fortune, a misfortune was neces-
sary; so Providence had deprived Dea of sight.
Gwynplaine vaguely felt himself the object of a redemp-
tion. 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 understand, 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 “ hypotheses,” and
had been reserved in his opinion of what it might mean.
Suppositions were possible. The probability of violence in-
flicted on Gwynplaine when an infant was hinted at; but for
Gwynplaine there was no proof except the result. It seemed
to be his destiny to live under a stigma. Why this stigma?
There was no answer. Everything connected with Gwyn-
plaine’s childhood was shrouded in mystery; nothing was cer-
tain save the one terrible fact.
In Gwynplaine’s dire despondency Dea had angelically in-


256 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
terposed between him and despair, and he perceived, that,
horrible as he was, a sort of beautified wonder was softening
his monstrous visage. Having been fashioned to create dread,
he was, by a miraculous exception to the general rule, ad-
mired and adored as an angel of light by one who seemed as
far above him as a star. Gwynplaine and Dea made a per-
fect pair; so these two suffering hearts very naturally adored
each other. One nest and two birds,—-— that was their story.
They had begun to obey the universal law,— to please, to
seek, and to find.
Thus hatred had made a mistake. The persecutors of
Gwynplaine, whoever they might have been, had missed their
aim. They had intended to drive him to desperation: they
had succeeded in driving him into enchantment. They had
aflianced him beforehand to a healing wound; they had pre-
destined him to be consoled by an afiiiction. The pincers of
the executioner had softly changed into the delicately moulded
hand of a girl. Gwynplaine was horrible,— made horrible by
the hand of man. They had hoped to exile him forever,—
first, from his family, if his family existed; and then from
humanity. When an infant, they had made him a ruin. Of
this ruin Nature had repossessed herself, as she does of all
ruins. Nature had consoled this solitary heart, as she con-
soles all solitudes. Nature comes to the aid of the deserted;
when everything fails them she gives them herself. She
flourishes and grows green amid ruins; she has ivy for the
stones, and boundless sympathy for man.

CHAPTER V
THE BLUE SKY THROUGH THE BLACK CLOUD
0 these unfortunate creatures lived on together,-— Dea
depending, Gwynplaine sustaining. These orphans
were all in all to each other; the feeble and the deformed were
betrothed. Bliss unspeakable had resulted from their distress.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 257
They were grateful. To whom? To the great Unknown.
Be grateful in your own hearts, that suffices. Thanksgiv-
ing has wings, and flies to the right destination; your prayer
knows its way better than you can. How many men have
believed that they were praying to Jupiter, when they were
really praying 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 exile;
blindness is a precipice. The exiled one had been adopted;
the precipice was habitable. Gwynplaine had seen a brilliant
light descend upon him. As if in a dream he beheld a white
cloud of beauty having the form of a woman, a radiant vision
endowed with a heart. This phantom, part cloud and part
woman, clasped him; the apparition embraced him, and the
heart craved him. Gwynplaine was no longer deformed; he
was beloved. The rose had demanded the caterpillar in mar-
riage, feeling that within the caterpillar there was a divine
butterfly. Gwynplaine the rejected, was chosen.
To have one’s desire is everything. Gwynplaine had his,
Dea hers. The dejection of the disfigured man was changed
to profound gratitude and intoxicating delight. The
wretched found a refuge in each other: two blanks, combin—
ing, filled each other. They were bound together by what
they lacked: in that in which one was poor, the other was
rich. The misfortune of the one was the good fortune of
the other. If Dea had not been blind, would she have chosen
Gwynplaine? If Gwynplaine had not been disfigured, would
he have preferred Dea? She would probably have rejected
the deformed man, as he would have passed by the afflicted
woman.
Hence how fortunate it was for Dea that Gwynplaine
was hideous; and how fortunate for Gwynplaine that Dea
was blind! A mighty need of each other was the founda-
tion of their love. Gwynplaine saved Dea; Dea saved
Gwyp‘lplaine. Apposition of misery produced adherence. It


258 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
was the embrace of those swallowed in the abyss,-— none closer,
none more hopeless, none more exquisite.
“ What should I be without her? ” Gwynplaine thought.
“ What should I be without him? ” Dea thought.
The exile of each made a country for both. Two hope—
' less fatalities, Gwynplaine’s hideousness and Dea’s blindness,
united them. They sufficed to each other; they imagined
nothing beyond each other. To speak to each other was a
delight; to approach was beatitude. By force of reciprocal
intuition they became united in the same reverie, and thought
the same thoughts. In Gwynplaine’s tread Dea fancied she
heard the step of one deified. They tightened their hold upon
each other in a sort of sidereal chiaroscuro, full of perfumes,
of light, and of music, in the radiant land of dreams. They
belonged to each other; they knew themselves to be forever
united in the same joy and the same ecstasy, and nothing
could be stranger than this constructon of an Eden by two
of the damned. They were inexpressibly happy. Out of
their hell they had created a heaven. Such is thy power,
0 Love! Dea heard Gwynplaine’s laugh; Gwynplaine saw
Dea’s smile. Thus ideal felicity was created; the perfect
joy of life was realized; the mysterious problem of happiness
was solved. By whom? By two outcasts.
To Gwynplaine, Dea was splendour; to Dea, Gwynplaine
was presence. Presence is that profound mystery which ren-
ders the invisible world divine, and from which results that
other mystery,— faith. In religions this is the one thing
which is irreducible; but this irreducible thing sufiices. The
great motive power is not seen, it is felt. Gwynplaine was
Dea’s religion. 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 your-
self an unfathomable abyss; in the centre of this abyss an
oasis of light; and on this oasis two creatures shut out of
any other life, dazzling each other. No purity could be com-
pared to their loves. Dea did not even know what a kiss
might be, though perhaps she desired it; because blindness,
~.,,..r__r » .~‘__.,’.. ,_, I- ~7 -. . _, . I 7.- r. ,-_.~ 7 i v,“ ._... .


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 259
especially in a woman, has its dreams, and though trembling
at the approaches of the unknown does not fear them all.
As for Gwynplaine, his unhappy youth had made him sensi-
tive. The more intensely he loved, the more timid he be-
came. He might have dared anything with this companion
of his early youth, with this creature as ignorant of fault as
of light, with this blind girl who knew 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 knowl-
edge of his deformity imbued him with a proud purity of
thought and action.
These happy creatures dwelt in the ideal world. They em-
braced and caressed each other only in spirit. They had al-
ways lived the same 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 sleeping
accommodations of the van were limited. They slept on the
chest; Ursus, on the fioor,——- that was the arrangement. One
day, while Dea was still very young, Gwynplaine felt him-
self grown up; and it was now that a feeling of shame was
first aroused in him. So he said to Ursus, “ I too will sleep
on the floor; ” and at night he stretched himself on the bear—
skin beside the old man. Then Dea cried for her bed-fel—
low; but Gwynplaine, become restless because he had begun
to love, insisted upon remaining where he was. From that
time he always in cold weather slept by Ursus on the floor.
In the summer, when the nights were fine, he slept outside with
Homo.
' ‘_,_.._--u._- \ \_,.__-.__~__,. _M~_,__~_Q_ WM... ,W V


260 THE MAN WVHO LAUGHS
CHAPTER VI
nnsus as TUTOR, AND vases as GUARDIAN
RSUS said to himself, “ Some of these days I will play
them a mean 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, “ Idiot! do souls require mortal eyes
to see each other?”
Ursus was a good fellow at times. Gwynplaine, madly
in love with Dea, sometimes became melancholy, 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 Gwynplaine.
At other times Ursus would say to himself apart: “ It is
well to put some spokes in the wheels of the Cytherean car
occasionally. They love each other too much. This may
have its disadvantages. Let us avoid too much of a con—
flagration; let us moderate these raptures.”
So Ursus had recourse to warnings of this nature,— speak—
‘ ing to Gwynplaine while Dea slept, and to Dea when Gwyn
plaine was out of hearing :———
“ Dea, you must not be so fond of Gwynplaine. To live
only in another is dangerous. Selfishness is the surest foun—
dation for happiness, after all. Men play women false some—
times. Besides, Gwynplaine might end by becoming infatu-
ated with you. His success is very great! You have no idea
how great his success is!”
a, '___ ’ ,..I , .. ,_,_ ___,.. fl"- .NJ r, .sbwdwmrxk ,1,- .__._


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 261
Again: “ Gwynplaine, such disparities are unfortunate.
So much ugliness on one side and so much beauty on another,
ought to cause reflection. Temper your ardour, my boy; do
not become too enthusiastic about Dea. Do you seriously
consider that you are suited to her? Just think of your de-
formity and her perfection! See the difference between her
and yourself. She has everything, this Dea. What a white
skin! What hair! Lips like strawberries! and her foot, her
hand! Those shoulders, with their exquisite curve! Her
expression too is sublime. She seems to diffuse light around
'her as she moves; and when she speaks, that grave tone of
voice is charming. And in spite of all this, to think that she
is a woman! She would not be such a fool as to be an angel.
She is a perfect beauty! Keep all this in mind, to calm
your ardour.”
These speeches only increased the mutual love of Gwyn-
plaine and Dea; and Ursus marvelled at his want of success,
like one who might say, “ It is singular that with all the oil
I throw on the fire, I cannot extinguish it!”
Did Ursus, then, really desire to extinguish their love, or
to cool it even? Certainly not. He would have been sorely
disappointed had he succeeded. In his secret heart this love
delighted him beyond measure. But it is natural to scoff
a little at that which charms us; men call it wisdom. Ursus
had been, in his relations with Gwynplaine and Dea, almost
a father and a mother. Grumbling all the while, he had
brought them up; grumbling all the while, he had nourished
them. His adoption of them had made the van harder to
draw, and he had been oftener compelled to harness himself
by Homo’s side to help pull it. We may remark here, how-
ever, that after the first few years, when Gwynplaine was
nearly grown up and Ursus had grown old, Gwynplaine had
taken his turn and drawn Ursus. ~
Ursus, seeing that Gwynplaine was'becoming a man, had
cast the horoscope. “ Your fortune is made,” he said to him
once, alluding to his disfigurement.
This family of an old man and two children, with a wolf,
w___._- ._ .- \-_.~-_‘-_x .w, i‘ _. a _ AA _-‘.~_“.~*~_—_______ w,_z


262 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
had become, as they wandered, more and more closely united.
Their roving life had not hindered education. “ To travel
is to grow,” Ursus said. Gwynplaine was evidently made to
exhibit at fairs. Ursus had cultivated in him feats of dex—
terity, and had incrusted him with as much of the science and
wisdom he himself possessed as possible. Ursus, contemplat—
ing the perplexing mask of Gwynplaine’s face, often growled,
“ He has begun Well.” It was probably for this reason that
he had tried to endow him with every ornament of philosophy
and wisdom. He repeated constantly to Gwynplaine:—
“ Be a philosopher. To be wise is to be invulnerable.
You see what I am. I have never shed a tear. This is all the
result of my wisdom. Do you think that occasion for tears
has been wanting, had I felt disposed to weep? ”
Ursus, in one of his monologues in the hearing of the wolf,
said: “ I have taught Gwynplaine everything, Latin in-
cluded. I have taught Dea nothing, music included.”
Ursus had taught them both to sing. He had himself quite
a talent for playing on the oaten reed, a little flute of that
period. He played on it very agreeably, as also on the
chifl'onie,——a sort of beggar’s hurdy-gurdy, mentioned in
the Chronicle of Bertrand Duguesclin as the “ truant instru-
ment,” which started the symphony. These instruments at-
tracted the crowd. Ursus would show them the chifl'onie,
and say, “ It is called organistrum in Latin.” He had taught
Dea and Gwynplaine to sing according to the method of
Orpheus and of Egide Binchois. Frequently he interrupted
the lessons with enthusiastic cries, such as, “ Orpheus, mu—
sician of Greece! Binchois, musician of Picardy!” These
branches of culture did not occupy the children so much as
to prevent their adoring each other. They had mingled their
hearts together as they grew up, as two saplings planted
near each other mingle their branches as they become trees.
“ That is well,” said Ursus. “ I will have them marry,
one of these days.” Then he grumbled to himself : “ They
are quite tiresome with their love.”
The past, at least their little past, had no existence for


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 263
Dea and Gwynplaine. They knew only what Ursus had told
them of it. They called Ursus father. The only remem—
brance which Gwynplaine had of his infancy was as of a
passage of demons over his cradle. He had an impression
of having been trodden in the darkness under deformed feet.
Was this intentional or not? He was ignorant on this point.
The one thing that he did remember clearly, even to the slight-
est detail, were his tragical adventures when deserted at Port-
land. The finding of Dea made the dismal night a notable
date for him.
Dea’s recollections were even more confused than those of
Gwynplaine. In so young a child all remembrance soon
melts away. She recollected her mother as something cold.
Had she ever seen the sun? Perhaps so. “ The sun! what
was it like?” She had a vague idea of something luminous
and warm, of which Gwynplaine now filled the place. They
spoke to each other in low tones: it is certain that cooing is
the most important thing in the world. Dea often said to
Gwynplaine: “ Light means that you are speaking.”
Once, no longer able to restrain himself as he caught sight
of Dea’s bare arm through her thin muslin sleeve, Gwynplaine
touched the transparent stuff with his lips: ideal kiss if a dis-
figured mouth! Dea felt a deep delight; she blushed like a
rose. This kiss from a monster brought the roseate hues of
dawn to gleam on this beautiful brow shrouded in night.
Gwynplaine sighed with a sort of terror; but Dea pulled up
her sleeve, and extending her naked arm to Gwynplaine, said,
“ Again!” Gwynplaine fled. The next day the game was
renewed, with variations. It was a heavenly subsidence into
that sweet abyss called love.
At such things Heaven smiles philosophically.


264 THE 'MAN WHO LAUGHS
CHAPTER VII
BLINDNESS GIVES LESSONS IN CLAIRVOYANCE
WYNPLAINE reproached himself at times. He made
his happiness a matter of conscience. He fancied
that in allowing a woman who could not see him to love
him, he was guilty of a gross deception. What would she
say if her sight were suddenly restored? How she would
shrink from what had previously attracted her! How she
would recoil from her frightful lover! What a cry! what
covering of her face! what a flight! These bitter scruples
harassed him. He told himself that such a monster as he
was had no right to love. He was a hydra idolized by a
star. It was his duty to enlighten the blind star.
One day Gwynplaine said to Dea, “ You know that I am
very ugly.”
“ I know that you are sublime,” she answered.
He resumed: “ When you hear everybody laugh, it is at
me they are laughing, because I am horrible.”
“ I love you ! ” said Dea. After a silence, she added: “ I
was dead; you restored me to life. When you are near me
heaven is beside me. Give me your hand, that I may touch
heaven.”
Their hands met and grasped each other. They spoke no
more, but were silent in the plenitude of their love.
Ursus, who was a crabbed old fellow, overheard this. The
next day when the three were together, he remarked, “ For
that matter, Dea-is ugly too.”
The words produced no effect. Dea and Gwynplaine were
not even listening. Absorbed in each other, they rarely
heeded the exclamations of Ursus.
The remark, “ Dea is ugly too,” showed that Ursus pos—
sessed considerable knowledge of women. It is certain that
Gwynplaine, in his loyalty, had been guilty of an impru-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 265
dence. To have said “ I am ugly ” to any other blind girl
than Dea might have been dangerous. To be blind, and in
love too, is to be doubly blind. In such a situation one in-
dulges in all sorts of dreams. Illusion is the food of dreams.
Take illusion from love, and you take from it its aliment. It
is compounded of all sorts of enthusiasm, and of both phys-
ical and moral admiration. 7
Moreover, you should never tell a woman anything she can-
not understand. She will dream about it, and she often
dreams falsely. An enigma in a reverie spoils it. The shock
caused by the fall of a careless word displaces that against
which it strikes. At times it happens, without our knowing
why, that because we have received an almost imperceptible
blow from a chance word, the heart insensibly empties itself
of love. He who loves, perceives a decline in his happiness.
There is nothing more to be dreaded than this slow exuda-
tion from the fissure in the vase.
Happily, Dea was not formed of such clay. The stuff of
which women are usually made had not been used in her con-
struction. She had a rare nature. The frame was fragile,
but not the heart. A divine perseverance in love was one of
her attributes. The whole disturbance which the word used
by Gwynplaine had created in her, ended in her saying one
day,—
“What is it to be ugly? It is to do wrong. Gwyn-
plaine only does good: he is handsome.”
Then, under the form of interrogation so familiar to chil-
dren and to the blind, Dea resumed: “ To seeP—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 exclaimed fondly, “ Oh,
you story-teller!”


266 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Gwynplaine felt the joy of having confessed and of not
being believed. Both his conscience and his love were con-
soled.
Dea was now sixteen, and Gwynplaine nearly twenty-five.
A sort of holy childhood had continued 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 intended to do them,
said,—
“ One of these days you must choose a religion.”
“ Wherefore?” inquired Gwynplaine.
“ That you may marry.”
“ That is done already,” said Dea.
Dea did not understand that they could be more man and
wife than they were already. This chimerical and virginal
content, this chaste 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 “ Hy-
men 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
they were not enough in this first link, love had supervened
and united them yet more closely. What power could ever
break that iron chain, bound with knots of flowers? They
were indeed indissoluny united. Dea had beauty, Gwyn-
plaine had sight. Each brought a dowry. They were more
than coupled, they were paired; separated solely by the sacred
interposition of innocence.
'Still, in spite of all Gwynplaine’s noble dreams and his
absorbing love for Dea, he was a man. The laws of Nature


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 267
are not to be evaded. He underwent, like everything else in
the natural word, the mysterious fermentation ordained by
the Creator. At times, therefore, he looked at the women
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, antipa—
thy, repugnance, and scorn. It was evident that no one save
Dea was possible for him. This probably helped him to
repent.

CHAPTER VIII
NOT ONLY HAPPINESS, BUT PROSPERITY
OW many true things are told in stories! The burn
of the invisible fiend who touches you is remorse for a
wicked thought.
In Gwynplaine these evil thoughts never came to fruition;
so he felt no remorse. Sometimes he felt regret. A few
vague compunctions of conscience, what was that? Nothing.
Their happiness was complete; so complete, that they were no
longer poor, even.
From 1689 to 1704 a great change had taken place. It
sometimes happened, in the year 1704!, that an immense
van drawn by two sturdy horses made its appearance about
nightfall in some small village on the sea-coast. This van
resembled the hull of a vessel turned upside down, the keel
serving for a roof, and the deck, placed upon four wheels, for
a floor. The wheels were all of the same size, and as 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 colour attracted attention to the establish-
ment, which was known on all fair-grounds as The Green


268 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Box. The Green Box had but two windows, one at each
end, and at the back there was a door with st s that let
down. On the roof, from a pipe painted green 1i e the rest,
smoke arose. This moving house was always newly varnished
and washed. In front, on a sort of platform, fastened to the
van, behind the horses, and beside an old man who held the
reins and guided the team, two gipsy women, dressed as god-
desses, sounded their trumpets. The wonder with which the
villagers regarded this gorgeous establishment was over-
whelming.
This was the old van of Ursus, with its proportions aug—
mented by success, and changed from a wretched box into a
fine travelling show. A kind of animal, between dog and
wolf, was chained under the van; this was Homo. The old
coachman who drove the horses was the philosopher himself.
Whence came his improvement from the shabby box to the
Olympic caravan? From this,— Gwynplaine had become
famous.
It was with a correct idea of what would succeed best
among men that Ursus had said to Gwynplaine: “ Your for-
tune is made.” Ursus, it may be remembered, had made
Gwynplaine his pupil. Unknown people had worked upon
his face; he, on the other hand, had worked upon his mind;
and as soon as the growth of the child warranted it, he had
brought him out on the stage,—- that is to say, he had pro-
duced him in front of the van.
The effect of Gwynplaine’s appearance had been surpris-
ing. The passers~by were immediately struck with wonder.
Never had anything been seen to be compared to this extraor-
dinary imitation of laughter. They were ignorant how the
miracle of infectious hilarity had been obtained. Some be-
lieved it to be natural, others declared it to be artificial;
and all these conjectures added to the reality; so that every-
where, at every cross—road on the journey, at all the fair-
grounds and fétes, crowds rushed to see Gwynplaine. Thanks
to this great attraction, there had come into the poor purse of
the wanderers first a shower of farthings, then of pennies,




At the Green Box.
The .Man Who Laughs. Vol. I , Page 268.
~ I5~~.\-,-_s.m_
W“..- ~~__—'.W





THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 269
and finally of shillings. The curiosity of one place satisfied,
they passed on to another. Rolling does not enrich a stone,
but it enriches a caravan; and year by year, from city to city,
with the increased growth of Gwynplaine’s stature and ugli—
ness, the good fortune predicted by Ursus had come.
“ What a good turn they did you after all, my boy,” said
Ursus.
This good fortune enabled Ursus, who acted as business
manager, to have the chariot of his dreams constructed,—
that is to say, a caravan large enough to carry a theatre, and
thus sow science and art in the highways. Moreover, Ursus
had been able to add to the troupe composed of himself,
Homo, Gwynplaine, and Dea, two horses and two women,
who were the goddesses of the troupe, as we have just said,
and also its servants. A mythological frontispiece was, in
those days, of great service to a travelling show.
“ We are a wandering temple,” said Ursus.
These two gipsies, picked up by the philosopher from
among the vagabondage of cities and suburbs, were ugly and
young, and were called, by order of Ursus, one Phoebe, and
the other Venus. For these read Fibi and Vinos, that we may
conform to English pronunciation. Phoebe cooked; Venus
scrubbed the temple. Moreover, on days of performance they
dressed Dea. Mountebanks have to appear in public 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, which, having no sleeves, left the arms bare.
Ursus and Gwynplaine wore men’s jackets and long loose
trousers, like sailors on board a man—of—war. Gwynplaine
had, besides, for his work and for his feats of strength, round
his neck and over his shoulders, a leather esclavine. He took
care of the horses. Ursus and Homo took care of each
other.
Dea, being used to the Green Box, moved about the in-
terior of the wheeled house with almost as much ease and
safety as a person who could see. In the back part of this
new and imposing establishment, in the corner to the right
w... __._ __._,N m. _ _-. c-___..,____-_a-_.._._-_ \L..__~..___-__-


270 THE DIAN WHO LAUGHS
-‘w ,.
of the door, stood the old divan, securely fastened to the floor.
This now served as a sleeping apartment and dressing—room
for Gwynplaine and Ursus. In the opposite corner was the
kitchen.
No vessel could be more precise and compact in its arrange-
ments than the interior of the Green Box. Everything con-
nected with it had been planned with remarkable foresight
and care. The caravan was divided into three compart—
ments, partitioned off from one another. These communi-
cated by open spaces without doors, but were hung with cur-
tains. The compartment in the rear belonged to the men, the
compartment in front to the women, the compartment in the
middle, separating the two sexes, was the stage. The mu—
sical instruments and the stage properties were kept in the
kitchen. A left under the arch of the roof held the scenery,
and on opening a trap-door lamps appeared, which did won-
ders in the way of lighting the stage!
Ursus was the poet of these representations; he wrote the
pieces. He had a diversity of talents; he was clever at
sleight-of-hand. Besides the voices he imitated, he produced
all sorts of unexpected efi'ects,——- sudden alternations of light
and darkness, spontaneous formations of figures or words,—
as he willed, on the wall; also vanishing figures in chiaroscuro,
wonders amidst which he seemed to meditate, unmindful of
the crowd who marvelled at him.
One day Gwynplaine said to him:
a sorcerer!”
And Ursus replied, “ Then I look, perhaps, like what I am.”
The Green Box, built on a model conceived by Ursus, con-
tained this stroke of ingenuity: between the fore and hind
wheels, the central panel of the left side turned on hinges
by the aid of chains and pulleys, and could be let down at
will like a drawbridge. As it dropped, it set at liberty three
legs also on hinges, which supported the panel and converted
it into a sort of platform. The opening thus made disclosed
the stage, which was enlarged by the platform in front. This
opening looked for all the world like a “ mouth of hell,” in
“ Father, you look like
'¢~’ ,k< >17 >'¢I-_4 _.
W...
. ,_.___g._._


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 271
the words of the itinerant Puritan preachers, who turned
away from it with horror. It was, perhaps, for some such
impious invention that Solon kicked out Thespis.
For all that, Thespis has lasted much longer than is gen-
erally supposed. The travelling theatre is still in existence.
It was on these stages on wheels that the ballets and dances of
Amner and Pilkington were performed in England in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the pastorals of Gilbert
Colin in France; and in Flanders, at the annual fairs, the
double choruses of Clement, called Non Papa; in Germany,
the “ Adam and Eve ” of Theiles; and, in Italy, the Venetian
exhibitions of Animuccia and of Ca—Fossis, the “ Silva: ” of
Gesualdo, prince of Venosa, the “ Satyr,” of Laura Guidic-
cioni, the “ Despair of Philene,” and the “ Death of Ugo-
lino,” by Vincent Galileo, father of the astronomer, in which
Vincent Galileo sang his own music, and accompanied himself
on his viol de gamba; as well as all the first attempts of the
Italian opera, which, from 1580, substituted free inspiration
for the madrigal style.
The chariot, which carried Ursus, Gwynplaine, and their
fortunes, and in front of which Fibi and Vinos trumpeted like
figures of Fame, played its part in this great Bohemian and
literary brotherhood. Thespis would no more have disowned
Ursus, than Congrio would have disowned Gwynplaine.
On arriving at open spaces in towns or villages, Ursus,
in the intervals between the tootings of Fibi and Vinos, gave
instructive explanations concerning the trumpetings. “ This
symphony is Gregorian,” he would exclaim, “ citizens and
townsmen; the Gregorian form of worship, this great prog-
ress, has had to contend in Italy with the Ambrosial ritual,
and in Spain with the Mozarabic ceremonial, and has achieved
its triumph over them with difficulty.” After which the
Green Box drew up in some place chosen by Ursus, and even-
ing having come, and the panel stage having been let down,
the theatre opened and the performance began.
The scenery of the Green Box represented a landscape,
painted by Ursus; and as he knew nothing about painting,


272 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
W»... ~~, Jaw-fr-
it could, if need be, represent a cave just as well as a land-
scape. The curtain was quite a gorgeous silk affair, with
large plaids of contrasting colours.
The public stood outside, in the street, forming a semi—
circle round the stage, exposed to the wind and weather,—
an arrangement which made rain even less desirable for the—
atres in those days than now. When they could, they acted
in an inn yard, on which occasions the windows of the differ—
ent stories served as boxes for the spectators. The theatre
being better protected, the audience was a better paying one.
Ursus was everywhere,—in the piece, in the company, in
the kitchen, in the orchestra. Vinos beat the drum, handling
the sticks with great dexterity. Fibi played on the morache,
a. kind of guitar. The wolf had been promoted to be a
utility gentleman, and played his little parts as occasion re—
quired. Often when they appeared side by side on the stage,
Ursus in his tightly laced bear’s skin, Homo with his wolf’s
skin fitting still better, one could hardly tell which was the
beast. This flattered Ursus.

CHAPTER IX
ABSUBDITIES wmcn rorxs wrrnon'r TASTE CALL roan!
HE pieces written by Ursus were interludes,—a kind
of composition out of fashion nowadays. One of
these pieces, which has not come down to us, was entitled
“ Ursus Rursus.” It is probable that he played the prin-
cipal part himself. A pretended exit, followed by a reap-
pearance, was doubtless its praiseworthy and edifying sub-
ject.
The titles of the interludes of Ursus were sometimes in
Latin, as we have seen, and the poetry frequently in Spanish.
The Spanish verses written by Ursus were rhymed, like nearly
‘_—
_ V -r_
_..- -


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 273
all the Castilian poetry of that period. This did not puzzle
the people. Spanish was then a familiar language; and the
English sailor spoke Castilian as the Roman sailors spoke
Carthaginian (See Plautus). Moreover, at a theatrical rep-
resentation, as at Mass, Latin, or any other unknown lan-
guage, has no terrors for the audience. They get out of
the dilemma by adapting familiar words to the sounds. Our
old Gallic France was often treated in this irreverent way.
At church, under cover of an Immolatus, the faithful chanted,
“I will make 'merry;” and under a Sanctus, “Kiss me,
sweet.” The Council of Trent was required to put an end to
this sacrilege.
Ursus had composed expressly for Gwynplaine an inter-
lude, with which he was well pleased. It was his best work.
He had thrown his whole soul into it. To give one’s entire
talent in the production is the greatest triumph that any
one can achieve. The toad which produces a toad achieves
a grand success. You doubt it? Then try it yourself.
Ursus had carefully polished this interlude. This bear’s cub
was entitled “I Chaos Vanquished.”
Here it was. A night scene. When the curtain drew up,
the crowd, massed around the Green Box, saw nothing but
intense darkness. In this darkness three shadowy forms were
moving about,-—— a wolf, a bear, and a man. The wolf acted
the wolf; Ursus, the bear; Gwynplaine, the man. The wolf
and the bear represented the ferocious forces of Nature,“
unreasoning hunger and savage ignorance. Both rushed on
Gwynplaine. It was chaos combating man. No face could
be distinguished. Gwynplaine fought enfolded in a wind-
ing-sheet, his face being 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
overwhelmed him. He called for aid and succour; he
shrieked out an agonized appeal to the Unknown. 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 breathless; in a minute more the wild


274 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
beasts would triumph, and chaos re—absorb man.
—— cries —— howlings; then, all at once, silence.
A song in the distance. Mysterious music floated out, ac—
companying this chant of invisible spirits; and suddenly, none
knowing whence or how, a white apparition arose. This ap—
parition was a light; this light was a woman; this woman
was a spirit. Dea—calm, fair, beautiful, awe—inspiring in
her serenity and sweetness—appeared in the centre of a
luminous haze, the very spirit of dawn. With a voice light,
sweet, indescribable, she sang in the new-born light,——- she,
the invisible, suddenly made visible. They thought that they
heard the hymn of an angel or the song of a bird. On be-
holding this apparition the man, starting up in 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 sufficiently pure Spanish for the English sailors who were
present :—
A struggle
“Ora! Hora!
De palabra
Nace razon.
Da luz el son.”1
Then, looking down, as if she saw a gulf beneath, she
went on :—
“ Noche, quite. te de alli!
E1 alba canta hallali.” 2
As she sang, the man raised himself by degrees; instead of
crouching he was now kneeling, his hands elevated towards
the vision, his knees resting on the beasts, which lay motion-
less, as if petrified. Turning towards him, she continued,—
“ Es menester a cielos ir,
Y tu que llorabas reir.” 8
Then approaching him with the majesty of a star, she
added,—
1 Pray! weep! Reason is born of the word. Song creates light.
2 Night, away! the dawn sings hallali.
3 Thou must go to heaven, and smile, thou that wecpest.




‘As she sang, the man raised himself by degrees.”
The Man Who Laughs, Vol, I , Page 274





THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 275
“ Gebra barzon;
Deja, monstro,
A tu negro
Caparazon.” 1
And placed her hand upon his brow. Then another voice
arose, deeper, and, consequently, still sweeter,—a voice
broken but inwrapt in a gravity both wild and tender.
It was the human voice responding to the voice of the
stars.~ Gwynplaine, still in obscurity, his head under
Dea’s hand, kneeling on the vanquished bear and wolf,
sang :—
“ 0 van! amal
Eres alma,
Soy corazon.” 2
Suddenly from the shadow a glare of light fell full upon
Gwynplaine. Then, through the darkness, the monster was
fully exposed.
The excitement of the crowd was indescribable. Shrieks
of laughter resounded. Mirth is created by startling sur-
prises, and nothing could be more unexpected than this
termination. Never was there a sensation comparable to that
produced by the ray of light falling on that mask, at once
so ludicrous and terrible in its aspect. They laughed on
account of his laugh. Everywhere: above, below, behind, in
front, at the uttermost distance,—— men, women, old grey—
heads, rosy-faced children; the good, the wicked, the gay, the
sad, everybody. And even in the streets, the passers—by who
could see nothing, hearing the laughter, laughed also. The
laughter ended in a wild clapping of hands and stamping of
feet. The curtain dropped, Gwynplaine was recalled with
frenzy. Hence an immense success. Have you seen “ Chaos
Vanquished”? Gwynplaine became the rage. The listless
came to laugh, the melancholy came to laugh, evil consciences
came to laugh,-— a laugh so irresistible that it seemed almost
1 Break the yoke; throw off, monster, thy dark clothing.
2 0, come, and love! thou art soul, I am heart.


276 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
an epidemic. There is one epidemic from which men do not
fly, and that is the contagion of joy.
Gwynplaine’s successes, it must be admitted, had not ex-
tended beyond the lower classes. A great crowd means a
crowd of nobodies. “ Chaos Vanquished ” could be seen for a
penny. Fashionable people never go where the price of ad-
mission is a penny.
Ursus had a very exalted opinion of this work, which he
had brooded over a long time. “ It is very much in the
style of one Shakspeare,” he said modestly. The juxtaposi-
tion of Dea added to the indescribable effect produced by
Gwynplaine. Her white face by the side of the gnome, rep-
resented what might have been called divine astonishment.
The audience regarded Dea with a sort of mysterious anx-
iety. She had in her aspect the dignityv of a virgin and of a
priestess. They saw that she was blind, and yet felt that
she could see. She seemed to stand on the threshold of the
supernatural. The light that beamed on her seemed half
earthly and half heavenly. She had come to work on earth,
and to work as heaven works, in the radiance of morning.
She found a hydra, and created a soul. She seemed like a
creative power, satisfied, but astonished at the result of her
creation; and the audience fancied that they could see in the
divine surprise of her face wonder at the result she had
achieved. They felt that she loved this monster. Did she
know that he was one? Yes, since she touched him; no, since
she accepted him. Without going too deep, for spectators
do not like the fatigue of seeking below the surface, some—
thing more was understood than was perceived. And this
strange spectacle had the transparency of an avatar.
As for Dea, what she felt cannot be expressed in human
words; she knew that she was in the midst of a crowd, and
yet knew not what a crowd was. She heard a murmur, that
was all. For her the crowd was but a breath. Generations
are passing breaths. Man respires, aspires, and expires. In
the crowd Dea felt utterly alone, and shuddered as one shud-
ders on the edge of a precipice. Suddenly, even while shud-
'EL V~l1___-' If! _. g“.s


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 277
dering at her isolation, she regains confidence. She has found
her thread of safety in the universe of shadows,—-— she has
placed her hand on Gwynplaine’s powerful head. Joy un—
speakable fills her heart as she lays her rosy fingers on his
thick locks. Wool when touched gives an impression of soft—
ness. Dea touched a lamb which she knew to be a lion.
Her whole heart flowed out in love ineffable. She felt safe
.now, she had found her saviour. The public believed that
they saw the contrary. To the spectators the being loved
was Gwynplaine, and the saviour was Dea. “ What does it
matter?” thought Ursus, to whom the heart of Dea
was an open book. And Dea, reassured, consoled, and de-
lighted, adored as an angel what the people regarded as a
monster.
True love never wanes. Being all soul it cannot cool. A
brazier may become full of cinders; not so a star. These
exquisite impressions were renewed every evening for Dea,
and she was ready to weep with tenderness whilst the audi—
ence was in convulsions of laughter. Those around her were
only joyful; she was happy.
The sensation of gaiety due to the sudden shock caused
by the sight of Gwynplaine was evidently not intended by
Ursus. He would have preferred more smiles and less laugh—
ter, and more of a literary triumph. But success consoles.
He reconciled himself to this disappointment every evening,
as he counted how many shillings the piles of farthings
made, and how many pounds the piles of shillings made.
He consoled himself, too, with the belief that after their
laughter was over “ Chaos Vanquished ” would continue to
haunt them by reason of the noble sentiments it inculcated.
Perhaps he was not altogether wrong; the foundations of a
work settle down in the mind of the public. The fact is,
the spectators, attentive to the wolf, the bear, to the man,
then to the music, to the howlings silenced by harmony, to
the night dispelled by dawn, to the chant releasing the light,
accepted with a confused, dull sympathy, and with a certain
emotional respect, the dramatic poem of “ Chaos Vanquished,”


278 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
the victory of spirit over matter, ending with the triumph
of man.
Such were the vulgar pleasures of the people. They suf-
ficed them. The people had not the means of going to the
elevating prize—fights of the gentry, and could not bet a
thousand guineas on Helmsgail against Phelem-ghe-Madone,
like great lords and gentlemen.

CHAPTER X
AN oursmna’s vmw or MEN AND 'rnmcs
AN has a desire to revenge himself on that which pleases
him. Hence the contempt felt for the comedian.
This being charms, diverts, distracts, teaches, enchants, con-
soles me, transports me into an ideal world, is agreeable and
useful to me. What evil can I do him in return? Humili‘
ate him. Disdain is a crushing blow, so I will crush him with
disdain. He amuses me, therefore he is vile. He serves me,
therefore I hate him. Where can I find a stone to throw at
him? Priest, give me yours. Philosopher, give me yours.
Bossuet, ex-communicate him. Rosseau, insult him. Ora-
tor, spit the pebbles from your mouth at him. Bear, fling
your stone. Let us hurl stones at the tree, hit the fruit and
eat it. Bravo! down with him! To repeat poetry is to be
infected with the plague. Wretched play-actor! we will put
him in the pillory for his success. Let him follow up his
triumph with our hisses. Let him collect a crowd, and yet
create a solitude around him. Thus it is that the wealthy,
termed the higher classes, have invented for the actor that
form of isolation known as public applause.
The vulgar herd is less brutal. They neither hated nor de-
spised Gwynplaine. Only the meanest calker of the mean—
est crew of the meanest merchantman, anchored in the mean-
-ir ar_._.__> ___r_____> ‘ __._._. __ _.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 279
est English sea—port, considered himself immeasurably su-
perior to this amuser of the “ scum,” and believed that a
calker is as superior to an actor as a lord is to a calker.
Gwynplaine was, therefore, like all comedians, applauded and
kept at a distance. Truly, success in this world is a crime,
and must be bitterly expiated. He who obtains the medal
has to take its reverse side as well.
For Gwynplaine there was no reverse side. In one sense,
both sides of his medal pleased him. He was satisfied with
the applause, and content with the isolation. In applause,
he was rich; in isolation, happy. To be rich, to one of his
low estate, means to be no longer wretchedly poor, to have
neither holes in his clothes nor cold at his hearth, nor empti-
ness in his stomach. It is to eat when hungry, and drink
when thirsty. It is to have everything needful, including a
penny for a beggar. This paltry wealth, enough for lib-
erty, Gwynplaine now possessed. So far as his soul was con-
cerned, he was opulent. He had love. What more could he
want? Nothing.
You may think that, had the ofi'er been made to him to
cure his disfigurement, he would have jumped at it. But he
would have refused it emphatically. What! to throw off
his mask and have his former face restored, to be the creature
he had perchance been created, handsome and charming?
No, he would not have consented to it. For what would he
have to support Dea upon? what would have become of the
poor child, the sweet blind girl who loved him? Without his
disfigurement, making him a clown without parallel, he would
have been a common mountebank, like any other; a common
athlete, a picker up of pence from the chinks in the pave—
ment, and Dea would, perhaps, not have had bread to eat.
It was with deep and tender pride that he felt himself the
protector of the helpless and heavenly creature. Night, soli—
tude, nakedness, weakness, ignorance, hunger, and thirst——
the seven dread jaws of poverty—yawned about her, and
he was Saint George fighting the dragon. He triumphed
over poverty, How? By his deformity. By means of his


280 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
deformity he was useful, helpful, victorious, great! He had
but to show himself, and money poured in. He was a master
of crowds, the sovereign of the mob. He could do every—
thing for Dea. He supplied her every want; her desires,
her tastes, her fancies,-—- in the limited sphere in which wishes
are possible to the blind,—- he gratified.
Gwynplaine and Dea had been, as we have already shown,
a Providence to each other. He felt himself raised on her
wings, she felt herself carried in his arms. To protect the
being who loves you, to give what she requires to her who
shines on you as your star, can anything be sweeter? Gwyn-
plaine possessed this supreme happiness, and he owed it to
his deformity. By it he had gained the means of livelihood
for himself and others; by it he had gained independence,
liberty, celebrity, internal satisfaction, and pride. In his de-
formity he was invulnerable. The Fates could do nothing be-
yond this blow in which they had expended their whole force,
but which he had converted into a triumph. This greatest
of misfortunes had become the summit of Elysium. Gwyn—
plaine was imprisoned in his deformity,— but with Dea.
And this was, as we have already said, to live in a dungeon
in paradise. A wall stood between them and the living
world. So much the better. This wall protected as well as
enclosed them. What could harm Dea, what could harm
Gwynplaine, with such a fortress around them? To deprive
him of his success was impossible. They would have to de—
prive him of his face. Take his love from him? Impossi-
ble! Dea could not see him. The blindneSs of Dea was
divinely incurable. What harm did his deformity do Gwyn-
plaine? None. What advantage did it give him? Every
advantage. He was beloved, notwithstanding its horror, and,
perhaps, for that very reason. Infirmity and deformity had,
by instinct, been drawn towards and united with each other.
To be beloved, is not that everything? Gwynplaine thought
of his disfigurement only with gratitude. He was blessed in
the stigma. With joy he felt that it was irremediable and
eternal. What a blessing that it was so! While there were


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 281
p
highways and fair—grounds, and journeys to take, and peo—
ple below, and the sky above, they were sure of a living.
Dea would want for nothing, and they would have love.
Gwynplaine would not have changed faces with Apollo.
To be a monster was his happiness. He was so happy that
he felt compassion for the men around him. He pitied all the
rest of the world. No man’s nature is wholly consistent; so,
although he was glad to live within an enclosure, he lifted
- his head above the wall from time to time, but only to retreat
again with even more joy into his solitude with Dea, having
drawn his comparisons. What did he see around him?
What were those living creatures of which his wandering life
showed him so many specimens, changed every day? Always
new crowds, but always the same multitude; ever new faces,
but ever the same misfortunes. Every evening every known
phase of human misery came within his notice.
The Green Box was popular. Low prices attract the low
classes. Those who came were the weak, the poor, the in-
significant. They rushed to Gwynplaine as they rushed to
the gin—shop. They came to buy a pennyworth of forget-
fulness. From his platform Gwynplaine passed these
wretched people in review. His mind was absorbed in the
contemplation of each successive form of wide-spread misery.
The physiognomy of 'a man is moulded by conscience, and
by the tenor of his life, and the result is a host of mys—
terious excavations. There was not a pain nor an emotion of
anger, shame, or despair, of which Gwynplaine did not see
the trace. The mouths of those children were hungering for
food. That man was a father, that woman a mother, and be—
hind them might be seen families on the road to ruin. There
was a face already marked by vice and contact with crime,
and the reasons were plain,—— ignorance and poverty. An-
other showed the stamp of original goodness, obliterated by
social pressure, and turned to hatred. On the face of an old
woman he saw starvation; on that of a girl, prostitution.
The same fact, and although the girl had the resource of her
youth, all the sadder for that! In this crowd were hands
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282 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
but no tools; the workers only asked for work, but work was
wanting. Sometimes a soldier came and seated himself by
the workmen, sometimes a wounded pensioner; and Gwyn-
plaine saw the grim spectre of war. Here, he read lack of
employment, there, man—farming,— slavery. On some brows
he saw a gradual return to animalism,— that slow return of
man to beast, produced in those in the lower walks of life by
the good fortune of their superiors.
There was a break in the gloom for Gwynplaine. He and
Dea had a loop-hole of happiness; the rest was damnation.
Gwynplaine saw above him the thoughtless trampling of the
powerful, the rich, the magnificent, and the great of the
earth. Below, he saw the pale faces of the disinherited. He
saw himself and Dea, with their blessings, so paltry in ap-
pearance, so great to themselves, between these two worlds.
That which was above went and came, free, joyous, dancing,
carelessly trampling everything and everybody under foot;
above him, the world which treads; below, the world which is
trodden upon. It is a fatal fact, and one indicating a pro-
found social evil, that happiness should crush misery. Gwyn-
plaine comprehended this gloomy fact thoroughly. What
a destiny! Must a man needs drag himself along through
mire and corruption, with such vicious tastes, such a total
abdication of his rights, or such abjectness that one feels in-
clined to crush him under foot? Of what butterfly can this
earthly life be grub? What! in this vast crowd of ignorant,
starving creatures, scarcely able to distinguish good from
evil,—- the inflexibility of human laws producing marvellous
laxity of conscience,—— is there no child that grows but to be
stunted, no virgin that matures but for sin, no rose that
blooms but for the slimy snail?
Gwynplaine shuddered as he saw the foaming wave of
misery dash over the crowd of humanity. He himself was
safe in port, as he watched the wrecks around him. Some—
times he buried his disfigured head in his hands and dreamed.
What folly to expect to be happy! What an idle dream!
Strange ideas arose within him. Absurd notions flitted


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 283
through his brain. Because he had once succoured an infant,
he felt a ridiculous desire to succour the whole world. The
mists of reverie sometimes obscured his individuality, and he
lost all ideas of proportion so far as to ask himself the ques-
tion, “ What can be done for the poor? ” Sometimes he was
so absorbed in the subject that he unconsciously uttered his
thoughts aloud. Ursus shrugged his shoulders and looked
at him wonderingly.
“ Oh, if I were powerful, would I not aid the wretched? ”
Gwynplaine would exclaim, continuing his reverie. “ But
what am I? —A mere atom. What can I do? ——Nothing.”
He was mistaken. He was able to do a great deal for the
wretched. He could make them laugh; and, as we have said
before, to make people laugh is to make them forget. What
a benefactor to humanity is he who can bestow forgetfulness!

CHAPTER XI
GWYNPLAINE THINKS JUSTICE, AND unsus SPEAKS TRUTH
PHILOSOPHER is a spy; so it was only natural that
Ursus should watch his pupil closely. Our soliloquies
leave on our brows a faint reflection, distinguishable to the
eye of a physiognomist. Hence, the ideas that occurred to
Gwynplaine did not escape Ursus. One day as Gwynplaine
was meditating, Ursus took him by the jacket, and ex-
claimed,—
“ You strike me as being a close observer! You fool!
Take care. It is no business of yours. You have only one
thing to do,—— to love Dea. You have two great causes for
thankfulness,— the first is, that the crowd sees your face;
the second is, that Dea does not. You have no right to the
happiness you possess, for no woman who saw your mouth
would ever consent to your kiss; and the month which has
-'- >~ ~—' ~ ~~-—.~v._._ ~‘..V~~_.. ~\' 7 -" \m " ~Mfi‘_,~‘ __,,g___, _.


284 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
made your fortune, and the face which has given you riches,
_ are not your own. You were not born with that counte-
nance. It was borrowed from the grimace which lurks in
the depths of perdition. You have stolen your mask from
the devil. You are hideous; be satisfied with having drawn
that prize in the lottery of life. There are in this world
(and a very good thing it is too) the happy by right, and
the happy by luck. You are happy by luck. You are in
a cave wherein a star is enclosed. The poor star belongs to
you. Do not seek to leave the cave; and guard your star,
O spider! You have Venus in your web. Do me the favour
to be satisfied. I see your dreams are troubled. It is idiotic
of you. Listen, I am going to speak to you in the language
'of true poetry. Let Dea eat beefsteaks and mutton—chops,
and in six months she will be as strong as a Turk; marry
her immediately, give her a child, two children, three chil—
dren, a long string of children. That is what I call philoso-
phy. Moreover, it is happiness, which is no folly. To have
children is a glimpse of heaven. Have brats: blow their
noses, spank them, wash them, and put them to bed. Let
them swarm about you. If they laugh, it is well; if they
howl, it is better,— crying is healthy. Watch them suck at
six months, crawl at a year, walk at two, grow tall at fifteen,
fall in love at twenty. He who has these joys has everything.
For myself, I lacked the privilege, and that is the reason why
I am such a brute. God, a composer of beautiful poems and
the first of men of letters, said to his fellow-workman, Moses,
‘ Increase and multiply.’ Such is the text. So multiply,
you beast! As for the world, it is as it is; you cannot make
nor mar it. Do not trouble yourself about it. Pay no at—
tention to what goes on outside. A comedian is made to be
looked at, not to look. Do you know what there is outside?
The happy, by right. You, I repeat, are one of the happy
by chance. You are the pickpocket of the happiness of
which they are the rightful proprietors. They are the legiti-
mate possessors; you are an interloper. You live in con-
cubinage with luck. What do you want that you have not
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4 7 i, 7 ,7 ,7 ‘ ‘ 4,..k V “A, _ A


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 285
already? Shibboleth help me! This fellow is a rascal.
Such happiness is a swindle. Those who possess happiness
by right do not like folks below them to have so much enjoy-
ment. If they ask you what right you have to be happy,
you will not know what to answer. You have no patent, and
they have. Jupiter, Allah, Vishnou, Sabaoth, it matters not
who, has given them the passport to happiness. Beware of
them. Do not meddle with them, lest they should meddle
with you. Wretch! do you know what the man is who is
happy by right? He is a terrible being. He is a lord. A
lord! He must have intrigued pretty well in the devil’s un-
known country before he was born, to enter life by the door
he did. How difficult it must have been to him to be born!
It is the only trouble he has given himself ; but, just Heaven!
what a one!——to bribe destiny, that egregious blockhead,
to mark him in his cradle a master of men; to bribe the box-
keeper to give him the best place at the show. Read the
memoranda in the old van which I have placed on the half—
pay list. Read that breviary of wisdom, and you will see
what it is to be a lord. A lord is one who has all, and is all.
A lord is one who lives far above his own nature. A lord is
one who has when young the rights of an old man; when old,
the success in intrigue of a young one; if vicious, the homage
of respectable people; if a coward, the command of brave
‘men; if a do-nothing, the fruits of labour; if ignorant, the
diploma of Cambridge or Oxford; if a fool, the admira-
tion of poets; if ugly, the smiles of women; if a Thersites, the
helm of Achilles; if a hare, the skin of a lion. Do not mis-
understand my words. I do not say that a lord must neces-
sarily be ignorant, or a coward, or ugly, or stupid, or old.
I only mean that he may be all those things without any detri-
ment to himself. On the contrary. Lords are princes. The
King of England is only a lord, the first peer of the peerage;
that is all, but it is much. Kings were formerly called lords,
-—the Lord of Denmark, the Lord of Ireland, the Lord of
the Isles. The Lord of Norway was first called king three
hundred years ago. Lucius, the most ancient king in Eng-


286 > THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
land, was addressed by Saint Telesphorus as my Lord Lucius.
The lords are peers — that is to say, equals —— of whom? Of
the king. I do not make the mistake of confounding the
lords with parliament. The assembly of the people which
the Saxons before the Conquest called witte'nagemote, the
Normans, after the Conquest, entitled parliamentum. By de—
grees the people were turned out. The king’s letters con—
voking the Commons, addressed formerly ad concilium i/mpen-
dendum, are now addressed ad consentiendum. They have
the privilege of saying “ Yes.” But the peers have the right
to say “ No;” and the proof is that they have said it. The
peers can cut off the king’s head. The people cannot. The
stroke of the hatchet which decapitated Charles I. is an en-
croachment, not on the king, but on the peers; and it was
well to place on the gibbet the carcass of Cromwell. The
lords have power. Why? Because they have the property.
Glance over the leaves of the Doomsday-book. That is proof
that the lords own 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 fine
book! Do you know that I was once physician to a lord who
was called Marmaduke, and who had thirty-six thousand a
year? Think of that, you hideous idiot! Do you know
that, with rabbits from the warrens of Earl Lindsay only,
they could feed all the riff-ratf 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 see, you rascal! and we
must think it well that they do. Even if we do not, what
harm will it do them? The people object, indeed! Why?
Plautus himself would never have entertained such an ab-
surd idea. A philosopher would be thought jesting if he
advised a poor devil of the masses to cry out against the size
and weight of the lords. As well might the gnat dispute
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‘ AW ‘ W V _, h, .4 A ...-_ _> a


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 287
with the foot of an elephant. One day I saw a hippopota-
mus tread upon a mole-hill; he crushed it utterly. He was
innocent. The great soft-headed fool of a mastodon was
not even aware of the mole’s existence. My son, the down-
trodden moles are the human race. To crush is the universal
law. And do you think that the mole himself crushes noth-
ing? Why, he is the mastodon of the flesh-worm, who in
turn is the mastodon of the globe-worm.
“ But let us cease arguing. My boy, there are coaches in
the world; my lord is inside, the people under the wheels; the
philosopher gets out of the way. Stand aside, and let them
pass. As for me, I love lords, and yet shun them. I lived
with one; the charm of the recollection suffices me. I remem-
ber his country house; it would be impossible to conceive of
anything more grand and beautiful than Marmaduke Lodge
and its surroundings. The houses, country seats, and pal—
aces of the lords form a collection of all that is greatest and
most magnificent in this flourishing kingdom. I love our
lords. I am grateful to them for being opulent, powerful,
and prosperous. I myself am clothed in shadow, so I look
with interest upon the shred of heavenly blue which is called
a lord. You enter Marmaduke Lodge by an exceedingly
spacious courtyard, which forms an oblong square, divided
into eight spaces, each surrounded by a balustrade; on each
side is a wide approach, and a superb hexagonal fountain
plays in the midst; this fountain is formed of two basins,
which are surmounted by a dome of exquisite open-work, ele-
vated on six columns. It was there that I knew a learned
Frenchman, Monsieur l’Abbé du Cros, who belonged to the
Jacobin' monastery in the Rue Saint Jacques. Half the
library of Erpenius is at Marmaduke Lodge, the other half
is in the theological schools at Cambridge. I used to read
the books, seated under the richly ornamented 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


288‘ THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
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 honour, accept,
respect, and revere our lords. It is the lords who, with her
royal Majesty, labour to ensure and preserve the welfare of
the nation. Their consummate wisdom shines in critical junc-
tures. Their precedence over others I wish they had not;
but they have it. What is called principality in Germany
and grandeeship in Spain, is called peerage in England and
France. There being a fair show of reason for considering .
the world a wretched place, Heaven felt where the burden was
most galling, and to prove that it knew how to make happy
people, created lords for the satisfaction of philosophers.
This acts as a set—off, and gets Heaven out of the scrape, af—
fording it a decent escape from a false position. The great
are great. A peer, speaking of himself, says “We.” A
peer is a plural. The king calls the peer consanguinei nostri.
The peers have made a multitude of wise laws; among others,
one which condemns to death any one who cuts down a three-
year-old poplar tree. Their supremacy is such that they
have a language of their own. In heraldic style, black,
which is called sable for gentry, is called saturne for princes,
and diamond for peers. Diamond powder! a night thick
with stars, such is the night of the happy! Even among
themselves these high and mighty lords have their distinc-
tions. A baron cannot bathe with a viscount without his
permission. These are indeed excellent safeguards for the
nation. What a fine thing it is for the people to have twen-
ty-five. dukes, .five marquises, seventy—six earls, nine viscounts,
and sixty-one barons; making altogether a hundred and sev-
enty—six peers, some of whom are “ your grace,” and some
“ my lord.” What matter a few rags here and there; every-
body cannot be dressed in cloth of gold. Let the rags be.
Can you not gaze on the purple? One counterbalances the


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 289
other. Of course, there are the poor; what of them? They
are made to add to the comfort of the opulent. Devil take
it! our lords are our glory! The pack of hounds belonging
to Charles, Baron Mohun, costs him as much as the hospital
for lepers in Moorgate, and Christ’s Hospital, founded for
children, in 1553, by Edward VI. Thomas Osborne, Duke of
Leeds, spends yearly on his liveries five thousand golden
guineas. The Spanish grandees have a guardian appointed
by law to prevent them from ruining themselves. That is
cowardly. Our lords are extravagant and magnificent. I
honour them for it. Let us not abuse them like envious
folks. I feel happy when a beautiful vision passes. I do
not possess the light myself, but I have the reflection. A
reflection thrown on my ulcer, you will say. Go to the devil!
I am a Job, happy in the contemplation of Trimalcion. Oh,
that beautiful and radiant planet up there! But the moon-
light 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 to say that
the State should be revolutionized, 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 attach just about
as much importance to life as a fly. Life is only a lodging;
house. When I think that Henry Bowes Howard, Earl of
Berkshire, has in his stable twenty-four state carriages, of
which one is mounted in silver, and another in gold,-—— good
heavens! I know that every one does not possess 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 from
cold and hunger. Don’t you know that but for the cold
Dea would not have been blind; and if Dea were not blind, she
would not love you? Think of that, you fool! Besides, if
all the people who are unhappy were to complain, there would
be a pretty tumult! Silence is the rule. I have no doubt
that Heaven imposes silence on the damned, otherwise Heaven


290 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
itself would be spoiled by their everlasting wailing. The hap-
piness of Olympus is ensured by the silence of Cocytus. Then,
good people, be silent! I do better myself; I approve and
admire. i
“ 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 Rap—
hoe, who combined the peerage with the church, a great tithe
of beautiful wheat taken from the peasants in the neighbour-
hood, and which the dean had not been at the trouble of grow-
ing. This left him time to say his prayers. Do you know
that Lord Marmaduke, my master, was Lord Grand Treas-
urer of Ireland, and High Seneschal of the sovereignty of
Knaresborough in the county of York? Do you know that
the Lord High Chamberlain, which is an hereditary office
in the family of the Dukes of Lancaster, dresses the king
for his coronation, and receives for his trouble forty yards of
crimson 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 Eng-
land is Robert Brent, created 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 on 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 mum, malt, and
prepared barley, on coals, and on a hundred things besides.
Let us respect the powers that be. The clergy themselves are
dependent 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 hav-
ing made animals enough, they have invented others. They
have created the heraldic wild boar, who is as much above the
wild boar as a wild boar is above the common pig, and a lord


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS _ 291
is above a 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 serpent, 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 these
unknown beasts roar. The prodigies of the forest are noth—
ing 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!’
Canker-worms eat the roots, and panoplies eat the people.
Why not? Can we expect to change the laws? The peer-
age 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 £‘l0,000 a year? Do you
know that her Majesty has £700,000 sterling from the civil
list, besides castles, forests, domains, fiefs, tenancies, free-
holds, prebendaries, tithes, rent, confiscations, and fines, which
bring in over a million sterling? Those who are not satis-
fied are hard to please.”
“ Yes,” murmured Gwynplaine, sadly; “the paradise of
the rich is made the hell of the poor.”

CHAPTER XII
unsus THE roar mmos on nasus THE rmmsormm
UST then Dea entered. Gwynplaine looked at her, and
saw her only. Such is love; one may be carried away
for a moment by the importunity of some other idea, but the
beloved one enters, and everything that does not pertain to
W_~_,-_~W_~M ~_-._~ PW AM~A\__-\.~___ _‘-A-_Mm~_~.


292 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
her immediately fades away, without her dreaming perhaps
that she is effacing all the rest of the world from one’s mind.
Let 'us mention a circumstance. In “ Chaos Vanquished”
the word monstro, addressed to Gwynplaine, displeased Dea.
Sometimes, with a smattering of Spanish, which every one
possessed at that period, she took it into her head to replace
it by quiero, which signifies, “ I wish it.” Ursus tolerated,
although not without considerable impatience, this alteration
in his text. He might have said to Dea, as in our own day
Moessard said to Vissot, “ Tu manques de respect au reper—
toire.” “ The Laughing Man.” This was the form Gwyn-
plaine’s celebrity had assumed. His name, Gwynplaine, but
little known at any time, was hidden under this nickname,
as his face was hidden under its ghastly grin. His popular~
ity was like his visage,—a mask. His name, however, ap—
peared on a large placard in front of the Green Box, which
bore the following notice composed by Ursus:—
“Do not fail to see Gwynplaine, who was deserted at the age of ten,
on the night of the 99th of January, 1690, by villainous Comprachicos, on
the coast of Portland. The little boy has grown up, and is now known as
“THE LAUGHING MAN.”
The existence of these mountebanks resembled the life of
lepers in a leper—house as well as of the blessed in one of the
Pleiades. Every day there was a sudden transition from the
noisy exhibition outside to the most complete seclusion.
Every evening they made their exit from the world. They
were like the dead, vanishing on condition of being re-born
. next day. A comedian is a sort of revolving light, appear-
ing one moment, disappearing the next, and existing for the
public only as a phantom, as his life circles round. To ex-
hibition succeeded isolation. As soon as the performance
was finished, and even while the spectators were dispersing,
and their murmur of satisfaction was still heard in the streets,
the Green Box drew in its platform, as a fortress does its
drawbridge, and all communication with mankind was cut
off. On one side, the universe; on the other, the van; but


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 298
the van contained liberty; clear consciences, courage, devo-
tion, innocence, happiness, love,-—— all the heavenly constella-
tions. Clear-sighted blindness and fondly beloved deformity
sat side by side,— hand pressing hand, brow touching brow,
— and whispered to each other, intoxicated with love.
The compartment in the middle of the van served two
purposes,—— for the public it was a stage; for the actors, a
dining-room. Ursus, ever delighting in comparisons, profited
by this diversity of uses to liken the central compartment in
the Green Box to the arradach in an Abyssinian hut. Ursus
counted the receipts, then they supped.
Love idealizes everything. When persons are in love, eat-
ing and drinking together afford opportunities for many
sweet promiscuous touches, by which a mouthful becomes
a kiss. The two drank ale or wine from the same glass, as
they might drink dew out of the same lily. Two souls in love
are as full of grace as two birds. Gwynplaine waited on
Dea, cut her bread, poured out her drink, approaching as
close to her as possible.
“ Hum!” cried Ursus, and turned away, his scolding melt-
ing into a smile.
The wolf supped under the table, heedless of everything
which did not actually affect his bone. Fibi and Vinos shared
the repast, but gave no trouble. These vagabonds, who were
only half-civilized, and as uncouth as ever, conversed with
each other in the Gipsy tongue. At length Dea re-entered
the women’s apartment with Fibi and Vinos. Ursus chained
Homo under the Green Box; Gwynplaine looked after the
horses,— the lover becoming a groom, like one of Homer’s
heroes or Charlemagne’s paladins. By midnight all were
sound asleep, except the wolf, who, alive to his responsibility,
now and then opened an eye. The next morning they met
again, and breakfasted together, generally on ham and tea.
Tea was introduced into England in 1668. In the middle
of the day Dea, after the Spanish fashion, took a siesta, act-
ing on the advice of Ursus, who considered her delicate, and
slept several hours, while Gwynplaine and Ursus did all
.. _.___..-__s - . ‘ 0-“ ‘7.“ .\ W. _


294 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
the little jobs of work, in doors and out, which their wan-
dering life necessitated.
Gwynplaine rarely wandered far from the Green Box, ex-
cept on unfrequented roads and in solitary places. In
cities he went out only at night, disguised in a large
slouched hat, so as not to show his face in the street. His
face was seen uncovered only on the stage.
The Green Box had frequented cities but little. Gwyn—
plaine at twenty-four had never seen any town larger than
the Cinque Ports. His fame, however, was increasing. It
had begun to rise above the populace, and to percolate into
higher ground. Among the many who were fond of, and
ran after, foreign curiosities and prodigies, it was known
that there was somewhere in existence, leading a wandering
life, now here, now there, an extraordinary monster. They
talked about him, they sought him, they wondered where he
was. The laughing man was becoming decidedly famous.
A certain lustre, too, was reflected from him upon “ Chaos
Vanquished.” So much so that one day Ursus, being ambi-
tious, exclaimed,—
“ We must go to London.”
END OF VOL. I.

,->..-- ,..-- ._4 _;,--z.-4--~»1-—-. 4- W’g'i/w'" Tiff " i


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS


“Ln-lJ-I- 51!“ M' _”I.Ad ,pv-e-Mm w1.a_.,;w_;.;..;


CONTENTS
Von. II.
BOOK III.—- Tm: Bsonnrmo 0! TH! Flam.
Cnamn Pm:
I. THE TADCABTEB INN . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
II. OPEN-ATE ELOQUENCE. . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
III. Wanna THE PASSER-BY anarrnans . . . . . . . . . 9
IV. CONTRARIES ransamzr: m HATE . . . . . . . . . 15
V. THE WAPENTAKE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
VI. Tm: Mouse axamman BY THE Cars . . . . . . . . 24'
VII. WHY snoum A (301.0 PIECE Lows: I'rsanr BY mrxmo wrru A
Hear or Pstss? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
VIII. SYMPTOMS or Porsomno . . . . . . . . . . . 89
IX. ABYssvs AansoM VOCAT. . . . . . . . . . . . 4-3
BOOK IV.— THE CELL or ToaTunn.
I. Tm: 'I‘nmrTATios or SAINT GWYNPLAINB . . . . . . 59
II. FnoM GAY To Guava . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
III. Lax, Rax, Fax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
IV. Unsos PLAYS Tm: SPY on THE Pom . . . . . . . 68
V. A anrur. Pucr: . . . . . . . . . . . 73
VI. Tar. Knm or MAGISTRACY uxnsa THE Wios or Fonrns DAY! 75
VII. Snvnnnnmo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v"I9
VIII. LamrxTATiox. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
BOOK V.—- Tm! Ssa run: FATE ans Movsn BY THE same Berna.
I. Tan Dunmm'rv or FBAGILE Tamas . . . . . . . 95
II. Tm: Wars KNOWS m Own Counsa . . . . . . . . 104
III. AN Awaxnmnc . . . . . . . . -~ 9 . . . . 116
111


1v CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
IV. FASCINATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
V. WE THINK WE REMEMBER; wr: maoET . . . . . . . 125
BOOK VI.— Unsns UNDER DIFFERENT Ame-rs.
I. WHAT THE MISANTHROPE sAm . . . . . . . . . . 133
II. WHAT HE nln . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
III. Comrucnuoxs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
IV. Mcnnmus Sunnis CAMPANA MU'rA . . . . . . . . . 159
V. STATE Poucr DEALs WITH LITILE MAT-mas As WELL As WITH
GREAT...........-.....158
BOOK VII.— THE TITANESB.
I. THE AWAKENING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
II. THE REsEMELANCE or A PALACE To A Woon . . . . . 171
>III.EVE..................l75
IV. SATAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
V. THEY nncoomzn, BUT no nor KNOW, EAcH OrHEn . . . 194
BOOK VIII.— THE CAPITOL AND THnms Asonxn IT.
I. ANALYSIS or MAJEs'rrc MA'rrEns . . . . . . . . . 198
II. IMPAaTIAu'rY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
III. THE OLD HALL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 920
IV. THE OLD CHAMBER . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
V. ABISTOCRATIC GOSSIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . 931
VI. THE HIGH AND THE Low . . . . . . . . . 24-0
VII. S'ronMs or MEN ARE WonsE THAN STonMs or OCEAHs . . 24-4
VIII. HE WOULD BE A Goon BROTHER, wanE HE now A Goon Son . 263
BOOK IX.—— In Roms.
I. 11' Is THROUGH Excass or GEEATNEss THAT MAN BEACHES
Excnss or MIsEnY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
II. THE DBEG! . . . . . . - . . . - . . . . . 273
,'_. ._._ n.


CONTENTS v
CONCLUSION.— THE NIGHT 1mm m: Sn.
Cunma Paar:
l. A Worr MAY raovs A Gunman Axon. . . . . . . 292
II. BABKILPHEDHO, HAVING AIMED AT THE EAGLE, names DOWN
THE Dovn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 996
III. Pmmsa' anonmnn Bamw . . . . . . . . . . 3041
IV. NAY; on HIGH! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 810





THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
BOOK III
THE BEGINNING OF THE FISSURE

CHAPTER I
THE TADCASTEB, INN
T that period London had but one bridge —London
Bridge, with houses built upon it. This bridge
united London with Southwark, a suburb paved with flint
pebbles taken from the Thames, and divided into small
streets and alleys, like the city, with a great number of build-
ings, houses, dwellings, and wooden huts jammed together,—
a pell-mell mixture of combustible matter, with which fire
might work its will, as 1666 had proved.
Southwark was then pronounced Soudric, it is now pro-
nounced Sousouorc, or near it; indeed, an excellent way of
pronouncing English names is not to pronounce them.
Thus, for Southampton, say Stpntn. It was the time when
“ Chatham ” was pronounced je t’aime. The Southwark of
those days resembles the Southwark of to—day about as much
as Vaugirard resembles Marseilles. It was then a village;
it is now a city. Nevertheless, considerable business was car—
ried on there. The long old Cyclopean wall by the Thames.-
1 .


2 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
was studded with rings, to which the river barges were an-
chored. '
This wall was called the Effroc Wall. York, in Saxon
times, was called Efi'roc. Legend says that a Duke of Efl'roc.
was once drowned at the foot of the wall. The water there
certainly was deep enough to drown a duke. At low water
it was six good fathoms deep. The excellence of this little
anchorage attracted many sea vessels, and the old Dutch tub
called the “ Vograat ” came to anchor at the Efl'roc Wall.
The “ Vograat ” made the crossing from London to Rotter-
dam, and from Rotterdam to London, punctually once a
week. Other barges started twice a day, either for Deptford,
Greenwich, or Gravesend, going down with one tide and re—
turning with the next. The voyage to Gravesend, though
twenty miles, was made in six hours.
The “ Vograat ” was of a model no longer seen now, ex-
cept in naval museums. It was almost a junk. At that
time, while France copied Greece, Holland copied China.
The “ Vograat,” a heavy hull with two masts, was partitioned
perpendicularly, so as to be water-tight, having a narrow
hold in the middle, and two decks, one fore and the other
aft. The decks were flush, as in the iron turret-vessels of
the present day,—— the advantage of which is that in foul
weather the force of the waves is diminished, and the disad—
vantage of which is that the crew is exposed to the action of
the sea, owing to there being no bulwarks. There was noth-
ing to save any one on board from falling into the sea.
Hence the frequent losses of men, which caused the model
to fall into disuse. The “ Vograat ” went to Holland direct,
and did not even stop at Gravesend.
An old ridge of stones, solid rock as well as masonry, ran
along the bottom of the Effroc Wall, and being passable at
all tides, was used to board the ships moored to the wall.
This wall was furnished with steps at intervals. It marked
the southern limits of Southwark. An embankment at the
top allowed the passers-by to rest their elbows on the Efi'roc
Wall, as on the parapet of a quay. Thence they could look


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 3
down on the Thames; on the other side of the river London
dwindled away into fields.
A little way up the river above the Efl'roc Wall, at the
bend in the Thames which is nearly opposite St. James’s Pal-
ace, behind Lambeth House, not far from the walk then
called Foxhall (Vauxhall, probably), there was, between a
pottery in which they made porcelain, and a glass—blower’s
where they made ornamental bottles, one of those large unen-
closed spaces covered with grass, called formerly in France
cultures and mails, and in England bowling—greens. Of
bowling-green, a green on which to roll a ball, the French
have made boulingri/n. Folks have this green inside their
houses nowadays, only it is put on the table, is a cloth instead
of turf, and is called billiards.
It is difficult to see why, having boulevard (boulevert),
which is the same word as bowling-green, the French should
have adopted bouli'ngrin. It is surprising that anything as
sensible as the Dictionary should indulge in useless luxuries.
The bowling—green of Southwark was called Tarrinzeau
Field, because it once belonged to the Barons Hastings, who
are also Barons Tarrinzeau and Mauchline. From the Lords
Hastings the Tarrinzeau Field passed to the Lords Tad-
caster, who made a speculation of it, just as, at a later date,
a Duke of Orleans made a speculation of the Palais Royal.
Tarrinzeau Field afterwards became waste ground and pa-
rochial property. Tarrinzeau Field was a kind of permanent
fair-ground, frequented by jugglers, athletes, mountebanks,
and strolling musicians, and always full of “ fools going to
look at the devil,” as Archbishop Sharpe said. To look at
the devil meant to go to the play.
Several inns, which harboured the public and sent them
to these outlandish exhibitions, were established in this place,
which kept holiday all the year round, and thereby pros-
pered. These inns were simply stalls, occupied only during
the day. In the evening the tavern-keeper put the key of the
tavern in his pocket and went away. There was but one
permanent dwelling on the whole green, the vans on the fair-


4 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
ground being likely to disappear at any moment, by reason
of the absence of any home ties and the vagabond life of all
mountebanks. Mountebanks have no roots to their lives.
This inn, called the Tadcaster, after the former owners
of the ground, was an inn rather than a tavern, a hotel
rather than an inn, and had a carriage entrance and a large
yard. The carriage entrance, opening from the court on the
field, was the legitimate door of the Tadcaster Inn, which
had besides, at the farther end, a small, low door, by which
people entered. This small door was the only one used. It
opened into a large tap~room, full of tobacco smoke, fur—
nished with tables, and low of ceiling. Over it was a win—
dow, to the iron bars of which was fastened and hung the
sign of the inn. The principal door was barred and bolted,
and always remained closed. It was thus necessary to cross
the tavern to .enter the courtyard.
At the Tadcaster Inn there was a landlord and a boy.
The landlord was called Master Nicless; the boy, Govicum.
Master Nicless—Nicholas, doubtless, which the English
habit of contraction had made Nicless—was a miserly wid—
ower, but one who respected and feared the laws. As to his
appearance, he had bushy eyebrows and hairy hands. The
boy, aged fourteen, who poured out drink, and answered to
the name of Govicum, wore a merry face and an apron.
His hair was cropped close,— a sign of servitude. He slept
on the ground-floor, in a nook in which they formerly kept
a dog. This nook had for a window a bull’s-eye looking out
on the green.
CHAPTER II
OPEN-AIR ELOQU ENCE
NE very cold and windy evening, when there was every
reason that folks should hasten on their way along the
streets, a man who was walking in Tarrinzeau Field close
under the walls of the tavern, stopped suddenly. It was


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 5
during the last months of the winter of 1704 and 1705.
This man, who wore the garb of a sailor, was of good mien
and fine figure,— things imperative to courtiers, and not for-
bidden to common folk.
Why did he stop? To listen. To what? To a voice ap-
parently speaking in the court on the other side of the wall,
—— a voice a little weakened by age, but so powerful, notwith-
standing, that it reached the passer-by in the street. At
the same time might be heard in the enclosure, from which
the voice came, the hubbub of a crowd. This voice said 2——
“ Men and women of London, here I am! I sincerely con-
gratulate you on being English. You are a great nation;
I say more,-—— you are a great people. Your fisticuffs are
even better than your sword-thrusts. You have an appetite.
You are a nation that devours other nations,— a magnificent
function! As politicians and philosophers, in the manage-
ment of colonies, populations, and industry, and in the desire
to do others any harm which may turn to your own good,
you stand pre-eminent. The hour will come when two boards
will be put up on earth; on one will be inscribed ‘ Men,’ on
the other, ‘ Englishmen.’ I mention this to your glory;—
I, who am neither English nor human, having the honour to be
a bear. Still more—I am a doctor. That follows. Gen-
tlemen, I teach. What? Two kinds of things,——- things
which I know, and things which I do not know. I sell my
drugs, and I sell my ideas. Approach and listen. Science
invites you. Open your ear: if it is small, it will hold but
little truth; if large, a great deal of folly will find its way
in. Now, then, attention! I teach the Pseudoxia Epidem-
ica. I have a comrade who will make you laugh, but I can
make you think. We live in the same box, laughter being
of quite as old a family as thought. When people asked
Democritus, ‘ How do you know?’ he answered, ‘I laugh.’
And if I am asked, ‘ Why do you laugh? ’ I shall answer, ‘ I
know.’ However, I am not laughing. I am a corrector of
popular errors. I take upon myself the task of cleaning
your intellects. They require it. Heaven permits people


6 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
to deceive themselves, and to be deceived. It is useless to be
absurdly modest. I frankly avow that I believe in Provi-
dence, even where it is wrong. But when I see filth (errors
are filth) I brush it away. How am I sure of what I know?
That concerns only myself. Every one catches wisdom as
he can. Lactantius asked questions of, and received an-
swers from, a bronze head of Virgil. Sylvester II. con-
versed with birds. Did the birds speak? Did the Pope twit-
ter? That is a question. The dead child of the Rabbi
Eleazer talked to Saint Augustin. Between ourselves, I
doubt all these facts except the last. The dead child might
perhaps talk, because under its tongue it had a gold plate,
on which were engraved divers constellations. Thus he de-
ceived people. The fact_explains itself. You see my mod—
eration. I separate the true from the false. See! here are
other errors which no doubt you share, poor ignorant folks
that you are, and from which I wish to free you. Dioscorides
believed that there was a god in henbane; Chrysippus in cyno-
paste; Josephus in the root bauras; Homer in the plant moly.
They were all wrong. The spirits in herbs are not gods but
devils. I have tested this fact. It is not true that the ser-
pent which tempted Eve had a human face, as Cadmus re-
lates. Garcias de Horto, Cadamosto, and John Hugo, Arch~
bishop of Treves, deny that it is sufficient to cut down a tree
to catch an elephant. I incline to their opinion. Citizens,
the efforts of Lucifer are the cause of all false impressions.
Under the reign of such a prince it is natural that meteors
of error and of perdition should appear. My friends, Clau-
dius Pulcher did not die because the fowls refused to come
out of the fowl house. The fact is, that Lucifer, having
foreseen the death of Claudius Pulcher, took care to prevent
the birds feeding. That Beelzebub gave the Emperor Ves-
pasian the virtue of curing the lame and giving sight to
the blind, by his touch, was an act praiseworthy in itself,
but the motive was culpable. Gentlemen, distrust those false
doctors who sell the root of the briony and the white snake,
and who make washes with honey and the blood of a cock.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 7
When Saint George killed the dragon he had not the daughter
of a saint standing by his side. Saint Jerome had not a
clock on the chimney—piece of his study; first, because living
in a cave, he had no study; secondly, because he had no chim-
ney-piece; thirdly, because clocks were not yet invented. Let
us put these things straight. O gentlefolks who listen to
me, if any one tells you that a lizard will be born in your
head if you smell the herb valerian; that the rotting carcass
of the ox changes into bees, and that of the horse into hor-
nets; that a man weighs more when dead than when alive;
that the blood of the he-goat dissolves emeralds; that a cater—
pillar, a fly, and a spider, seen on the same tree, presage
famine, war, and pestilence; that the falling sickness is to be
cured by a worm found in the head of a buck,— do not be-
lieve him. These things are errors. But now listen to
truths. The skin of a sea—calf is a safeguard against thun-
der. The toad feeds upon earth, which causes a stone to
come into his head. The rose of Jericho blooms on Christ—
mas—eve. Serpents cannot endure the shadow of the ash-
tree. The elephant has no joints, and sleeps resting against
a tree. Make a toad sit upon a cock’s egg and he will hatch
a scorpion which will turn into a salamander. A blind per-
son will regain sight by putting one hand on the left side of
the altar and the other on his eyes. Virginity does not pre-
vent maternity. Honest people, lay these truths to heart.
Above all, you can believe in Providence in two ways,— either
as thirst believes in the orange, or as the ass believes in the
whip. Now I am going to introduce you to my family.”
Here a violent gust of wind shook the window-frames and
shutters of the inn. The orator paused a moment, and then
resumed :—
“ An interruption; very good. Speak, north wind. Gen-
tlemen, I am not angry. The wind is loquacious, like all soli-
tary creatures. There is no one to keep him company up
there, so he jabbers. I resume the thread of my discourse.
Here you see an association of artists. There are four of
us,—a lupo principium. I begin with my friend, who is a


8 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
wolf. He does not conceal it. Look at him! He is edu-
cated, grave, and sagacious. Providence, perhaps, enter-
tained for a moment the idea of making him a doctor of the
university; but for that one must be rather stupid, and that
he is not. I may add that he has no prejudices, and is not
aristocratic in his notions. Homo is a dog made perfect.
Let us venerate the dog. The dog—curious animal!—
sweats with its tongue and smiles with its tail. Gentlemen,
Homo equals in wisdom, and surpasses in cordiality, the hair-
less wolf of Mexico, the wonderful xolo'itzeniski. I may add
that he is humble. He has the modesty of a wolf who is use*
ful to men. - He is helpful and charitable, and says nothing
about it. His left paw knows not the good which his right
paw does. These are. his merits. Of the other, my second
friend, I have but a word to say. He is a monster. You
will admire him. He was abandoned years ago by pirates
on the shores of the wild ocean. This third one is blind.
Is she an exception to the general rule? No, we are all
blind. The miser is blind; he sees gold, but he does not see
true riches. The prodigal is blind; he sees the beginning,
but not the end. The coquette is blind; she does not see her
own wrinkles. The learned man is blind; he does not see his
own ignorance. The honest man is blind; he does not see
the thief. The thief is blind; he does not see God. God
is blind; the day he created the world he did not see the
devil manage to creep into it. I myself am blind; I speak,
and do not see that you are deaf. This blind girl who ac-
companies us is a mysterious priestess. Vesta has confided
her torch to her. She has in her character depths as soft as
a division in the wool of a sheep. I believe her to be a
king’s daughter, though I do not assert it as a fact. A
laudable distrust is an attribute of wisdom. For my own
part, I reason and I doctor, I think and I heal. Chimrgus
sum. I cure fevers, miasmas, and plagues. Almost all our
melancholy and sufferings are issues, which if carefully
treated relieve us quietly of other evils which might be worse.
All the 'same I do not recommend you to have an anthrax,
r_* 5-" -- " "221-Tart ; ' " ' -


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 9
otherwise called a carbuncle. It is a stupid malady, and
serves no good end. One dies of it,— that is all. I am no
ignorant boor; I honour eloquence and poetry, and live in
an innocent union with these goddesses. I will conclude with
a piece of advice. Ladies and gentlemen, on the sunny side
of your dispositions cultivate virtue, modesty, honesty, prob--
ity, justice, and love. Each one here below may thus have
his little pot of flowers on his window-sill. My lords and
gentlemen, I have spoken. The play is about to begin.”
The man dressed as a sailor, who had been listening out-
side, entered the tap-room of the inn, crossed it, paid the
necessary entrance money, stepped into the courtyard, which
was full of people, saw at the farther end of it a huge van on
wheels, wide open, and on the platform an old man dressed
in a bearskin, a young man with a face like a horrible mask,
a blind girl, and a wolf.
“ Gracious heaven, what amusing people!” he cried.
CHAPTER III
wrrmm THE PASSEll-BY REAPPEARB
HE Green Box, as we have just seen, had arrived in
London, and was now established in Southwark.
Ursus had been tempted by the bowling-green, which had one
great recommendation,—- it was always fair-day there, even
in winter.
The dome of St. Paul’s was a delight to Ursus. London,
take it all in all, has some good in it. It was a brave thing
to dedicate a cathedral to Saint Paul. The real cathedral
saint is Saint Peter. Saint Paul is suspected of imagination,
and in matters ecclesiastical imagination means heresy.
Saint Paul is a saint only by virtue of extenuating circum-
stances. He entered heaven only through the artists’ door.


1'0 MAN WHO LAUGHS
A cathedral is a sign. St. Peter is the sign of Rome, the
city of dogma; St. Paul that of London, the city of schism.
Ursus, whose philosophy had arms so long that it em—
braced everything, was a man who appreciated these shades
of difference; and his attraction towards London arose, per-
haps, from a certain admiration for Saint Paul.
The yard of the Tadcaster Inn had taken Ursus’ fancy.
It might have been made for the Green Box. It was a
theatre ready-made. It was square, enclosed by the inn on
three sides and on the fourth by a wall. Against this wall
was placed the Green Box, which they had been able to draw
into the yard, owing to the height of the gate. A large
wooden piazza roofed over, and supported on posts, on which
the rooms of the first story opened, ran round the three sides
of the interior facade of the house, making two right angles.
The windows of the ground-floor made boxes, the pavement
of the court, the pit; and the balcony the gallery. The
Green Box, placed against the wall, had quite an audience
hall in front of it. It was very like the Globe, where they
played “ Othello,” “ King lear,” and “ The Tempest.”
In a corner behind the Green Box there was a stable. Ursus
had made his arrangements with the tavern-keeper, Master
Nicless, who, owing to his respect for the law, would not ad-
mit the wolf without charging him extra.
The placard, “ GWYNPLAINE, THE LAUGHING MAN,” taken
from its nail in the Green Box, was hung up close to the
sign of the inn. The sitting—room of the tavern had, as we
have seen, an inside door, which opened into the court. By
the door was constructed off—hand, by means of an empty
barrel, an oflice for the door-keeper, who was sometimes Fibi,
and sometimes Vinos. It was managed much as at present,
—pay and pass in. Under the placard announcing the
LAUGHING MAN was a piece of wood, painted white, on which
was written with charcoal in large letters the title of Ursus’
grand piece, “ Chaos Vanquished.” In the centre of the bal—
cony, precisely opposite the Green Box, and in a compart-
ment having for an entrance a window reaching to the


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 11
ground, there had been partitioned of a space “ for the no—
bility.” It was large enough to hold two rows of spec-
tators, ten in each row. “ We are in London,” said Ursus.
“ We must be prepared for the gentry.” He had furnished
this box with the best chairs in the inn, and had placed in the
centre a large arm-chair covered with plush, in case some
alderman’s wife should come.
They began their performances. The crowd immediately
flocked to them, but the compartment for the nobility re-
mained empty. With that exception their success became
so great that no showman had ever seen anything to equal
it. All Southwark ran in crowds to admire the Laughing
Man.
The merry—andrews and mountebanks of Tarrinzeau Field
were aghast at Gwynplaine. The effect he created was simi—
lar to that of a sparrow—hawk flapping his wings in a cage
of goldfinches, and feeding in their seed—trough. Gwyn-
plaine gobbled up their patrons. Besides the small fry, such
as the swallowers of swords and the grimace makers, real
performances took place on the green. There was a circus
resounding from morning till night with the blare of all sorts
of instruments,-— psalteries, drums, rebecks, micamons, tim-
brels, reeds, dulcimers, gongs, chevrettes, bagpipes, German
horns, English eschaqueils, pipes, flutes, and flageolets. In
a large round tent were some tumblers, who could not equal
our present climbers of the Pyrenees,—— Dulma, Bordenave,
and Meylonga,— who descend from the peak of Pierrefitte
to the plateau of Limacon, an almost perpendicular height.
There was a travelling menagerie, with a performing tiger,
who, when struck by the- keeper, snapped at the Whip and
tried to swallow the lash. But even this comedian with jaws
and claws was eclipsed in success. Curiosity, applause, re—
ceipts, crowds,--- the Laughing Man monopolized everything.
It all came about in the twinkling of an eye. Nothing was
thought of but the Green Box.
“‘ Chaos Vanquished’ is ‘Chaos Victor,’ ” said Ursus,
appropriating half Gwynplaine’s success, and thus taking


12 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
the wind out of his sails, as they say at sea. The success
was prodigious. Still, it remained local. Fame does not
cross the sea easily. It took a hundred and thirty years
for the name of Shakspeare to penetrate from England into
France. The sea is a wall; and if Voltaire —— a thing which
he very much regretted having done when it was too late ——
had not built a bridge over to Shakspeare, Shakspeare might
still be in England, on the other side of the wall, the captive
of an insular glory.
The glory of Gwynplaine had not crossed London Bridge.
It was not great enough to re-echo through the city,—— at
least not yet. But Southwark ought to have sufficed to sat-
isfy the ambition of a clown.
“The money bag grows perceptibly heavier,” Ursus re-
marked one day.
They played “ Ursus Rursus ” and “ Chaos Vanquished.”
Between the acts, Ursus exhibited his power as an engas-
trimythist, and executed marvels of ventriloquism. He imi-
tated every sound heard in the audience, each snatch of song
or exclamation, so perfectly as to amaze and startle the
speaker or singer himself; and now and then he copied the
hubbub of the public, and whistled as if there were a crowd
of people within him. These were remarkable talents. Be-
sides this, he harangued like Cicero, as we have just seen, sold
his drugs, prescribed for maladies, and even healed the sick.
Southwark was enthralled.
Ursus was satisfied, but by no means astonished with the
applause of Southwark. “ They are the ancient Trino-
bantes,” he said. Then he added, “ I must not confound
them, for delicacy of taste, with the Atrobates, who people
Berkshire, the Belgians, who inhabited Somersetshire, or the
Parisians, who founded York.”
At every performance the yard of the inn, transformed
into a pit, was filled with a ragged and enthusiastic audience.
It was composed of watermen, chairmen, coachmen, and barge-
men and sailors, just ashore, spending their wages in feast-
ing and debauchery. In it there were felons, ruflians, and


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 13
blackguards,— these last soldiers condemned for some breach
of discipline to wear their red coats, which were lined with
black, inside out, hence the name of blackguard, which the
French turn into blagueurs. All these flowed from the street
into the theatre, and poured back from the theatre into the
tap-room. The emptying of tankards did not decrease the
company’s success.
Amid what it is customary to call the scum, there was
one taller than the rest, bigger, stronger, less poverty—
stricken, broader in the shoulders; dressed like the common
people, but not ragged; admiring and applauding every-
thing to the skies, clearing his way with his fists, wearing
a disordered periwig, swearing, shouting, joking, never dirty,
and, if need be, ready to blacken an eye or pay for a bottle.
This frequenter was the passer-by whose enthusiastic remark
has already been recorded.
This connoisseur seemed to have taken an immense fancy
to the Laughing Man. He did not attend every perform-
ance, but when he came he led the public; applause grew into
acclamation; success soared not to the roof, for there was
none, but to the clouds, for there were plenty of them,—
which clouds (seeing that there was no roof) sometimes wept
over the masterpiece of Ursus. His enthusiasm caused Ursus
to notice this man, and Gwynplaine too observed him. They
had a great friend in this unknown visitor. Ursus and
Gwynplaine wanted to know him,—- or at least to know who
he was.
One evening Ursus, being in the side scene, which was
the kitchen-door of the Green Box, and seeing Master Nicless
standing by him, pointed this man out to the tavern-keeper
and asked,—
“ Do you know that man? ”
“ Of course I do.”
“ Who is he? ”
“ A sailor.”
“ What is his name?” said Gwynplaine, interrupting.
“ Tom—Jim-Jack,” replied the inn—keeper.


14 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Then, as he re-descended the steps at the back of the Green
Box, to enter the inn, Master Nicless let fall this profound
reflection, so deep as to be unintelligible: “ What a pity
that he is not a lord! He would make a famous scoundrel.”
Otherwise, although established in the tavern, the group
in the Green Box had in no way altered their manner of
living, and maintained their isolated habits. Except a few
words exchanged now and then with the tavern—keeper, they
held no communication with any of the persons who were
living, either permanently or temporarily, in the inn; and con-
tinued to hold themselves rigorously aloof.
During their stay at Southwark, Gwynplaine had made
it his habit, after the performance and the supper of both
family and horses,—— when Ursus and Dea had gone to bed
in their respective apartments,— to enjoy the fresh air of
the bowling—green a little, between eleven o’clock and mid-
night. A certain restlessness of spirit impels us to take walks
at night, and to saunter about under the stars. There is a
mysterious expectancy in youth. Hence it is that we are
prone to wander out in the night, without an object. At
that hour there was no one in the fair-ground, except, per-
haps, some reeling drunkard, making wavering shadows in
dark corners. The empty taverns were shut up, and the
lower room in the Tadcaster Inn was dark, except where, in
some corner, a solitary candle lighted a last reveller. A faint
light gleamed through the window-shutters of the half—closed
tavern as Gwynplaine, pensive, content, and dreaming, en-
veloped in a haze of divine joy, paced backwards and for—
wards in front of the half—open door. Of what was he
thinking? Of Dea—of nothing—of everything. He
never wandered far from the Green Box, being held, as by an
invisible thread, to Dea. A few steps away from it was
far enough for him. When he returned, he generally found
all the inmates of the Green Box asleep, and so went straight
to bed himself.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 15
CHAPTER IV
conraaams raATEaNIZE IN HATE
HE success of others is odious in the sight of those
whom it injures. The eaten rarely adore the eaters.
The Laughing Man had made a decided hit. The mounte-
banks around were indignant. A theatrical success is a
siphon,—— it draws in the crowd and creates emptiness all
round. The show opposite is ruined. The increased receipts
of the Green Box caused a corresponding decrease in the re-
ceipts of the surrounding shows. These entertainments,
which had been very popular up to that time, suddenly
collapsed. It was like a low—water mark, showing inversely,
but in perfect concordance, the rise here, the fall there. The-
atres experience the effect of the tides, which rise in one only
on condition of falling in another.
The strolling players who exhibited their talents and mu-
sical accomplishments on the neighbouring platforms, seeingv
themselves ruined by the Laughing Man, were wild with ’
despair, though dazzled. All the grimacers, all the clowns,
all the merry-andrews envied Gwynplaine. How happy he
must be with a snout like a wild beast! The bufi'oon mothers
and dancers on the tight-rope, with pretty children, looked at
them in anger, and pointing out Gwynplaine, would say:
“ What a pity you have not a face like that!” Some even
beat their babies savagely for being pretty.
More than one, had she known the secret, would have
fashioned her son’s face in the Gwynplaine style. The head
of an angel, which brings no money in, is not as desirable
as that of a paying demon. One day the mother of a little
child who was a marvel of beauty, and who acted the part of
a cupid, exclaimed :—
“ Our children are failures! A Gwynplaine alone is suc-


16 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
cessfu .” And shaking her fist at her son, she added, “ If I
_ only knew your father, would n’t he catch it!”
Gwynplaine was the goose with the golden eggs. What
a marvellous phenomenon! There was an uproar through
all the caravans. The mountebanks, at once enthusiastic and
exasperated, looked at Gwynplaine and gnashed their teeth.
Admiring anger is called envy. How it howls! They tried
to break up “ Chaos Vanquished;” made a cabal, hissed,
yelled, and shouted. This gave Ursus an excuse to make out-
of-door harangues to the populace, and for his friend Tom-
J im-J ack to use his fists to re-establish order. His pugilistic
marks of friendship brought him still more under the notice
and regard of Ursus and Gwynplaine,—— at a distance, how-
ever; for the party in the Green Box sufficed to themselves,
and held aloof from the rest of the world, and because Tom-
Jim-Jack, the leader of the mob, seemed a sort of lordly
bully, without a tie, without a friend; a smasher of windows,
a manager of men, now here, now gone, hail-fellow-well-met
with every one, companion of none.
This raging envy against Gwynplaine was not quelled by a
few friendly blows from Tom-Jim-Jack. Violence having
failed, the mountebanks of Tarrinzeau Field fell back on a
petition. They appealed to the authorities. This is the
usual course. Against an unpleasant success we first try to
stir up the crowd, and then we petition to the magistrate.
The reverends allied themselves with the merry-andrews.
The Laughing Man had inflicted a blow on the preachers.
There were empty places not only in the shows, but in the
churches. The congregations in the churches of the five
parishes in Southwark had dwindled away. People left be-
fore the sermon to go to see Gwynplaine. “ Chaos Van—
quished,” the Green Box, the Laughing Man, all the abomi—
nations of Baal, eclipsed the eloquence of the pulpit. The
voice crying in the desert,— v0.1: clamantis in desert0,— is
discontented, and is prone to call in the aid of the authorities.
The clergy of the five parishes complained to the Bishop of
London, who in turn complained to her Majesty.


THE »MAN WHO LAUGHS 17
The complaint of the merry-andrews was based on religion.
They declared it to be insulted. They described Gwynplaine
as a sorcerer, and Ursus as an atheist. The reverend gen-
tlemen invoked social order. Setting orthodoxy aside, they
took action on the fact that acts of parliament were vio-
lated. This was clever, for it was in the time of Mr. Locke,
who had died only six months previous,—— October 28, 1704.1,
-—and when the scepticism which Bolingbroke had instilled
into Voltaire was taking root. Later on Wesley came and
restored the Bible, as Loyola restored papacy.
Thus the Green Box was attacked on all sides,-- by the
merry-andrews, in the name of the Pentateuch, and by chap—
lains in the name of social order; in the name of Heaven and
of the inspectors of nuisances,—— the reverends espousing the
cause of the police, and the mountebanks that of Heaven.
The Green Box was denounced by the priests as a disturbing
element, and by the jugglers as sacrilegious.
Had they any pretext? Was there any excuse? Yes.
What was the objection? This: the wolf. A dog was al-
lowable; a wolf forbidden. In England the wolf is an outlaw.
England permits the dog which barks, but not the dog
which howls,—— that being the distinction between the denizen
of the yard and the woods. The rectors and vicars of the
five parishes of Southwark called attention in their petitions
to numerous parliamentary and royal statutes putting the
wolf beyond the protection of the law. They moved for
something like the imprisonment of Gwynplaine and the exe—
cution of the wolf, or at any rate for their banishment. The
question was one of public importance, the danger to persons
passing, etc. And on this point they appealed to the Fac-
ulty. They cited the opinion of the eighty physicians of
London,—a learned body which dates from Henry VIII.,
which has a seal like that of the State, which can raise sick
people to the dignity of criminals, which has the right to im-
prison those who infringe its laws and ignore its ordinances,
and which, among other useful regulations for the welfare
of citizens, establishes beyond a doubt this discovery of sci-
2


18 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
ence; namely, if a wolf sees a man first, the man becomes
hoarse for life. Besides, he may be bitten.
Homo, then, was the pretext.
Ursus heard of these designs through the inn-keeper. He
was uneasy. He was afraid of the police and the justices.
To be afraid of the magistracy, it suffices to be timid; there
is no need to be guilty. Ursus had no desire for contact with
sheriffs, provosts, bailiffs, and coroners. His eagerness to
make their acquaintance amounted to nil. His curiosity to
see the magistrates was about as great as the hare’s to see the
greyhound. He began to regret that he had come to London.
“‘Better’ is the enemy of ‘ good,’ ” murmured he apart.
“ I thought there was no truth in the proverb. I was wrong.
Stupid sayings seem to be true after all.”
Against the coalition of powers,—— merry-andrews espous-
ing the cause of religion, and chaplains indignant in behalf
of medicine,—— the poor Green Box, suspected of sorcery in
Gwynplaine and of hydrophobia in Homo, had only one thing
in its favour (a thing of great power in England however):
municipal inactivity. It is to an inclination on the part of
the local authorities to let things take their course that
Englishmen owe their liberty. Liberty in England be-
haves very much like the sea around England. The tide
rises.
Little by little customs surmount the law. A cruel system
of legislation drowned under the wave of custom; a savage
code of laws still visible through the transparency of univer-
sal liberty: such is England.
The Laughing Man, “ Chaos Vanquished,” and Homo
might have mountebanks, preachers, bishops, the House of
Commons, the House of Lords, her Majesty, London, and
the whole of England against them, and remain undisturbed
so long as Southwark sided with them. The Green Box was
the favourite amusement of the suburb, and the local au-
thorities seemed disinclined to interfere. In England, indif-
ference is protection. So long as the sheriff of the county of
Surrey in whose jurisdiction Southwark belongs, did not move
_
--.-_w----.»-.--—--—~V V V’s-f 77,-» _._-..


20 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
CHAPTER V
THE WAPENTAKE
ONCE, however, he felt it his duty to deviate from this
prudent course, thinking that it might be well to
I make Gwynplaine a little uneasy. It is true that this idea
arose from a circumstance much graver, in the opinion of
Ursus, than the cabals of his fellow showmen or of the church.
Gwynplaine, as he picked up a farthing, which had fallen
when counting the receipts, had, in the presence of the inn-
keeper, drawn a contrast between the farthing, representing
the misery of the people, and the die, representing (under _
the figure of Anne) the parasitical magnificence of the throne,
—— an ill-sounding speech. This observation was repeated by
Master Nicless, and had such a run that it reached Ursus
through Fibi and Vinos. It put Ursus into a fever. Sedi—
tious words, lése Majesté. He took Gwynplaine severely to
task:
“ Watch over your abominable tongue. There is a rule for
the great,—‘ Do nothing; ’ and a rule for the small,——‘ Say
nothing.’ The poor man has but one friend, silence. He
should pronounce only one syllable, ‘ Yes.’ To confess and
to consent is all the right he has. He should say ‘ Yes ’ to the
judge; ‘ Yes ’ to the king. Great people can beat us, if it so
pleases them. I have received blows from them. It is their
prerogative; and they lose nothing of their greatness by
breaking our bones. The ossifrage is a species of eagle.
Let us respect the sceptre, which is the chief of staves. Re-
spect is prudence, and mediocrity is safety. To insult the
king is to put one’s self in the same danger as a girl who
rashly attempts to pare the nails of a lion. They tell me
that you have been prattling about the farthing, which is
the same thing as the liard, and that you have found fault
with the august medallion for which they sell us at market


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 21
the eighth part of a salt herring. Take care! let us be seri-
ous. Consider the existence of pains and penalties. Suck
in these legislative truths. You are in a country in which
the man who cuts down a tree three years old is quietly taken
off to the gallows. As to swearers, their feet are put into
the stocks. The drunkard is shut up in a barrel, with
the bottom out so that he can walk, with a hole in the top
through which his head is passed, and with two in the sides
for his hands, so that he cannot lie down. He who strikes
another man in Westminster Hall is imprisoned for life and
has his goods confiscated. Whoever strikes any one in the
king’s palace has his hand out off. A fillip on the Hon
chances to bleed, and, behold! you are maimed for life. 'He
who is convicted of heresy in the bishop’s court is burnt
_ alive. It was for no great crime that Cuthbert Simpson Was
quartered on a turnstile. Three years since, in 1702, not so
very long ago you see, they placed in the pillory a scoun'drel
called Daniel Defoe, who had the audacity to print the names
of the Members of Parliament who had spoken on the previous
evening. He who commits high treason is disembowelled
alive, and they tear out his heart and buffet his cheeks with
it. Impress these notions of right and justice on your mind.
Never allow yourself to speak a rash word, and at the first
cause of anxiety run for it. Such is the bravery which I
counsel and which I practise. In the way of temerity, imi—
tate the birds; in the way of talking, imitate the fishes.
England has one admirable point in her favour,-—- her legis-
lation is very mild.”
His admonition over, Ursus remained uneasy for some
time; Gwynplaine, not at all. The intrepidity of youth arises
from want of experience. However, it seemed that Gwyn-
plaine had good reason for his easy mind, for the weeks
flowed on peacefully, and no bad consequences seemed to have
resulted from his observations about the queen.
Ursus, like a roebuck on the watch, kept a lookout in
every direction. One day, a short time after his sermon
to Gwynplaine, as he was looking out from the window in


22 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
the wall which commanded the field, he became suddenly pale.
“ Gwynplaine! ”
“ ,9
“ 7’
“ Where? ”
“ In the field.”
“ ,’
“Do you see that man?”
“ The man in black?”
“ Yes.”
“ Who has a kind of mace in his hand?”
“ Yes.”
“ ’9
“ Well, Gwynplaine, that man is the wapentake.”
“ What is the wapentake? ”
“ He is the bailiff of the hundred?”
“ What is the bailiff of the hundred? ”
“ He is the prwpositua hundredi.”
“ And what is the prwpositus hundredi? ”
“ He is a terrible oflicer.”
“ What has he got in his hand?”
“ The iron weapon.”
“ What is the iron weapon? ”
“ A thing made of iron.”
“ What does he do with that? ”
“ First of all, he swears upon it. It is for that reason that
he is called the wapentake.”
“ And then?”
“ Then he touches you with it.”
“ With what? ”
“ With the iron weapon.”
“ The wapentake touches you with the iron weapon? ”
“ Yes),
“ What does that mean?”
“ That means, ‘ Follow me.
“ And must you follow him? ”
‘$ Yes.’,
9”
“a- . .m_-_____.._,-,- on." an..." .w. in. a H
‘ - “h. . “hm-El _


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 23
“ Whither? ”
“ How should I know?”
“ But he tells you where he is going to take you, does he
not?”
“ No.”
“ How is that?”
“ He says nothing, and you say nothing.”
“ _”
“ He touches you with the iron weapon. All is over then.
You must go.”
“ Go where? ”
“ With him.”
“ But where? ”
“ Wherever he likes, Gwynplaine.”
“And if you resist?”
“ You are hanged.”
Ursus looked out of the window again, and drawing a long
breath, exclaimed: “Thank God! He has passed. He is
not coming here.”
Ursus was perhaps unreasonably alarmed about the indis—
creet remark, and the consequences likely to result from
Gwynplaine’s words.
Master Nicless, who had heard them, had no interest in
compromising the poor inmates of the Green Box. He was
amassing, at the same time as the Laughing Man, a nice
little fortune. “ Chaos Vanquished” had succeeded in two
ways. It not only made art triumph on the stage, but it
made drunkenness increase in the tavern.
-~-~1.‘v» . --\ .


24 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
CHAPTER VI
THE mouse. EXAMINED BY THE cars
RSUS was soon afterwards startled by another alarm-
ing circumstance. This time he was the person con-
cerned. He was summoned to Bishopsgate, before a commis—
sion composed of three important personages,— three doctors,
called overseers. One was a Doctor of Theology, delegated
by the Dean of Westminster; another, a Doctor of Medi-
cine, delegated by the College of Surgeons; the third, a Doc-
tor in History and Civil Law, delegated by Gresham Col~
lege. These three experts in 0mm re scibili had the cen-
sorship of everything said in public throughout the bounds
of the hundred and thirty parishes of London, the seventy-
three of Middlesex, and, by extension, the five of Southwark.
Such theological jurisdictions still exist in England, and
do good service. In December, 1868, by sentence of the
Court of Arches, confirmed by the decision of the Privy Coun-
cil, the Reverend Mackonochie was censured, besides being
condemned to pay costs, for having placed lighted candles on
a table. The liturgy allows no jokes.
One fine day Ursus received from the delegates an order
to appear before them, which was, luckily, given into his
own hands, and which he was therefore enabled to keep a
secret. Without saying a word, he obeyed the citation, shud-
dering at the thought that he might be considered culpable
to the extent of being suspected of a certain amount of rash-
ness. He who had so recommended silence to others had here
a rough lesson. Garrule sana teipsum.
The three doctors sat at Bishopsgate, at the end of a room
on the ground-floor, in three arm-chairs covered with black
leather, with three busts,-—— those of Mines, ancus, and
Rhadamanthus,— on the wall above their heads, a table be-
fore them, and at their feet a form for the accused. Ursus,


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 25
introduced by a tipstaff, of placid but severe expression, en-
tered, perceived the doctors, and immediately in his own mind
gave to each of them the name of the judge of the infernal
regions represented by the bust placed above his head. Minos,
the president, the representative of theology, made him a
sign to sit down on the form.
Ursus made a proper bow,— that is to say, bowed to the
ground; and knowing that bears are charmed by honey and
doctors by Latin, he said, keeping his body still bent rc—
spectfully: “ Tres faciunt capituZu/m! ” Then, with head
still inclined (for modesty disarms), he sat down on the
form.
Each of the three doctors had before him a bundle of pa-
pers, of which he was turning the leaves. Minos began :—
“ You speak in public?”
“ Yes,” replied Ursus.
“ By what right?”
“ I am a philosopher.”
“ That gives no right.”
“ I am also a mountebank,” said Ursus.
“ That is a different thing.”
Ursus breathed again, but with humility.
Minos resumed: “ As a mountebank, you may speak; as.
a philosopher, you must keep silence.”
“ I will try,” said Ursus. Then he thought to himself:
“ I may speak, but I must be silent. How complicated!”
He was much alarmed.
The same functionary continued: “ You say things which
do not sound right. You insult religion. You deny the
most evident truths. You propagate revolting errors. For
instance, you have said that the fact of virginity excludes
the possibility of maternity.”
Ursus lifted his eyes meekly: “I did not say that. I
said that the fact of maternity excludes the possibility of
virginity.”
Minos was thoughtful, and mumbled, “ True, that is the
contrary.”
a. r “v._____.-


26 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
It was really the same thing. But Ursus had parried the
first blow.
'Minos, meditating on the answer just given by Ursus, sank
into the depths of his own imbecility, and kept silent.
The overseer of history, or, as Ursus called him, Rhada—
manthus, covered the retreat of Mines by this interpolation:
“ Accused! your audacity and your errors are of two sorts.
You have denied that the battle of Pharsalia was lost be—
cause Brutus and Cassius had met a negro.”
“ I said,” murmured Ursus, “ that there was something in
the fact that Caasar was the better captain.”
The man of history passed, without transition, to mythol-
ogy. “ You have excused the infamous acts of Actaaon.”
“ I think,” said Ursus, insinuatingly, “ that a man is not
dishonoured by having seen a naked woman.”
“ Then you are wrong,” said the judge, severely.
Rhadamanthus returned to history. “ Apropos of the ac-
cidents which happened to the cavalry of Mithridates, you
have denied the virtues of herbs and plants. You have
denied that an herb like the securiduca could make the shoes
of horses fall off.”
“ Pardon me,” replied Ursus. “ I said that the power
existed only in the herb sferra cavallo. I never denied the
virtue of any herb.” And he added, in a low voice, “ Nor of
any woman.”
By this extraneous addition to his answer Ursus proved
to himself that, anxious as he was, he was not disheartened.
Ursus was a compound of terror and presence of mind.
“ To continue,” resumed Rhadamanthus; “you have de-
clared that it was folly in Scipio, when he wished to open the
gates of Carthage, to use as a key the herb (Ethiopia, because
the herb wthiopis has not the property of breaking locks.”
“ I merely said that he would have done better to have used
the herb lunaria.”
“ That is a matter of opinion,” murmured Rhadamanthus,
touched in his turn.
And the man of history was silent.
. . _.._,. .L. ,.._.,.~ ._._._~,
’1 ‘ _-_"T


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 27
The theologian, Minos, having recovered consciousness,
questioned Ursus anew. He had had time to consult his
notes. ; ~
“You have classed orpiment among the products of ar~
senic, and you have said that it is a poison. The Bible de-
nies this.” -
“ The Bible denies, but arsenic affirms it.” sighed Ursus.
The man whom Ursus called Eacus, and who was the rep-
resentative of medicine, had not yet spoken; but now looking
down on Ursus, with proudly half-closed eyes, he said, “ The
answer is not without some show of reason.”
Ursus thanked him with his most cringing smile.
Minos frowned frightfully.
“ I resume,” he said. “ You have said that it is false that
the basilisk is the king of serpents, under the name of cock-
atrice.”
“ Very reverend sir,” said Ursus, “ so little did I desire to
insult the basilisk that I have given out as certain that it
has a man’s head.”
“ Be it so,” replied Minos, severely; “ but you added that
Poerius had seen one with the head of a falcon. Can you
prove i .” ‘
“ Not easily,” said Ursus.
Here he had lost a little ground. Minos, seizing the ad-
vantage, pushed it: -—
“ You have said that a converted Jew has not a nice
smell.”
“ Yes. But I added that a Christian who becomes a Jew
has a nasty one.”
Minos again cast his eyes over the accusing documents.
“ You have affirmed and propagated things which are impossi-
ble. You have said that Elian had seen an elephant write
sentences.” '
“ Nay, very reverend gentlemen! I simply said that Op-
pian had heard an hippopotamus discuss a philosophical
problem.”
“ You have declared that it is not true that a dish made


28 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
of beech-wood will become covered of itself with all the
viands that one can desire.”
“ I said that if it has this virtue, it must be that you re-
ceived it from the devil.”
“ That I received it!”
“ No, most reverend sir. I, nobody, everybody!”
Aside Ursus thought, “ I don’t know what I am saying.”
But his confusion, though extreme, was not visible out-
wardly, so bravely did he struggle against it.
“ All this,” Minos resumed, “implies a certain belief in
the devil.”
Ursus held his own. “ Very reverend sir, I am not‘an un-
believer with regard 'to the devil. Belief in the devil follows
from faith in God. The one proves the other. He who does
not believe a little in the devil does not believe much in God.
He who believes in the sun must believe in the shadow. The
devil is the night of God. What is night? The proof of
day.”
Ursus here extemporized a fathomless combination of phi-
losophy and religion. Minos remained pensive, and relapsed
into silence. Ursus breathed again.
A sharp onslaught now took place. fEacus, the medical
delegate, who had disdainfully protected Ursus against the
theologian, now suddenly turned from auxiliary into assail—
ant. He placed his closed fist on his bundle of papers, which
was large and heavy, and Ursus received this apostrophe full
in the breast :—-
“ It is proved that crystal is sublimated ice, and that the
diamond is sublimated crystal. It is averred that ice be-
comes crystal in a thousand years, and crystal diamond in a
thousand ages. You have denied this.”
“ Nay,” replied Ursus, with sadness. “ I only said that
in a thousand years ice had time to melt, and that a thousand
ages were difficult to count.”
The examination went on; questions and answers clashed
like swords.
“ You have denied that plants can talk.”
_‘.___ .,. '._ ‘4..-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 29
“ Not at all; but to do so they must grow under a gibbet.”
“ Do you admit that the mandragora cries? ”
“No; but it sings.”
“ You have denied that the fourth finger of the left hand i
has any specific virtue.”
“ I only said that to sneeze to the left was a bad sign.”
“ You have spoken rashly and disrespectfully of the
phmnix.”
“Learned judge, I merely said that when he wrote that
the brain of the phoenix was a delicate morsel, but that it
produced headache, Plutarch was a little out of his reckon-
ing, inasmuch as the phcenix never existed.”
“ A detestable speech. The cinnamalker, which makes its
nest with sticks of cinnamon, the rhintacus that Parysatis used
in the manufacture of her poisons, the manucodiatas which
is the bird of paradise, and the semenda, which has a beak
with three holes, have been mistaken for the phoenix; but the
phoenix has existed.” '
“ I do not deny it.”
“ You are a stupid ass.”
“ I desire to be thought no better.”
“ You have confessed that the elder-tree cures the quinsy,
but you added that it was not because it has a fairy excres-
cence at its root.”
“ I said it was because Judas hung himself on an elder-
tree.”
“A plausible opinion,” growled the theologian, glad to
strike his little blow at ancus.
Arrogance repulsed soon turns to anger. fEacus was en-
raged.
“ Strolling mountebank! your mind wanders as much as
your feet. Your doctrines are not only startling but ex—
tremely suspicious in their nature. You are the next thing to
a sorcerer. You have dealings with unknown animals. You
speak to the populace of things that exist but for you alone,
and the nature of which is unknown, such as the hoemor—
rhoiis.”


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 31
“ There is very little difference,” said Ursus.
The doctor replied: “ If death ensues, we punish gross
ignorance; if recovery, we punish presumption. The gibbet
in either case.”
“ I was ignorant of the fact,” murmured Ursus. “ I thank
you for informing me. One does not know all the beauties
of the law.”
“ Take care of yourself.”
“Religiously,” said Ursus.
“ We know what you are about.”
“ As for me,” thought Ursus, “ that is more than I always
know myself.”
“ We could send you to prison.”
“ I see that perfectly, gentlemen.”
“You cannot deny your infractions nor your encroach-
ments.”
“ My philosophy asks pardon.” _
“ Great audacity has been attributed to you.”
“ That is quite a mistake.”
“ It is said that you have cured the sick.”
“ I am the victim of calum'ny.”
The three pairs of eyebrows which were so horribly fixed
on Ursus contracted. The three wise faces drew near to
one another, and whispered. Ursus had a vision of a shad-
owy fool’s cap sketched above those three august heads. The
low whispering of the trio was of some minutes’ duration,
during which time Ursus felt all the chill and all the scorch
of agony. At length Minos, who was president, turned to
him and said angrily:
“ Go away! ”
Ursus felt something like Jonas when he was leaving the
belly of the whale.
Minos continued: “You are discharged.”
Ursus said to himself: “ They won’t catch me at this
again. Good-bye, medicine!” And he added, in his inner-
most heart: “ Henceforth I will carefully allow them to
die.”


82 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Bent double, he bowed to everything,— to the doctors, the
busts, the tables, the walls,—— and retiring backwards through
the door, disappeared almost like a shadow melting into air.
He left the hall slowly, like an innocent man, and rushed
up the street rapidly like a guilty one. Officers of justice
are ,so singular and obscure in their ways that even when one
is acquitted, one flies from them. .
As he fled, Ursus mumbled, “ I am well out of it. I am the
savant untamed; they the savants civilized. Doctors cavil at
the learned. False science is the excrement of the true, and
is employed to the destruction of philosophers. Philosophers,
when they produce sophists, produce their own scourge. Of
the dung of the thrush is born the mistletoe, of which is
made the birdlime with which the thrush is captured. Turdus
sibi malum cacat.”
We do not represent Ursus as a refined man. He had the
effrontery to use the words which expressed his thoughts.
He had no better taste than Voltaire.
When Ursus returned to the Green Box, he told Master
Nicless that he had been delayed by following a pretty
woman, and let not a word escape him concerning his ad—
venture,— except in the evening, when he said in a low voice
to Homo: “ See here, I have vanquished the three heads of
Cerberus.”
CHAPTER VII
WHY SHOULD A GOLD PIECE LOWER ITSELF BY mmo WITH
A HEAP or PENNIEs?
GREAT event happened.
The Tadcaster Inn had become more and more a
maelstrom of joy and laughter. Never was there such res-
onant gaiety. The landlord and his boy were not able to
draw all the ale, stout, and porter. In the evening in the


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 33
lower room, with its windows all aglow, there was not a va-
cant table. They sang, they shouted; the huge fireplace,
vaulted like an oven, with its iron bars piled with logs,
shone out brightly. It was like a house of fire and noise.
In the yard—that is to say, in the theatre—the crowd
was greater still. Crowds as great as Southwark could sup—
ply so thronged the performances of “ Chaos Vanquished ”
that directly the curtain was raised (that is to say, the plat-
form of the Green Box was lowered) every place was filled.
The windows were alive with spectators, the balcony was
crammed. Not a single stone was to be seen in the court-
yard. It seemed to be paved with faces. Only the com-
partment for the nobility remained empty. There was thus
a vacant space in the centre of the balcony; crowds every-
where except in that one spot. But one evening that also
was occupied.
It was on a Saturday, a day on which the English make all
haste to amuse themselves before the e'rmui of Sunday. The
hall was full. We say “ hall; ” Shakspeare for a long time
had to use the yard of an inn for a theatre, and he called it
“ hall.” Just as the curtain rose on the prologue of “ Chaos
Vanquished,” with Ursus, Homo, and Gwynplaine on the
stage, Ursus, from habit, cast a look at the audience, and
experienced quite a shock.
The compartment for the nobility was occupied. A lady
was sitting in the middle of the box, on the Utrecht velvet
arm-chair. She was alone, and yet she filled the box. Some
beings seem to emit light. This lady, like Dea, had a light
within herself, but a light of an entirely different character.
Dea was pale, this lady was rosy; Dea was the twilight, this
lady was Aurora; Dea was beautiful, this lady was superb.
Dea was innocence, candour, fairness, alabaster; this woman
was of the purple, and one felt that she did not fear the blush.
Her irradiation overflowed the box; she sat in the midst of
it, immovable, with all the pervading majesty of an idol.
Amid the sordid crowd she shone out grandly, as with the
radiance of a carbuncle. She inundated it with so much light
3


34 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
that she drowned it in shadow, and all the mean faces in it
underwent eclipse. Her splendour blotted out everything
else. Every eye was turned towards her. Tom-Jim-Jack
was in the crowd; he was lost like the rest in the ninlbus of
this dazzling creature.
The lady at first so absorbed the attention of the public
who had crowded to the performance that she rather dimin-
ished the opening effects of “ Chaos Vanquished.” Despite
the air of dreamland about her, to those who were near she
was a woman; perchance, too much a woman. She was tall
and amply formed, and showed as much as possible of her
magnificent person. She wore heavy earrings of pearls, with
which were mixed those whimsical jewels called “ keys of
England.” Her upper dress was of Indian muslin, em—
broidered all over with gold,——- a great luxury, because those
muslin dresses then cost six hundred crowns. A large dia-
mond brooch fastened her corsage, the which she wore so as
to display her shoulders and bosom, in the immodest fashion
of the time; her chemisette was made of that lawn of which
Anne of Austria had sheets so fine that they could be passed
through a finger-ring. She wore what looked like a cuirass
of rubies (some uncut, but polished), and Precious stones
were sewn all over the body of her dress. Then, her eye-
brows were blackened with India ink; and her arms, elbows,
shoulders, chin, and nostrils, with the top of her eyelids,
the lobes of her ears, the palms of her hands, the tips of her
fingers, were tinted with a glowing and provoking touch of
colour. Above all, she wore an expression of implacable de-
termination to be beautiful that amounted almost to ferocity.
She was like a panther, with the power of turning cat at will,
and caressing. One of her eyes was blue, the other black.
Gwynplaine, as well as Ursus, contemplated her with wonder.
The Green Box somewhat resembled a phantasmagoria in its
representations. “ Chaos Vanquished ” was rather a dream
than a piece; it generally produced on the audience the effect
of a vision. NOW, this effect was reflected on the actors.
The house took the performers by surprise, and they were
“‘1‘ F—i"r‘:" ('7 ‘(4 "vjtwwv'*‘y" -~ i~r film' ---------


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 35
thunderstruck in their turn. It was a rebound of fascination.
The woman watched them, and they watched her. At the
distance at which they were placed, and in that luminous mist
which is the half—light of a theatre, details were lost, and it
was like an hallucination.
Of course it was a woman, but was it not a chimera as
well? The penetration of such dazzling light into their
obscurity stupefied them. It was like the appearance of an
unknown planet. It came from the world of the great and
prosperous. Irradiation amplified her figure. The lady was
covered with nocturnal glitterings, like the milky way. Her
precious stones were stars. The diamond brooch was per—
haps a pleiad. The splendid beauty of her bosom seemed su—
pernatural. They felt, as they looked upon the star-like
creature, the momentary but thrilling approach of the re-
gions of felicity. It was out of the heights of a paradise
that she leaned towards their insignificant Green Box, and
revealed to the gaze of its wretched audience an expression of
inexorable serenity. As she satisfied her unbounded curi-
osity, she fed at the same time the curiosity of the public. It
was the Zenith permitting the Abyss to look at it. Ursus,
Gwynplaine, Vinos, Fibi, the crowd, every one had succumbed
to her dazzling beauty, except Dea, ignorant in her darkness.
An apparition was indeed before them; but none of the ideas
usually evoked by the word were realized in the lady’s ap—
pearance. There was nothing diaphanous, nothing unde-
cided, nothing floating, no mist about her. She was a god-
dcss; rose-coloured and fresh, and full of health. Yet, under
the optical condition in which Ursus and Gwynplaine were
placed, she looked like a vision. There are fleshy phantoms,
called vampires. Such a queen as she, though a spirit to the
crowd, requires twelve hundred thousand a year, to keep her in
health.
Behind the lady, in the shadow, stood her page, el mozo,
a child-like youth, fair and pretty, with a serious face. A
very young and very grave servant was the fashion of that
period. This page was dressed from top to toe in scarlet


36 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
velvet, and had on his skull—cap, which was embroidered with
gold, a bunch of curled feathers. This was the sign of a
high class of service, and indicated attendance on a very
great lady. The lackey is a part of his lord, and one could
hardly fail to notice this train—bearing page in the shadow
of his mistress. Memory often takes notes unconsciously;
and, without Gwynplaine’s suspecting it, the round cheeks, the
serious mien, the embroidered and plumed cap of the lady’s
page left some trace upon his mind. The page, however,
did nothing to call attention to himself. To do so is to be
wanting in respect. He held himself aloof and passive at the
back of the box, retiring as far as the closed door permitted.
Notwithstanding the presence of her train—bearer, the lady
was not the less alone in the compartment, since a valet counts
for nothing.
Powerful as was the diversion created by this great per-
sonage, the dénoueme'nt of “ Chaos Vanquished ” proved more
powerful still. The impression which it made was, as usual,
irresistible. Perhaps there was even an increase of magnetic
attraction in the hall by reason of the radiant spectator, for
not infrequently the spectator forms a part of the spectacle.
The contagion of Gwynplaine’s laugh was more triumphant
than ever. The whole audience relapsed into an indescribable
fit of hilarity, through which could be distinguished the
sonorous and magisterial ha! ha! of Tom—Jim-Jack. The
unknown lady alone gazed at the performance with
the immobility of a statue; even with her eyes, which were
like those of a phantom, she smiled not. A spectre, but
sun-born.
The performance over, the platform drawn up, and the
family reassembled in the Green Box, Ursus opened and
emptied on the supper-table the bag of receipts. From a
heap of pennies there slid suddenly forth a Spanish gold
onza.
“ Hers!” cried Ursus.
The onza amid the verdigris-covered pennies was a type
of the lady amid the crowd.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 37
A. _m-_u.--_~_-__. A
“ She paid an onza for her seat,” cried Ursus, with en-
thusiasm.
Just then the hotel-keeper entered the Green Box, and pass-
ing his arm out of the window at the back of it, opened
the loop-hole in the wall of which we have already spoken,
which gave a view over the field, and which was level with
the window, then he made a silent sign to Ursus to look out.
A carriage, swarming with plumed footmen carrying torches
and magnificently appointed, was driving off at a fast trot.
Ursus took the piece of gold between his forefinger and
thumb respectfully, and showing it to Master Nicless, said,
“ She is a goddess.” Then, his eyes falling on the carriage
which was about to turn the corner of the field, and on the
imperial where the footmen’s torches lighted up a golden
coronet, with eight strawberry leaves, he exclaimed, “ She is
more,— she is a duchess! ”
The carriage disappeared. The rumbling of its wheels
died away in the distance. Ursus remained some moments
lost in ecstasy, holding the gold piece between his finger and
thumb, elevating it as the priest elevates the host. Then he
placed it on the table, and, as he contemplated it, began to
talk of “ Madam.”
“ She was a duchess,” the inn-keeper assured him. Yes.
They knew her title. But her name? Of that they were
ignorant. Master N icless had been close to the carriage, and
had seen the coat-of-arms, and the footmen covered with lace.
The coachman had on a wig which might have belonged to
a Lord Chancellor. The carriage was of that rare design
called in Spain cochetumbon, a splendid build, with a round—
ing top, which makes a magnificent support for a coronet.
The page was a man in miniature, so small that he could sit
on the step of the carriage outside the door. The duty of
those pretty creatures was to bear the trains of their mis—
tresses. They also delivered their messages. And did you
notice the plumed cap of the page? How grand it was!
You pay a fine if you wear those plumes without the right
to do so. Master Nicless had seen the lady, too, quite close.


38 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
A kind of queen. Such wealth gives beauty. The skin is
whiter, the eye more proud, the gait more noble, and the
grace more insolent. Nothing can equal the elegant im-
pertinence of hands that never toil. Master Nicless went
into ecstasies over the magnificence of the white skin with the
blue veins, the neck, shoulders, and arms, the touch of paint
everywhere, the pearl earrings, the head-dress, powdered with
gold; the profusion of precious stones, the rubies and dia-
monds.
“ Less brilliant than her eyes,” murmured Ursus.
Gwynplaine said nothing.
Dea listened. '
“ And do you know,” said the tavern-keeper, “the most
wonderful thing of all? ”
“ What? ” said Ursus.
“ I saw her get into her carriage.”
“ What then? ”
“ She did not get in alone.”
“ Nonsense! ”
“ Some one got in with her.”
“ ,9
“ Guess.”
“ The king,” said Ursus.
“ In the first place,” said Master Nicless, “there is no
king at present. We are not living under a. king. Guess
who got into the carriage with the duchess.”
“ Jupiter,” said Ursus.
“ Tom—Jim—Jack ! ” the hotel—keeper replied.
Gwynplaine, who had not said a word, broke silence, “ Tom-
Jim-Jack! ” he cried.
There was a pause of astonishment, during which the low
voice of Dea was heard to say, “ Cannot this woman be pre-
vented from coming?”
7 , _.. ;_v -...¢:
'l».


MAN WHO LAUGHS 39
CHAPTER VIII
SYMPTOMS or POISONING
HE duchess did not return. She did not reappear in
the theatre, but she reappeared in the recesses of
Gwynplaine’s memory.
Gwynplaine was, to a certain degree, troubled. It seemed
to him that for the first time in his life he had seen a
woman. He made that first stumble, a strange dream. We
should beware of the nature of the reveries in which we in—
dulge. Reverie is imbued with all the mystery and subtlety
of an odour. It is to thought what perfume is to the tube—
rose. It is at times the exudation of a venomous idea, which
penetrates like a vapour. You may poison yourself with
reveries, as with flowers,— an intoxicating suicide, exquisite
and malignant. The suicide of the soul is evil thought.
In it lurks a deadly poison. Reverie entices, cajoles, lures,
entwines, and finally makes you its accomplice. It makes
you in part accountable for the trickeries which it plays on
conscience. It charms; then it corrupts you. We may say
of reverie as of play,—- one begins by being a dupe, and ends
by being a cheat.
Gwynplaine dreamed. He had never before seen Woman.
He had seen the shadow in the women of the populace, and
he had seen the soul in Dea. He had jUst seen the reality.
A warm and living skin, under which one felt the circulation
of passionate blood; a contour with the precision of marble
and the undulation of the wave; a haughty and impassive
mien, combining coldness with provocation, and evidently con—
tent in its own glory; hair the colour of the reflection from
a furnace; a splendour of adornment producing in herself and
in others a thrill of voluptuousness; the half—revealed nudity
betraying a disdainful desire to be coveted at a distance by
the crowd; an inextinguishable coquetry; the charm of im—


410 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
penetrability; a temptation heightened by 1the zest which
always attaches to that which is forbidden; a promise to the
senses and a menace to the soul, and a two—fold fascination,
—one desire; the other, fear: he had just seen all these
things. He had just seen Woman. The mystery of sex had
just been revealed to him.
And where? On inaccessible heights. At an infinite dis-
tance. O mocking destiny! The soul, that celestial essence,
he possessed; he had it in his grasp,-— it was Dea. Sex, that
thing of the earth earthy, he perceived in the heights of
heaven,— in that woman. A duchess! “ More than a god—
dess,” Ursus had said. What a precipice. Even dreams re-
coiled before such a wild flight as this.
Was Gwynplaine going to commit the folly of dreaming
about the unknown beauty? He debated with himself. He
recalled all that Ursus had said of these almost royal per-
sonages. The philosopher’s disquisitions, which had hitherto
seemed so useless, now became subjects for meditation. A
very thin layer of forgetfulness often coats our memory,
through which at times we catch a glimpse of all beneath it.
His fancy ran on that august world, the peerage, to which
the lady belonged, and which was placed so immeasurably
above the inferior world, the common people, of which he was
one. And was he one of the common people even? Was not
he, the mountebank, below the lowest of the low? For the
first time since he had arrived at the age of reflection, he felt
his heart oppressed by a consciousness of his baseness,— or
rather of that which we nowadays call abasement. The de-~
scriptions and enumerations of Ursus, his lyrical inventories,
his rhapsodies over castles, parks, fountains, and colonnades,
his catalogues of art treasures and estates, all recurred vividly
to Gwynplaine’s mind. He was possessed with the image of
this zenith. That a man should be a lordl—it seemed chi—
merical. It was so, however. Incredible thing! There were
lords! But were they of flesh and blood, like himself? It
seemed doubtful. He felt that he was in the depths of
shadow, encompassed by a wall, but he could just discern in

\ Mum ‘-n-J,


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 41
the distance above his head, through the mouth of the pit,
that dazzling confusion of azure, of figures and of rays, which
constitutes Olympus. In the midst of this glory the duchess
shone resplendent.
Gwynplaine felt for this woman a strange, inexpressible
longing, combined with a conviction of the impossibility of at—
~‘tainment. This poignant contradiction recurred to his mind
again and again, notwithstanding every effort. He saw near
to him, even within his reach, in close and tangible reality,
the soul; and in the unattainable,— in the depths of the ideal
world,—-—- the flesh. None of these thoughts attained definite
shape. They were like a vapour within him, changing every
instant in form, and floating away. Luckily for him, he did
not form even in his dreams any hope of reaching the heights
where the duchess dwelt. The vibration of such ladders of
fancy, if ever we set our foot upon them, may unsettle our
brains forever; intending to scale Olympus, we reach Bed-
lam. Any distinct feeling of actual desire would have terri—
fied Gwynplaine however. He entertained none of that na-
ture. Besides, was he likely ever to see the lady again?
Most probably not. To fall in love with a passing light
on the horizon, madness cannot reach to that pitch. To cast
adoring glances at a star even, is not incomprehensible. It
may be seen again, it reappears, it is fixed in the sky. But
can any one be enamoured of a flash of lighting? Dreams
came and went within him. The beautiful and majestic oc-
cupant of the box had imparted a strange radiance to his wan—
dering thoughts. He thought of her, resolved to think of
other things, then began to think of her again.
Gwynplaine was unable to sleep for several nights. In—
somnia is as full of dreams as sleep. It is almost impossible
to describe exactly the workings of the brain. The trouble
with words is that they are more marked in form than in
meaning. All ideas have indistinct boundary lines, words
have not. Certain phases of the soul cannot be described.
Expression has its limits, thought has not. The depths of
our secret souls are so vast that Gwynplaine’s dreams scarcely


42 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
touched Dea. Dea reigned supreme in his inmost soul; noth-
ing could approach her. Still (for such contradictions make
up the soul of man), there was a conflict going on within
him. Was he conscious of it? Scarcely. In his heart of
hearts he was a prey to conflicting hopes and desires. We
all have our moments of weakness. The nature of this con-
flict would have been clear to Ursus; but to Gwynplaine it
was not. Two instincts -—-one the ideal, the other sexual ——
were struggling within him. Such contests occur between the
angels of light and darkness on the edge of I the abyss.
At length the angel of darkness was overthrown. One
day Gwynplaine ceased to think of the unanWn woman. A
struggle between right and wrong—a duel between his
earthly and his heavenly nature—had taken place within
his soul, and at such a depth that he had understood it but
dimly. One thing was certain,-— he had never for one mo—
ment ceased to adore Dea. He had been attacked by a violent
disorder, his blood had been fevered; but it was over. Dea
was his only thought now. Gwynplaine would have been
much astonished had any one told him that Dea had been in
danger, even for a moment; and in a week or two the phan—
tom which had threatened the souls of both had faded away.
Besides, we have just said that “ the duchess ” did not re—
turn. Ursus thought that very natural. “ The lady with
the gold piece ” is a phenomenon. She enters, pays, and van-
ishes. It would be too much joy were she to return.
As for Dea, she made no allusion to the woman who had
appeared only to disappear. She was sufficiently enlightened,
perhaps, by the sighs of Ursus, and now and then by some
significant exclamation, such as, “ One does not get ounces
of gold every day.” She never spoke of “that woman.”
This showed deep instinct. The soul takes many precautions
in secrets which it does not even admit to be secrets. To be
silent about any one seems to keep them afar off. One
seems to fear that questions may call them back. We put
silence between us, as if we were shutting a door.
So the incident sank into oblivion. Was it anything, after


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 43
all? Had it ever occurred? Could it be said that a shadow
had floated between Gwynplaine and Dea? Dea did not
know it, nor did Gwynplaine. No; nothing had occurred.
The duchess herself was blurred in the distant perspective
like an illusion. It had been but a momentary dream, out
of which Gwynplaine had speedily wakened. When it fades
away, a reverie, like mist, leaves no trace behind; and when
the cloud has passed, love shines out as brightly in the heart
as the sun in the sky.
CHAPTER IX
ABYSSUS ABYSSUM vocxr
ANOTHER face had disappeared,-— Tom—Jim-Jack’s.
He had suddenly ceased to frequent the Tadcadter Inn.
Persons so situated as to be able to observe phases of fash-
ionable life in London, might have seen about this time that
the “ Weekly Gazette” announced the departure of Lord
David Dirry—Moir, by order of her Majesty, to take com-
mand of his frigate in the white squadron then cruising off
the coast of Holland.
Ursus was much troubled by Tom-Jim-Jack’s absence.
He had not seen the sailor since the day on which he had
driven off in the same carriage with the lady of the gold
piece. It was, indeed, an enigma who this Tom-Jim-Jack
who carried off duchesses under his arm could be. What an
interesting investigation! What questions to propound!
What things to be said! Therefore Ursus said not a word.
Ursus, who had had experience, knew the smart caused
by rash curiosity. Curiosity ought always to be propor-
tioned to the rank of the curious. By listening, we risk our
ear; by watching, we risk our eye. Prudent people neither
hear nor see. Tom-Jim-Jack had got into a princely car-


44' THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
riage. The tavern—keeper had seen him. It appeared so
extraordinary that the sailor should sit by the lady that it
made Ursus circumspect. The caprices of those in high'
life should be sacred to the lower orders. The reptiles called
the poor had best keep quiet in their holes when they see
anything out of the way. Quiescence is a power. Shut your
eyes, if you have not the luck to be blind; stop up your ears,
if you have not the good fortune to be deaf; hold your
tongue if you have not the good fortune to be mute. The
great do what they like, the humble what they can. Let the
mysterious pass unnoticed. Do not annoy the gods and god-
desses. Do not interrogate appearances. Have a profound
respect for idols. Do not gossip about the lessenings or in-
creasings which take place in the upper regions, or about
motives of which we are ignorant. Such things are mostly
optical delusions to us inferior creatures. Metamorphoses
are the business of the gods; the transformations and disorders
of great persons who float above us are difficult to compre-
hend, and perilous to study. Too much attention irritates
the Olympians engaged in their gyrations of amusement or
fancy, and a thunderbolt may teach you that the bull you are
too curiously examining is Jupiter. Do not lift the folds
of the stone—coloured mantles of those terrible powers. In-
difference is the truest wisdom. Do not stir, and you will
be safe. Feign death, and they will not kill you. Therein
lies the wisdom of the insect. Ursus practiced it.
The tavern—keeper, who was puzzled as well, questioned
Ursus one day. “ Do you notice that Tom—Jim-Jack never
comes here now? ”
“ Indeed!” said Ursus. “ I had not remarked it.”
Master Nicless made an observation in an undertone, no
doubt touching on the intimacy between the ducal carriage
and Tom-Jim—Jack,— a remark which, as it might have been
irreverent and dangerous, Ursus took good care not to hear.
Still, Ursus was too much of an artist not to regret Tom-
Jim-Jack. He felt some disappointment. He told his feel-
ings to Homo, of whose discretion alone he felt certain. He


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS - 45
whispered into the ear of the wolf: “ Since Tom-Jim-Jack
has ceased to come, I feel a blank as a man, and a chill as
a poet.” This outpouring of his heart to a friend relieved
Ursus.
His lips were sealed before Gwynplaine, who, however, made
no allusion to Tom-Jim-Jack. The fact was that Tom-Jim-
Jack’s presence or absence mattered little to Gwynplaine, ab-
sorbed as he was in Dea.
Forgetfulness fell more and more on Gwynplaine. As for
Dea, she had not even suspected the existence of a vague
trouble. At the same time, no more cabals or complaints
against the Laughing Man were spoken of. Hate seemed to
have let go its hold. All was tranquil in and around the
Green Box. No more opposition from strollers, merry-an-
drews, nor priests; no more grumbling outside. Their suc-
cess was unclouded. Destiny allows of such sudden serenity.
The brilliant happiness of Gwynplaine and Dea was for the
present absolutely cloudless. Little by little it had risen to
a degree which admitted of no increase. There is one word
which expresses the situation,——- apogee. Happiness, like
the sea, has its high tide. The worst thing for the perfectly
happy is that it recedes.
There are two ways of being inaccessible,— being too high
and being too low. At least as much, perhaps, as the first,
is. the second to be desired. More surely than the eagle
escapes the arrow, the animalcule escapes being crushed.
This security of insignificance, if it had ever existed on earth,
was enjoyed by Gwynplaine and Dea, and never before had
it been so complete. They lived on, daily more and more
ecstatically wrapt in each other. The heart saturates itself
with love as with a divine salt that preserves it, and from
this arises the incorruptible constancy of those who have loved
each other from the dawn of their lives, and the affection
which keeps its freshness in old age. There is such a thing
as the embalmment of the heart. It is of Daphnis and Chloe
that Philemon and Baucis are made. The old age, of which
we speak, evening resembling morning, was evidently re—
Mflxfia ‘ ~ W-sk ._ .%~. gum—


46 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
served for Gwynplaine and Dea. In the mean time they were
young.
Ursus watched this love affair as a doctor watches a case.
He had what was termed in those days a hippocratic expres-
sion of countenance. He fixed his sagacious eyes on Dea, so
fragile and pale, and growled out, “ It is lucky that she is
happy.” At other times he said, “ It is fortunate for her
health’s sake.” He shook his head, and at times read atten-
tively the chapters treating of heart-disease in Avicenna,
translated by Vopiscus Fortunatus, Louvain, 1650, an old
worm-eaten book of his.
Dea, when fatigued, suffered much from perspirations and
drowsiness, and took a daily siesta, as we have already said.
One day, while she was lying asleep on the bearskin, and
Gwynplaine was out, Ursus bent down softly and applied his
ear to Dea’s heart. He seemed to listen for a few minutes,
and then stood up, murmuring, “ She must not have'any
shock. It would be sure to go to the weak spot.”
The crowd continued to flock to the performances of
“Chaos Vanquished.” The success of the Laughing Man
seemed inexhaustible. Every one rushed to see him,— not
from Southwark only, but even from other parts of London.
The general public began to mingle with the usual audience,
which no longer consisted exclusively of sailors and drivers.
In the opinion of Master Nicless, who was familiar with
crowds, there were many gentlemen and baronets disguised
as common people in this one. Disguise is one of the chief
amusements of the great, and was greatly in fashion at that
period. This admixture of an aristocratic element with the
mob was a good sign, and showed that the popularity of the
show was extending to London. The fame of Gwynplaine
must have penetrated into the great world. Such was the
fact. Nothing was talked of but the Laughing Man. He
was the subject of comment even at the Mohawk Club, fre-
quented by noblemen.
The inmates of the Green Box had no idea of all this.
They were content to be happy. It was bliss to Dea to


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 47'
-—'--~_\_-_~-_ N
touch, as she did every evening, the crisp, tawny locks of
Gwynplaine. In love there is nothing like habit. The whole
of life is concentrated in it. The reappearance of the stars
is the custom of the universe. Creation is nothing but a
mistress, and the sun a lover. Light is a dazzling caryatide
supporting the world. Every day, for one sublime moment,
the earth shrouded by night rests on the rising sun. Dea,
blind, felt a similar return of warmth and hope within her
when she placed her hand on Gwynplaine’s head. To adore
each other in seclusion, to love in the plenitude of silence,—
who would not be reconciled to such an eternity?
One evening Gwynplaine, feeling within him that overflow
of felicity, which like the intoxication of perfumes causes
a sort of delicious faintness, was strolling, as he usually did
after the performance, in the meadow a few hundred yards
from the Green Box. Sometimes in those high tides of feel-
ing in our souls we feel that we would fain pour out the sensa-
tions of the overflowing heart. The night was dark but clear.
The stars were shining. The whole fair—ground was de-
serted. Sleep and forgetfulness reigned in the vans which
were scattered over the Tarrinzeau Field. One light alone
was unextinguished. It was a lamp at the Tadcaster Inn,
the door of which was left ajar to admit Gwynplaine on his
return.
Midnight had just struck in the five parishes of South—
wark, with the different intervals and tones of their various
bells. Gwynplaine was dreaming of Dea. Of whom else
should he dream? But that evening, feeling singularly trou—
bled, and full of a charm which was at the same time a pang,
he was thinking of Dea as a man thinks of a woman. He
reproached himself for this. It seemed to be a lack of re—
spect to her. Sweet and imperious impatience! He was
crossing the invisible barrier, on one side of which stands
the virgin, on the other, the wife. He questioned himself
anxiously. A blush, as it were, overspread his mind. The
Gwynplaine of long ago had been transformed by degrees
and unconsciously. The modest youth was becoming
. __, -,,.~, _ ____..__....._-~‘_\_-~-\~


48 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
strangely agitated. We have an ear of light, into which the
spirit speaks; and an ear of darkness, into which the instinct
speaks. Into the latter strange voices were now whispering.
However pure minded the youth may be who dreams of love,
a certain grossness of the flesh eventually comes between him
and his dream. Intentions lose their transparency. The
secret desires implanted by nature will make themselves heard.
Gwynplaine felt an indescribable yearning of the flesh, and
Dea was scarcely flesh. In this fever, which he knew to be
unhealthy, he transfigured Dea into a more material aspect,
and tried to exaggerate her seraphic form into feminine love-
liness. It is thou, O woman, that we require.
Love will not permit too much of paradise. It requires
the fevered skin, the troubled life, the unbound hair, the elec—
trical and irreparable kiss, the clasp of desire. The sidereal
is embarrassing, the ethereal is cumbersome. Too much of
the heavenly in love is like too much fuel on a fire,—- the
flame suffers from it. Gwynplaine fell into an exquisite rev—
erie,— Dea to be clasped in his arms! Dea clasped in them!
He heard nature in his heart crying out for her. Like a
Pygmalion modelling a Galatea out of the azure, in the depth
of his soul he retouched the chaste outlines of Dea’s form,—
outlines with too much of heaven, too little of Eden about
them; for Eden is Eve, and Eve was a female, a carnal
mother, a terrestrial nurse, the sacred womb of future genera-
tions, the breast of unfailing milk, the rocker of the cradle of
the new-born world; and wings are incompatible with the
bosom of woman. Virginity is but the hope of maternity.
Still, in Gwynplaine’s dreams heretofore, Dea had been
enthroned above flesh. Now, however, he made wild efforts
in thought to draw her downwards by that thread, sex, which
binds every girl to earth. Not one of these birds is free.
Dea was not exempt from this law, surely; and Gwynplaine,
though he scarcely acknowledged it, felt a vague desire that
she should submit to it. This desire possessed him in spite
of himself, and with an ever-recurring persistency. He pic~
tured Dea as woman. He came to the point of regarding her


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 49
under a hitherto unheard-of form,——- as a creature no longer
of ecstasy alone, but of voluptuousness as well. He was
ashamed of this visionary desecration. It was like an attempt
at profanation. He resisted its assault. He turned from it,
but it returned again and again. He felt as if he were com-
mitting a criminal assault. To him, Dea was encompassed as
by a cloud.
It was in April, when even the spine has its dreams. He
rambled on with an uncertain step in the solitude. To have
no one by is an incentive to wander. Whither flew his
thoughts? He would not have dared to own it to himself.
To heaven? No, and yet you were looking down on him, 0
ye stars! _
Why talk of a man in love? Rather say a man possessed.
To he possessed by the devil is the exception; to be pos-
sessed by a woman, the rule. Every man has to bear this
alienation of himself. What a sorceress a pretty woman is!
The true name of love is captivity. Man is made prisoner
by the soul of a woman, and by her flesh as well,—— some—
times even more by the flesh than by the soul. The soul is
the true-love; the flesh, the mistress. We slander the devil.
It was not he who tempted Eve. It was Eve who tempted
him. The woman began it; Lucifer was passing by quietly.
He perceived the woman, and became Satan. The flesh is
the covering of the soul. It entices, strange to say, by its
1‘very modesty. Nothing could be more distracting. It is
full of shame, the hussy!
It was passion rather than love which was then agitating
Gwynplaine, and holding him in its power. What dark
things lurk beneath the fairness of Venus! Something within
him was calling aloud for Dea,—— Dea the maiden, Dea the
other half of a man, Dea flesh and flame! This cry was al—
most driving away the angel. Mysterious crisis through
which all love must pass, and in which the Ideal is imperilled.
Moment of heavenly corruption! Gwynplaine’s love of Dea
was becoming nuptial. Virgin love is but a transition. The
moment was come. Gwynplaine coveted the woman. He cov-
4


50 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
>_%'J--l ear-r‘ ~—-_--._r~-..~__
eted a woman! Precipice of which one sees but the first gen-
tle slope. Luckily, there was no woman for Gwynplaine but
Dea. The only one he desired. The only one who could de—
sire him.
Gwynplaine felt that vague and mighty tremour which is
the vital claim of infinity. Besides, there was the aggrava—
tion of the spring. He was breathing the nameless odours
of the starry darkness. He walked on with a feeling of wild
delight. The wandering perfumes of the rising sap, the soft
irradiations which float in shadow, the distant opening of noc-
turnal flowers, the complicity of little hidden nests, the mur—
murs of waters and of leaves, soft sighs rising from all things,
the freshness, the warmth, and the mysterious awakening of
April and May, is the vast diffusion of sex murmuring in
whispers their proposals of voluptuousness, till the soul reels
beneath the temptation to which it is subjected. Any one
seeing Gwynplaine walk, would have said, “ Look at that
drunken man.” He almost staggered under the weight of
his own emotions, of the springtime influence, and of the
night.
The solitude in the bowling-green was so peaceful that at
times Gwynplaine spoke aloud. The consciousness that there
is no listener induces speech. He walked with slow steps,
his head bent down, his hands behind him, the left hand in
the right, the fingers open. Suddenly he felt something
slipped between his fingers. He turned round quickly. In
his hand was a paper, and in front of him a man. It was
this man who, coming up behind him with the stealthy tread
of a cat, had placed the paper in his fingers. The paper was
a letter.
This man, whom he saw quite clearly in the starlight, was
small, chubby-cheeked, young, sedate, and dressed in a
scarlet livery, exposed from top to toe through the open—
ing of a long grey cloak, then called a capenoche,——- a Span-
ish word contracted; in French it was cape—de-nm't. His head
was covered by a crimson cap, like the skull-cap of a cardinal,
on which servitude was indicated by a strip of lace. On this


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 51
cap was a plume of tisserin feathers. He stood motionless
before Gwynplaine, like a dark outline in a dream.
Gwynplaine recognized the duchess’s page. Before he
could utter an exclamation of surprise, he heard the thin
voice of the page, at once child-like and feminine in its tone,
saying to him: —
“ At this hour to—morrow, be at the corner of London
Bridge. I will be there to conduct you —”
“ Whither? ” demanded Gwynplaine.
“ Where you are expected.”
Gwynplaine glanced down at the letter, which he was held-
ing mechanically in his hand. When he looked up, the page
was no longer near him. He perceived a shadowy form rap—
idly disappearing in the distance. It was the little valet.
He turned the corner of the street, and solitude reigned again.
When Gynplaine saw the page vanish, he again looked at the
the letter. There are moments in our lives when what hap—
pens seems but the figment of a dream. Surprise keeps us
for a moment oblivious to the real facts.
Gwynplaine raised the letter, as if to read it, but soon per—
ceived that he could not do so for two reasons,-— first, because
he had not broken the seal; and, secondly, because it Was too
dark. It was some minutes before he remembered that there
was a lamp at the inn. He took a few steps sideways, as if
he knew not whither he was going. A somnambulist to whom
a phantom had just given a letter might walk as he did. At
last he made up his mind. He ran, rather than walked, to-
wards the inn, paused in the light which streamed through
the half-open door, and again examined the closed letter by
it. There was no design on the seal, and on the envelope was
written, “ To Gwynplaine.” He broke the seal, tore open the
envelope, unfolded the letter, put it directly in the light, and
read as follows:
You are hideous; I am beautiful. You are a player; I am a duchess.
I am of the highest; you, of the lowest; nevertheless I love you!
Come!


BOOK IV

THE CELL OF TORTURE

CHAPTER I'
THE TEMPTATION or SAINT GWYNPLAINE
NE jet of flame is scarcely visible in the darkness; an-
other sets fire to a volcano. Some sparks are gigantic.
Gwynplaine read the letter, then he read it over again.
Yes, the words were there, “I love you.” Grim terrors
chased each other through his mind. The first was, that he
believed himself to be mad. He was mad; that was certain.
He had just seen what had no existence. The twilight spec-
tres were making game of him, poor wretch! The youth in
scarlet was a will-o’—the-wisp. Sometimes at night, nothings
condensed into flame come and laugh at us. Having had his
laugh out, the visionary being had disappeared, and left
Gwynplaine behind him, mad. Such are the freaks of dark-
ness.
The second terror was, to find out that he was really in
his right senses. A vision? Certainly not. How could that
be? Had he not a letter in his hand? Did he not see an
envelope, a seal, paper, and writing? Did he not know from
whom it came? It was all plain enough. Some one took
a pen and ink, and wrote. Some one lighted a taper, and
sealed it with wax. Was not his name written on the letter,
“ To Gwynplaine ”? The paper was scented. All was clear.
Gwynplaine knew the little man. The dwarf was a page.
52


THE MAN IVHO LAUGHS 53
The gleaming scarlet was a livery. The page had given him
a rendezvous for the same hour on the morrow, at the corner
of London Bridge. Was London Bridge an illusion? No,
no; everything was plain. There was no delirium. It was
all reality. Gwynplaine was perfectly clear in his mind. It
was not a phantasmagoria suddenly dissolving above his
head, and fading into nothingness; it was something that had
really happened to him.
No, Gwynplaine was not mad, nor was he dreaming. He
read the letter again. Well, yes. But then? That then
was terror-striking. There was a woman who desired him!
If so, let no one ever again pronounce the word incredible!
A woman desire him! A woman who had seen his face; a
woman who was not blind! And who was this woman? An
ugly one? No; a beauty. A gypsy? No; a duchess!
What was it all about, and what could it all mean? What
peril in such a triumph! And how was he to help plunging
headlong into it? What! that woman? That siren, that
goddess, that superb lady in the box, that light in the lark-
ness! It was she. Yes; it was she!
His blood seemed to take fire throughout his veins. It was
the beautiful unknown,—— she who had so troubled his
thoughts previously; and his first tumultuous feelings about
this woman returned. Forgetfulness is nothing but a pal—
impsest: an incident happens unexpectedly and all that was
effaced revives in the blanks of wondering memory.
Gwynplaine thought that he had dismissed this image from
his remembrance, but he found that it was still there; she had
put her mark in his brain, and without his suspecting it the
lines had been graven deep by reverie. A certain amount of
evil had been done, and this train of thought, thenceforth,
perhaps, irreparable, he now resumed eagerly. What! she
desired him? What! the princess descend from her throne,
the idol from its shrine, the statue from its pedestal, the
phantom from its cloud? What! From the depths of the
impossible had this chimera come! This deity of the sky!
This radiant being! This neraid all glistening with jewels!


54! THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
This proud and unattainable beauty from the height of her
radiant throne, was bending down to Gwynplaine! She had
checked her chariot of the dawn, drawn by turtle-doves and
dragons, before Gwynplaine, and said to him, “Come!”
What! this terrible glory of being the object of such abase-
ment from the empyrean, for Gwynplaine! This woman, if
he could give that name to a form so starlike and majestic,
this woman proposed herself, gave herself, delivered herself
up to him! Wonder of wonders! A goddess prostituting
herself for him! Superb arms opening in a cloud to clasp
him to the bosom of a goddess, and that without degrada-
tion! Such majestic creatures cannot be sullied. The gods
bathe themselves pure in light; and this goddess who came
to him knew what she was doing. She was not ignorant of
the incarnate hideousness of Gwynplaine. She had seen the
mask that formed his face; and yet that mask had not caused
her to draw back. Gwynplaine was loved notwithstanding
it! Here was a thing that far surpassed all the marvels of
dreams. Gwynplaine was loved in consequence of his mask.
Far from repulsing the goddess, his hideousness attracted her.
He was not only loved, he was desired. He was more than
accepted, he was chosen. He, chosen!
Where this woman dwelt, in a region of matchless splen-
dour, and in a state of perfect freedom, there were princes in
plenty, and she could have taken a prince; nobles, and she
could have taken a noble; there were handsome, charming,
and magnificent men, and she could have taken an Adonis:
but whom had she chosen? Gnafron! She could have the
mighty, six—winged seraphim, but she chose the larva crawling
in the slime. On one side were royal highnesses and peers,
grandeur, opulence, and glory; on the other, a mountebank,
-—but the mountebank won the day! What kind of scales
could there be in the heart of this woman? By what measure
did she weigh her love? She took off her ducal coronet and
flung it at the feet of a clown! She took from her brow
the Olympian aureole and placed it on the bristling head of
a gnome! The world was turned topsy-turvy. The insects
~~__(- »— v --, v ; riff-w- .___.r_,a_. ...._, N-ell'ur -___,_.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 55
swarmed on high, the stars were scattered below, while the
wonder—stricken Gwynplaine, overwhelmed by a flood of light
and lying in the dust, was enshrined in glory. One all-pow-
erful, indifferent to beauty and splendour, gave herself to a
creature of night,— preferred Gwynplaine to Antinoiis.
Impelled by curiosity, she entered the slums and even de-
scended into them, and from this abdication of goddess—ship
resulted this wonderful exaltation of the wretched. “ You
are hideous. I love you.” These words touched Gwynplaine
in the ugly spot of pride. Pride is the heel in which all
heroes are vulnerable. Gwynplaine was flattered in his vanity
as a monster. He was loved for his deformity. He, too,
was the exception, as much, and perhaps more, than the Ju—
piters and the Apollos. He felt superhuman, and so much a
monster as to be a god. Fearful bewilderment!
But who was this woman? What did he know about her?
Everything and nothing. She was a duchess, that he knew;
he knew, too, that she was beautiful and rich; that she had
liveries, lackeys, pages, and footmen running with torches by
the side of her coroneted carriage. He knew that she was
in love with him,-—- at least, she said so. Of everything else
he was ignorant. He knew her title, but not her name.
He knew her wishes, but he knew nothing of her life. Was
_ she married? Was she a widow or a maiden? Was she free?
To what family did she belong? Were there snares, traps,
dangers about her? Of the immorality existing on the
heights of society; the caves on those summits, in which sav-
age charmers dream amid the scattered skeletons of the loves
which they have already preyed upon; of the extent of tragic
cynicism to which the experiments of a woman may attain
who believes herself to be beyond the reach of man,— of such
things as these Gwynplaine had no idea. Nor had he even
in his mind materials out of which to build up a conjecture,
information concerning such things being very scanty in the
social depths in which he lived. Still, he detected a shadow;
he felt that a mist hung over all this brightness. Did he
understand it? No. Could he guess at it? Still less,


56 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
'What was there behind that letter? One pair of folding-
doors opening before him as another pair closed behind him,
thus causing him a vague anxiety. On the one side an
avowal; on the other an enigma,— avowal and enigma, which,
like two mouths, one tempting, the other threatening, pro-
nounce the same word, “ Dare!”
Never had perfidious chance taken its measures better nor
timed more fitly the moment of temptation. Gwynplaine,
moved by the influences of springtime, and by the sap rising
in all things, was prompt to dream the dream of the flesh.
The old Adam, who is not to be stamped out, and over whom
none of us can triumph, was awakening in that backward
youth, still a boy at twenty-four. It was just at the most
stormy moment of the crisis that this ofi'er was made him,
and the naked bosom of the Sphinx appeared before his daz-
zled eyes. Youth is an inclined plane. Gwynplaine stooped,
and something pushed him forward. What? The season
and the night. Who? The woman. Were there no month
of April, man would be a great deal more virtuous. The
budding plants are a set of accomplices! Love is the thief,
Spring the receiver.
Gwynplaine was deeply agitated. There is a kind of un-
pleasant smoke preceding sin, in which the conscience cannot
breathe. The nausea of hell steals over virtue in temptation.
The yawning abyss emits an exhalation which warns the
strong and turns the weak giddy. Gwynplaine was sufl'er-
ing from this mysterious discomfort. Dilemmas, transient
and at the same time stubborn, were floating before him.
Sin, presenting itself obstinately again and again to his
mind, was taking form. The morrow, midnight? London
Bridge, the page? Should he go? “ Yes,” cried the flesh;
“ No,” cried the soul. ~
Nevertheless, we must remark that, strange as it may ap-
pear at first sight, Gwynplaine never once put himself the
question, “ Should he go? ” quite distinctly. Reprehensible
actions are like over-strong brandies,— you cannot swallow
them at a single draught. You set down your glass; you


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 57
will finish it presently; there is a strange taste even about
that first drop. One thing is certain, he felt something be-
hind him pushing him forward towards the unknown, and
he trembled. He could catch a faint glimpse of a crumbling
precipice, and he drew back, stricken with terror. He closed
his eyes. He tried hard to convince himself that the ad-
venture had never occurred, and to persuade himself into
doubting his reason. This was evidently the best plan; the
wisest thing he could do was to believe himself mad. Fatal
fever! Every man, surprised by the unexpected, has at times
felt the throb of such tragic pulsations. The observer ever
listens with anxiety to the echoes resounding from the dull
strokes of the battering—ram of destiny striking against a
conscience. '
One detail, however, is noteworthy: the effrontery of the
adventure, which perhaps might have shocked a depraved
man, never struck Gwynplaine. He saw only the grandeur
of the woman. Alas! he felt flattered. His vanity assured
him of victory only. To dream that he was the object of
unchaste desire, rather than of love, would have required much
greater wit than innocence possesses. He could not grasp the
animal side of the goddess’s nature.
A thousand conflicting ideas rushed into Gwynplaine’s
brain, now followingeach other singly, now crowding to—
gether. Then quiet reigned again, and he would lean his
head on his hands, in a kind of mournful attention, like one
who contemplates a landscape by night. Suddenly he real—
ized that he was no longer thinking. His reverie had reached
that point of utter bewilderment in which everything dis—
appears from view. He remembered, too, that he had not
entered the inn, and it was probably about two o’clock in
the morning. He placed the letter which the page had
brought him in his side~pocket, but perceiving that it was
next his heart, he drew it out again, crumpled it up, and
placed it in a pocket of his hose. He then directed his steps
towards the inn, which he entered stealthily, and without
awakening little Govicum, who had fallen asleep on the table,


58 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
with his arms for a pillow, while waiting for him. He closed
the door, lighted a candle at the lamp, fastened the bolt,
turned the key in the lock, taking, mechanically, all the pre—
cautions usual to a man returning home late, ascended the
staircase of the Green Box, slipped into the old hovel which
he used as a bedroom, looked at Ursus, who was asleep, blew
out his candle, but did not go to bed.
Thus an hour passed away. Weary, at length, and fancy-
ing that bed and sleep were synonymous, he laid his head
upon the pillow without undressing, making darkness the
concession of closing his eyes. But the storm of emotions
which assailed him had not ceased for an instant. Sleepless—
ness is a torture which night inflicts upon man. Gwynplaine
suffered greatly. For the first time in his life, he was not
satisfied with himself. Secret loathing mingled with grati—
fied vanity. What was he to do. Day broke at last; he
heard Ursus get up, but did not raise his eyelids. No truce
for him, however. The letter was ever in his mind. Every
word of it came back to him. In certain violent mental con—
flicts, thought becomes a liquid. It is convulsed, it heaves,
and something like the dull roaring of the waves rises from
it. Flood and flow, sudden shocks and whirls, the hesitation
of the waves before the rock; hail and rain; clouds with the
light shining through their breaks; the petty flights of useless
foam; the wild swell broken in an instant; great efforts lost;
wreck appearing all around; darkness and universal disper-
sion,—- these things which are true of the sea, are equally true
of man. Gwynplaine was a prey to such a storm.
In the height of his agony, and while his eyes were still
closed, he heard an exquisite voice asking, “ Are you asleep,
Gwynplaine? ” He opened his eyes with a start and sat up.
Dea was standing in the half-open door. An inelfable smile
was in her eyes and on her lips. She stood there, charming in
the unconscious serenity of her radiance. Then came, as it
were, a sacred moment. Gwynplaine gazed on her, startled,
dazzled, awakened. Awakened from what? From sleep?
No, from sleeplessness. It was she, it was Dea; and suddenly


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 59
he felt in the depths of his being a cessation of the storm
and the sublime victory of good over evil. The miracle of
the look from on high was accomplished; the blind girl, the
sweet light—bearer, with no effort beyond her mere presence,
dispelled the darkness within him; the curtain of cloud was
dispersed from his soul as by an invisible hand, and a sky of
azure, as though by celestial enchantment, again overspread
Gwynplaine’s conseience. In a moment he became, by the
mere presence of that angel, the noble and good Gwynplaine,
the innocent man.
CHAPTER II
FROM GAY T0 GRAVE
OW simple a miracle is, after all! It was the break—
fast hour in the Green Box, and Dea had merely come
to see why Gwynplaine had not joined them at table.
“ It is you!” exclaimed Gwynplaine; and in that he had
said everything. There was no other horizon, no vision for
him now but the heaven where Dea was. His agitation was
calmed,--— calmed in such a manner as he alone can under—
stand who has seen the smile spread swiftly over the ocean
when the hurricane has passed away. There is nothing that
becomes tranquil more quickly than the waves. This results
from their power of absorption. And so it is with the human
heart. Not always, however. Dea had but to.show herself,
and behind the dazzled Gwynplaine there was but a flight of
phantoms. What a peace—maker is adoration!
A few minutes afterwards they were sitting opposite each
other, Ursus between them, Homo at their feet. The teapot,
hung over a little lamp, was on the table. Fibi and Vinos
were outside, waiting. They breakfasted as they supped, in
the centre compartment. From the position in which the nar—
row table was placed, Dea’s back was turned towards the aper—


60 THE MAN ‘WHO LAUGHS
ture in the partition which was opposite the entrance door of
the Green Box. Their knees were touching. Gwynplaine
was pouring out tea for Dea. Suddenly she sneezed. Just
at that moment a thin smoke rose above the flame of the lamp,
and something like a piece of paper fell into ashes. It was
the smoke which had caused Dea to sneeze.
“ What was that?” she asked.
“ Nothing,” replied Gwynplaine.
And he smiled. He had just burned the duchess’s letter.
The conscience of the man who loves is the guardian angel of
the woman whom he loves. Unburdened of the letter, his re-
lief was wondrous, and Gwynplaine exulted in his integrity
as an eagle exults in his wings. It seemed to him as if his
temptation had vanished with the smoke, and as if the duchess
had crumbled into ashes with the paper.
Taking up their cups at random, and drinking one after
the other from the same one, they talked,— a babble of lov-
ers, a chattering of sparrows! Nonsense, worthy of Mother
Goose or of Homer! With two loving hearts, seek no
further for poetry; with two kisses for dialogue, go no further
for music.
“ Gwynplaine, I dreamed that we were animals, and had
wings.”
“ Wings; that means birds,” murmured Gwynplaine.
“ Fools! it means angels,” growled Ursus.
And their talk went on.
“ If you did not exist, Gwynplaine ! —”
“ What then? ”
“ It could only be because there was no God.”
“ The tea is too hot; you will burn yourself, Dea.”
“ Blow on my cup.”
“ How beautiful you are this morning!”
“ Do you know that I have a great many things to say to
you?” .
“ Say them.”
“ I love you!”
“ I adore you!”


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 61
And Ursus said aside, “ By heaven, they are plain—spoken
people!”
How blissful to lovers are their moments of silence! In
them they gather, as it were, masses of love, which afterwards
explode into sweet fragments.
Then came a pause, and afterwards Dea cried,—
“ Do you know, in the evening, when we are playing our
parts, at the moment when my hand touches your forehead,—
oh, what a noble head yours is, Gwynplaine!——at the mo-
ment when I feel your hair beneath my fingers, I shiver; a
heavenly joy comes over me, and I say to myself, ‘ Inlall this
world of darkness which encompasses me, in this universe of
solitude, in this great obscurity in which I live, in this quak-
ing fear of myself and of everything, I have one prop; and
he is here. It is he. It is you.”
“ Oh, you love me!” said Gwynplaine. “ I, too, have no
one but you on earth. You are everything to me. Dea,
what would you have me do? What do you desire? What
do you want? ”
Dea answered, “ I do not know. I am happy.”
“ Yes,” replied Gwynplaine, “ we are happy indeed!”
Ursus raised his voice severely: “ So you are happy, are
you? That’s a crime. I have warned you before. You are
happy! Then take care you are not seen. Take up as lit—
tle room as you can. Happiness ought to hide itself in a
hole. Make yourselves still less than you are, if that be
possible. God measures the greatness of happiness by the in—
significance of the happy. The happy should conceal them-
selves like malefactors. Shine out like the wretched glow-
worms that you are, and you’ll be trodden on; and serve you
right too! What do you mean by all that love—making non-
sense? I’m no duenna, whose business it is to watch lovers
billing and cooing. I’m tired of it all, I tell you; and you
may both go to the devil.”
And feeling that his harsh tones were melting into tender-
ness, he drowned his emotion in a loud grumble.
“ Father,” said Dea, “ how roughly you talk.”


62 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
“ That is because I don’t like to see people too happy.”
Here Homo re-echoed Ursus. His growl was heard from
beneath the lovers’ feet.
Ursus stooped down, and placed his hand on Homo’s head:
“ That’s right; you’re in bad humour, too. You growl.
The bristles are all on end on your pate. You don’t like all
this love-making. That’s because you are wise. Hold your
tongue all the same. You have had your say, and given your
opinion; so be it. Now be silent.”
The wolf growled again. Ursus looked under the table
at him: —-
“ Be still, Homo! Come, don’t dwell on it, you philoso-
pher ! ”
But the wolf sat up, and looked towards the door, showing
his teeth.
“What’s wrong with you now?” said Ursus. And he
caught hold of Homo by the skin of the neck.
Hecdless of the wolf’s growls, and wholly wrapt up in her
own thoughts, and in the sound of Gwynplaine’s voice, Dea
sat silent, absorbed in that kind of ecstasy peculiar to the
blind, which seems at times to give them a song to listen to
in their hearts, and to make up to them for the vision which
they lack by some strain of ideal music. Blindness is a cav-
ern through which celestial harmonies are ever floating.
While Ursus was looking down, talking to Homo, Gwyn-
plaine raised his eyes. He was about to drink a cup of tea.
He did not drink it however, but slowly replaced it on the
table. His fingers remained open, his eyes fixed. He
scarcely breathed.
A'man was standing in the doorway, behind Dea. He was
clad in black, with a hood. He wore a wig down to his eye-
brows, and held in his hand an iron baton with a crown at
each end. This baton was short and massive. Imagine a
Medusa thrusting her head between two blossoming branches
in paradise.
Ursus, who had heard some one enter, and who had raised
his head without loosing his hold of Homo, recognized the
r '_?=: mn- 17*—






in
He was clad
Vol. II, Page 62.
the doorway behind Dea.
The M rm. Who Laughs.
1n
ing
an was stand
a hood.”
((Am
, with
black





THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 6%?
terrible personage. He shook from head to foot, and whis—
pered to Gwynplaine: “ It’s the wapentake.”
Gwynplaine recollected. An exclamation of surprise was
about to escape him, but be restrained it. The iron staff,
with the crown at each end, was called the iron weapon. It
was from this iron weapon, upon which the city officers of
justice took the oath when they entered upon their duties,
that the old wapentakes of the English police derived their
name.
Behind the man in the wig, the frightened landlord could
be dimly discerned in the shadow. Without saying a word
— a personification of the muta Themis of the old charters ——
the man stretched his right arm over the radiant Dea, and
touched Gwynplaine on the shoulder with the iron staff, at the
same time pointing with his left thumb to the door of the
Green Box behind him. These gestures, all the more im—
perious for the intruder’s silence, meant, Follow me. “ Pro
signo eweu'ndi, sursum trahe,” says the old Norman record.
He who was touched by the iron weapon had no right but
the right of obedience. To that mute order there was no
reply. The harsh penalties of the English law threatened
the refractory.
Gwynplaine felt a shock under the rigid touch of the law;
then he sat as though petrified. If, instead of having been
merely grazed on the shoulder, he had been struck a violent
blow on the head with the iron staff, he could not have been
worse stunned. He knew that the police officer summoned
him to follow; but why? That he could not understand.
Ursus, too, was thrown into the most painful agitation,
but he saw through matters pretty clearly. His thoughts
flew to the jugglers and preachers,— his competitors,— to
complaints made against the Green Box, against that delin—
quent the wolf, to his own affair with the three Bishopsgate
commissioners; and who knows, perhaps —- but that would be
too dreadful—Gwynplaine’s unbecoming and factious
speeches touching the royal authority. He trembled vio-
lently. Dea was smiling.


64 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Neither Gwynplaine nor Ursus uttered a word. They both
had the same thought,— not to frighten Dea. It may have
struck the wolf as well, for he ceased growling. True, Ursus
did not loose him. Homo, however, was a prudent wolf when
occasion required. Who is there who has not remarked this
kind of intelligence in animals? It may be that to the ex-
tent to which a wolf can understand mankind he felt that he
was an outlaw.
Gwynplaine rose. Resistance was useless, as he knew, for
he remembered Ursus’ words. He remained standing in front
of the wapentake. The latter raised the iron staff from
Gwynplaine’s shoulder, and drawing it back, held it out
straight in an attitude of command,—a constable’s attitude
which was well understood in those days by the people, and
which expressed the following order: “ Let this man, and
no other, follow me. The rest remain where they are. Si-
lence!” No curious followers were allowed. In all ages the
police have had a taste for arrests of the kind. This descrip-
tion of seizure was termed sequestration of the person.
The wapentake turned round in one motion, like a piece
of mechanism revolving on its own pivot, and with grave and
magisterial step proceeded towards the door of the Green Box.
Gwynplaine looked at Ursus. The latter went through a
pantomime composed as follows: he shrugged his shoulders,
placed both elbows close to his hips, with his hands out, and
knitted his brows into chevrons, all intended to signify:
“ We must submit to the inevitable.”
Gwynplaine looked at Dea. She was still in a dream. She
was still smiling. He put the tips of his fingers to his lips,
and waved her an unutterable kiss.
Ursus, who had partially recovered from his terror now that
the wapentake’s back was turned, seized this opportunity to
whisper in Gwynplaine’s ear: “ On your life, do not speak
until you are questioned.” ‘
Gwynplaine, with the same care to avoid noise that he
would have taken in a sick room, took his hat and cloak from
the hook on the partition, wrapped himself up to the eyes in


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 65
the cloak, and pulled his hat down over his forehead. Not
having been to bed, he had his working clothes still on, and
his leather collar round his neck. Once more he looked at
Dea. Having reached the door, the wapentake raised his
staff and began to descend the steps, Gwynplaine following as
if the man was dragging him by an invisible chain. Ursus
watched Gwynplaine leave the Green Box. At that moment
the wolf gave a low growl, but Ursus quieted him by whisper-
ing, “ He is coming back.”
In the yard, Master Nicless was trying to silence with im-
perious gestures the cries of terror raised by Vinos and Fibi,
as they watched Gwynplaine led away by this formidable-
looking official. The two girls were like petrifactions; they
had the appearance of stalactites. Govicum, stunned, was
gazing open-mouthed out of a Window.
The wapentake preceded Gwynplaine by a few steps, never
once turning round or looking at him, with that cold tran-
quillity which the knowledge that one is the law imparts. In
death—like silence they both crossed the yard, passed through
the dark tap-room, and reached the street. A few passers-
by had collected about the inn door, and the justice of the
quorum was there at the head of a squad of police. The
idlers, stupefied, and without uttering a word, opened out and
stood aside, with true English discipline, at the sight of the
constable’s staff. The wapentake moved off in the direction
of the narrow street then called the Little Strand, skirting the
Thames; and Gwynplaine, with the justice of the quorum’s
men in line on each side of him like a double hedge, wrapped
in his cloak as in a shroud, left the inn farther and farther
behind him as he followed the silent man, like a statue follow'
ing a spectre.


66 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
CHAPTER III
LEX, max, rnx
NEXPLAINED arrest, which would greatly astonish an
Englishman nowadays, was then a very common pro-
ceeding of the police. Recourse was had to it, notwithstand-
ing the Habeas Corpus Act, up to George II.’s time, espe-
cially in such delicate cases as were provided for by Zettres dc
cachet in France; and one of the accusations against which
Walpole had to defend himself was that he had caused, or al-
lowed, Neuhofl' to be arrested in that manner. The accusa-
tion was probably without foundation, for Neuhoff, King of
Corsica, was put in prison by his creditors.
These silent seizures of the person, very usual with the
Holy Vazhme in Germany, were countenanced by German cus-
tom, which regulates one half of the old English laws, and
recommended in certain cases by Norman custom, which rules
the other half. Justinian’s chief of the palace police was
called “ Silentiarius Imperialis.” The English magistrates
who practised the seizures in question relied upon numerous
Norman texts: “ Canes latrant, sergentes silent,” and “ Ser-
genter agere, id est tacere.” They quoted Landulphus Sa-
gax, paragraph 16: “ Facit Imperator silentium.” They
quoted the charter of King Philip in 1307: “ Multos tene-
bimus bastonerios qui, obmutescentes, sergentare valeant.”
They quoted the statutes of Henry I. of England, cap. 53:
“ Surge signo jussus. Taciturnior esto. Hoc est esse in
captione regis.” They took advantage especially of the fol-
lowing prescription, held to form part of the ancient
feudal franchises of England: “ Sous les viscomtes sont les
serjans de l’espée, lesquels doivent justicier vertueusement a
l’espée tous ceux qui suient malveses compagnies, gens dif-
famez d’aucuns crimes, et gens fuites et forbannis .
et les doivent si vigoureusement et discretement appréhender,
a
V A JtM—vfi-{NW


THE MAN “WHO LAUGHS 67
que la bonne gent qui sont paisibles soient gardez paisiblc—
ment et que les malfeteurs soient espoantés.” To be thus
arrested was to be seized “ a le glaive de l’espée.” 1 The
jurisconsults referred besides “in Charta Ludovici Hutuni
pro Normannis,” chapter Servie'ntes spathar. The “ Servi—
entes spathaz,” in the gradual approach of base Latin to our
idioms, became “ sergentes spadae.”
These silent arrests were the contrary of the Clameur de
Ham, and gave warning that it was advisable to hold one’s
tongue until such time as light should be thrown upon certain
matters still shrouded in mystery. They signified questions
reserved, and showed in the operation of the police a certain
amount of raison d’état. The legal term “ private ” was ap-
plied to arrests of this description. It was thus that Ed—
ward 111., according to some chroniclers, caused Mortimer
to be seized in the bed of his mother, Isabella of France.
This again, we may venture to doubt, for Mortimer sustained
a siege in his town before being captured. Warwick, the
king-maker, delighted in practising this mode of “ attaching
people.” Cromwell practised it, especially in Connaught;
and it was with this precaution of silence that Trailie Arcklo,
a relation of the Earl of Ormond, was arrested at Kilma-
caugh.
These seizures of the body by a mere gesture of authority,
represented rather a summons to appear than a warrant of ar—
rest. Sometimes they were but processes of inquiry, and
even argued, by the silence imposed upon all, a certain con-
sideration for the person seized. For the mass of the peo-
ple, little versed as they were in such shades of difference, they
had peculiar terrors.
It must not be forgotten that in 1705, and even much later,
England was far from being what she is to-day. The gen—
eral features of its constitution were confused and, at times,
very oppressive. Daniel Defoe, who had had a taste of the
pillory himself, characterizes the social order of England,
1 \‘ctus Consuetudo Normannize, MS. part i. sect. l, chap. xi.


68 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
somewhere in his writings, as “ the iron hands of the law.”
There was not only the law, but there was its arbitrary ad-
ministration. We have but to recall Steele, ejected from
Parliament; Locke, driven from his professorship; Hobbes
and Gibbon, compelled to leave the country; Charles Church-
ill, Hume, and Priestly, persecuted; John Wilkes sent to the
Tower. The task would be a long one, were we to enumerate
the victims of the statute against seditious libel. The in-
quisition had gained quite a foothold throughout Europe, and
its police practice was taken as a guide. A monstrous out-
rage against all rights was possible in England. We have
only to recall the “ Gazetier Cuirassé.” In the middle of the
eighteenth century, Louis XV. had writers whose works dis-
pleased him arrested in Piccadilly. It is also true that
George II. laid hands on the Pretender in France, right in
the middle of the hall at the opera. Those were two long
arms,—— that of the King of France reaching to London; that
of the King of England, reaching to Paris! Such was the
liberty of the period.
We may add that they were fond of putting people to death
privately in prisons,—— sleight—of-hand mingled with capital
punishment; a hideous expedient, to which England is revert-
ing at the present moment, thus giving to the world the
strange spectacle of a great people, which, in its desire to
take the better part, chooses the worse; and which, having
before it the past on one side and progress on the other, loses
its way, and mistakes night for day.
CHAPTER IV
URSUS PLAYS THE SPY ON THE POLICE
S we have already said, according to the very severe laws
of those days, a summons to follow the wapentake, ad—
dressed to an individual, implied to all other persons present
an order not to stir. Some curious idlers, however, were stub—


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 69
born, and followed from afar off the corte'g'e which had taken
Gwynplaine into custody.
Ursus was one of the number. He had been petrified with
astonishment, as one certainly had reason to be. But Ursus,
so often assailed by the surprises incident to a wandering life,
and by all sorts of mischances, was prepared for immediate
action, like a ship-of-war, and could call to the post of danger
the whole crew,— that is to say, the aid of all his faculties.
He flung off his stupor, and began to think. He strove not
to give way to emotion, but to meet the danger calmly and
thoughtfully. To look facts in the face is the duty of every
sensible person. '
Presently he asked himself: What could he do? Gwyn-
plaine being taken, Ursus was tortured by a two—fold fear,—
a fear for Gwynplaine, which instigated him to follow his
protégé, and a fear for himself, which urged him to remain
where he was. Ursus had the intrepidity of a fly, and the
impassibility of a sensitive plant. His agitation was inde-
scribable. Nevertheless, he heroically decided to brave the
law, and to follow the wapentake, so anxious was he concern-
ing the fate of Gwynplaine. His terror must have been great
to prompt so much courage. To what valiant acts will fear
drive even a hare! The chamois in despair jumps a preci—
pice. To be terrified into imprudence is one of the forms of
fear. '
Gwynplaine had been kidnapped rather than arrested.
The operation of the police had been executed so rapidly that
the denizens of the fair-ground, which was little frequented
at that hour of the morning, were scarcely aware of the cir-
cumstance. Scarcely any one in the caravans had any idea
that the wapentake had come to arrest Gwynplaine. Hence,
the smallness of the crowd. Gwynplaine, thanks to his cloak
and his hat, which nearly concealed his face, could not be rec-
ognized by the passers-by.
Before he went out to follow Gwynplaine, Ursus took a
precaution. He spoke to Master Nicless, to the boy Govicum,
and to Fibi and Vinos, and insisted that they should keep ab—


’70 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
solute silence before Dea, who was ignorant of everything;
that they should not utter a syllable that could make her sus-
pect what had occurred; that they should make her under-
stand that the cares of the management of the Green Box
necessitated the absence of Gwynplaine and Ursus; that, be-
sides, it would soon be the time of her daily siesta, and that
before she awoke he and Gwynplaine would have returned;
that all that had taken place had arisen from a mistake; that
it would be very easy for Gwynplaine and himself to clear
themselves before the magistrate and police; that a touch of
the finger would put the matter straight, after which they
should both return; above all, that no one should say a word
on the subject to Dea. Having given these directions, he de-
parted.
Ursus was able to follow Gwynplaine without being no-
ticed. Though he kept at the greatest possible distance, he
so managed as not to lose sight of him. Boldness in ambus-
cade is the bravery of the timid. After all, notwithstanding
the solemnity of the attendant circumstances, Gwynplaine
might have been summoned before the magistrate for some
unimportant infraction of the law. Ursus assured himself
that the question would be decided at once.
The mystery would be solved under his very eyes by the
direction taken by the cortége when it reached the entrance to
the street leading into the Little Strand. If it turned to the
left, it would conduct Gwynplaine to the justice hall in South-
wark. In that case there would be little to fear. Some tri—
fling municipal offense, an admonition from the magistrate,
two or three shillings to pay, and Gwynplaine would be set at
liberty, and the performance of “ Chaos Vanquished ” would
take place in the evening as usual. In that case no one would
know that anything unusual had happened. If the cortége
turned to the right, matters would look more serious. There
were frightful places in that direction. '
When the wapentake, leading the file of guards between
whom Gwynplaine walked, reached the small streets, Ursus
watched him breathlessly. There are moments in which a


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 71
man’s whole being passes into his eyes. Which way were
they going to turn? They turned to the right.
Ursus, staggering with terror, leaned against a wall for
support. There is no hypocrisy greater than the words we
often say to ourselves, “ I wish to know the worst!” At
heart we do not wish it at all. We have a dreadful dread
of knowing it. Agony is mingled with a dim effort not to
see the end. We do not own it to ourselves, but we would
draw back if we dared; and when we have advanced, we re-
proach ourselves for having done so.
Thus did Ursus. He shuddered as he thought: “ Things
are indeed going wrong. I should have found it out soon
enough. What business had I to follow Gwynplaine? ”
Having made this reflection, man being but self-contradic-
tion, he increased his pace, and hastened to get nearer the
cortége, so as not to lose sight of Gwynplaine in the labyrinth
of small streets.
The cortége of police could not move quickly on account
of its solemnity. The wapentake led it. The justice of the
quorum closed it. This order compelled a certain deliberation
of movement. All the majesty possible in an- official shone
in the justice of the quorum. His costume held a middle
place between the splendid robe of a doctor of music of Ox-
ford, and the sober black habiliments of a doctor of divinity
of Cambridge. He wore the dress of a gentleman under a
long godebert, which is a mantle trimmed with the fur of the
Norwegian hare. He was half Goth and half fop in his at-
tire, wearing a wig like Lamoignon, and sleeves like Tristan
l’Hermite. His great round eye watched Gwynplaine with
the fixity of an owl’s. He walked with measured tread.
Never did honest man look fiercer.
Ursus, who had lost his way for a moment in the tangled
skein of streets, overtook, close to Saint Mary Overy, the
cortége, which had fortunately been retarded in the church-
yard by a fight between children and dogs,— a common inci-
dent in the streets in those days. “Dogs and boys,” says
the old registers of police, placing the dogs before the boys.


72
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
~
_ narrow loop—holes.
A man being taken before a magistrate by the police was,
after all, an everyday affair, and each one having his own
business to attend to, the few followers soon dispersed. There
remained but Ursus on the track of Gwynplaine. .
They passed two chapels opposite each other, belonging
the one to the Recreative Religionists, the other to the Halle-
lujah League,-— sects which flourished then, and which still
exist at the present day. Then the cortége wound from street
to street, making a zig-zag, choosing by preference lanes not
yet built on, roads where the grass grew, and deserted alleys.
At length the cortége stopped in a narrow lane with no
houses except two or three hovels. This narrow alley was
bordered with two walls, the one on the left, low; the other,
high. The high wall was black, and built in the Saxon style
with narrow holes, scorpions, and large square gratings over
There was no window on it, but here
and there slits, old embrasures for cross bows and long bows.
At the foot of this high wall, like the hole at the bottom of
a rat—trap, was a small wicket gate. This small door, en-
cased in a full, heavy girding of stone, had a grated peep-
hole, a heavy knocker, a large lock, hinges thick and knotted,
a bristling of nails, an armour of plates, and hinges, so that
altogether it was more of iron than of wood. There was no
one in the lane,— no shops, no pedestrians; but in it there
was a continual uproar, as if the lane ran parallel with a
torrent. There was a tumult of voices and of carriages.
It seemed as if on the other side of the black edifice there
must be a great street, doubtless the principal street of South-
wark, one end of which ran into the Canterbury road, and
the other on to London Bridge.
All the length of the lane, except the cortége which sur-
rounded Gwynplaine, a watcher would have seen no human
face save that of Ursus peering out from the shadow of the
corner of the wall; looking, yet fearing to see. He had
posted himself 'behind the wall at a turn of the lane.
The constables grouped themselves before the wicket.
Gwynplaine was in the centre, the wapentake and his baton of


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 73
iron being now behind him. The justice of the quorum
raised the knocker and struck the door three times. The
loop-hole opened. The justice of the quorum said, “ By or—
der of her Majesty.” The heavy door of oak and iron
turned on its hinges, revealing a dark opening, like the mouth
of a cave. A grim vault yawned in the shadow. Ursus saw
Gwynplaine disappear within it.

CHAPTER V
A rmnrur. PLACE
THE wapentake entered behind Gwynplaine; then the
justice of the quorum; then the constables. The
heavy door swung to, closing hermetically on the stone sills,
without any one seeing who had opened or shut it. It seemed
as if the bolts re—entered their sockets of their own accord.
Some of these mechanisms, the inventions of ancient intimida-
tion, still exist in old prisons,——- doors where you saw no door—
keeper. With them the entrance to a prison becomes like the
entrance to a tomb.
This wicket was the lower door of Southwark Jail. There
was nothing in the harsh and worm-eaten aspect of this
edifice to soften the air of rigour appropriate to a prison.
Originally a pagan temple, built by the Catieuchlans for
the Mogons, ancient English gods, it became a palace for
Ethelwolfe and a fortress for Edward the Confessor; after
which it was elevated to the dignity of a prison, in 1199, by
John Lackland. Such was Southwark Jail. This jail, at
first intersected by a street,— as Chenoneeaux is by a river,—
had been for a century or two a gate, that is to say, the gate
of a suburb; the passage had then been walled up. There
are still several prisons of this kind in England — Newgate,
in London; Westgate, in Canterbury; Canongate, in Edin.


74 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
burgh; the Bastille, in France, was originally a gate. Al-
most all the jails of England present the same appearance,—
a high wall without and a hive of cells within. Nothing
could be more funereal than the appearance of these prisons,
where spiders and justice spun their webs, and where John
Howard, that ray of light, had not yet penetrated. Like the
old Gehenna of Brussels, they might well have been desig—
nated Treurenberg,—“ the house of tears.” Before such
buildings, at once so savage and inhospitable, men felt the
same distress that the ancient navigators suffered before the
hell of slaves mentioned by Plautus,—— islands of creaking
chains, ferricrepiditzz insulw,—-- when they passed near enough
to hear the clank of the fetters.
Southwark Jail, an old place of exorcisms and torture,
was originally used solely for the imprisonment of sorcerers,
as was proved by two verses engraved on a defaced stone at
the foot of the wicket :—
Sunt arreptitii, vexati daemone multo
Est energumenus, quem demon possidet unus,-—
lines which draw a subtle, delicate distinction between the
demoniac and the man possessed of a devil. At the bottom
of this inscription, nailed flat against the wall, was a stone
ladder, originally of wood, but which had been changed into
stone by being buried in earth of petrifying quality at a place
called Apsley Gowis, near Woburn Abbey.
The prison of Southwark, now demolished, opened on two
streets, between which, as a gate, it formerly served as a
means of communication. It had two doors,—— in the large
street a door used by the authorities; and in the lane the
criminals’ door, used by the rest of the living and by the dead
also, because when a prisoner in the jail died, it was through
that doorway his body was carried out,—a liberation not
to be despised. Death is release into infinity. It was by
this doorway that Gwynplaine had been taken into the prison.
The lane, as we have said, was nothing but a little passage,
paved with flints, enclosed between two walls. There is one


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 75
of the same kind in Brussels called Rue d’u'ne Personae.
The walls were unequal in height. The high one was the
prison; the low one, the cemetery (the enclosure for the mor—
tuary remains of the jail), was not higher than the ordinary
stature of a man. In it, almost opposite the prison wicket,
was a gate. The dead had only to cross the street; the ceme—
tery was but twenty yards from the jail. Above the high
wall loomed a gallows; on the low one was sculptured a
Death’s head. Neither of these walls made its opposite neigh-
bour more cheerful.
v

CHAPTER VI
THE mm) or MAGISTRACY UNDER THE wrcs or roams}; vars
PERSON passing down the main street of Southwark
just at that moment would have seen drawn up before
the main entrance to the jail a travelling carriage, recognized
as such by its imperial. A few idlers surrounded the car—
riage. On it was a coat—of—arms, and a personage had been
seen to descend from it and enter the prison,——“ probably a
magistrate,” conjectured the crowd. Many of the English
magistrates were noble, and almost all had the right of hear—
ing arms. In France blazon and robe were almost contra-
dictory terms. The Duke Saint-Simon says, in speaking of
magistrates, “People of that class.” In England, a gen-
tleman was not despised for being a judge.
There are travelling magistrates in England; they are
called judges of circuit, and this carriage was unquestion-
ably the vehicle of a judge on circuit. Much less compre—
hensible was the fact that the supposed magistrate got down,
not from the carriage itself, but from the box, a place which
is not habitually occupied by the owner. Another unusual
thing. People travelled at that period in England in two


76 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
ways,—— by coach, at the rate of a shilling for five miles; and
by post, paying three half—pence per mile, and twopence to
the postilion after each stage. A private carriage, whose
owner desired to travel by relays, paid as many shillings per
horse per mile as the horseman paid pence.
The" carriage drawn up before the jail in Southwark had
four horses and two postilions, which displayed princely
state. Another thing which excited and disconcerted con-
jectures to the utmost was the circumstance that the carriage
was sedulously closed. The blinds were drawn up. The
glasses in front were darkened by blinds; every opening
through which the eye might have penetrated was masked.
From without, nothing inside could be seen; and most prob-
ably from within, nothing outside could be seen. However,
it did not seem probable that there was any one in the car-
r1age.
Southwark being in Surrey, the prison was within the ju-
risdiction of the sheriff of that-county. Such distinct juris-
dictions were very frequent in England. Thus, for example,
the Tower of London was not supposed to be situated in any
county; that is to say, legally, it was considered to be in the
air. The Tower recognized no authority of jurisdiction ex-
cept in its own constable, who was qualified as custos turn's.
The Tower had its own special jurisdiction, church, court of
justice, and government. The authority of its custos or con-
stable extended, outside of London, over twenty-one hamlets.
As in Great Britain legal peculiarities are engrafted one
upon another, the office of the master gunner of England
was derived from the Tower of London. Other legal cus—
toms seem still more whimsical. Thus, the English Court
of Admiralty consults and applies the laws of Rhodes and of
Oleron, a French island which was once English.
The sheriff of a county was a person of high consideration.
He was always an esquire, and sometimes a knight. He was
called spectabilis in the old deeds, “ a man to be looked at,” a
kind of intermediate title between illustris and clarissimus,—~
less than the first, more than the second. Long ago the sher-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 77
iffs of the counties were chosen by the people; but Edward
H., and after him Henry VI., having claimed their nomina-
tion for the crown, the office of sheriff became a rOyal emana-
tion. They all received their commissions from majesty, ex-
cept the sheriff of Westmoreland, whose office was hereditary,
and the sheriffs of London and Middlesex, who were elected
by the councilmen in the common hall. Sheriffs of Wales
and Chester possessed certain fiscal prerogatives. These ap—
pointments are all still in existence in England, but, sub-
jected little by little to the friction of manners and ideas,
they have lost much of their former character. It was the
duty of the sheriff of the county to escort and protect the
judges on circuit. As we have two arms, he had two officers,
— his right arm the under-sheriff, his left arm the justice of
the quorum. The justice of the quorum, assisted by the
bailiff of the hundred, termed the wapentake, apprehended,
examined, and, under the responsibility of the sherifi', im-
prisoned, for trial by the judges of circuit, thieves, mur-
derers, rebels, vagabonds, and all sorts of felons. The shade
of difference between the under—sheriff and the justice of the
quorum, in their hierarchical service towards the sheriff was,
that the under—sheriff accompanied and the justice of the
quorum assisted.
The sheriff held two courts,-— one fixed and central, the
county court, and a movable court, the circuit court. He
thus represented both unity and ubiquity. He might asi
judge be aided and informed on legal questions by the
serjeant of the eoif, called sergens coifw, who is a serjeant-
at-law, and who wears under his black skull-cap a fillet of
white Chambray lawn. The sheriff relieved the jails of their
inmates. When he arrived at any town in his circuit, he had
a right to try the prisoners, and either released or executed
them as the case might be. This was called a jail delivery.
The sheriff presented bills of indictment to the twenty-four
members of the grand jury. If they approved, they wrote
above, billa vera; if the contrary, they wrote ignoramus. In
the latter case the accusation was annulled, and the sherifl’


’78 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
had the privilege of tearing up the bill. If during the de—
liberation a juror died, this legally acquitted the prisoner and
made him innocent, and the sheriff, who had the privilege of
arresting the accused, had also that of setting him at liberty.
That which made the sherifi' universally feared and re-
spected was the fact that he had charge of executing all the
orders of her Majesty,——a fearful latitude. An arbitrary
power lodges in such commissions. The officers termed ver-
gers, the coroners making part of the sheriff’s cortége, and
the clerks of the market as escort, with gentlemen on horse-
back and their servants in livery, made a handsome suite.
The sherifi', says Chamberlayne, is the “life of justice, of
law, and of the county.” ‘
In England an insensible demolition constantly pulverizes
and disintegrates laws and customs. You must understand
in our day that neither the sheriff, the wapentake, nor the
justice of the quorum could exercise their functions as they
did then. There was in the England of the past a certain
confusion of powers, whose ill-defined attributes resulted in
their overstepping their real bounds at times,— a thing which
would be impossible at the present day. The usurpation of
power by police and justices has ceased. We believe that
even the word “wapentake” has changed its meaning. It
implied a magisterial function; now it signifies a territorial
division: it specified the centurion; it now specifies the cantred
(centum). '
Moreover, in those days the sheriff of the county combined
in his authority, which'was at once royal and municipal,
that of the two magistrates formerly known in France as the
civil lieutenant of Paris and the lieutenant of police. The
civil lieutenant of Paris is pretty well described in an old
police note: “ The civil lieutenant had no objection to do—
mestic quarrels, because he always has the pickings.” 1 As
to the lieutenant of police, he was a redoubtable person,
multiple and vague. The best personification of him was
1 July 92, 1704.
' --—<w--e:1r~m__ “I. H.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS ’79
René d’Argenson, who, as Saint—Simon remarked, displayed
in his face the three judges of hell united. These three
judges of the infernal region, as we have already seen, sat
enthroned at Bishopsgate, London.
CHAPTER VII
SHUDDERING
HEN Gwynplaine heard the wicket shut, creaking in
all its bolts, he trembled. It seemed to him that the
door which had just closed was the communication between
light and darkness,—— opening on one side on the living, hu-
man crowd, and on the other on a dead world; and now that
everything illumined by the sun was behind him, and he had
overstepped the boundary of life, and was standing without
it, his heart contracted. What were they going to do with
him? What did it all mean? Where was he? He saw
nothing around him; he found himself in perfect darkness.
The closing of the door had momentarily blinded him. The
window in the door had been closed as well. No loop—hole,
no lamp. Such were the precautions of old times. It was
forbidden to light the entrance to the jails, so that new-
comers could take no observations. Gwynplaine extended
his arms, and touched the wall on the right side and on the
left. He was in a passage. Little by little a cavernous
daylight, exuding, no one knows whence, and which floats
about dark places, and to which the dilatation of the pupil
slowly adjusts itself, enabled him to distinguish an object
here and there, and the corridor became dimly visible before
him.
Gwynplaine, who knew naught of penal severities, save
throng-h the exaggerations of Ursus, felt as though he had
been seized by a sort of gigantic hand. To be caught in
m____v¢ 4w


80 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
the mysterious toils of the law is frightful. He who is
brave in all other dangers, is disconcerted in the presence of
justice. Why? Is it because the justice of man works in
twilight, and the judge gropes his way? Gwynplaine re-
membered what Ursus had told him of the necessity for si-
lence. He wished to see Dea again; he felt some discre-
tionary instinct, which urged him not to irritate. Some-
times, to wish to be enlightened is to make matters worse;
but on the other hand, the weight of the adventure was so
overwhelming that he gave way at length and could not re-
strain a question. ,
“ Gentlemen,” said he, “whither are you taking me?”
They made no answer. It was the law of silent capture,
and the Norman text is formal,— A silentiariis ostio, pnzpos-
itis introducti aunt.
This silence froze Gwynplaine. Up to that moment he
had believed himself to be firm and self-sufficing. To be
self-sufiicing is to be powerful. He had lived isolated from
the world, and imagined that being alone he was unassail-
able; and now all at once he felt himself under the pressure
of a hideous collective force. How was he to combat that
horrible anonyma, the law? He felt faint under the per-
plexity; a fear of an unknown nature had found a fissure in
his armour; besides, he had not slept, he had not eaten, he
had scarcely moistened his lips with a cup of tea. The
whole night had been passed in a kind of delirium, and the
fever was still upon him. He was thirsty, perhaps hungry;
and the craving of the stomach disorders everything. Since
the previous evening all kinds of incidents had befallen him.
The emotions which had tormented had sustained him. With-
out the storm a sail would be a rag. But his was the ex-
, cessive feebleness of the rag, which the wind inflates till it
tears it. He felt himself sinking. Was he about to fall
unconscious on the pavement? To faint is the resource of a
woman, and the humiliation of a man. He hardened him-
self, but he trembled nevertheless.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 81
CHAPTER VIII
LAMENTATION
HEY began to move forward through the passage.
There was no preliminary registry, no place of rec-
ord. The prisons in those days were not overburdened with
documents. They were content to close round you without
knowing why. To be a prison, and to hold prisoners, suf-
ficed.
The procession was obliged to lengthen itself out, by rea-
son of the narrowness of the corridor. They walked almost
in single file; first the wapentake, then Gwynplaine, then the
justice of the quorum, then the constables, advancing in a
group, and completely blocking up the passage behind Gwyn-
plaine. The passage narrowed. Now Gwynplaine touched
the walls with both his elbo‘ws. In the roof, which was made
of fiints, dashed with cement, was a succession of projecting
granite arches contracting the passage still more. He had
to stoop to pass under them. No rapid advance was possi-
ble in that corridor. Any one trying to escape through it
would have been compelled to move slowly. The passage
twisted. All entrails are tortuous,--— those of a prison as
well as those of a man. Here and there, sometimes to the
right and sometimes to the left, spaces in the wall, square
and closed by large iron gratings, afforded glimpses of flights
of stairs, some descending and some ascending.
They reached a closed door; it opened. They passed
through, and it closed again. Then they came to a second
door, which admitted them, then to a third, which also turned
on its hinges. These doors seemed to open and shut of
themselves. No person was visible. As the corridor con-
tracted, the roof grew lower, until at length it was impos-
sible to stand upright. Moisture exuded from the wall.
Drops of water fell from the vaulted roof. The slabs that
“‘4
6


82 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
paved the corridor were covered with slime. The pale, wan
light became more and more pall—like. Air was deficient, and
what was singularly ominous, the passage seemed to be a
descent. Close observation was necessary to perceive that-
there was such a descent. In darkness even a gentle de—
clivity is portentous. Nothing is more fearful than the
vague evils to which we are led by imperceptible degrees. It
is awful to descend into unknown depths.
How long they proceeded thus, Gwynplaine could not
tell. Moments passed under such crushing agony seem im—
measurably prolonged. Suddenly they halted. The dark-
ness was intense. The corridor had widened somewhat.
Gwynplaine heard close to him a sound similar to that made
by a Chinese gong. It was the wapentake striking his wand
against a sheet of iron. The sheet of iron was a door,-——-
not a door on hinges, but a door which could be raised and
lowered; something like a portcullis.
There was a sound of creaking .in a grooye, and Gwyn—
plaine was suddenly face to face with a bit of square light.
The sheet of metal had just been raised into a slit in the
vault, like the door of a mouse-trap. An opening had ap—
peared. The light was not daylight, but glimmer; but on
the dilated eyeballs of Gwynplaine the pale ray struck like a
flash of lightning. It was some time before he could dis—
tinguish anything. To see with dazzled eyes is as difficult
as it is to see in darkness. At length, by degrees, the pupil
of his eye adapted itself to the light, just as it had adapted
itself to the darkness, and he was able to distinguish objects.
The light, which had seemed at first too bright, settled into its
proper hue and became livid. He cast a glance into the
yawning space before him, and what he saw was terrible.
At his feet were about twenty steps, steep, narrow, worn,
almost perpendicular, without balustrade on either side,—a
sort of stone ridge cut out from the side of a wall into stairs,
and leading into a very deep cell, into which one gazed
down as into a well. The cell was large, and if it was really
the bottom of a well, it must have been a cyclopean one. The


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 88
idea that the old word “ cul-de-basse-fosse ” awakens in the
mind could only be applied to it if it was supposed to be a
den of wild beasts. The cell was neither flagged nor paved.
The bottom was of that cold, moist earth, peculiar to deep
places. In the midst of the cell, four low and dispropor-
tioned columns sustained a deeply arched canopy, the four
mouldings of which united in the interior of the canopy,
something like the inside of a mitre. This covering, similar
to those under which sarcophagi were formerly placed, rose
nearly to the top of the vault, and made a sort of central
chamber in the cave, if that can be styled a chamber which
has only pillars in place of walls. From the centre of the
arch hung a brass lamp, round and barred like the window of
a prison. This lamp threw around it-—-on the pillars, on
the vault, on the circular wall which was seen dimly behind
the pillars—a wan light, cut by bars of shadow. This
was the light which had at first dazzled Gwynplaine; now it
seemed only a confused redness. There was no other light
in the cell,—— neither window, nor door, nor loop—hole.
Between the four pillars, exactly under the lamp, in the
spot where there was most light, a pale and terrible form
lay extended on the ground. It was lying on its back; a
head was visible, the eyes of which were shut; also a body,
the chest of which was a shapeless mass. The four limbs be—
longing to the body were drawn towards the four pillars by
four chains fastened to each foot and each hand in the posi-
tion of the cross of Saint Andrew. These chains were fas—
tened to an iron ring at the base of each column. The
form was thus held immovable, in the horrible position of
being quartered, and had the icy look of a livid corpse. It
was naked. It was a man.
Gwynplaine stood at the top of the stairs as if petrified,
looking down. Suddenly he heard a rattle in the throat.
The corpse was alive.
Close to the spectre, in one of the arches, on each side of
a tall chair placed on a large flat stone, stood two men en-
veloped in long black cloaks; and in the chair sat an old man,


84. THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
dressed in a red robe, pale, motionless, and austere, holding
a bunch of roses in his hand. The bunch of roses would
have enlightened any one less ignorant than Gwynplaine.
The right of judging with a nosegay in his hand implied
the holder to be both a royal and municipal magistrate.
The Lord Mayor of London still keeps up the custom. To
assist the deliberations of the judges was the function of the
earliest roses of the season.
The old man seated in the chair was the sheriff of the
county of Surrey. His was the majestic rigidity of a Roman
dignitary. The chair was the only seat in the cell. Beside
it was a table covered with papers and books, on which lay
the long white wand of the sheriff. The men standing
by the side of the sheriff were two doctors, one of medicine,
the other of law; the latter recognizable by the serjeant’s coif
over his wig. Both were black robes,— one of the shape
worn by judges, the other by doctors. Men of these pro~
fessions wear mourning for the deaths which they cause.
Behind the sheriff, on the edge of the flat stone under
the seat,—— with a writing’table near him, a bundle of papers
on his knees, and a sheet of parchment on the bundle,—
crouched a secretary, in a round wig, with a pen in his
hand, in the attitude of a man ready to write. This sec—
retary was of the class called keeper of the bag, as was
shown by a bag at his feet. These bags, employed in for-
mer times in law—suits were termed bags of justice. Lean-
ing against a pillar with folded arms was a man clothed en—
tirely in leather,— the hangman’s assistant. These men
seemed as if they had been fixed by enchantment in their
funereal postures round the chained man. No one of them
either spoke or moved. A fearful silence brooded over all.
What Gwynplaine saw was a torture chamber. There
were many such in England. The crypt of Beauchamp
Tower long served this purpose, as did also a cell in the Lol-
lards’ prison. A place of this nature is still to be seen
in London, called “ the Vaults of Lady Place.” In this last-
mentioned chamber there is a grate for the purpose of heating


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 87
of the Goths, which the 01d Gallic jargon converted into cir-
pagne. Christ wore only that shred upon the cross.
The terror-stricken sufferer, whom Gwynplaine now saw
distinctly, seemed a man about fifty or sixty years of age.
He was bald. A few grizzly hairs bristled on his chin. His
eyes were closed; his mouth open. Every tooth could be
seen. His thin and bony face was like a death’s—head. His
arms and legs were fastened by chains to the four stone pil—
lars in the shape of the letter X. He had on his breast
and belly an iron plate, on which five or six large stones
were laid. His rattle was at times a sigh, at times a roar.
The sheriff, still holding his bunch of roses, took from the
table with the hand which was free his white wand, and stand—
ing up said, “Obedience to her Majesty.” Then he re-
placed the wand upon the table. Then in words long—drawn
as a knell, without a gesture, and immovable as the suf—
ferer, the sheriff, raising his voice, said :—
“ Man, who liest here bound in chains, listen for the last
time to the voice of justice! You have been taken from
your dungeon and brought to this jail. Legally summoned
in the usual forms, formaliis verbis pressus; not regarding
lectures and communications which have been made, and
which will now be repeated, to you; inspired by a bad and
perverse spirit of obstinacy, you have preserved silence, and
refused to answer the judge. This is a detestable offence,
which constitutes, among deeds punishable by cashlit, the
crime and misdemeanour of overseness.”
The serjeant of the coif on the right of the sheriff inter—
rupted him, and said, with an indifference which was inde-
scribably lugubrious in its effect: “ Overher'nessa. Laws of
Alfred and of Godrun, chapter the sixth.”
The sheriff resumed: “ The law is respected by all ex-
cept by scoundrels who infest the woods where the hinds
bear young.”
Like one clock striking after another, the serjeant said,
“ Qui faciunt vastum in foresta ubi damaa solent founinare.”
“ He who refuses to answer the magistrate,” said the sher—
WM_ \,WWM.____ _.‘


88 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
if, “is suspected of every vice. He is supposed capable of
every evil.”
The serjeant interposed: “ Prodigus, devorator, profusus,
salax, rufiianus, ebriosus, luxuriosus, simulator, consumptor
patrimonii, elluo, ambro, et gluto.”
“ Every vice,” said the sheriff, “ means every crime. ~IIe
who confesses nothing confesses everything. He who holds
his peace before the questions of the judge is in fact a liar
and a parricide.”
“ Mendax et parricida, said the serjeant.
The sheriff said: “ Man, it is not permissible to protect
one’s self by silence. To pretend contumaciousness is a
wound given to the law; it is like Diomede wounding a god-
dess. Taciturnity before a judge is one form of rebellion.
Treason to justice is high tréaSon. Nothing is more hate_
ful or rash. He who resists interrogation hides the truth.
The law has provided for this. For such cases, the English
have always enjoyed the right of the foss, the fork, and
chains.”
“ Anglica Charta, year 1088,” said the serjeant. Then
with the same mechanical gravity, he added: “ Ferrum, et
fossam, et furcas cum aliis libertatibus.”
The sherifi‘ continued: “Man! Inasmuch as you have
not chosen to break silence, though of sound mind and hav-
ing full knowledge in respect to the subject concerning which
justice demands an answer, and inasmuch as you are dia—
bolically refractory, you have necessarily been put to tor-
ture; and you have been, by the terms of the criminal stat-
utes, tried by the ‘ Peine forte et dure.’ This is what has
been done to you, for the law requires that I should fully in-
form you. You have been brought to this dungeon; you
have been stripped of your clothes; you have been laid on
your back naked on the ground; your limbs have been
stretched and tied to the four pillars of the law; a sheet of
iron has been placed on your chest, and as many stones as
you can bear have been heaped on your belly, ‘ and more,’
says the law.”
’9


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 89
“ Plusque,” affirmed the serjeant.
The sheriff continued: “In this situation, and before
prolonging the torture, a second summons to answer and to
speak has been made to you by me, sheriff of the county
of Surrey, and you have satanically kept silent, though un—
der torture, chains, shackles, fetters, and irons.”
“ Attachiamenta legalia,” said the serjeant.
“ On your continued refusal and contumacy,” said the
sheriff, “it being right that the obstinacy of the law should
equal the obstinacy of the criminal, the test has been con—
tinued according to the edicts and tests. The first day you
were given nothing to eat or drink.”
“ Hoc est superjejunare,” said the serjeant.
In the silence, the awful hiss of a man’s breathing was
distinctly audible from under the heap of stones.
The serjeant-at-law completed his quotation: “ Adde aug-
mentum abstinentiw ciborum diminutione. Consuetudo brit-
tanica, art. 504.”
The two men, the sheriff and the serjeant, alternated.
Nothing could be more dreary than their imperturbable mo—
notony. The mournful voice responded to the ominous voice;
it might be said that the priest and the deacon of punish-
ment were celebrating the high mass of the law.
The sheriff resumed: “ On the first day you were given -
nothing to eat or drink. On the second day you were given
food, but nothing to drink. Between your teeth were thrust
three mouthfuls of barley bread. On the third day they
gave you drink, but nothing to eat. They poured into your
mouth at three different times, and from three different
glasses, a pint of water taken from the common sewer of the
prison. The fourth day is come. It is to-day. Now, if
you do not answer, you will be left here till you die. Jus—
tice wills it.”
“ Mors rei homagium est bonaa legi,” promptly reiterated
the serjeant.
“ And when you feel yourself dying miserably,” resumed
the sheriff, “ no one will attend you, even when the blood


90 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
rushes from your throat, your chin, and your armpits, and
from every pore, from your mouth to your loins.”
“ A throtabolla,” said the serjeant, “ et pabus et subhircis
V et a grugno usque ad crupponum.”
The sheriff continued: “ Man, listen to me, because the
consequences deeply concern you. If you renounce your ex—
ecrable silence, and confess, you will only be hanged, and you
will have a right to the meldefeoh, which is a sum of money.”
“ Damnum confitens,” said the serjeant, “ habeat le melde-
feoh. Leges Inaa, chapter the twentieth.”
“ Which sum,” insisted the sheriff, “ shall be paid in doit—
kins, suskins, and galihalpens, according to the provisions of
Death Statute III. of Henry V., and you will have the right
and enjoyment of scortum ante morte-m, and then be hanged
on the gibbet. Such are the advantages of confession. Does
it please you to respond to justice?”
The sheriff ceased, and waited. The prisoner lay mo-
tionless.
The sheriff resumed: “ Man, silence is a refuge in which
there is more risk than safety. The obstinate man is damna-
ble and vicious. He who is silent before the authorities is a
felon to the crown. Do not persist in this unfilial disobedi-
ence. Think of her Majesty. Do not oppose our gracious
queen. When I speak to you, answer her; be a loyal sub-
ject.”
The victim rattled in the throat.
The sheriff continued: “ So, after seventy-two hours of
the test, here we are come to the fourth day. Man, this is
the decisive day. The fourth day has been fixed by the law
for the confrontation.”
“ Quarta die, frontem ad frontem adduce,” growled the
serjeant.
“ The wisdom of the law,” continued the sheriff, “ has
chosen this last hour to hold what our ancestors called ‘ judg-
ment in mortal cold,’ seeing that it is the moment when men
are believed on their gas or their no.”
The serjeant on the right confirmed his words: “ Judi—


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 91
cium pro frodmortell, quod homines credendi sint per suum
ya et per suum no. Charter of King Adelstan, volume the
first, page one hundred and sixty-three.”
There was a moment’s pause; then the sheriff bent his stern
face towards the prisoner. “ Man, who art lying there on
the ground —”
He paused. “ Man,” he cried, “ do you hear me? ”
The man did not move.
“ In the name of the law,” said the sheriff, “ open your
eyes.”
The man’s lids remained closed.
The sheriff turned to the doctor, who was standing on his
left: “ Doctor, make your diagnosis.”
“ Probe, da diagnosticum,” said the serjeant.
The doctor stepped down with magisterial dignity, ap-
proached the man, leaned over him, put his ear close to the
mouth of the sufferer, felt the pulse at the wrist, the armpit,
and the thigh, then rose again.
“ Well? ” said the sheriff.
“ He can still hear,” said the doctor.
“ Can he see? ” inquired the sheriff.
The doctor answered, “ He can see.”
At a sign from the sheriff, the justice of the quorum and
the wapentake advanced. The wapentake placed himself
near the head of the patient. The justice of the quorum
stood just behind Gwynplaine. The doctor retired a step be-
hind the pillars.
Then the sheriff, raising the bunch of roses like a priest
about to sprinkle holy water, called to the prisoner in a loud
and solemn voice,—
“ O wretched man, speak! The law supplicates before
she exterminates you. You, who feign to be mute, remem—
her how mute is the tomb. You, who appear deaf, remem—
ber that damnation is more deaf. Think of the death which
is far worse than your present state. Repent; you are about
to be left alone in this cell. Listen, you who are my like-
ness; for I too am a man! Listen, my brother, because I
, _, .._,.___- ~\-\_ - \.~_._.,_~._ .. .,_~..-._ M


92 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
am a Christian! Listen, my son, because I am an old man!
Look at me; for I am the master of your sufferings, and I
am about to become terrible. The terrors of the law consti-
tute the majesty of the judge. Believe that I myself trem-
ble before myself. My own power alarms me. Do not drive
me to extremities. I am filled with the holy power of chas-
tisement. Feel, then, wretched man, a salutary and honest
fear of justice, and obey me. The hour of confrontation is
come, and you must answer. Do not harden yourself in
resistance. Do not do that which will be irrevocable. Think
that your end depends upon me. Half man, half corpse,
listen! At least, let it not be your determination to expire
here, exhausted for hours, days, and weeks by frightful ago-
nies of hunger and foulness; under the weight of those stones;
alone in this cell, deserted, forgotten, annihilated; left as
food for the rats and weasels, gnawed by creatures of dark-
ness while the world outside comes and goes, buys and sells,
and while carriages roll along in the streets above your head,
— unless you would continue to draw painful breath without
remission in the depths of despair, grinding your teeth, weep—
ing, blaspheming, without a doctor to appease the anguish
of your wounds, without a priest to offer a divine draught
of water to your soul. Oh, if only that you may not feel
the frightful froth of the sepulchre ooze slowly from your
lips, I adjure and conjure you to hear me! Have com—
passion on yourself; do what is asked of you. Submit to
the demands of justice. Open your eyes, and see if you
recognize this man.”
The prisoner neither turned his head nor lifted his eyelids.
The sheriff cast a glance first at the justice of the quorum
and then at the wapentake. The justice of the quorum, re-
moving Gwynplaine’s hat and mantle, put his hands on his
shoulders and placed him in the light beside the chained
man.
The face of Gwynplaine stood out in bold relief from
the surrounding shadow. At the same time the wapentake
bent down, took the man’s temples between his hands, turned



eyelids.




“T’he W'apentake bent down,—and With his thumbs—lifted the closed
The M an Who Laughs. Vol. II, Page 93.





THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 93
the inert head towards Gwynplaine, and with his thumbs
and his first fingers lifted the closed eyelids.
The prisoner saw Gwynplaine. Then, raising his head vol-
untarily, and opening his eyes wide, he looked at him. He
quivered as much as a man can quiver with a mountain on
his breast, and then cried out,—
“ ’T is he! Yes, ’t is he!” and he burst into a horrible
laugh. “ ’T is he!” he repeated. Then his head fell back
on the ground, and he closed his eyes again.
“ Registrar, take that down,” said the justice.
Gwynplaine, though terrified, had up to that moment pre-
served a calm exterior. The cry of the prisoner, “ ’T is he! ”
overwhelmed him completely. The words, “ Registrar, take
that down!” froze him with horror. It seemed to him that
a scoundrel had dragged him to his fate without his being
able to guess why, and that the man’s unintelligible confession
was closing round him like the clasp of an iron collar. He
fancied himself side by side with him in the posts of the same
pillory. Gwynplaine lost his footing in his terror, and pro-
tested. He began to stammer incoherent words in the deep
distress of an innocent man, and quivering, terrified, uttered
the first frantic protests that occurred to him:
“It is not true! It was not me! I do not know this
man. He cannot know me, since I do not know him. I have
my part to play this evening. What do you want of me?
I demand my liberty. Nor is that all. Why have I been
brought into this dungeon? Are there no longer any laws
in the land? You may as well admit at once that there are
no laws. My Lord Judge, I repeat that I am not the man.
I am innocent of any crime; I know I am. I want to go
away. This is not justice. There is nothing between this
man and me. You can find out. My life is no secret.
They came and arrested me like a thief. Why did they
come like that? How could I know the man? I am a trav-
elling mountebank, who plays farces at fairs and markets.
I am the Laughing Man. Plenty of people have been to
see me. We are staying now in the Tarrinzeau Fields. I


94 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
have been earning an honest livelihood these fifteen years.
I am five-and-twenty. I lodge at the Tadcaster Inn. I
am called Gwynplaine. My lord, let me out. You should
not take advantage of the low estate of the unfortunate.
Have compassion on a man who has done no harm, who is
without protection, and without defence. You have before
you only a poor mountebank.”
“ I have before me,” said the sheriff, “ Lord Fermain Clan-
charlie, Baron Clancharlie and Hunkerville, Marquis of Cor—
leone in Sicily, and a peer of England.” And rising, and
offering his chair to Gwynplaine, the sheriff added, “ My
lord, will your lordship deign to seat yourself? ”
IF“ .m 4-.“
_-


BOOK V
THE SEA AND FATE ARE MOVED BY THE SAME
BREATH

CHAPTER I
THE DURABILITY or FRAGILE THINGS
ESTINY sometimes proffers us a glass of madness to
drink. A hand is thrust out of the mist, and sud-
denly hands us the mysterious cup containing latent intoxi-
cation.
Gwynplaine did not understand. He looked behind him
to see who it was that had been thus addressed. A sound
may be too sharp to be perceptible to the ear; an emotion too
acute conveys no meaning to the mind. There is a limit to
comprehension as well as to hearing.
The wapentake and the justice of the quorum approached
Gwynplaine, and took him by the arms. He felt himself
placed in the chair which the sheriff had just vacated. He
allowed this to be done, without demanding any explanation.
When Gwynplaine was seated, the justice of the quorum and
the wapentake retired a few steps, and stood upright and
motionless, behind his chair. Then the sheriff placed his
bunch of roses on the stone table, put on the spectacles which
the secretary gave him, drew from the bundles of papers
which covered the table a sheet of parchment, yellow, green,
torn, and jagged in many places, which seemed to have been
folded in Very small folds. One side of the sheet was cov-
ered with writing; and standing under the light of the lamp,
95


96 (THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
the sheriff held the paper close to his eyes, and in his most
solemn tone read as follows:
“ In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
“ On this, the twenty-ninth of January, one thousand six hundred and
ninetieth year of our Lord, there was wickedly deserted on the desert
coast of Portland, with the intention of allowing him to perish of hunger,
of cold, and of solitude, a child ten years old. This child was sold at
the age of two years, by order of his most gracious Majesty, King
James the Second.
“This child was Lord Fermain Clancharlie. the only legitimate son
of Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie, Baron Clancharlie and Hunkerville, Mar-
quis of Corleone in Sicily, a Peer of England, and of Ann Bradshaw, his
wife, both deceased. This child was the inheritor of the estates and titles
of his father. For this reason he was sold, mutilated, disfigured, and
ut out of the way by desire of his most gracious Majesty.
“That child was brought up, and trained to be a mountebank at mar—
kets and fairs. He was sold at the age of two, after the death of the
peer, his father, and ten pounds sterling were given to the king as his
purchase-money, as well as for divers concessions, tolerations, and im-
munities, etc.
“Lord Fermain Clancharlie,- at the age of two years, was bought by
me, the undersigned, who write these lines, and mutilated and disfigured
by a Fleming of Flanders, called Hardquanonne, who alone is acquainted
with the secrets and modes of treatment of Doctor Conquest. The child
was intended by us to be a laughing mask,——- maaca ridens.
“With this intention Hardquanonne performed on him the operation,
Bucca fissa usque ad aures, which stamps an everlasting laugh upon the
face. The child, by means known only to Hardquanonne, was put to
sleep and made insensible during its performance, knowing nothing of the
operation which he underwent. He does not know that he is Lord Clan-
charlie. He answers to the name of Gwynplaine. This fact is the re-
sult of his youth, and the slight powers of memory he could have had
when he was bought and sold, being then barely two years of age.
“Hardquanonne is the only person who knows how to perform the
operation Bucca fissa, and the said child is the only living subject upon
which it has been attempted. The operation is so unique and singular
that though after long years this child will be an old man instead of a
child, and his black locks will have turned white, he would be immediately
recognized by Hardquanonne.
“ At the time of this writing Hardquanonne, who has perfect knowl-
edge of all the facts, and participated as principal therein, is detained
in the prisons of his Highness the Prince of Orange, commonly called
King William III. Hardquanonne was apprehended and seized on the
charge of being one of a band of Comprachios or Cheylas. He is im-
prisoned in the jail at Chatham.
“ It was in Switzerland, near the Lake of Geneva, between Lausanne
and Vevay, in the very house in which his father and mother died, that
this child was, in compliance with the orders of the King, sold and given
up by the last servant of the deceased Lord Linnieus, which servant died


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 97
soon after his master, so this secret is now unknown to any one on earth,
excepting Hardquanonne, who is in the dungeon of Cbatham, and our-
selves, now about to perish.
“We, the undersigned, brought up and kept, for eight years, for pro-
fessional purposes, the little lord purchased by us of the king. Now,
fleeing from England to escape Hardquanonne’s fate, our fear of the
penal indictments, prohibitions, and fulminations of Parliament induced
us to desert, at night-fall, on the coast of Portland, the said child
Gwynplaine, who is really Lord Fermain Clancharlie.
“ Now, we have sworn Secrecy to the king, but not to God. To-night,
at sea, overtaken by a violent tempest by the will of Providence, full of
despair and distress, kneeling before Him who could save our lives, and
may, perhaps, be willing to save our souls, having nothing more to hope
from men, but everything to fear from God, having for our only anchor
and resource repentance of our bad actions, resigned to death, and
content, if divine justice be satisfied, humble, penitent, and beating our
breasts, we make this confession, and confide and deliver it to the furious
ocean to use as it may, according to the will of' God. And may the Holy
Virgin aid us. Amen. We herewith append our signatures.”
The sheriff here paused in his reading, to remark, “ Here
are the signatures. All in different handwritings.” Then
resumed :—
“Doctor Gerhadus Geestemunde. Asuncion. [A cross, and at the
side of it] Barbara Fermoy, from Tyrriff Island, in the Hebrides. Gaiz-
dorra, Captal. Giangirate. Jacques Quartourze, alias the Narbonnias.
Luc-Pierre Capgaroupe, from the galleys of Mahon.”
The sheriff, after a short pause, continued: “ Here is a
note written in the same hand as the text and the first sig-
nature.” And he read:—
“ Of the three men comprising the crew, the skipper havin been swept
off by a wave, there remain but two, who sign here. Gal eazun. Ave
Maria, thief.”
The sheriff, interspersing his reading with his own re—
marks, continued: “ At the bottom of the sheet is written,—
“‘ At sea, on board of the “ Matutina,” Biscay hooker, from the Gulf
de Passages.’
“ This sheet,” added the sheriff, “is a legal document,
bearing the mark of King James the Second. On the mar—
7 e


98 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
e-
gin of the document and in the same handwriting, there is
this note :—
“ ‘The present declaration is written b us on the back‘ of the royal
order, which was given us as our receipt w en we bought the child. Turn
the leaf and the order will be seen.’ ’
The sheriff turned the parchment, and raised it in his
right hand, to expose it to the light. A blank page was
seen,— if the word blank can be applied to a thing so
mouldy,—— and in the middle of the page three words were
written, two Latin words, Jussu regis, and a signature, Jef-
feriel.
“ Jussu regis, Jefferies,’
grave Voice to a clear one.
Gwynplaine felt like a man upon whose head a tile has
fallen from the palace of dreams. He began to speak, like
one who speaks unconsciously :—
“ Gerhadus; yes, that was the doctor,— an old, sad-looking
man. I was afraid of him. Gaizdorra, Captal, that means
chief. There were women,—-— Asuncion, and the other. And
then the Provencal; his name was Capgaroupe. He used to
drink out of a flat bottle on which there was a name woven
in red.”
“ Behold it,” said the sheriff. He placed on the table
something which the secretary had just taken out of the
bag. It was a gourd covered with wicker. This bottle had
evidently seen service, and had sojourned long in the water.
Shells and sea-weed still adhered to it. It was incrusted and
damascened over with the rust of ocean. There was a ring
of tar round its neck, showing that it had been hermetically
sealed. It was unsealed and open now. They had, however,
replaced in the flask a sort of bung made of tarred oakum,
which had been used to cork it.
“ It was in this bottle,” said the sheriff, “ that the men
about to perish placed the confession which I have just read.
This message addressed to justice has been faithfully de-
livered by the sea.”
!
said the sheriff, passing from a.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 99
The sheriff in even more impressive tones continued: “ In
the same way that Harrow Hill produces excellent wheat,
which is converted into fine flour for the royal table, so the
sea renders every service in its power to England; and when
a nobleman is lost, finds and restores him.”
Then he resumed: “ On this flask, as you say, there is a
name woven in red.”
He raised his voice, turning to the motionless prisoner:
“ Your name, malefactor, is here. Such are the hidden
channels by which truth, swallowed up in the gulf of human
actions, floats to the surface.”
The sheriff took the gourd, and turned to the light one
of its sides, which had, doubtless, been cleaned for purposes
of justice. Between the interstices of wicker was a narrow
line of red reed, darkened here and there by the action of
water and of time. The reed, notwithstanding some break-
ages, traced distinctly in the wicker-work these twelve let—
ters: Hardquanonne. Then the sheriff, resuming that mo-
notonous tone of voice which resembles nothing else, and
which may be termed a judicial tone, turned towards the suf-
ferer:—
“ Hardquanonne! when this bottle, on which your name
is inscribed was for the first time shown, exhibited, and pre-
sented to you by us, the sheriff, you at once, and willingly,
identified it as your property. Afterwards the parchment
which had been folded and enclosed within it, being read to
you, you would say no more; and in the hope, doubtless, that
the lost child would never be recovered, and that you would
escape punishment, you refused to answer all questions. As
the result of your refusal, you have had applied to you the
peine forte et dure; and a second reading of the said parch-
ment, on which the declaration and confession of your ac-
complices is written, was made to you, but in vain. This is
the fourth day, and that legally set apart for the confronta-
tion; and he who was deserted on the twenty-ninth of Janu-
ary, in the year one thousand six hundred and ninety, hav-
ing been brought into your presence, your fiendish hope has


100 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
vanished—you have broken silence, and recognized your
victim.”
The prisoner opened his eyes, lifted his head, and, with
a voice strangely resonant of agony, but which had still
an indescribable calmness mingled with its hoarseness, uttered
in excruciating accents from beneath the mass of stones,
words, to pronounce each of which he had to lift that which
was like the slab of a tomb placed upon him. He spoke :—
“ I swore to keep the secret. I have kept it as long as I
could. Men of dark lives are faithful, and even hell has its
honour. Now silence is useless. So be it! For this rea-
son I speak. Well—yes; ’t is he! We did it between us,
——the'king and I! The king, by his will; I, by my art!”
and looking at Gwynplaine: “ Now laugh forever!” and
he himself began to laugh.
A second laugh, wilder yet than the first, might have been
taken for a sob. The laugh ceased, and the man lay back.
His eyelids closed.
The sheriff, who had allowed the prisoner to speak, re
sumed: “ All of which is placed on record.”
He gave the secretary time to write, and then said:
“ Hardquanonne, by the terms of the law, after confronta-
tion followed by identification, after the third reading of the
declarations of your accomplices, since confirmed by your
recognition and confession, and after your renewed avowal,
you are about to be relieved from these irons, and placed at
the good pleasure of her Majesty to be hung as a plagiary.”
“ Plagiary,” said the serjeant of the coif ; “ that is to say,
a buyer and seller of children. Law of the Visigoths, seventh
book, third section, paragraph Usurpaverit; and Salic law,
section the forty-first, paragraph the second; and law of the
Frisons, section the twenty-first, De Plagio; and Alexander
Nequam says: “ ‘ Qui pueros vendis, plagiarius est tibi
nomen.’ ”
The sheriff placed the parchment on the table, laid down
his spectacles, took up the nosegay, and said: “ End of la
peine forte et dure. Hardquanonne, thank her Majesty.”
.--_-__-.- - - --m_- -- w ._~ ,,-.- ~-~.-:‘::’r.~ i E,“


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 101
The justice of the quorum motioned to the man dressed in
leather. This man, who was the executioner’s assistant
(“ groom of the gibbet,” the old charters call him), went to
the prisoner, removed the stones, one by one, from his chest,
and lifted the plate of iron up, exposing the wretch’s crushed
sides. Then he freed his wrists and ankle-bones from the
four chains that fastened him to the pillars.
The prisoner, released alike from stones and chains, lay
flat on the ground, his eyes closed, his arms and legs apart,
like a crucified man taken down from a cross.
“ Hardquanonne,” said the sheriff, “ arise!”
The prisoner did not move.
The groom of the gibbet took up a hand and let it go;
the hand fell back. The other hand, being raised, fell back
likewise. The groom of the gibbet seized one foot and then
the other, and the heels fell back on the ground. The fingers
remained inert, and the toes motionless. The naked feet of
an extended corpse seem, as it were, to bristle.
The doctor approached, and drawing from the pocket of
his robe a small steel mirror, put it to the open mouth of
Hardquanonne. Then with his fingers, he lifted the eyelids.
They did not close again. The glassy eyeballs remained
fixed. The doctor rose up and said, “ He is dead;” and he
added, “ He laughed; that killed him.”
“ ’T is of little consequence,” said the sheriff. “ After con-
fession, life or death is a mere formality.” Then, indicating
Hardquanonne by a gesture with the nosegay of roses, the
sheriff gave this order to the wapentake: “ A corpse to be
carried away to-night.”
The wapentake acquiesced by a nod.
The sheriff added, “ The cemetery of the jail is opposite.”
The wapentake nodded again.
The sheriff, holding in his left hand the nosegay and in
his right the white wand, placed himself opposite Gwyn—
plaine, who was still seated, and made him a low bow; then
assuming another solemn attitude he turned his head over
his shoulder, and looking Gwynplaine in the face, said,—


102 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
“ To you here present, we, Philip Denzill Parsons, knight,
sheriff of the county of Surrey, assisted by Aubrey Dominick,
Esq., our clerk and registrar, and by our usual officers, duly
provided by the direct and special commands of her Majesty,
in virtue of our commission, and the rights and duties of our
charge, and with authority from the Lord Chancellor of Eng—
land, the aflidavits having been drawn up and recorded, re—
gard being had to the documents communicated by the
Admiralty, after verification of attestations and signatures,
after declarations read and heard, after confrontation made,
all the statements and legal information having been com—
pleted, exhausted, and brought to a good and just issue, we
signify and declare to. you, in order that justice may be
done, that you are Fermain Clancharlie, Baron Clancharlie
and Hunkerville, Marquis de Corleone in Sicily, and a Peer
of England; and God keep your lordship.”
The sheriff bowed to Gwynplaine. The serjeant on the
right, the doctor, the justice of the quorum, the wapentake,
the secretary, all the attendants except the executioner, re-
peated the salutation still more respectfully, and bowed to
the ground before Gwynplaine.
“ Ah ! ” said Gwynplaine; “ awake me!” and he stood up,
pale as death.
“ I come to awake you indeed,” said a voice which had not
been heard before.
A man came out from behind the pillars. As no one had
entered the cell since the iron door had admitted the cortége
of police, it was clear that this man had been there in the
shadow before Gwynplaine had entered; that he had an ac-
knowledged right of attendance, and had been present by
appointment. The man was fat and pursy, and wore a
court wig and a travelling cloak. He was old rather than
young, and very precise in his speech. He saluted Gwyn-
plaine with ease and respect,— with the ease of a gentleman—
in-waiting, not with the awkwardness of a judge.
“ Yes,” he said; “ I have come to aWaken you. For twen-
ty-five years you have slept; you have been dreaming. It is


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 108
time to wake. You believe yourself to be Gwynplaine; you
are Clancharlie. You believe yourself to be one of the peo-
ple; you belong to the peerage. You believe yourself to be
of the lowest rank; you are of the highest. You believe
yourself a player; you are a senator. You believe yourself
poor; you are wealthy. You believe yourself to be of no
account; you are an important personage. Awake, my
lord! ”
Gwynplaine, in a low voice, in which a tremour of fear
was apparent, murmured, “ What does it all mean? ”
“ It means, my lord,” said the fat man, “ that I am called
Barkilphedro; that I am an officer of the Admiralty; that
this waif, Hardquanonne’s flask, was found on the beach,
and was brought to me to be unsealed, according to the duty
and prerogatives of my office; that I opened it in the pres—
ence of two sworn officials of the Jetsam Office, both mem-
bers of parliament,——- William Blathwait, for the city of
Bath, and Thomas Jervois, for Southampton; that the two
jurors deciphered and attested to the contents of the flask;
and signed the necessary affidavit conjointly with me; that I
made my report to her Majesty, and by order of the queen
all necessary and legal formalities were carried out with all
the discretion necessary in a matter so delicate; that the last
form, the confrontation, has just been carried out; that you
have £40,000 a year; that you are a peer of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain, a legislator and a judge,—a su—
preme judge, a sovereign legislator, dressed in purple and
ermine, equal to princes, like unto emperors; that you have
on your brow the coronet of a, peer, and that you are about
to wed a duchess, the daughter of a king.”
Under this transfiguration, overwhelming him like a series
of thunderbolts, Gwynplaine fainted.


104' MAN WHO LAUGHS
CHAPTER II
THE wars KNOWS I'rs OWN cormsn
LL that had occurred was due to the circumstance of a
soldier having found a bottle on the beach. We will
relate the facts. In all facts there are wheels Within wheels.
One day one of the four gunners composing the garrison
of Calshor Castle picked up on the sand at low water a
wicker covered flask which had been cast up by the tide.
This flask, covered with mould, was corked by a tarred bung.
The soldier carried the waif to the colonel of the castle,
and the colonel sent it to the High Admiral of England.
The Admiral meant the Admiralty; with waifs, the Admir—
alty meant Barkilphedro. Barkilphedro having uncorked
and emptied the bottle, carried it to the queen. The queen
immediately took the matter into consideration.
Two weighty counsellors were instructed and consulted;
namely the Lord Chancellor, who is by law the guardian of
the king’s conscience, and the Lord Marshal, who is referee
in Heraldry and in the pedigrees of the nobility. Thomas
Howard, Duke of Norfolk, a Catholic peer, who is hereditary
Earl Marshal of England, had sent word by his deputy Earl
Marshal, Henry Howard, Earl Bindon, that he would agree
with the Lord Chancellor. The Lord Chancellor was Wil—
liam Cowper. We must not confbund this chancellor with
his namesake and contemporary William Cowper, the anato-
mist and commentator on Bidloo, who published a treatise
on muscles, in England, at the very time that Etienne Abeillc
published a treatise on bones, in France. A surgeon is a very
different thing from a lord. Lord William Cowper is cele—
brated for having, with reference to the affair of Talbot
Yelverton, Viscount Longueville, propounded this opinion:
That in the English constitution, the restoration of a peer


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 105
is more important than the restoration of a king. The flask
found at Calshor had excited and interested him greatly.
The author of a maxim delights in opportunities to which
it may be applied. Here was a case of the restoration of a
peer. Search was made. Gwynplaine was soon found by
means of the inscription over his door. Neither was Hard—
quanonne dead. A prison rots a man, but preserves him,—
if to keep is to preserve. People placed in bastiles were
rarely removed. Their prisons were changed as rarely as
people’s graves were changed. Hardquanonne was still in
the prison at Chatham. They had only to put their hands
on him. He was transferred from Chatham to London. In
the mean time, information was sought in Switzerland. The
facts were found to be correct. They obtained from the
local archives at Vevay and at Lausanne the certificate of
Lord Linnaeus’ marriage in exile, the certificate of his child’s
birth, the certificate of the decease of the father and mother;
and they had duplicates, duly authenticated, made to an-
swer all necessary requirements.
All this was done with the utmost secrecy, as well as with
what is called royal promptitude, and that mole—like silence
recommended and practised by Bacon, and later on made the
law by Blackstone, in affairs connected with the chancellor—
ship and the State, and in matters termed parliamentary.
The jussu regis and the signature Jefferies were authenti-
cated. To those who have studied pathologically the cases
of caprice called “our good will and pleasure,” this jussu
reg-is is very simple. Why should James 11., whose reputa-
tion required the concealment of such acts, have allowed that
to be written which so endangered the success of his plans?
The answer is, cynicism, haughty indifference. Oh, you
fancy that effrontery is confined to abandoned women? The
raiso'n. d’état is equally bold. Et se cupit ante videri. To
commit a crime and emblazon it is the sum total of history.
The king tattooes himself like the convict. Often when it
would be to a man’s greatest advantage to escape from the
hands of the police or the records of history, he would seem


106 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
to regret the escape, so great is the love of notoriety. Look
at my arm. Observe the design. I am Lacenaire! See, a
temple of love and a burning heart pierced through with an
arrow! Jussu regis. It is I, James the Second. A man
commits a bad action, and places his mark upon it. To fill
up the measure of crime by effrontery, to denounce himself,
to cling to his misdeeds, is the insolent bravado of the crimi-
nal. Christina seized Monaldeschi, had him confessed and
assassinated, and said, “ I am the Queen of Sweden, in the
palace of the King of France.”
There is the tyrant who conceals himself, like Tiberius;
and the tyrant who parades himself, like Philip II. One has
the attributes of the scorpion, the other those of the leopard.
James II. belonged to this latter variety. He had, we know,
a gay and open countenance, differing so far from Philip.
Philip was sullen; James jovial. Both were equally fero-
cious. James II. was an easy—minded tiger; like Philip IL,
his crimes lay lightly upon his conscience. He was a mon-
ster by the grace of God; therefore he had nothing to dis-
simulate nor to extenuate, and his assassinations were by di-
vine right. He, too, would not have minded leaving behind
him those archives of Simancas, with all his misdeeds dated,
classified, labelled, and put in order, each in its compartment,
like poisons in a chemist’s laboratory. To set the sign-man-
ual to crimes is right royal.
Every deed done is a draft drawn on the great invisible
pay-master. A bill had just come due with the ominous in-
dorsement, J ussu regis.
Queen Anne, no woman in one respect, inasmuch as she
could keep a secret, demanded a confidential report on so
grave a matter from the Lord Chancellor,—— one of the kind
specified as “ report to the royal ear.” Reports of this kind
have been common in all monarchies. At Vienna there was
“ a counsellor of the ear,”——— an aulic dignitary. It was an
ancient Carlovingian office,— the auricularius of the old pala-
tine deeds; he who whispers to the emperor.
William, Baron Cowper, Chancellor of England, whom the


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 107
queen believed in because he was as short—sighted as her'
self, or even more so, had committed to writing a memoran-
dum commencing thus: “ Two birds were subject to Sol-
omon,—a lapwing, the Hudbud, who could speak all lan-
guages, and an eagle, the Simourganka, who covered with the
shadow of his wings a caravan of twenty thousand men.
Thus, under another form, Providence,” etc. The Lord
Chancellor proved the fact that the heir to a peerage had
been carried off, mutilated, and then restored. He did not
blame James II., who was, after all, the queen’s father. He
even went so far as to justify him. First, there are ancient
monarchial maxims,——-E senioratu erz'pimus. In roturagio
cadat. Secondly, there is a royal right of mutilation.
Chamberlayne asserts this fact. “ Corpora et bona nostro—
rum subjectorum nostra sunt,” said James I., of glorious
and learned memory. The eyes of dukes of the blood royal
have been plucked out for the good of the kingdom. Cer-
tain princes, too near to the throne, have been conveniently sti—
fled between mattresses, the cause of death being given out
as apoplexy. Now, to stifle is worse than to mutilate. The
King of Tunis tore out the eyes of his father, Muley Assem,
and his ambassadors have been no less favourably received
by the emperor. Hence the king may order the suppression
of a limb like the suppression of a State, etc. It is legal.
But one law does not destroy another. “ If a drowned man
is cast up by the water, and is not dead, it is an act of God
readjusting one of the king. If the heir be found, let the
coronet be given back to him. This was done for Lord Alla,
King of Northumberland, who was also a mountebank. This
should be done for Gwynplaine, who was also a king, inas-
much as he was a peer. The lowness of the occupation which
he has been obliged to follow, under constraint of superior
power, does not tarnish the escutcheon,—— witness the case of
Abdolmumen, who was a king, although he had been a gar-
dener; that of Joseph, who was a saint, although he had been
a carpenter; that of Apollo, who was a god, although he had
been a shepherd.”


108 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
In short, the learned chancellor concluded by advising the
re-instatement in all his estates and dignities of Lord Fer-
main Clancharlie, miscalled Gwynplaine, on the sole condi-
tion that he should be confronted with the criminal Hard—
quanonne, and identified by the same. And on this point
the chancellor, as constitutional keeper of the royal con—
science, based the royal decision. The Lord Chancellor
added in a postscript that if Hardquanonne refused to an—
swer, he should be subjected to the peine forte et dure, until
the period called the frodmortell, according to the statute of
King Athelstane, which orders the confrontation to take
place on the fourth day. In this there is a certain incon—
venience, for if the prisoner dies on the second or third day
the confrontation becomes difficult; still, the law must be
obeyed. The inconvenience of the law makes part and par-
cel of it. In the mind of the Lord Chancellor, however, the
recognition of Gwynplaine by Hardquanonne was indu—
bitable.
Anne, having been made aware of the deformity of Gwyn-
plaine, and not wishing to wrong her sister, on whom the
estates of Clancharlie had been bestowed, graciously decided
that the Duchess Josiana should be espoused by the new
lord,-— that is to say, by Gwynplaine. The re-instatement
of Lord Fermain Clancharlie was, moreover, a very simple
affair, the heir being legitimate, and in the direct line.
In cases of doubtful descent and of peerages in abeyance
claimed by collaterals, the House of Lords must be consulted.
This (to go no further back) was done in 1782, in the
case of the barony of Sydney, claimed by Elizabeth Perry;
in 1798, in the case of the barony of Beaumont, claimed by
Thomas Stapleton; in 1803 in the case of the barony of
Chandos, claimed by the Reverend Tymewell Brydges; in
1813, in the case of the earldom of Banbury, claimed by Gen-
eral Knollys, etc. But the present was not a similar case.
Here there was no pretense for litigation; the legitimacy was
undoubted; the right clear and certain. There was no point
to submit to the House, and the queen, supported by the


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 109
Lord Chancellor, had power to recognize and admit the new
peer.
Barkilphedro managed everything. The affair, thanks to
him, was kept so close, the secret was so hermetically sealed,
that neither Josiana nor Lord David caught sight of the
fearful abyss which was being dug under them. It was easy
to deceive Josiana, intrenched as she was behind a rampart
of pride. She was self—isolated. As to Lord David, they
sent him off to the coast of Flanders. He was about to lose
his peerage, but had no suspicion of it. One circumstance
is noteworthy. It happened that about six leagues from
the anchorage of the naval station commanded by Lord
David, a captain called Halyburton broke through the French
fleet. The Earl of Pembroke, President of the Council, pro—
posed that this Captain Halyburton should be made vice-ad-
miral. Anne struck out Halyburton’s name, and put Lord
David Dirry-Moir’s in its place, that he might, when no
longer a peer, have the satisfaction of being a vice—admiral.
Anne was well pleased. A hideous husband for her sister,
and a fine step for Lord David. Malice and kindness com—
bined. Her Majesty was going to enjoy a comedy. Be-
sides, she argued to herself that she was repairing an abuse
of power committed by her august father; she was re-instat-
ing a member of the peerage. She was acting like a great
queen; she was protecting innocence according to the will
of God, and furthering the holy and mysterious ways of
Providence, etc. It is very sweet to do a good deed that in—
jures those whom we do not like. To know that the future
husband of her sister was deformed, sufficed the queen. In
what manner Gwynplaine was deformed, and by what kind
of ugliness, Barkilphedro had not communicated to the queen,
and Anne had not deigned to inquire. She was proudly and
royally disdainful. Besides, what could it matter? The
House of Lords could not but be grateful; the Lord Chan-
cellor, its oracle, had approved. To restore a peer is to re—
store the peerage. Royalty on this occasion had shown itself
a good and scrupulous guardian of the privileges of the peer-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 111
driven from wave to wave, into Barkilphedro’s hands. There
is in the unknown an indescribable fealty which seems to be at
the heck and call of evil. Barkilphedro, assisted by two
chance witnesses, disinterested officials of the Admiralty, un-
corked the flask, found the parchment, unfolded, read it.
What words can express his fiendish delight!
It is strange to think that the sea, the wind, space, the
ebb and flow of the tide, storms, calms, breezes, should have
taken so much trouble to bestow happiness on a scoundrel.
That co-operation had continued for fifteen years. Mys-
terious efforts! For fifteen years the ocean had never for an
instant ceased from its labours. The waves transmitted from
one to another the floating bottle. The shelving rocks had
shunned the brittle glass; no crack had yawned in the flask,
no friction had displaced the cork; the sea-weed had not
rotted the osier, the shells had not eaten out the word “ Hard—
quanonne; ” the water had not penetrated into the waif, the
mould had not rotted the parchment, the wet had not effaced
the writing. What trouble the mighty deep must have
taken!
Thus that which Gerhadus had flung into darkness, dark-
ness had brought back to Barkilphedro. The message
sent to God had reached the devil. Space had committed a
breach of confidence, and the lurking sarcasm which mingles
with events had so arranged that it had complicated the tri-
umph of the lost child’s becoming Lord Clancharlie with a
venomous victory; in doing a good deed, it had mischiev—
ously placed justice at the service of iniquity. To save the
victim of James II. was to give a prey to Barkilphedro; to
re-instate Gwynplaine was to crush Josiana. Barkilphedro
had succeeded; and it was for this that for so many years
the waves, the surge, the squalls had buffeted, shaken,
thrown, pushed, tormented, and respected this bubble of
glass, which bore within it so many commingled fates. It
was for this that there had been a cordial co—operation be—
tween the winds, the tides, and the tempests: a vast agitation
of all elements for the pleasure of a scoundrel; the infinite co-


112 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
operating with an earth-worm! Destiny is subject to such
grim caprices.
Barkilphedro was struck by a flash of Titanic pride. He
said to himself that it had all been done to fulfil his inten-
tions. He felt that he was the object and the instrument.
But he was wrong. Let us clear the character of chance.
Such was not the real meaning of the remarkable circum-
stance by which the hatred of Barkilphedro was to profit.
Ocean had made itself father and mother to an orphan, had
sent the hurricane against his executioners, had wrecked the
vessel which had repulsed the child, had swallowed up the
clasped hands of the storm-beaten sailors, refusing to listen
to their supplications and accepting only their repentance.
The tempest had received a sacred deposit from the hands of
death. The strong vessel containing the crime was replaced
by the fragile phial containing the reparation. The sea
changed its character, and, like a panther turning nurse, be-
gan to rock the cradle, not of the child, but of his destiny,
while he grew up ignorant of all that the depths of ocean
were doing for him. The waves to which this flask had
been flung watching over the past which contained a future;
the whirlwind breathing kindly upon it; the currents direct—
ing the frail waif across the fathomless wastes of ocean;
the caution exercised by sea-weed; the swells, the rocks, the
vast froth of the abyss, taking under their protection an in-
nocent child; the wave imperturbable as a conscience, chaos
re—establishing order, the world-wide shadows ending in radi-
ance, darkness employed to bring the star of truth to light,
the exile consoled in his tomb, the heir given back to his in-
heritance, the crime of the king repaired, divine premedita-
tion obeyed; the little, the weak, the deserted child with
infinity for a guardian,—- all this Barkilphedro might have
seen in the event over which he exulted. This is what he did
not see. He did not believe that all this had been done for
Gwynplaine. He fancied that it had been done for Barkil-
phedro, and that he was well worth the trouble. Thus it is
ever with Satan.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 113
Moreover, ere we feel astonished that a waif so fragile
should have floated for fifteen years undamaged, we should
seek to understand the tender care of the ocean. Fifteen
years is nothing. On the 4th of October, 1867, on the coast
of Morbihan, between the Isle de Groix, the extremity of the
peninsula de Gavres, and the Rocher des Errants, the fish—
ermen of Port Louis found a Roman amphora of the fourth
century, covered with arabesques by the incrustations of the
sea. That amphora had been floating fifteen hundred years!
Whatever appearance of indifference Barkilphedro tried to
exhibit, his wonder had equalled his delight. Everything he
could desire was there under his hand. The fragments of the
event which was to satisfy his hate were spread out within
his reach. He had nothing to do but to pick them up and
fit them together,— a work which it was a pleasure to execute.
He was the artificer.
Gwynplaine! He knew the name,— Masca ridens. Like
every one else, he had been to see the Laughing Man. He
had read the sign nailed up against the Tadcaster Inn, as
one reads a play-bill that attracts a crowd. He had noted
it. He remembered its most minute details; and, in any
case, it was easy to compare them with the original. As if
in answer to the electrical summons which resounded in his
memory, this notice ranged itself side by side with the con-
fession signed by the ship~wrecked crew, like an answer fol-
lowing a question, like the solution following an enigma;
and the lines, “ Here may be seen Gwynplaine, deserted at
the age of ten, on the 29th of January, 1690, on the coast at
Portlan ,”— suddenly appeared before his eyes in all the
splendour of an apocalypse. His vision was the sight of
Mane, Tekel, Upharsi'n, outside a booth.
A stately edifice had crumbled into dust. The lost child
was found. There was a Lord Clancharlie. David Dirry-
Moir was nobody. Peerage, riches, power, rank,——— all these
things deserted Lord David; all the castles, parks, forests,
town houses, palaces, domains, Josiana included, belonged to
Gwynplaine now. And what a climax for Josiana! What
8


114 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
had she before her? Illustrious and haughty,—a strolling
player; beautiful,——a monster. Who could have hoped for
this? The truth was, that the joy of Barkilphedro had be-
come enthusiastic. The most hateful combinations are sur-
passed by the infernal munificence of the unforeseen. When
reality chooses, it works masterpieces. Barkilphedro found
that all his dreams had been nonsense; the reality was in-
finitely better.
The change he was about to work would not have seemed
less desirable had it been detrimental to him. Insects exist
which are so savagely disinterested that they sting, know-
ing that to sting is to die. Barkilphedro resembled such ver-
min. But this time he had not the merit of being disinter-
ested. Lord David Dirry-Moir owed him nothing, and Lord
Fermain Clancharlie would owe him everything. From be-
ing a protégé, Barkilphedro was about to become a protec-
tor. Protector of whom? Of a Peer of England. He was
going to have a lord of his own, and a lord who would be his
creature. Barkilphedro counted on giving him his first im-
pressions. His peer would be the morganatic brother-in-law
of the queen. His ugliness would please the queen in the
same proportion as it displeased Josiana. Advancing by
means of this potent influence and by the assumption of a
grave and modest air, Barkilphedro might succeed in becom—
ing quite an important personage. He had always been
destined for the church. He had a vague longing to be a
bishop.
Meanwhile Barkilphedro was happy. What a great suc-
cess was his! and what a deal of useful work chance had ac-
complished for him! His vengeance—for he called it his
vengeance—had been softly brought to him by the waves.
He had not lain in ambush in vain. He was the rock, Josi—
ana was the waif ; Josiana was about to be dashed against
Barkilphedro, to his intense villainous ecstasy. He was an
adept in the art of suggestion,—— that is, in making in the
minds of others a little incision into which you put an idea
of your own. Holding himself aloof, and without appear-
' I M,.p__ "--


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 115
ing to mix himself up in the matter, it was he who had ar-
ranged that Josiana should go to the Green Box and see
Gwynplaine. It could do no harm. The appearance of the
mountebank, in his low estate, would be a good ingredient in
the combination. Later on, it would impart a piquant fla~
vour to it. He had carefully prepared everything before~
hand. What he most desired was something unspeakably
abrupt. The work in which he was engaged could only be
described in these strange words, the construction of a thun-
derbolt.
All preliminaries being completed, Barkilphedro had
watched till all the necessary legal formalities had been ac-
complished. The secret had not oozed out, silence being an
element of law. The confrontation of Hardquanonne with
Gwynplaine had taken place. Barkilphedro had been pres—
ent. We have seen the result.
The same day a post—chaise belonging to the royal house—
hold was suddenly sent by her Majesty to fetch Lady Josi~
ana from London to Windsor, where the queen was residing.
Josiana, for reasons of her own, would have been very glad
to disobey, or at least to defer obedience, and postpone her
departure until the next day; but court life does not allow of
these objections. She was obliged to set out at once, and
to leave Hunkerville House, her residence in London, for
Corleone Lodge, her residence at Windsor.
The Duchess Josiana left London at the very moment that
the wapentake appeared at the Tadcaster Inn to arrest Gwyn-
plaine, and take him to the torture cell in Southwark. When
she arrived at Windsor, the Usher of the Black Rod, who
guards the door of the presence chamber, informed her that
her Majesty was closeted with the Lord Chancellor and could
not receive her until the next day; that she was consequently
to remain at Corleone Lodge, at the orders of her Majesty;
and that she would receive the queen’s commands direct, when
her Majesty awoke the next morning. Josiana entered her
house feeling very spiteful, supped in a bad humour, had
the spleen, dismissed every one except her page, then dis-


116 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
missed him, and went to bed while it was yet daylight. On
her arrival she had learned that Lord David Dirry—Moir was
expected at Windsor the following day, owing to his having,
while at sea, received orders to return immediately and re-
ceive her Majesty’s commands.

CHAPTER III
AN AWAKENING
No man could ass suddenly from Siberia into Senegal without losing
consciousness.—~ UMBoLirr.
HE swoon of a man, even of an exceedingly firm and
energetic man, under the sudden shock of an unex—
pected piece of good fortune, is nothing remarkable. A man
is felled by an unexpected blow, as an ox is felled by a
poleaxe. Francis d’Albescola, he who tore the iron chains
from the Turkish ports, remained unconscious a whole day
when they made him pope. But the stride from a cardinal
to a pope is much less than that from a mountebank to 9.
Peer of England. No shock is so violent as a loss of equilib-
rium.
When Gwynplaine came to himself and opened his eyes,
it was night. He was in an arm-chair in the middle of a
large chamber lined throughout with purple velvet. The
carpet was velvet. Standing near him, with uncovered head,
was the fat man in the travelling cloak, who had emerged
from behind the pillar in the cell at Southwark. Gwynplaine
was alone in the chamber with him. From the chair, by ex-
tending his arms, he could reach two tables, each bearing a
branch of six lighted wax candles. On one of these tables
there were papers and a casket, on the other refreshments,—
a cold fowl, wine, and brandy, served on a silver-gilt salver.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 117
Through the panes of a high window, reaching from the
ceiling to the floor, a semi-circle of pillars could be seen, in
the clear April night, encircling a courtyard with three gates,
—one very wide, and the other two low. The carriage gate,
of great size, was in the middle; on the right, that for eques-
trians, much smaller; on the left, that for foot passengers,
smaller still. These gates were composed of iron railings,
with gilded tops. A large group of statuary surmounted the
central gate. The columns were probably of white marble,
as well as the pavement of the court, thus producing the
effect of snow, and framed in this sheet of smooth flags was a.
mosaic, the pattern of which was but dimly visible in the
shadow. This mosaic, when seen by daylight, would no
doubt have disclosed to view, with much emblazonry and in
many colours, a gigantic coat—of-arms, in the Florentine
fashion. Ziz—zags of balustrades rose and fell, indicating
lines of terraces. Over the court frowned an immense pile
of architecture, now shadowy and vague in the starlight.
Intervals of sky, filled with stars, defined the outlines of the
palace. An enormous roof could be seen, with vaulted gable
ends, dormer windows, roofed over like visors; chimneys like
towers; and entablatures covered with sportive gods and god-
desses. Beyond the colonnade played in the shadow one of
those fairy-like fountains in which, as the water falls from
basin to basin, was combined the beauty of rain with that
of' the cascade; and as if scattering the contents of a jewel-
box, it flung to the wind its diamonds and its pearls as though
to adorn the statues around. The long rows of windows were
separated by panoplies in relievo, and by busts on small ped—
estals. On the pinnacles, trophies and morions with plumes
cut in stone alternated with statues of heathen deities.
In the chamber where Gwynplaine found himself, on the
side opposite the window, was a fireplace which reached to
the ceiling; and on the other, under a dais, stood one of those
spacious feudal beds which were reached by a ladder, and
where you might sleep lying cross-wise. A joint—stool stood
beside it; and a row of arm—chairs around the walls, and a


118 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
row of ordinary chairs in front of them, completed the furni'
ture. The ceiling was domed. 'A great wood fire blazed in
the fireplace; by the richness of the flames, variegated with
rose—colour and green, a judge of such things would have
known that the wood was ash,—— a great luxury. The. room
was so large that the candelabra failed to light it up. Here
and there curtains falling and swaying over doors indicated
communication with other rooms. The style of the room
was that of the reign of James I.,—- a style square and mas-
sive, antiquated and magnificent. Like the carpet and hang-
ings of the chamber, the dais, the baldaquin, the bed, the
stool, the curtains, the mantelpiece, the coverings of the table,
the sofas, the chairs, were all of purple velvet. There was
no gilding, except on the ceiling. Laid on it, at equal dis-
tance from the four angles, was a huge round shield of em-
bossed metal, on which sparkled, in dazzling relief, various
coats-of-arms; among the devices, on two blazons, side by
side, were distinguishable the cap of a baron and the coronet
of a marquis. Were they of brass, or of silver—gilt? You
could not tell. They seemed to be of gold. And in the cen-
tre of this lordly ceiling, so like a gloomy and magnificent
sky, the escutcheon gleamed with the splendour of a sun shin—
ing in the night.
The savage, in whom the free man is embodied, is nearly
as restless in a palace as in a prison. This magnificent cham—
ber was depressing. So much splendour produces fear.
Who could be the owner of this stately palace? To what
colossus did all this grandeur appertain? Of what lion was
this the lair?
Gwynplaine, as yet but half awake, was heavy at heart.
“ Where am I? ” he said.
' The man who was standing before him, answered, “ You
are in your own house, my lord.”
1' w'::' w'~ _~-f~ 7'“ V .._ , WT»: _:,_5 7 I


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 119
CHAPTER IV
rascmarron
T takes time to rise to the surface. Gwynplaine had been
thrown into an abyss of stupefaction. We do not gain
our footing at once in unknown depths. There are routs of
ideas, as there are routs of armies. The rally is not imme-
diate. We feel as it were scattered; as though some strange
evaporation of self were taking place. God is the arm.
Chance is the sling. Man is the pebble. How are you to
resist, once flung?
Gwynplaine, if we may coin the expression, ricochetted
from one surprise to another. After the love-letter of the
duchess came the revelation in the Southwark dungeon. In
destiny, when wonders begin, prepare yourself for blow upon
blow. The gloomy portals once open, prodigies pour in. A
breach once made in the wall, and events rush in upon us
pell-mell. The marvellous never comes singly. The mar-
vellous is shrouded in mystery. The shadow of this mystery
was over Gwynplaine. What was happening to him seemed
incomprehensible. He saw everything through the haze
which a deep commotion leaves in the mind, like the dust
caused by a falling ruin. The shock had been all-pervading.
Nothing was clear to him. Light always returns by de—
grees however. The dust settles. Moment by moment the
intense astonishment decreases.
Gwynplaine was like a man with his eyes open and fixed
in a dream, as if trying to see what may be within it. He
dispersed the mist; then he re-shaped it. He had intervals
of wandering. He underwent that oscillation of mind which
alternately pushes us towards that which we understand, and
then throws us back into that which is incomprehensible.
Who has not at some time felt this pendulum in his brain?
By degrees his thoughts dilated in this dense mystery, as the
qu \,”RWL~;:LMMM‘


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 121
he touched and found to be embroidered. He felt a heavy
purse in his waistcoat pocket. A pair of velvet trunk hose
covered his tights. He wore shoes with high red heels. Be-
fore they had brought him to this palace, they must have
changed his dress.
The man resumed: “ Will your lordship deign to remem—
ber this: I am called Barkilphedro; I am a clerk in the Ad-
miralty. It was I who opened Hardquanonne’s flask and
drew your destiny out of it, as in the Arabian Nights, 9. fish-
erman releases a giant from a bottle.” -
Gwynplaine fixed his eyes on the smiling face of th
speaker.
Barkilphedro continued: “ Besides this palace, my lord,
Hunkerville House, which is much larger, is yours. You
own Clancharlie Castle, from which you take your title, and
which was a, fortress in the time of Edward the Elder. You
have nineteen bailiwicks belonging to you, with their villages
and their inhabitants. This puts under your jurisdiction, as
a landlord and a nobleman, about eighty thousand vassals
and tenants. At Clancharlie you are a judge,——— judge of
all, both of goods and of persons, and you hold your baron’s
court. The king has no rights which you have not, except
the privilege of coining money. The king, designated by
the Norman law as chief signor, has justice, court, and coin.
Coin is money. So that you, excepting in this last, are as
much a king on your estates as he is in his kingdom. You
have the right, as a baron, to a gibbet with four pillars in
England; and, as a marquis, to a scaffold with seven posts
in Sicily,—— that of the mere lord having two pillars; that
of a lord of the manor, three; and that of a duke, eight.
You are styled prince in the ancient charters of Northum-
berland. You are related to the Viscounts Valentia in Ire-
land, whose name is Power, and to the Earls of Umfraville in
Scotland, whose name is Angus. You are chief of a clan,
like Campbell, Ardmannach, and Macallummore. You have
eight barons’ courts,— Reculver, Baston, Hell—Kerters, Hom—
ble, Moricambe, Grundraith, Trenwardraith, and others.


122 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
You have a right over the turf-cutting of Pillinmore,
and over the alabaster quarries near Trent. Moreover, you
own all the country of Penneth Chase; and you have a moun-
tain with an ancient town on it. The town is called Vine-
caunton; the mountain is called Moil-enlli. All this gives
you an income of forty thousand pounds a year,— that is to
say, forty times the five-and—twenty thousand francs with
which a Frenchman is satisfied.”
While Barkilphedro was speaking, Gwynplaine, in an ever
increasing state of stupour, reviewed the past. Memory is
a gulf that a word can move to its lowest depths. Gwyn-
plaine knew all the words pronounced by Barkilphedro.
They were written in the last lines of the two scrolls which
lined the van in which his childhood had been passed, and,
from so often letting his eyes wander over them mechanically,
he knew them by heart. A forsaken orphan, on reaching the
travelling caravan at Weymouth he had found the inventory
of the inheritance which awaited him; and in the morning,
when the poor little boy awoke, the first object viewed by his
careless and unconscious eyes was his own title and its ap—
purtenances. It was a strange detail added to all the other
surprises, that, during fifteen years, rolling from highWay
to highway, the clown of a travelling theatre, earning his
bread day by day, picking up farthings, and living on
crumbs, he should have travelled with the inventory of his for-
tune placarded over his misery.
Barkilphedro touched the casket on the table with his fore-
finger. “ My lord, this casket contains two thousand guineas
which her gracious Majesty the queen has sent you for your
present needs.”
Gwynplaine made a movement. “That shall be for my
Father Ursus,” he said.
“ So be it, my lord,” said Barkilphedro. “ Ursus, at the
Tadcaster Inn. The serjeant who accompanied us hither,
and who is to return immediately, will carry the money to
him. Perhaps I may go to London myself. In that case I
will take charge of it.”


THE MAN \VHO LAUGHS 123
“ I shall take them to him myself,” said Gwynplaine.
Barkilphedro’s smile disappeared, and he said, “ Impossi-
ble! ”
There is an impressive inflection of voice which, as it were,
underlines one’s words. Barkilphedro’s tone was thus em-
phatic; he paused, so as to put a full stop after the word he
had just uttered. Then he continued, with the peculiar but
respectful tone of a servant who feels that he is master: —
“My lord, you are twenty-three miles from London, at
Corleone Lodge, your court residence, contiguous to the
Royal Castle of Windsor. You are here unknown to any one.
You were brought here in a close carriage, which was await-
ing you at the gate of the jail at Southwark. The servants
who introduced you into this palace are ignorant who you
are; but they know me, and that is sufficient. You may pos-
sibly have been brought to these apartments by means of a
private key which is in my possession. There are people in
the house asleep, and it is not an hour to awaken them; so we
have time for an explanation, which will be short, however. I
have been commissioned by her Majesty —”
As he spoke, Barkilphedro began to turn over the leaves
of some bundles of papers which were lying near the casket.
“ My lord, here is your patent of peerage. Here is that of
your Sicilian marquisate. These are the parchments and
title—deeds of your eight baronies, with the seals of eleven
kings, from Baldret, King of Kent, to James the Sixth of
Scotland, and first of England and Scotland united. Here
are your letters of precedence. Here are your rent-rolls and
titles, and descriptions of your fiefs, freeholds, dependencies,
lands and domains. That which you see above your head in
the emblazonment on the ceiling are your two coronets,-— the
circlet with pearls for the baron, and the circlet with straw_
berry leaves for the marquis. Here, in the wardrobe, is your
peer’s robe of red velvet, bordered with ermine. To-day,
only a few hours ago, the Lord Chancellor and the Deputy
Earl Marshal of England,— informed of the result of your
confrontation with the Comprachico Hardquanonne,— have
v, ~..\__~~\- :


124 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
received her Majesty’s commands. Her Majesty has signed
them, according to her royal will, which is the same as the
law. All formalities have been complied with. To—morrow,
and no later than to-morrow, you will take your seat in the
House of Lords, where they have for some days been delib-
erating on a bill presented by the Crown, having for its ob—
' ject the augmentation, by a hundred thousand pounds sterling
yearly, of the allowance to the Duke of Cumberland, husband
of the queen. You will be able to take part in the debate.”
Barkilphedro paused, breathed slowly, and resumed:
“ However, nothing is yet settled. A man cannot be made
a peer of England without his own consent. Everything can
be annulled unless you acquiesce. An event nipped in the
bud ere it ripens often occurs in state policy. My lord, up
to this time silence has been preserved on what has oc-
curred. The House of Lords will not be informed of the
facts until to—morrow. Secrecy has been maintained con-
cerning the whole matter for reasons of State, which are of
such importance that the influential persons who alone are at
this moment cognizant of your existence and of your rights
will forget them immediately should reasons of State necessi-
tate their being forgotten. That which is in darkness may
remain in darkness. It is easy to blot you out, the more so
as you have a brother, the natural son of your father and of
a woman who afterwards, during the exile of your father,
became a mistress of King Charles II., which accounts for
your brother’s high position in court; for it is to this brother,
bastard though he be, that your peerage would revert. Do
you desire this? I cannot think so. Well, all depends on
you. The queen must be obeyed. You will not quit this
house till to—morrow in a royal carriage, and then to go to
the House of Lords. My lord, will you be a peer of Eng-
land,——- yes or no? The queen has designs for you. She
destines you for an almost royal alliance. Lord Fermain
Clancharlie, this is the decisive moment. Destiny never opens
one door without shutting another. After a certain step for-
ward, a step backward is impossible. Whoso enters into


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 125
transfiguration leaves evanescence behind him. My lord,
Gwynplaine is dead. Do you understand? ”
Gwynplaine trembled from head to foot. Then he recov-
ered himself. “ Yes,” he said.
Barkilphedro smiled, bowed, placed the casket under his
cloak, and left the room.

CHAPTER V
WE THINK WE REMEMBER; WE FORGET
HENCE arise those strange, visible changes which oc-
cur in the human soul?
Gwynplaine had been at the same moment raised to a lofty
eminence and hurled into an abyss. His head Swam with
double giddiness,-— the giddiness of ascent and descent; a
fatal combination. He felt himself ascend, and felt not his
fall. It is appalling to see a new horizon; a perspective af-
fords suggestions,——~ but not always good ones. He had be-
fore him the fairy glade,—a snare, perhaps, seen through
opening clouds, and showing the blue depths of sky, so deep
that they are obscure. He was on a mountain, whence he
could see all the kingdoms of the earth,— a mountain all the
more terrible by reason of being an imaginary one. Those
who are on its apex are in a dream. There where Satan
tempted Jesus, how could mortal man hope even to struggle?
Palaces, castles, power, opulence, every earthly blessing ex-
tending as far as eye could reach,—a map of enjoyments
stretching to the horizon; a sort of radiant chart of which he
was the centre. A perilous mirage!
Imagine what must have been the effect of such a vision,
not attained to as by the gradual steps of a ladder but
reached without transition and without previous warning. A
man going to sleep in a mole’s burrow, and awaking on the


126 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
top of the Strasbourg steeple,— such was Gwynplaine’s con-
dition. Giddiness is dangerous, particularly that giddiness
which bears you at once towards the day and towards the
night, forming two whirlwinds, one opposed to the ,other.
He saw too much, and not enough. He saw all, and noth-
ing. His state was what the author of this book has some-
where expressed as the blind man dazzled.
Gwynplaine, left to himself, began to walk with long
strides. A bubbling precedes an explosion. Despite his agi-
tation, and the impossibility of keeping still, he meditated.
His mind liquefied as it boiled. He began to recall things
to his memory. It is surprising to find how clearly we under-
stand that to which we scarcely listened. The confession of
the shipwrecked men, read by the sherifl” in the Southwark
cell, came back to him clearly and intelligibly. He recalled
every word, he saw under it his whole infancy. Suddenly he
stopped, his hands clasped behind his back, looking up to the
ceiling,—— the sky, no matter what; whatever was above him.
“ Quits!” he cried. He felt like one whose head rises out
of the water. It seemed to him that he saw everything —- the
past, the future, the present—in the accession of a sudden
flash of light.
“Oh!” he cried, for there are cries in the depths of
thought. “ Oh, it was so, was it? I was a lord. All is dis-
covered. They stole, betrayed, destroyed, abandoned, disin'
herited, murdered me! The corpse of my destiny floated fif-
teen years on the sea; all at once it touched the earth, and
it started up, erect and living. I am reborn. I felt that
the breast palpitating under my rags was not that of a ba
born wretch; and when I looked on crowds of men, I felt that
they were the flocks, and that I was not the dog, but the
shepherd! Shepherds of the people, leaders of men, guides
and masters,— such were my fathers; and what they were,
I am! I am a gentleman, and I have a sword; I am a baron,
and I have a casque; I am a marquis, and I have a plume;
I am a peer, and I have a coronet. Lo! they deprived me of
all these. I dwelt in light, they flung me into darkness,


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 127'
Those who proscribed the father, sold the son. When my
father was dead, they took from beneath his head the stone
of exile which he had placed for his pillow, and tying it to
my neck, flung me into a sewer. Oh, those scoundrels who
tortured my infancy! Yes, they rise and move about in the
recesses of my memory. Yes, I see them again. I was that
morsel of flesh peeked to pieces on a tomb by a flock of crows.
I bled and cried under the remorseless hands of those horrible
creatures. Lo! it was there that they precipitated me, under
the tread of those who come and go, under the trampling feet
of men, under the lowest of the human race,--— lower than the
serf, lower than the serving-man, lower than the felon, lower
than the slave. At the spot where Chaos becomes a sewer,
there I was engulfed. It is from thence that I come; it is
from this that I rise; it is from this that I am risen. And
here I am now. Quits!”
Gwynplaine sat down, he rose again, clasped his head be-
tween his hands, and began to pace the room again, continu-
ing his excited monologue the while.
“ Where am I,—— on the summit. Where is it that I have
just alighted,— on the highest peak. This pinnacle, this
grandeur, this dome of the world, this lofty eminence, this
temple in mid-air is my home. I am one_of the gods. I
dwell on inaccessible heights. This supremacy which I looked
up at from below, and from whence emanated such rays of
glory that I shut my eyes; this exalted peerage, this impreg-
nable fortress of the fortunate,—I now enter. I am in it;
I am of it. Ah, what a decisive turn of fortune’s wheel! I
was below, I am now on top,-— on top forever! Behold me
a lord! I shall have a scarlet robe; I shall have an earl’s
coronet on my head; I shall assist at the coronation of kings,
—they will take the oath from my hands; I shall judge
princes and ministers. From the depths into which I was
thrown, I have rebounded to the zenith. I have palaces in
town and country,—~~ houses, gardens, chases, forests, car—
riages, millions. I will give fétes; I will make laws. I shall
have my pick of joys and pleasures; and the vagabond Gwyn-


128 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
plaine, who had no right to gather a flower of the field, may
now pluck the stars from heaven!”
Melancholy overshadowing of the soul’s brightness! Thus
it was that in Gwynplaine, who had been a hero, and who
perhaps had not ceased to be one, moral greatness succumbed
before material splendour. A lamentable transition! Vir—
tue broken down by a troop of passing demons; an attack
made on the weak side of a man’s nature; all the paltry de-
sires to which men attach such importance,— ambition, the
purblind desires of instinct, passions, covetousness, driven far
from Gwynplaine by the wholesome restraints of misfortune,
took tumultuous possession of his generous heart. And from
what had this arisen? From the discovery of a bit of parch-
ment in a waif drifted by the sea. Conscience may be vio—
lated by a chance attack.
Gwynplaine drank in great draughts of pride, which dulled
all the noble instincts of his soul. Such is the poiSonous ef-
fect of that fatal wine. Intoxication invaded him. He more
than consented to its approach,—- he welcomed it. This was
the effect of previous and long—continued thirst. Are we an
accomplice of the cup which deprives us of reason? He had
always vaguely desired this. His eyes had always turned
longingly towards the great. To watch is to wish. The
eaglet is not born in the eyrie for nothing. It seemed to
him the simplest thing in the world that he should be a lord.
A few hours only had passed, and yet the past of yesterday
seemed so far away. Gwynplaine had fallen into the ambus-
cade of Better, who is the enemy of Good.
Unhappy is he of whom we say, How lucky he is! Ad-
versity is more easily resisted than prosperity. We rise more
perfect from ill fortune than from good. There is a
Charybdis in poverty and a Scylla in riches. Those who re-
main erect under the thunderbolt are prostrated by the flash.
Thou who standest without shrinking on the verge of a preci-
pice, fear lest thou be carried up on the daring wings of mists
and dreams. The ascent which elevates may dwarf thee.
An apotheosis has a grim power of degradation. It is not


130 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
-frightful occultation of the human race, had accepted that
eclipse, and proudly continued his journey; he who had
known how to endure cold, thirst, hunger, uncomplainingly;
he who, though but a pygmy in stature, had been a colossus
in soul,—— this Gwynplaine, who had conquered the great
enemy of the human race under its twofold form, Tempest
and Misery, staggered under a mere breath,— vanity.
Thus, when she has exhausted distress, nakedness, storms,
and catastrophies on an unflinching man, Fate begins to
smile, and her victim, suddenly intoxicated, succumbs. The
smile of Fate,-— can anything more terrible be imagined?
It is the last resource of the pitiless tempter of souls in his
test of man. The tiger, lurking in destiny, caresses man with
a velvet paw. Sinister preparation, hideous gentleness in the
monster! Every self-observer has detected within himself
mental weakness coincident with aggrandizement. A too
rapid growth disturbs the system, and produces fever.
Gwynplaine’s brain was bewildered with a host of novel
circumstances,— all the lights and shades of a metamorpho—
sis; inexpressibly strange confrontations; the contrast be—
tween the past and the future. He beheld tWQ Gwynplaines:
behind him, an infant in rags, crawling through the mire,—
wandering, shivering, hungry, provoking laughter; before
him, a brilliant nobleman, luxurious, proud,—- dazzling all
London. He was casting off one form, and incorporating
himself with the other. He was casting the mountebank, and
becoming the peer. Change of skin is sometimes a change
of soul. Now and then the past seemed like a dream. It
was complex,—— bad and good. He thought of his father.
It was a poignant anguish never to have known his father.
He tried to picture that father to himself. He thought of
his brother, of whom he had just heard. So he had relatives,
— he, Gwynplaine! He lost himself in fantastic dreams; he
saw visions of magnificence; unknown forms of solemn gran-
deur moved in mist before him; he heard flourishes of trum-
pets.
“ And then,” he said, “ I shall be eloquent.”
_. I -~ ' -.~—- '“;-“ '11-'wr :"q "Mum.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 131
He pictured to himself a brilliant entrance into the House
of Lords. He would have so many new facts and ideas to
impart to them. What could he not tell them? What a
store of information he had accumulated! What an advan-
tage to have him in the midst of them,— a man who had seen,
touched, undergone, and suffered; who could cry aloud to
them, “ I have been near to everything from which you are
so far removed.” He would hurl reality in the face of those
patricians, crammed full of illusions. They would tremble,
for it would be the truth that he would tell them. They
would applaud, his utterances would be grand and convinc-
mg.
He would arise among those powerful men more power-
ful than they. “ I shall appear as a torch-bearer, to show
them truth; and as a sword—bearer, to show them justice!”
What a triumph!
As these fancies were passing through Gwynplaine’s mind,
he had attacks of delirium,— now sinking on the first seat he
came to, now hastily starting up. He walked to and fro,
looked up at the ceiling, examined the coronets, studied the
hieroglyphics in the emblazonment, felt the velvet on the
walls, moved the chairs, turned over the parchments, read the
names, spelled out the titles,— Buxton, Homble, Grundraith,
Hunkervillc, Clancharlie; compared the wax, the impression;
felt the twist of silk appended to the royal privy seal; ap—
proached the window, listened to the splash of the fountain,
contemplated the statues; counted, with the patience of a
somnambulist, the marble columns, and said to himself, “ It
is rea .”
Then he touched his satin clothes, and asked, “ Is this I?
Yes.”
He was torn by an inward tempest. Was he conscious of
faintness and fatigue during this whirlwind of emotion?
Did he eat, drink, or sleep? If he did so, he was uncon-
scious of the fact. In certain mental conditions, instinct sat-
isfies itself, according to its requirements, but unconsciously.
When the lurid flames of an irruption rise from depths full of


132 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
boiling lava, has the crater any consciousness of the flocks
which crop the grass at the foot of the mountain?
The hours passed. The dawn appeared, and brought the
day. A bright ray penetrated the chamber, and at the same
instant burst on the soul of Gwynplaine.
“ And Dea!” said the light.


BOOK VI
URSUS UNDER DIFFERENT ASPECTS
CHAPTER I
WHAT THE MISANTHBOPE SAID
FTER Ursus had seen Gwynplaine disappear within the
gates of Southwark jail, he lingered, pale with terror,
in the corner from which he was watching. For a long time
his ears were haunted by the creaking of bolts and bars, which
seemed to howl with joy that one wretch more should be con—
fined within them.
Ursus waited. What for? He watched. What for?
Such inexorable doors, once shut, do not re—open soon. They
are tongue-tied by their stagnation in darkness, and move
with difficulty, especially when they have to give up a pris-
oner. Entrance is permitted; exit is quite a different mat-
ter. Ursus knew this. But waiting is a thing which we
have not the power to abandon at will. We wait in spite
of ourselves. In such cases there is a force, which maintains
its action after its object has ceased, which retains possession
of us and holds us, and obliges us to continue that which has
already lost its motive. Hence the useless watch, the
inert position that we have all maintained, the loss of time
which every thoughtful man mechanically gives to that which
has disappeared. No one can escape this law. We become
stubborn. We know not why we linger in the place, but we
do linger. That which we have begun actively, we con-
133


134 ~ THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
tinue passively, with a grim tenacity from which we emerge
overwhelmed. Ursus, though different from other men, was,
as any other might have been, nailed to his post by that sort
of watchful reverie into which we are plunged by events
which are all—important to us, but in which we are impotent.
He scrutinized by turns those two black walls,— now the high
one, then the low; sometimes the door near which the ladder
of the gibbet stood, then that surmounted by a death’s head.
It was as if he were caught in a vice, composed of a prison
and a cemetery. This shunned and unpopular street was so
deserted that he was unobserved.
At length Ursus left the archway under which he had taken
shelter,— a kind of chance sentry—box, in which he had
played the watchman,—- and departed with slow steps. The
day was declining, for his watch had been long. From time
to time he turned his head and looked at the grim doorway
through which Gwynplaine had disappeared. His eyes
were glassy and dull. He reached the end of the alley, en-
tered another, then another, retracing almost unconsciously
the course which he had followed some hours before. At in-
tervals he turned, as if he could still see the door of the
prison, though he was no longer in the street in which the
jail was located. Step by step he was approaching Tarrin—
zeau Field. The lanes in the neighbourhood of the fair-
ground were deserted pathways between enclosed gardens. He
walked along with head bent down, between the hedges and
ditches. All at once he halted, and drawing himself up, ex-
claimed, “ So much the better!” At the same time he struck
his fist twice on his head and twice on his thigh, thus proving
himself to be a sensible fellow who saw things in their right
light. Then he began to growl inwardly, now and then
bursting into speech, however.
“ It is all right! Oh, the scoundrel! the thief! the vaga—
bond! the worthless fellow! the seditious scamp! It is his
speeches about the Government that have sent him there.
He is a rebel. I was harbouring a rebel. I am rid of him,
and a lucky thing it is for me; he was compromising us.
My! -_ . .u 7 39;... , , .1... ,A .- N


THE MAN W HO LAUGHS 135
Thrust into prison! So much the better! What excellent
laws! Ungrateful boy! I brought him up! Think of
having given one’s self so much trouble for this! Why should
he want to talk and to reason? He must needs mix himself up
in politics, the ass! As he handled pennies he babbled about
the taxes, about the poor, about the people, about what was
no business of his. He allowed himself to make remarks on
the coinage. He commented wickedly and maliciously on the
copper money of the kingdom. He insulted the farthings of
her Majesty. A farthing,— why, ’t is the same as the queen.
A sacred efligy,— devil take it! A sacred efligy. Have we a
queen, yes or no? Then respect her verdigris! Everything
depends on the Government: one ought to know that. I
have had experience, I have. I know something. They may
say to me, ‘ Why, you-must give up politics altogether, then.’
Politics, my friends, I care as much for them as for the
rough hide of an ass. I received, one day, a blow from a
baronet’s cane. I said to myself, that is enough; I under-
stand politics. The people have but a farthing, they give
it; the queen takes it, the people thank her. Nothing can be
more natural. It is for the peers to manage the rest,——- their
lordships, our lords spiritual and temporal. So Gwynplaine
is locked up. So he is in prison! That is as it should be. It
is right, excellent, well-merited, and legitimate. It is his
own fault. Criticism is forbidden. Are you a lord, you
idiot? The constable has seized him, the justice of the quo—
rum has carried him off, the sheriff has him in custody. At
this moment he is probably being examined by a serjeant of
the coif. They’ll find out your crimes, those cleVer fellows!
Imprisoned, my wag! So much the worse for him, so much
the better for me! I am satisfied. I own frankly that for-
tune favours me. What folly I was guilty of when I picked
up that little boy and girl! We were so quiet before, Homo
and I! What business had they in my van, the little black-
guards! Didn’t I brood over them when they were young?
Didn’t I drag them many a mile? Pretty foundlings, in-
deedl he as ugly as sin, and she blind of both eyes! What


136 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
was the use of depriving myself of everything for their sake?
The beggars grow up, forsooth, and make love to each other.
The flirtations of the afflicted. It was to that we had come.
The toad and the mole; quite an idyl! A fine state of things
in a household. They were sure to end by going before a
justice. The toad must needs talk politics. But now I am
rid of him. When the wapentake came I acted like a fool;
one always doubts one’s good luck. I believed that I did not
see what I did see; that it was impossible, that it was a night-
mare, that some one was playing a trick on me. But, no!
nothing could be truer. It is all clear now. Gwynplaine
is really in prison. It is a fortunate dispensation of Provi-
dence. Praise be to it! He was a monster who by the row
he made drew attention to my establishment, and caused my
poor wolf to be denounced. Be off, Gwynplaine! And be-
. hold, I am rid of both! Two birds killed with one stone;
for Dea is sure to die, now that she can no longer see Gwyn—
plaine. For she dotes on him, the idiot! She will have no
object in life. She will say, ‘What am I to do in the
world?’ Good—bye! To the devil with both of them! I
always hated the creatures! Die, Dea, if you choose. I shall
be glad of it!” .

CHAPTER II
WHAT HE mn
RSUS returned to the Tadcaster Inn. It was half-
past six and nearly dark.
Master Nicless was standing on his doorstep. He had not
succeeded in regaining his composure since morning, and
terror was still apparent in his face. He perceived Ursus
afar ofl".
“ Well!” he cried.
;‘ Well! what? ”


.THE MAN WHO LAUGHS .137
“ Is Gwynplaine coming back? It is full time. The peo-
ple will soon be coming in. Shall we have a performance by
‘ The Laughing Man ’ this evening?”
“ I am the laughing man,” said Ursus; and he looked at
the tavern-keeper and chuckled loudly.
Then Ursus went up to the first floor, opened the window
next to the sign of the inn, leaned over the placard about
Gwynplaine, the laughing man, and the bill of “ Chaos Van-
quished;” unnailed the one, tore down the other, put both
under his arm, and came down again.
Master Nicless watched him with wondering eyes. “ Why
do you take those in? ”
Ursus burst into a second fit of laughter.
“ Why do you laugh?” said the tavern-keeper.
“ I am re-entering private life.”
Master Nicless understood, and gave an order to his as—
sistant, the boy Govicum, to announce to any one who might
come that there would be no performance that evening. He
took from the door the box made out of a cask, where they
received the entrance money, and rolled it into a corner of
the lower sitting-room.
A moment after, Ursus entered the Green Box. He put
the two signs away in a corner, and entered what he called
the woman’s wing.
Dea was asleep. She was lying on her bed, dressed as
usual, excepting that the body of her gown was loosened, as
when she was taking her siesta. Near her Vinos and F ibi
Were sitting,— one on a stool, the other on the ground,—
musing. Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, they had
not dressed themselves in their goddesses’ gauze, which was a
sign of deep discouragement. They still wore their drug-
get petticoats, and jackets of coarse cloth.
Ursus looked at Dea. “ She is rehearsing for a longer
sleep,” murmured he. Then addressing Fibi and Vinos:
“You both know all. The jig is up. You can put your
trumpets away in the drawer. You were wise not to rig
yourselves out as goddesses. You look ugly enough, but you


138 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
were quite right. Keep on your petticoats. There will be
no performance to—night, nor to—morrow, nor the day after
to—morrow. No Gwynplaine. Gwynplaine is clean gone.”
Then Ursus looked at Dea again. “ What a blow this
will be to her! It will be like blowing out a candle.” He
inflated his cheeks. “ Puff! nothing more.”
Then, with a little dry laugh: “ Losing Gwynplaine, she
loses all. It will be the same as if I were to lose Homo. It
will be even worse. She will feel more lonely than any one
else could. The blind wade through more sorrow than we
do.”
Ursus looked out of the window at the end of the room.
“ How the days lengthen! It is not dark at seven o’clock.
Nevertheless, we will light up.” He struck the steel and
lighted the lamp which hung from the ceiling of the Green
Box. Then he leaned over Dea. “ She will catch cold; you
have opened her bodice too much. There is a proverb,—
‘Though April skies be bright,
Keep all your wrappers tight.’ ”
Seeing a pin shining on the floor, Ursus picked it up, and
stuck it in his sleeve. Then he paced the Green Box, gesticu-
lating all the while: “ I am in full possession of my facul-
ties. I am sane, quite sane. I consider this occurrence
quite proper, and I approve of what has been done. When
she wakes I will explain everything to her. The catastrophe
will not be long in coming. No more Gwynplaine: good-
night, Dea. How well everything has been arranged!
Gwynplaine in prison, Dea in the cemetery: they will be via-(‘1-
m's! A dance of death! Two actors going off the stage at
once. Pack up the dresses; fasten the valise. For valise,
read coffin. It is the best thing that could have happened
to both. Dea without eyes, Gwynplaine without a face.
On high the Almighty will restore sight to Dea and beauty
to Gwynplaine. Death puts things to rights; all will be
well. Fibi, Vinos, hang your tambourines on the nail. Your-
1

___.... tee. ,A ..... - emit...“ . MESA!”


{THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 139
talents for noise will go to rust, my beauties. No moreplay-
ing, no more trumpeting. ‘ Chaos Vanquished ’ is van-
quished indeed. ‘ The Laughing Man ’ is done for. ‘ Tara-
tantara ’ is dead. Dea sleeps on; she does well. If I were
in her place, I would never awake. Oh, she will soon fall
asleep again; a skylark like her takes very little killing.
This comes of meddling with politics. What a lesson! Gov-
ernments are always right; so Gwynplaine to the sheriff, and
Dea to the grave-digger. Parallel cases! Wonderful simi—
larity! I hope the tavern-keeper has barred the door. We
are going to die to-night quietly at home, by ourselves,—
not I or Homo, but Dea. As for me, I shall continue to travel
with the van. I belong to the army of vagabonds. I shall
dismiss these two women; I shall not even keep one of them.
I might, perhaps, become an old roué; a maid-servant in the
house of a libertine is like a loaf of bread on the shelf. I
decline the temptation. It would not be becoming at my age,
— turpe senilis amor. I will go my way alone with Homo.
How astonished Homo will be! Where is Gwynplaine? Where
is Dea? Old comrade, here we are once more alone together.
Plague take it! I’m delighted. Their rhapsodies were a
bore! Oh, that scamp of a Gwynplaine, who is never com-
ing back! He has left us stuck here. ‘All right,’ I say.
And now ’t is Dea’s turn. That won’t be long. I like things
to be done with. I would not snap my fingers to stop her
dying,— dying, I tell you! See, she wakes!”
Dea opened her eyelids; many blind persons shut them
\ when they sleep. Her sweet ingenuous face wore all its
xusual radiance.
“ She smiles,” whispered Ursus, “ and I laugh. That is
as it should be.”
Dea called. “ Fibi! Vinos! It must be the time for the
performance. I think I have been asleep a long time. Come
and dress me.”
Neither Fibi nor Vinos moved.
As Dea’s sightless orbs met those of Ursus, he started.
“ Well! ” he cried; “ what are you about? Vinos! Fibi! Do


140 {THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
you not hear your mistress? Are you deaf? Quick! the
play is about to begin.”
The two women looked at Ursus in amazement.
“ Do you not hear the audience coming in? ” he shouted.
Fibi, dress Dea. Vinos, take your tambourine.”
Fibi was obedient; Vinos, passive. Together, they per-
sonified submission. Their master, Ursus, had always been
to them an enigma. Never to be understood is a reason for
being always obeyed. They simply thought he had gone
mad, and did as they were told. Fibi took down Dea’s cos-
tume, and Vinos the tambourine. Fibi began to dress Dea.
Ursus let down the curtain of the women’s room, and from
behind the curtain continued: “ Look here, Gwynplaine! the
court is more than half full of people already. What a
crowd! And you say that Fibi and Vinos look as if they
did not see them. How stupid the gipsies are! Don’t lift
the curtain from the door; be decent -—- Dea is dressing.”
Ursus paused, and suddenly they heard an exclamation:
“ How beautiful Dea is! ”
It was the voice of Gwynplaine. Fibi and Vinos started,
and turned round. It was the voice of Gwynplaine, but in
the mouth of Ursus.
Ursus, by a sign which he made through the half-open
door, forbade the expression of any astonishment. Then,
again counterfeiting the voice of Gwynplaine: “ Angel!”
Then he replied in his own voice: “ Dea an angel! You
are a fool, Gwynplaine. No mammifer except the bat can
fly.” And he added: “ Look here, Gwynplaine! Let
Homo loose; that will be more to the purpose.”
Whereupon Ursus descended the ladder of the Green Box
very quickly, with the agile spring of Gwynplaine, imitating
his step so that Dea could hear it. In the court he addressed
the boy, whom the occurrences of the day had made idle and
inquisitive. “ Spread out both your hands,” said he, in a
loud voice. And he poured a handful of pence into them.
Govicum was grateful for his munificence.
Ursus whispered in his ear: “ Boy, go into the yard;

- . M‘v' L ,__-J-‘ ; _,.. ._.


.THE MAN WHO LAITGHS 14.11
jump, dance, knock, bawl, whistle, coo, neigh, applaud, stamp
your feet, burst out laughing, break something.”
Master Nicless, saddened and humiliated at seeing the folks
who had come to see “ The Laughing Man” turned away
and crowding towards other shows, had shut the door of the
inn. He had even given up the idea of selling any beer or
spirits that evening, so he would have to answer no awkward
questions; and, quite overcome by the sudden close of the
performance, he was gazing down, candle in hand, into the
courtyard from the balcony above.
Ursus, taking the precaution of putting his voice between
parentheses fashioned by adjusting the palms of his hands
to his mouth, called out to him: “ Do as your boy is doing,
sir; yelp, bark, howl.” He reascended the steps of the Green
Box, and said to the wolf: “ Talk as much as you can."
Then, raising his voice: “ What a crowd there is! We shall
have a crammed performance.”
In the mean. time Vinos played the tambourine. Ursus
wen on: “ Dea is dressed; now we can begin. I am sorry
they have admitted so many spectators. How thickly packed
they are! Look, Gwynplaine, what a mob it is. I’ll bet
that we take more money to-day than we have ever done yet.
Come, gipsies, play up, both of you. Come here. Fibi, take
your clarionet. Good! Vinos, drum on your tambourine;
fling it up and catch it again. Fibi, put yourself in the atti-
tude of Fame. Young ladies, you have too much on. Take
off those jackets; replace stuff by gauze.. The public like
to see the female form exposed. Let the moralists thunder.
A little indecent—devil take it! What of that? Look vo-
luptuous, and rush into wild melodies. Snort, blow, whistle,
flourish, play the tambourine. What a crowd of people, my
poor Gwynplaine ! ”
Here Ursus interrupted himself. “ Gwynplaine, help me.
Let down the platform.” He spread out his pocket-handker-
chief. “ But first let me blow my nose.” Having returned
his handkerchief to his pocket, he drew the pegs out of the
pulleys, which creaked as usual as the platform descended.


142 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
“ Gwynplaine, do not draw the curtain until the performance
begins. We are not alone. You two come on in front.
Music, ladies! tum, tum, tum. A pretty audience we have!
the dregs of the people. Good heavens!”
The two gipsies, stupidly obedient, placed themselves in
their usual corners of the platform. Then Ursus became truly
wonderful. He was no longer a man, but a crowd of men.
Obliged to make abundance out of emptiness, he called to
his aid all his prodigious powers of ventriloquism. The whole
orchestra of human and animal voices within him were brought
into action at once. Any one with his eyes closed would have
imagined that he was in a public place on some day of re-
joicing, or in some sudden popular riot. A whirlwind of
clamour proceeded from Ursus ; he sang, he shouted, he talked,
he coughed, he spat, he sneezed, took snuff, talked and re—
sponded, put questions and gave answers, all at once. The
half-uttered syllables ran one into another. In the court, un-
tenanted by a single spectator, men, women, and children
could be plainly heard. Strange laughter wound, vapour-
like, through the noise, the chirping of birds, the swearing of
cats, the wailings of children at the breast. The indistinct
tones of drunken men could be heard, and the growls of dogs
under the feet of people who stamped on them. The cries
came from far and near, from top and bottom, from the upper
boxes and the pit. The whole Place was in an uproar. Ursus
clapped his hands, stamped his feet, threw his voice to the
end of the court, and then made it come from under ground.
He was himself, and any and every one else. Alone, and poly-
glot. As there are optical delusions, so there are also auricu—
lar illusions. That which Proteus did for the sight, Ursus
did for the hearing. From time to time he opened the door
of the women’s apartment and looked at Dea. Dea was listen—
1n .
gThe boy exerted himself to the utmost. Vinos and Fibi
trumpeted conscientiously, and took turns with the tambou-
rine. Master Nicless, the only spectator, quietly gave himself
the same explanation that they did,— that Ursus had gone


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS .143
mad, which was, for that matter, but another sad item added
to his misery. “ How very unfortunate!” growled the tav—
ern-keeper. And he was very serious, as a manlmight well
be who had the fear of the law before him.
Govicum, delighted at being able to help in making a noise,
exerted himself almost as much as Ursus. It amused him,
and, moreover, it earned him pence.
Homo seemed pensive.
In the midst of the tumult Ursus now and then uttered
such exclamations as these : —
“ There is a cabal against us, as usual, Gwynplaine. Our
rivals are trying to impair our success,— to mar our triumph.
Besides, there are too many people. They are uncomfortable.
The angles of their neighbours’ elbows do not increase their
good-nature. I hope the benches will not give way. We
shall be the victims of an incensed populace. Oh, if our
friend Tom-Jim—Jack were only here! but he never comes now.
Look at those heads rising one above another. Those who are
forced to stand don’t look very well pleased, though the great
Galen pronounced it to be strengthening. We will shorten
the entertainment; as only ‘ Chaos Vanquished ’ was an-
nounced in the play-bill, we will not play ‘ Ursus Rursus.’
There will be something gained by that. What an uproar!
O blind turbulence of the masses! They will do us some dam-
age. However, they can’t go on like this. We should not
be able to play. No one could hear a word of the piece. I
am going to address them. Gwynplaine, draw the curtain a
little aside.—- Gentlemen —”
Here Ursus addressed himself with a shrill and feeble
voice: —
“ Down with that old fool!”
Then he answered in his own voice.
“ It seems that the mob wish to insult me. Cicero is right;
plebs, few urbis. Never mind, we will admonish the mob,
though I shall have a great deal of trouble to make myself
heard. I shall speak, notwithstanding. Man, do your duty.
Gwynplaine, look at that scold grinding her teeth down there.”


1444 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
There was a pause, in which Ursus gnashed his teeth
viciously.
Then he went on: —
“ The women are worse than the men. The moment is
unpropitious, but it doesn’t matter! Let us try the effect of
a speech; an eloquent speech is never amiss. Listen, Gwyn-
plaine, to my attractive exordium. Ladies and gentlemen,
I am a hear. I take off my head to address you. I humbly
appeal to you for silence.”
Ursus, lending a cry to the crowd, said,—
“ Grumphll! ”
Then he continued:—
“ I respect my audience. Grumphll is as good an epipho-
nema as any other. You growlers! that you are all of the
dregs of the people, I do not doubt. That in no way dimin-
ishes my esteem for you,—a well grounded esteem. I have
a profound respect for the bullies who honour me with their
custom. There are deformed folks among you. They give
me no offence. The lame and the humpbacked are works of
Nature. The camel is gibbous. The bison’s back is humped.
The badger’s left legs are shorter than the right. That
fact is decided by Aristotle, in his treatise on the gait of ani-
mals. There are those among you who have but two
shirts,—— one on his back and the other at the pawnbroker’s.
I know that to be true. Albuquerque pawned his moustache,
and Saint Denis his aureole. The Jews advanced money upon
the aureole. Great examples! To have debts is to possess
something. I honour your beggary.”
Ursus cut his speech short, interrupting it in a deep bass
voice by the shout of: ~—
“ Triple ass! ”
He answered in his politest accents.
“ I admit it. I am a learned man. I humbly apologize
for it. I have all a scientist’s contempt for science. Igno-
rance is a reality on which we feed; science a reality on which
we starve. One is generally obliged to choose between two
things. To be learned and grow thin, or to browse and be
. .1 guru-x. .
12‘


.THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 145
an Ass. Browse, gentlemen! Science is not worth a mouth-
ful of anything nice. I had rather eat a sirloin of beef than
know what they call the psoas muscle. I have but one merit,
—- a dry eye. Such as you see me, I have never wept. It
must be owned that I have never been satisfied — never —— not
even with myself. I despise myself, but I submit this to the
members of the opposition here present: though Ursus is only
a learned man, Gwynplaine is an artist.”
“ Grumphll ! ” he groaned again.
Then resumed: -—
“ Grumphll again! It is an objection. All the same, I
pass it over. With Gwynplaine, gentlemen and ladies, there
is another artist, a valued and distinguished personage who
accompanies us,——— his lordship Homo, formerly a wild dog,
now a civilized wolf, and a faithful subject of her Majesty’s.
Homo is a mine of deep and superior talent. Be attentive
and watch. You are going to see Homo play as well as Gwyn-
plaine, and you must do honour to art. That is an attribute
of great nations. Are you men of the woods? I admit the
fact. In that case, .9de sint comule dignw. Two artists are
well worth one consul. All right! Some one has flung a
cabbage stalk at me, but did not hit me. That will not stop
my speaking; on the contrary, a danger evaded makes folks
garrulous, Garrula pericula, says J uvenal. My hearers ! there
are among you drunken men and drunken women. Very well.
The men are loathsome, the women hideous. You have all
sorts of excellent reasons for stowing yourselves away here
on the benches of the pothouse,—- want of work, idleness, thev
spare time between two robberies, porter, ale, stout, malt,
brandy, gin, and the attraction of one sex for the other.
What could be better? A wit prone to irony would find this
a fair field. But I abstain. It is a luxury; so be it; but
even an orgy should be kept within bounds. You are gay, but
noisy. You imitate the cries of wild beasts very successfully;
but what would you say if, when you were making love to a
lady, I passed my time in barking at you? It would disturb
you, paid so it disturbs us. I order you to hold your tongues.


146
{THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Art is as respectable as debauchery. I speak to you civilly.”
He apostrophized himself : --
“ May the fever strangle you, with your eyebrows like the
heard of rye.”
And he replied,—
‘-‘ Honourable gentlemen, let the rye alone. It is impious
to insult the vegetables by likening them either to human
creatures or animals. Besides, the fever does not strangle.
’Tis a false metaphor.
“ For pity’s sake, keep silence. Allow me to tell you that
you are sadly wanting in the repose which characterizes
the true English gentleman. I see that some among you
who have shoes out of which their toes are peeping, take ad-
vantage of the circumstance to rest their feet on the shoulders
of those who are in front of them, causing the ladies to re-
mark that the soles of shoes always divide at the part near
the head of the metatarsal bones. Show more of your hands,
and less of your feet. I see scamps plunging their cunning
fists into the pockets of their foolish neighbours. Dear pick—
pockets, have a little modesty. Fight those next to you if you
like; do not plunder them. You will vex them less by blacken-
ing an eye than by lightening their purses of a penny.
Break their noses, if you like. The shop-keeper thinks more
of his money than of his beauty. Barring this, accept my
sympathy, for I am not pedantic enough to blame thieves.
Evil exists. Every one endures it, every one inflicts it. No
one is exempt from the scourge of his sins. That’s what I
keep saying. Have we not all our itch? I, myself, have
made mistakes. Plaudite, cives.”
Ursus uttered a long groan, which he silenced by these con-
cluding words: —
“ My lords and gentlemen, I see that my address has un-
luckily displeased you. I take leave of your hisses for a
moment. I shall put on my head, and the performance is
about to begin.”
He dropped his oratorical tone, and resumed in his usual
Y01ce=_


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 1147
“ Drop the curtain. Let me breathe. I have spoken like
honey. I have spoken well. My words were like velvet; but
they were useless. I called them my lords and gentlemen.
What do you think of all this scum, Gwynplaine? How well
may we estimate the ills which England has sufi'ered for the
last forty years through the ill-temper of these irritable and
malicious spirits. The ancient Britons were warlike, these
are melancholy and learned. They glory in despising the
laws and contemning royal authority. I have done all that
human eloquence can do. I have been prodigal of metonym-
ics, as gracious as the blooming cheek of youth. Were they
softened by them? I doubt it. What can affect a people who
eat so extraordinarily, who stupefy themselves by tobacco
so completely that their literary men often write their works
with a pipe in their mouths? Never mind. Let us begin the
play.”
The rings of the curtain could be heard slipping along the
rod. The tambourines of the gipsies were silent. Ursus took
down his instrument, executed his prelude, and said in a low
tone: —
“ Alas! Gwynplaine, how mysterious it is.”
Then he flung himself down with the wolf.
When he had taken down his instrument, he had also taken
from the nail a rough wig, which he had thrown on the stage
in a corner within his reach. The performance of “ Chaos
Vanquished” took place as usual, minus only the effect of
the blue light, and the brilliancy of the fairies. The wolf
played his best. At the proper moment Dea made her ap-
pearance, and, in her voice so tremulous and heavenly, in-
voked Gwynplaine. She extended her arms, feeling for that
beloved head.
Ursus rushed for the wig, ruflled it, put it on, advanced
softly, and holding his breath, placed his bristling head under
Dea’s hand.
Then calling all his art to his aid, and imitating Gwyn-
plaine’s voice, he sang with inefi'able love the monster’s re-
sponse to the call of the spirit, The imitation was so perfect


148 H‘HE MAN WHO LAUGHS
that again the gipsies looked around for Gwynplaine, fright-
ened at hearing without seeing him.
Govicum, filled with astonishment, stamped, applauded,
clapped his hands, producing an Olympian tumult, and him-
self laughed as if he had been a chorus of gods. This boy,
.it must be confessed, developed a rare talent for personating
an audience.
Fibi and Vinos, being automatons of which Ursus pulled
the strings, rattled their instruments, the usual sign of the
performance being over and of the departure of the people.
Ursus arose, covered with perspiration. He said, in a
low voice, to Homo : ——
“ You see it was necessary to gain time. I think we have
succeeded. I have not acquitted myself badly, though I
have as much reason to go distracted as any one. Gwyn—
plaine will perhaps return to-morrow. It is useless to kill
Dea directly. I can explain matters to you.”
He took off his wig and wiped his forehead.
“ I am a ventriloquist of genius,” murmured he. “ What
talent I displayed! I have equalled Brabant, the engastri-
mythist of Francis 1., of France. Dea is convinced that
Gwynplaine is here.”
“ Ursus,” said Dea, “ where is Gwynplaine? ”
Ursus started and turned round. Dea was still standing
at the back of the stage, alone under the lamp which hung
from the ceiling. She was pale as a ghost.
With an inefi'able expression of despair, she added:
“ I know. He has left us. He is gone. I always knew
that he had wings.”
And raising her sightless eyes heavenward, she added:
“ When shall I follow him?”


150 THE MAN WHO L'AUGHS
Each seemed to say to the other, “ We will talk, but we
will hold our tongues.”
The tavern-keeper silently opened the door of the lower
room of the tavern. Master Nicless entered. Ursus entered.
There was no one there except these two. On the side look—
ing on the street, both the doors and window-shutters were
closed. .
The tavern—keeper pushed the door to behind him in the
face of the inquisitive Govicum.
Master Nicless placed the candle on the table.
A whispered dialogue began.
“ Master Ursus? ”
“ Master Nicless? ”
“ I understand at last.”
“ Nonsense! ”
“ You wished that poor blind girl to think that everything
was going on as usual.”
“ There is no law against my being a ventriloquist.”
“ You are a clever fellow.”
“ Nol’,
“ It is wonderful how you manage all that you wish to
do.”
“ I tell you, it is not.”
“ Now, I have something to tell you.”
“ Is it about politics? ”
“ I don’t know.”
“ Because in that case I could not listen to you.”
“ Look here; while you were playing actors and audience
by yourself, some one knocked 'at the door of the tavern.”
“ Some one knocked at the door? ”
“ Yes.”
“ I don’t like that.”
“ Nor I, either.”
“ And then? ”
“ And then I opened it.”
“ Who was it that knocked? ”
“ Some one who spoke to me.”


.THE MAN WHO LAUGHS *151
“ What did he say? ”
“ I listened to him.”
“ What did you answer?”
“ Nothing. I came back to see you play.”
“ _? ,,
“ Some one knocked a second time.”
“ Who -— the same person? ”
“ No, another.”
“ Some one else to speak to you? ”
“ Some one who said nothing.”
“ I like that better.”
“ I do not.” .
“ Explain yourself, Master Nicless.”
“ Guess who called the first time.”
“ I have no leisure to be an (Edipus.”
“ It was the proprietor of the circus.”
“ Over the way?”
“ Over the way.”
“ Whence comes all that fearful music. Well? ”
“ Well, Master Ursus, he makes you a proposal.”
“ A proposal? ”
“ A proposal.”
“ 9’
“ Because —”
_ “ You have an advantage over me, Master Nicless; just
'now you solved my enigma, and now I cannot understand
yours.”
“ The proprietor of the circus commissioned me to tell you
that he had seen the cortége of police pass this morning, and
that he, the proprietor of the circus, wishing to prove that
he is your friend, offers to buy of you, for fifty pounds, ready
money, your van, the Green Box, your two horses, your
trumpets, with the women that blow them, your play, with the
blind girl who sings in it, your wolf, and yourself.”
Ursus smiled a haughty smile. '
“ Inn-keeper, tell the proprietor of the circus that Gwyn-
plaine is coming back.”


152 LI‘HE MAN WHO LAUGHS
r.
.» The inn-keeper took something from a chair in the dark-
ness, and turning towards Ursus with both arms raised, dan—
gled from one hand a cloak, and from the other a leather
collar, a felt hat, and a jacket.
And Master Nicless said,—
“ The man who knocked the second time was connected with
the police; he came in and handed me these things, then left
without saying a word.”
Ursus recognized in the articles, the collar, jacket, hat, and
cloak of Gwynplaine.
CHAPTER IV
Mmmnns sunms CAMPANA MUTA
RSUS smoothed the felt hat, touched the cloth of the
cloak, the serge of the coat, the leather of the collar,
and no longer able to doubt whose garments they were, with
a gesture at once hasty and imperative, and without saying a
word, pointed to the door of the inn.
Master Nicless opened it.
Ursus rushed out of the tavern.
Master Nicless looked after him, and saw Ursus run as
fast as his old legs would carry him, in the direction taken that
morning by the wapentake who carried off Gwynplaine.
A quarter of an hour afterwards, Ursus, out of breath,
reached the little street back of the Southwark jail, where
he had already watched so many hours. This alley was
lonely enough at all hours; but if dreary during the day,
it was portentous at night. No one ventured through it
after a certain hour. It seemed as though people feared
that the walls would close in, and that if the prison or the
cemetery took a fancy to embrace, any chance pedestrian
would be crushed in their. clasp. Such are the effects of


.THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 153
darkness. The pollard willows of the ruelle Vauvert in Paris
were equally feared. It is said that during the night the
stumps of those trees changed into great bands, and caught
hold of the passers-by.
As we have already mentioned, the Southwark folks in-
stinctively shunned this alley between a prison and a church-
yard. In former times it had been barricaded during the
night by an iron chain. Very unnecessarily, however, for
the strongest chain which guarded the street was the terror
it inspired.
Ursus entered it resolutely.
What object did he have in view? None.
He came into the alley to gain information, if possible.
Did he intend to knock at the gate of the jail? Certainly
not. Such an expedient never once occurred to him. Did
he hope to gain an entrance and ask an explanation? What
arrant folly! Prisons do not open to those who wish to en-
ter, any more than to those who desire to get out. Their
hinges never turn except by law. Ursus knew this. Why,
then, had he come here? To see. To see what? Nothing in
particular. Even to be opposite the gate through which
Gwynplaine had disappeared, was something.
Sometimes the blackest and most rugged of walls whispers,
and some light escapes through a cranny. A vague glim-
mering is now and then visible through solid and sombre
piles of building. Even to examine the envelope of a fact
may be to some purpose. The instinct of us all is to leave
between the fact which interests us and ourselves only the
thinnest possible cover. Hence it was that Ursus hastened
back to the alley in which the back entrance to the prison was
situated.
Just as he entered it he heard one stroke of a bell, then a
second.
“ Hold,” thought he; “ can it be midnight already? ”
He began to count mechanically.
“ Three, four, five. At what long intervals this clock
strikes!” he mused; “ and how slowly! Six, seven!”


154 .THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Then he remarked: —
“ What a melancholy sound! Eight, nine! Still, noth—
ing could be more natural; it’s dull work for a clock to live
in a prison. Ten! Besides, there is the cemetery. This
clock sounds the hour to the living, and eternity to the dead.
Eleven! Alas! to strike the hour to him who is not free,
is also to chronicle an eternity! Twelve!
He paused.
“ Yes, it is midnight.”
The clock struck a thirteenth stroke.
Ursus shuddered.
“ Thirteen ! ”
Then followed a fourteenth; then a fifteenth.
' “ What can this mean? ”
The strokes continued at long intervals. Ursus listened.
“ It is not the striking of a clock; it is the bell Muta. No
wonder I said, How long it takes to strike midnight. This
clock does not strike; it tolls. What terrible thing is about
to take place? ”
Formerly all prisons, and all monasteries, had a bell called
Muta, reserved for melancholy occasions. La Muta (the
mute) was a bell which struck very low, as if trying its best
not'to be heard. '
Ursus had reached the corner which he had found so con-
venient for his watch, and whence he had been able, during
a great part of the day, to keep his eye on the prison.
The strokes followed each other at lugubrious intervals.
A knell makes an ugly punctuation in space. It breaks
the preoccupation of the mind into gloomy paragraphs. A
knell is like a man’s death-rattle. If in the houses in the
neighborhood where a knell is tolled there are hopeful reveries
floating about, the sound cuts them into rigid fragments. A
vague reverie is a sort of refuge. Some indefinable diffuse-
ness in anguish allows a ray of hope to penetrate it now and
then. A knell is precise and desolating. It concentrates this
diffusion of thought, and precipitates the vapours in which
anxiety seeks to remain in suspense. A knell speaks to each


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS '155
one in the sense of his own grief or of his own fear. Tragic
bell! it concerns you. It is a warning to you. There is
nothing so dreary as a soliloquy on which its cadence falls.
The even returns of sound seem to show a purpose. What
is it that this hammer, the bell, forges on the anvil of destiny?
Ursus counted, vaguely and aimlessly, the solemn strokes
of the bell. Feeling that his thoughts were escaping his con-
trol, he made an effort not to let them merge into conjecture.
Conjecture is an inclined plane, on which we slip too far.
Still, what was the meaning of the bell?
He looked through the darkness in the direction in which
he knew the gate of the prison to be.
Suddenly, in that very spot which looked like a dark hole,
a redness appeared. The redness grew larger, and became
a light.
There could be no doubt about it. It soon assumed a tangi-
ble form. The gate of the jail had just turned on its hinges
and the glow illumined the arch and the jambs of the door.
It was a yawning rather than an opening. A prison does
not open; it yawns,—— perhaps from ennui. Through the
gate emerged a man with a torch in his hand.
The bell tolled on. Ursus felt his attention riveted upon
two objects. With his eye, he watched the torch; with his
ear, he watched the knell. Behind the first man the gate,
which had been only ajar, suddenly opened wider, and al-
lowed egress to two other men ; then to a fourth. This fourth
was the wapentake, clearly visible in the light of the torch.
His iron staff was in his hand.
Following the wapentake, there filed out in order, from be-
neath the gateway, two by two, slowly and noiselessly a pro—
cession of silent men.
The torchlight revealed their faces and attitudes clearly,—
fierce looks, sullen attitudes.
Ursus recognized the faces of the police who had carried
off Gwynplaine that morning.
There was no doubt about it. They were the same men.
They were reappearing.


156 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Of course, Gwynplaine would also reappear. They had
taken him to that place. They would bring him back again.
It was all quite clear.
Ursus strained his eyes to the utmost. Would they set
Gwynplaine at liberty?
The long file of policemen flowed from the low arch slowly,
and, as it were, drop by drop. The tolling of the bell con-
tinued, and seemed to mark their steps. On leaving the
prison, the men turned their backs on Ursus, went to the
right, towards the corner of the street opposite that at which
he was posted.
A second torch shone under the gateway, denoting the end
of the procession.
Ursus was about to see what they were bringing with them.
The prisoner. The man.
Ursus was soon, he thought, to see Gwynplaine.
That which they carried appeared.
It was a bier.
Four men carried this bier, which was covered with black
cloth.
Behind them came a man, with a shovel on his shoulder.
A third lighted torch, held by a man reading a book, prob-
ably the chaplain, closed the procession.
The bier followed the line of policemen, who had turned to
the right. _
Just at that moment the head of the procession stopped.
Ursus heard the grating of a key.
Opposite the prison, in the low wall which ran along the
other side of the street, another opening was illuminated by
a torch passing beneath it.
This gate, over which a death’s head was placed, was the
gate of the cemetery.
The wapentake passed through it, then the men, then the
second torch.
The procession disappeared within it, like a reptile entering
his retreat.
The gate closed.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS _ 157
There was nothing left but a glimmer of light above the
wall.
A muttering was heard; then some dull sounds,—— made by
the chaplain and the grave-digger, doubtless; one casting on
the coffin some verses of Scripture, the other some clods of
earth.
The muttering ceased; the dull sounds ceased. A stir was
heard; the torches shone out again. The wapentake reap-
peared, holding his staff high in the air, under the re—opened
gate of the cemetery; then the chaplain with his book, and
the grave—digger with his spade emerged, followed by the
rest of the cortége, without the coffin.
The files of men crossed over in the same order, with the
same taciturnity, and in the opposite direction. The gate
of the cemetery closed; that of a the prison opened. The
obscurity of the passage became vaguely visible; then the
whole vision disappeared in the depths of shadow.
The knell ceased. All was locked in silence. A grim in—
carceration of shadows.
A vanished vision,— nothing more.
A passing of spectres, which had disappeared.
The logical arrangement of surmises constitutes something
which at least resembles evidence. To the arrest of Gwyn-
plaine, to the secret mode of his capture, to the return of his
garments by the police officer, to the death knell at the prison
to which he had been conducted, was now added a coffin carried
to the grave.
“ He is dead!” cried Ursus.
He sank down upon a stone.
“ Dead! They have killed him! Gwynplaine! My child!
My son!”
And he burst into passionate sobs.


158 .THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
CHAPTER V
STATE POLICY DEALS WITH LITTLE MATTERS AS WELL AS WITH
GREAT
RSUS, alas! had boasted that he had never wept. So
his reservoir of tears was full. Such plenitude as is
accumulated drop by drop, sorrow on sorrow, through a long
existence, is not to be poured out in a moment. Ursus wept
lon .
The first tear is a letting out of waters. He wept for
Gwynplaine, for Dea, for himself, Ursus, for Homo. He
wept like a child. He wept like an old man. He wept for
everything at which he had ever laughed. He paid off ar-
rears. Man is never nonsuited when he pleads his right to
tears.
The corpse they had just buried was Hardquanonne’s; but
Ursus could not know that. ’
The hours crept on.
Day began to break. The pale light of dawn overspread
the bowling—green and shone upon the front of the Tadcaster
Inn. Master Nicless had not gone to bed, for sometimes the
same occurrence produces sleeplessness in many.
Troubles radiate in every direction. Throw a stone in the
water, and count the ripples.
Master Nicless felt himself in danger. It is very disagree—
able that such things should happen in one’s house. Master
Nicless, uneasy, and foreseeing misfortunes, meditated. He
regretted having received such people into his house. Had
he but known that they would end by getting him into mis-
- chief! But the question was, how to get rid of them? He
had given Ursus a lease. What a blessing if he could free
himself from it. How should he set to work to drive them
out?
Suddenly the door of the inn resounded with one of those


{I‘HE MAN WHO LAUGHS 159
tumultuous knocks which in England announces “ Somebody.”
The gamut of knocking corresponds with the ladder of hier-
archy.
It was not quite the knock of a lord; but it was the knock
of a justice.
The trembling inn-keeper half opened the window. It was
indeed a magistrate. Master Nicless perceived at the door a
number of police officers, with two men, one of whom was the
justice of the quorum, at their head.
Master N icless had seen the justice of the quorum that
morning, and recognized him.
He did not know the other, who was a fat gentleman, with a
waxen-coloured face, a fashionable wig, and a travelling cloak.
Nicless was much afraid of the first of these persons, the
justice of the quorum. Had he been of the court, he would
have feared the other most, because it was Barkilphedro.
One of the subordinates knocked at the door again, violently
this time.
The inn-keeper, with great drops of perspiration on his
brow, opened it.
The justice of the quorum, in the tone of an important offi—
cial personage who is accustomed to deal with all sorts of
vagabonds, raised his voice, and asked severely for ~—
“ Master Ursus ! ”
The host, cap in hand, replied,—
“ He lives here, your honour.”
“ I know it,” said the justice.
“ No doubt, your honour.”
“ Tell him to come down.”
“ He is not here, your honour.”
“ Where is he?”
“ I do not know.”
“ How is that? ”
“ He has not come in.”
“ Then he must have gone out very early? ”
“ No; he went out very late.”
“ What vagabonds ! ” replied the justice.


.160 .THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
“ Here he comes, your honour,” said Master Nicless, softly.
Ursus, indeed, had just appeared in sight, around a turn
of the wall. He was returning to the inn. He had passed
nearly the whole night between the jail, where at midday he
had seen Gwynplaine, and the cemetery, where at midnight
he had heard the grave filled up.
Dawn, which is light in a chrysalis state, leaves even those
forms which are in movement in the uncertainty of night.
Ursus, wan and indistinct, walked slowly, like a man in a
dream.
In the wild distraction produced by his agony of mind, he
had left the inn with his head bare. He had not even found
out that he had no hat on. His sparse grey locks fluttered in
the wind. His open eyes appeared sightless. Often when we
seem awake we are asleep, and as often when we seem asleep
we are really awake.
Ursus looked like one demented.
“ Master Ursus,” cried the inn-keeper, “ come; their hon-
ours desire to speak to you.” I
Master Nicless, in his endeavour to soften matters, let slip
this plural, “ their honours,”— respectful to the group, but
mortifying, perhaps, to the chief, confounded thereby, to
some degree, with his subordinates.
Ursus started like a man falling off a bed while he was
sleeping soundly. .
“ What is the matter?” he asked.
He saw the police, with the justice at their head.
Another rude shock.
But a short time ago, the wapentake, now the justice of
the quorum. He seemed to have been cast from one to the
other, as ships are driven from reef to reef in old stories we
have read.
The justice of the quorum motioned him to enter the tav-
ern.
Ursus obeyed.
Govicum, who had just got up, and who was sweeping the
room, stopped his work, got into a corner behind the tables,


lTHE MAN WHO LAUGHS 161
Put down his broom, and held his breath. He plunged his
fingers into his hair and scratched his head, a symptom which
indicated profound attention to what was about to occur.
The justice of the quorum sat down on a bench, before a
table. Barkilphedro took a chair. Ursus and Master Nic-
less remained standing. The police officers, left outside,
grouped themselves in front of the closed door.
The justice of the quorum fixed his eye, full of the majesty
of the law, upon Ursus, and said,—
“ You have a wolf.”
Ursus answered,—
“ Not exactly.”
“You have a wolf,” continued the justice, emphasizing
“ wolf ” with a decided accent.
Ursus answered,—
“ You see —”
And he was silent.
“ A misdemeanour ! ” replied the justice.
Ursus hazarded an excuse :—
“ He is my servant.”
The justice placed his hand flat on the table, with his
fingers spread out, which is a very fine gesture of authority.
“Merry-andrew! to-morrow, by this hour, you and your
wolf must have left England. If not, the wolf will be seized,
carried to the register office, and killed.”
Ursus thought, “ More murder!” but he breathed not a
syllable, though he trembled in every limb.
“ Do you hear? ” said the justice.
Ursus nodded.
The justice persisted :—
“ Killed.”
There was silence.
“ Strangled, or drowned.”
The justice of the quorum watched Ursus.
“ And you, yourself, cast into prison.”
Ursus murmured,—
“ Your worship ! ”
11


162 lTHE MAN WHO LAUGHS
“ Be off before to-morrow morning; if not, these orders will
be carried out.”
“ Your worship!”
“ What? ”
“ Must we leave England, he and I? ”
“ Yes.,,
“ To-day? ”
“ To-day.”
“ What is to be done? ”
Master Nicless was happy. The magistrate, whom he had
so feared, had come to his aid. The police had acted as aux—
iliary to him, Nicless. They had delivered him from these
people. The means he sought had been provided. Ursus,
whom he wanted to get rid of, was being driven away by the
police,— a superior authority. There was nothing to object
to; on the contrary, he was delighted. He interrupted :—
“ Your honour, that man —”
He pointed to Ursus with his finger.
“ That man wants to know how he is to leave England to-
day. Nothing could he easier. Night and day there are at
anchor on the Thames, both on this and on the other side of
London Bridge, vessels that sail to the continent. They go
to Denmark, to Holland, to Spain; not to France, on account
of the war, but everywhere else. Several ships will sail to-
night, about one o’clock, which is the hour of high tide, and,
among others, the ‘ Vograat ’ for Rotterdam.”
The justice of the quorum made a movement of his shoul-
der towards Ursus.
“ Be it so. Leave by the first ship,—— by the ‘ Vograat.’ ”
“ Your worship,” said Ursus.
“ Well? ”
“ Your worship, if I had, as formerly, only my little box
on wheels, it might be done. A boat could carry that, but —”
“ But what? ”
“ But now I have got the Green Box, which is a big van
drawn by two horses, and however wide the ship might be, we
could not get it aboard her.”


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
163
“ What is that to me? ” said the justice.
be killed, then.”
Ursus shuddered, as if an icy hand had clutched his heart.
“ Monsters!” he thought. “ Murdering people is their
way of settling matters.”
The inn—keeper smiled, and addressed Ursus :—
“ Master Ursus, you can sell the Green Box.”
Ursus looked at Nicless.
“ Master Ursus, you have an offer already, you recollect? ”
“ From whom? ”
“ An offer for the van, an offer for the two horses, an offer
for the two gipsy-women, an offer -—”
“ From whom? ” repeated Ursus.
“ From the proprietor of the neighbouring circus.”
Ursus remembered it.
“ It is true.”
Master Nicless turned to the justice of the quorum.
“ Your honour, the bargain can be completed to-day. The
proprietor of the circus close by wishes to buy the show and
the horses.”
“ The proprietor of the circus is right,” said the justice;
“ because he will soon require them. A van and horses will
be useful to him. He, too, will depart to—day. The rev—
erend gentlemen of the parish of Southwark have complained
of the indecent riot in Tarrinzeau Field. The sheriff has
taken measures accordingly. To-night there will not be a
single juggler’s booth in the place. There must be an end
to all these scandals. The honourable gentleman who deigns
to be here present -—-”
The justice of the quorum interrupted his speech to salute
Barkilphedro, who returned the bow.
“ The honourable gentleman who deigns to be present has
just arrived from Windsor. He brings orders. Her Maj-
esty has said, ‘ It must be swept away.’ ”
Ursus, during his long meditation all night, had not failed
to ask himself some questions. After all, he had only seen a
“ The wolf will
bier. Could he be sure that it contained Gwynplaine? Other
-__n-_ ___.»


164 l'I‘HE MAN WHO LAUGHS
people besides Gwynplaine might have died. A coffin does not
announce the name of the corpse, as it passes by. A funeral
had followed the arrest of Gwynplaine. That proved noth-
ing. Post hoc, 'non propter hoe, etc. Ursus had begun to
doubt.
Hope burns and glimmers over misery like naphtha over
water. Its hovering flame ever floats over human sorrow.
Ursus had come to this conclusion, “ It is probable that it
was Gwynplaine whom they buried, but it is not certain. Who
knows? -—perhaps Gwynplaine is still alive.”
Ursus bowed to the justice.
“ Honourable judge, I will leave,—— we will all leave by the
‘ Vograat,’ for Rotterdam, to-day. I will sell the Green Box,
the horses, the trumpets, the gipsies. But I have a comrade
whom I cannot leave behind,—-— Gwynplaine.”
“ Gwynplaine is dead,” said a voice.
Ursus felt a chilly sensation like that produced by a reptile
crawling over the skin. It was Barkilphedro who had just
spoken.
The last gleam of hope was extinguished. There could be
no doubt now. Gwynplaine was dead. A person in authority
must know, and this one looked ill-favoured enough to be so.
Ursus bowed to him.
Master Nicless was a good—hearted man enough, but a
dreadful coward. Once terrified, he became a brute. The
greatest cruelty is that inspired by fear.
He growled out,—
“ This simplifies matters.”
And standing behind Ursus, he began to rub his hands, a
peculiarity of the selfish, signifying, “ I am well out of it,”
and suggestive of Pontius Pilate washing his hands.
Ursus, overwhelmed, bowed his head upon his breast.
The sentence on Gwynplaine had been executed: Death.
His sentence was pronounced: Exile. Nothing remained
but to obey. He felt like one in a dream.
Some one touched his arm. It was the other person who
was with the justice of the quorum. Ursus shuddered.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 165
The voice which had said, “ Gwynplaine is dead,” whispered
in his ear:—
“ Here are ten guineas, sent you by one who wishes you
well.”
And Barkilphedro placed a little purse on a table before
Ursus. We must not forget the casket that Barkilphedro had
taken with him.
Ten guineas out of two thousand! It was all that Bar-
kilphedro could make up his mind to part with. It was
enough in all conscience. He had taken the trouble to find a
lord; and having sunk the shaft, it was but fair that the first
proceeds of the mine should belong to him. Those who see
meanness in the act are right, but they are wrong to feel aston-
ished. Barkilphedro loved money, especially stolen money.
An envious man is always an avaricious one. Barkilphedro
was not without his faults. The commission of crimes does
not preclude the possession of vices. Tigers have lice as well
as bats.
Besides, he belonged to the school of Bacon.
Barkilphedro turned towards the justice of the quorum,
and said to him :—
“ Sir, be so good as to conclude this matter. I am in haste.
A carriage and horses belonging to her Majesty await me.
I must go at full gallop to Windsor, for I must be there within
two hours’ time. I have information to give and orders to
take.”
The justice of the quorum arose.
He went to the door, which was only latched, opened it,
and beckoned authoritatively to the police. They entered
with that silence which heralds severity of action.
Master Nicless — satisfied with the rapid dénouement which
cut short his difliculties —— charmed to be out of the entangled
skein, was afraid, when he saw the muster of officers, that they
were going to arrest Ursus in his house. Two arrests — first
that of Gwynplaine, then that of Ursus — would be injurious
to the inn. Customers dislike police raids.
This, then, was the time for a respectful but generous ap-


166 .THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
peal. Master Nicless turned towards the justice of the
quorum a smiling face, in which confidence was tempered by
respect.
“ Your honour, I venture to observe to your honour that
these honourable gentlemen, the police officers, might be dis-
pensed with now that the wolf is about to be carried away
from England, and that this man, Ursus, makes no resistance;
and since your honour’s orders are being promptly carried
out, your honour will consider that the respectable presence of
the police, so necessary to the good of the kingdom, does great
harm to an establishment, and that my house is innocent.
The merry-andrews of the Green Box having been swept away,
as her Ma esty says, there is no longer any criminal here, for I
do not suppose that the blind girl and the two women are con-
sidered criminals; therefore, I implore your honour to deign
to shorten your august visit, and to dismiss these worthy offi-
cers who have just entered, because there is nothing for them
to do in my house; and, if your honour will permit me to
prove the truth of my speech by means of an humble question,
I will prove the uselessness of these respected gentlemen’s pres-
ence by asking your honour, if the man Ursus obeys orders,
and departs, who else can there be to arrest here? ”
“ Yourself,” said the justice.
A man does not argue with a sword that runs him through
and through. Master Nicless subsided,——- he cared not on
what, on a table, on a bench, on anything that happened to be
there,-— and lay there prostrate.
The justice raised his voice, so that if there were people
outside, they might hear.
“ Master Nicless Plumptree, keeper of this tavern, this is
the last point to be settled. This mountebank and the wolf
are vagabonds. They are driven away. But the person
most in fault is yourself. It is in your house, and with your
consent, that the law has been violated; and you, a man li-
censed, invested with a public responsibility, have established
this scandal here. Master Nicless, your license is taken away;
you must pay the penalty, and go to prison,”


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 167
The policemen surrounded the inn—keeper.
Pointing out Govicum, the justice continued,—
“ Arrest that boy as an accomplice.”
The hand of an officer fell upon the collar of Govicum, who
looked at him inquisitively. The boy was not much alarmed,
scarcely understanding the occurrence. Having observed so
many strange things already, he wondered if this were the end
of the comedy.
The justice of the quorum forced his hat down on his head,
crossed his hands on his stomach, which is the height of
ma esty, and added,—
“ It is decided, Master Nicless; you are to be taken to
prison, and shut up, you and the boy; and this house, the
Tadcaster Inn, is to remain condemned and closed for the
sake of the example. Consequently, you will follow us.”


BOOK VII
.THE TITANESS

CHAPTER I
THE AWAKENING
ND Dea!
It seemed to Gwynplaine, as he watched the break of
day at Corleone Lodge, while the things we have related were
occurring at the Tadcaster Inn, that the call came from with-
out --— but it came from within.
Who has not heard the deep clamours of the soul?
Moreover, the morning was dawning.
Aurora is a voice.
Of what use is the sun, if not to re-awaken that sleeper,—
the conscience?
Light and virtue are akin.
Whether the god be called Christ or Love, there is at times
an hour when he is forgotten, even by the best. All of us,
even the saints, require a voice to remind us, and the dawn
speaks to us, like a sublime monitor. Conscience calls out be-
fore duty, as the cock crows before the dawn of day.
That chaos, the human heart, hears the Fiat Luw!
Gwynplaine—for so we will continue to call him; Clan-
charlie is a lord, Gwynplaine is a man — Gwynplaine felt as if
he had been brought back to life. It was time that the artery
was bound up.
For awhile his virtue had spead its wings and flown away.
168


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 169
“ And Dea! ” he said.
Then he felt a generous transfusion through his veins.
Something healthy and tumultuous rushed in upon him. The
violent irrup'tion of good thoughts is like the return home
of a man who has not his key, and who forces his own lock
honestly. It is a burglary; but a burglary of evil.
“ Dea! Dea! Dea! ” repeated he.
He strove to assure himself of his heart’s strength. And
he put the question with a loud voice, “ Where are you?”
He almost wondered that no one answered him.
Again, gazing at the walls and the ceiling, with wander-
ing thoughts, through which an occasional gleam of reason
penetrated, he almost shouted, “ Dea, where are you? Where
am I? ”
And in the chamber which was his cage, he began to walk
excitedly to and fro, like a wild beast in captivity.
“Where am I? At Windsor; and you in Southwark.
Alas! this is the first time that there has been distance between
us. Who has dug this gulf. I here, thou there. Oh! it can-
not be; it shall not be! What is this that they have done
to me? ”
He stopped.
“ Who talked to me of the queen? What do I know about
such things? I changed! Why? Because I am a lord.
Do you know what has happened, Dea? You are a lady.
What has come to pass is astounding. My business now is
to get back into the right road. Who was it that led me
astray? There was a man who spoke to me very mysteri-
ously. I remember the words which he addressed to me:
‘ My lord, when one door opens, the other shuts. That which
you have left behind is no longer yours.’ In other words,
you are a coward. That man, the miserable wretch! said
that to me before I was fairly awake. He took advantage of
my first moment of astonishment. I was as it were an easy
prey. Where is he that I may insult him? He spoke to me
with the evil smile of a demon. But see, I am myself again.
That is well. They deceive themselves if they think that


170 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
they can do what they like with Lord Clancharlie, a peer of
England. Yes, and with a peeress, for if I am a peer, Dea
is a peeress. Conditions! Shall I accept them! The queen!
What is the queen to me? I never saw her. I did not be—
come a lord to be made a slave. I enter upon my position
unfettered. Do they think they have unchained me for noth-
ing? They have unmuzzled me. That is all. Dea! Ursus!
we are one. What you were, I was. What I am, you are.
Come to me. No. I will go to you at once—at once! I
have already waited too long. What can they think, not
seeing me return! That money! When I think I sent them
that money! It was me that they wanted. I remember the
man said that I could not leave this place. We will see about
that. Here! a carriage, a carriage! Harness the horses. I
am going to look for them. Where are the servants? I
ought to have plenty of servants here as I am a lord. I am
master here. This is my house. I will twist of the bolts, I
will break the locks, I will kick down the doors, I will run my
sword through the body of any one who bars my passage. I
should like to see who will dare to stop me. I have a wife,
and she is Dea. I have a father, who is Ursus. My house
is a palace, and I give it to Ursus. My name is a diadem,
and I give it to Dea. Yes, Dea, I am coming; yes, you may
be sure that I shall soon stride across the intervening space!”
And raising the first piece of tapestry he came to, be rushed
impetuously from the chamber.
He found himself in a corridor.
He went straight forward.
A second corridor opened before him.
All the doors were open.
He walked on at random, from chamber to chamber, from
passage to passage, seeking an exit.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 171
CHAPTER II
THE RESEMBLANCE OF A PALACE TO A woon
IN palaces built after the Italian fashion, and Corleone
Lodge was one, there were very few doors, but abun-
dance of tapestry screens and curtained doorways.
In every palace of that date there was a wonderful labyrinth
of chambers and corridors, where luxury ran riot; gilding,
marble, carved wainscotting, Eastern silks; nooks and cor-
ners, some secret and dark as night, others light and pleasant
as the day. There were cosey nooks, richly and gaily fur-
nished; burnished recesses, shining with Dutch tiles and
Portuguese azulejos. The thickness of the walls was such
that there were rooms within them. Here and there were
closets, nominally wardrobes. They were called “ The Little
Rooms.” It was within them that many an evil deed was
hatched.
When a Duke of Guise had to be killed, the pretty Prési-
dente of Sylvecane abducted, or the cries of little girls brought
thither by Lebel smothered, such places were very convenient
for the purpose. They were labyrinthine chambers, imprac—
ticable to a stranger; scenes of abductions; wonderful aids
to mysterious disappearances. In these elegant hiding—places,
princes and lords stored their plunder. It was in such a
place as this that the Count de Charolais hid Madame Cour—
champ, the wife of the Clerk of the Privy Council; Monsieur
de Monthulé, the daughter of Haudry, the farmer of la Croix
Saint Lenfroy; the Prince de Conti, the two beautiful baker
women of l’Ile Adam; the Duke of Buckingham, poor Penny—
well, etc. The deeds done there were such as were designated
by the Roman law as committed vi, clam, et precario,—- by
force, in secret, and for a short time. Once incarcerated, an
occupant remained there till the master of the house decreed
his or her release. They were gilded oubliettes, savouring


172 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
both of the cloister and the harem. Their staircases twisted,
turned, ascended, and descended. A zig-zag of rooms, one
running into another, led back to the starting~point. A gal-
lery terminated in an oratory. A confessional was grafted
on to an alcove. Perhaps the architects of “ the little rooms,”
built for royalty and aristocracy, took as models the ramifica-
tions of coral beds, and the openings in a sponge. The
branches became a labyrinth. Pictures turning on false
panels were exits and entrances. They were full of stage
contrivances, and no wonder, considering the dramas that
were played there. These hives reached from the cellar to the
attic. Quaint madrepore inlaying every palace, from Ver-
sailles downwards, like cells of pygmies in dwelling-places of
Titans. Passages, niches, alcoves, and secret recesses,— all
sorts of nooks and corners, in which were secreted the mean—
nesses of the great.
These narrow winding passages recalled games, blind-folded
eyes, hands feeling in the dark, suppressed laughter, blind-
man’s-buff, hide-and—seek, while, at the same time, they sug—
gested memories of the Atrides, of the Plantagenets, of the
Medicis, of the brutal knights of Eltz, of Rizzio, of Mona]—
deschi, of naked swords, pursuing the fugitive flying from
room to room.
The ancients, too, had mysterious retreats of the same kind,
in which luxury was combined with enormities. The pattern
has been preserved underground in some sepulchres in Egypt,
notably in the tomb of King Psammetichus, discovered by
Passalacqua. The ancient poets have recorded the horrors of
these suspicious buildings. Error circumflexus. Locus im—
plicitus‘ gyris.
Gwynplaine was in “ the little rooms ” of Corleone Lodge.
He was burning to be off, to get outside, to see Dea
again.
The maze of passages and alcoves, with secret and bewilder-
ing doors, checked and retarded his progress. He tried to
run,»—— he was obliged to grope. He thought that he had but
one door to thrust open, while he had a skein of doors to un-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 173
ravel. Room succeeded room. Then came a cross-passage,
with rooms on each side.
Not a living creature was to be seen. He listened. Not a
sound.
At times he thought that he must be returning towards his
starting-point; then, that he saw some one approaching. It
was no one. It was only the reflection of himself in a mirror,
dressed as a nobleman. That he? — Impossible! He recog-
nized himself, but not at once.
He explored every passage that he came to.
He examined the quaint arrangements of the rambling
building, and their yet quainter adornings. Here, a cabinet,
painted and carved in a sentimental, but immodest style; there
an equivocal-looking chapel, studded with enamels and mother-
of—pearl, with miniatures on ivory wrought out in relief, like
those on old-fashioned snuff-boxes; here, one of those pretty
Florentine retreats, adapted to the hypochondriasis of women,
and even then called boudoirs. Everywhere ——~ on the ceilings,
on the walls, and on the very floors — were representations, in
velvet or metal, of birds, of trees; of luxuriant vegetation,
picked out in reliefs of lace-work; tables covered with ebony
carvings, representing warriors, queens, and tritons armed
with the scales of a hydra. Cut crystals combined prismatic
effects with those of reflection. Mirrors reflected the light of
precious stones, and gold glittered in the darkest corners. It
was impossible to say whether these many-sided, shining sur-
faces, where emerald green mingled with the golden hues of
i the rising sun, where a glimmer of ever-varying colours like
those on a pigeon’s neck floated, were miniature mirrors, or
enormous beryls. A magnificence which was at once refined
and stupendous reigned everywhere. If this was not a palace,
it was the most gigantic of jewel-cases. A house for Mab, or
a jewel for Geo.
Gwynplaine sought an exit but could find none. There is
nothing so confusing as splendour seen for the first time.
Moreover, this was a labyrinth. At each step he was stopped
by some magnificent object which appeared to retard his exit,


1741 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
and to be unwilling to let him pass. He was encompassed
by a network of wonders. He felt himself bound and held
back.
“ What a horrible palace! ” he thought.
He wandered on through the maze, asking himself what it
all meant—whether he was really in prison longing and
thirsting for the fresh air. “ Dea! Dea ! ” he repeated again
and again as if that name was the thread of the labyrinth,
and must be held unbroken, to guide him out of it.
Now and then he shouted :—
“ Here, here, I say!”
No one answered. _
There seemed to be no end to the rooms. All was deserted,
silent, splendid, sinister. It realized the fables of enchanted
castles. Hidden pipes of hot air maintained a summer tem-
perature in the building. It was as if some magician had
caught up the month of June and imprisoned it in a labyrinth.
There were pleasant odours now and then, and he crossed cur-
rents of perfume, as thought passing invisible flowers. It
was warm. Carpets everywhere. One might have walked
about there, unclothed.
Gwynplaine looked out of the windows. The view from
each one was different. From one he beheld gardens, spark-
ling with the freshness of a spring morning; from another, a.
plot decked with statues; from a third, a patio in the Spanish
style, a little square, flagged, mouldy, and cold. At times
he saw a river — it was the Thames; sometimes a great tower
--- it was Windsor.
It was still so early that there were no signs of life without.
He stood still and listened.
“ I will get out of this place,” said he. “ I will return to
Dea! They shall not keep me here by force. Woe to him
who bars my exit. What is that great tower yonder? If
there was a giant, a hell-hound, a minotaur, to guard the
gates of this enchanted palace, I would annihilate him. If
an army, I would exterminate‘it. Dea! Dea! ”
Suddenly he heard a gentle noise, very faint. It was like


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 175
dropping water. He was in a dark, narrow passage, closed,
a few paces farther on, by a curtain. He advanced to the
curtain, pushed it aside, and entered.

CHAPTER III ,
EVE
N octagonal room, with a vaulted ceiling, without win-
dows, but lighted by a skylight; walls, ceiling, and
floors of peach—coloured marble; a black marble canopy, like
a pall, with twisted columns in the solid but pleasing Eliz—
abethan style, overshadowing a vase-like bath of the same
black marble,—- this was what he saw before him. In the
centre of the bath arose a slender jet of tepid and perfumed
water, which, softly and slowly, was filling the tank. The
bath was black to augment fairness into brilliancy.
This was the water he hadeheard. A waste-pipe, placed
at a certain height in the bath, prevented it from overflow-
ing. Vapour was rising from the water; but not sufficiently
to cause it to hang in drops on the marble. The slender jet
of water was like a supple wand of steel, bending with the
slightest current of air. There was no furniture, except a
chair-bed with pillows, long enough for a woman to recline
upon at full length, and yet have room for a dog at her feet.
The French, indeed, borrow their word canapé from can—al-pie.
This sofa was of Spanish manufacture. In it, silver took
the place of woodwork. The cushions and coverings were of
rich white silk.
On the other side of the bath, by the wall, was a lofty
dressing—table of solid silver, furnished with every requisite
for the toilet, having in the centre, in imitation of a window,
eight small Venetian mirrors, set in a silver frame. In a
panel on the wall was a square opening, like a small window,
which was closed by a door of solid silver. This door was


176 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
fitted with hinges, like a shutter. On the door glittered a
richly chased crown of gold. Over it, and affixed to the wall,
was a bell, silver-gilt, if not of pure gold.
Opposite the entrance of the chamber, in which Gwynplaine
stood as if transfixed, there was an opening in the marble wall,
extending to the ceiling, and closed by a long, broad curtain
of silver tissue. .
This curtain, of fairy-like tenuity, was transparent, and did
not obstruct the view. Through the centre of this web,
where one might expect a spider, Gwynplaine saw a much more
formidable object,— a naked woman.
Yet not quite naked; for she was covered—covered from
head to foot. Her dress was a long chemise; so long that it
floated over her feet, like the dresses of angels in holy pictures ;
but so fine that it seemed liquid. More treacherous and more
perilous was this covering than naked beauty could have been.
History has registered the procession of princesses and of
great ladies between files of monks. Under pretext of naked
feet and of humility, the Duchess de Montpensier showed her-
self to all Paris in a lace shift, with a wax taper in her hand.
The siIVer tissue, transparent as glass and fastened only at
the ceiling, could be lifted aside. It separated the marble
chamber, which was a bath-room, from the adjoining apart-
ment, which was a bed—chamber. This tiny dormitory was as
a grotto of mirrors. Venetian glasses, close together, mounted
with gold, reflected on every side, the bed in the centre of the
room. On the bed, which, like the toilet-table, was of silver,
lay the woman; she was asleep.
She was sleeping with her head thrown back, one foot peep-
ing from its covering, like the Succuba, above whose heads
dreams flap their wings.
Her lace pillow had fallen on the floor. Between her
nakedness and the eye of the spectator were two obstacles,—
her chemise and the curtain of silver gauze; two transparen-
cies. The room, rather an alcove than a chamber, was only
partially lighted by the reflection from the bath-ronm. Per-
hap the light was more modest than the woman.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 1'77-
The bed had neither columns, nor dais, nor top; so the
woman, when she opened her eyes, could see herself reflected a
thousand times in the mirrors above her head.
The crumpled bed-clothes bore evidence of troubled sleep.
The beauty of the folds was proof of the quality of the ma-
terial.
It was a period when a queen, thinking that she would be
damned, pictured hell to herself as a bed with coarse sheets.
This fashion of sleeping partly undressed came from Italy,
and was derived from the Romans. “ Sub clam nuda Za-
cerna,” says Horace.
A dressing-gown of curious silk was thrown over the foot
of the couch. It was apparently Chinese; for a great golden
lizard was partly visible between the folds.
Beyond the couch, and probably concealing a door, was a
large mirror, on which were painted peacocks and swans.
Shadow seemed to lose its nature in this apartment, and
to glisten. The spaces between the mirrors and the gold
work were lined with that sparkling material called in Venice
thread of glass,——- that is, spun glass.
At the head of the couch stood a reading—desk, on a mov-
able pivot, with candles, and a book lying open, hearing this
title, in large red letters: “ Alco'ranus M ahumedis.”
But Gwynplaine saw none of these details. He had eyes
3 only for the woman.
' He was at once stupefied and filled with tumultuous emo-
tions,—— states apparently incompatible, yet sometimes co-
existent.
He recognized her.
Her eyes were closed, but her face was turned towards him.
It was the duchess.
She, the mysterious being in whom all the splendours of
the unknown were united; she who had occasioned him so
many unavowable dreams; she who had written him so strange
a letter! The only woman in the world of whom he could
say, “ She has seen me, and she desires me! ”
He had dismissed the dreams from his mind; he had bumed
12


178 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
the letter. He had, as far as lay in his power, banished the
remembrance of her from his thoughts and dreams. He had
ceased to think of her. He had forgotten her. He saw her
again!
He saw her again, and found her terrible in her power.
His breath came in short catches. He felt as if he were
in a storm—driven cloud. He looked. This woman before
him! Could it be? At the theatre, a duchess; here, a nereid,
a nymph, a fairy. Always an apparition.
He tried to fly, but realized the futility of the attempt.
His eyes were riveted on the vision, as though he were spell—
bound.
Was she a woman? Was she a maiden? Both. Mes—
salina was, perhaps, present, though invisible, and smiled,
while Diana kept watch.
Over all her beauty was the radiance of inaccessibility. No
purity could compare with her chaste and haughty form.
Certain snows, which have never been touched, give an idea
of it,— such as the sacred whiteness of the Jungfrau. That
which was represented by that unconscious brow; by that
rich, dishevelled hair; by the drooping lids; by those blue
veins, dimly visible; by the sculptured roundness of her
bosom, her hips, and her knees, indicated by delicate undula-
tions seen through the folds of her drapery, was the divinity
of a queenly sleep. Immodesty was merged into splendour.
She was as calm in her nakedness as if she had the right to a
god—like efl'rontery. She felt the security of an Olympian,
who knew that she was daughter of the gods, and might say
to the ocean, “Father!” And she exposed herself, unat-
tainable and proud, to everything that might pass,— to looks,
to desires, to ravings, to dreams; as proud in her languor,
on her boudoir couch, as Venus in the immensity of the sea-
foam.
She had slept all night, and was prolonging her sleep into
the daylight; her boldness, begun in shadow, continued in
light.
Gwynplaine shuddered.
..._ _--a‘-—


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 179
He admired her with an unhealthy and absorbing admira—
tion, which ended in terror.
Misfortunes never come singly. Gwynplaine thought he
had drained the cup of ill-luck to the dregs. Now it was re-
filled. Who could it be that was hurling all these thunder—
bolts on his devoted head, and who had now placed before him,
as he stood trembling there, a sleeping goddess? What! was
the dangerous and desirable object of his dream lurking all
the while behind these successive glimpses of heaven? Did
these whispers of the mysterious tempter tend to inspire him
with vague aspirations and confused ideas, and overwhelm
him with an intoxicating series of realities proceeding from
apparent impossibilities? Wherefore did all the shadows con-
spire against him, wretched man that he was! and what would
become of him, with all those evil smiles of fortune beaming
on him? Had this temptation been pre-arranged? This
woman, how and why was she there? No explanation! Had
he been made a Peer of England expressly for this duchess?
Who had brought them together? Who was the dupe?
Who the victim? Whose simplicity was being abused? Was
it God who was being deceived? All these undefined thoughts
passed confusedly, like a flight of dark shadows, through his
brain. That magical and malevolent abode, that strange and
prison-like palace, was that also in the plot? Gwynplaine
suffered a partial unconsciousness. Suppressed emotions
threatened to strangle him. He was weighed down by an
overwhelming force. His will became powerless. How could
he resist?
This time he felt he was becoming irremediably insane.
His headlong fall over the precipice of stupefaction con-
tinued.
But the woman slept on.
What aggravated the storm within him was, that he saw
not the princess, but the duchess, not the lady,— but the
woman. '
Deviations from right exist in man, in a latent state. There
is an invisible tracery of vice, ready prepared, in our organi-


180 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
zations. Even when we are innocent, and apparently pure,
it exists within us. To be stainless, is not to be faultless.
Love is a law. Desire is a snare. There is a great difference
between getting drunk. once, and habitual drunkenness. To
desire a woman, is the former; to desire women, the latter.
Gwynplaine, losing all self-command, trembled.
What could he do against such a temptation? Here were
no, skilful effects of dress, no silken folds, no complex and
coquettish adornments, no affected exaggeration of conceal-
ment or of exhibition, no cloud. It was nakedness in fearful
simplicity,— a sort of mysterious summons, the shameless au-
dacity of Eden. The whole of the dark side of human na-
ture was there. Eve, worse than Satan; the human and the
superhuman commingled. A perplexing ecstasy, winding up
in a brutal triumph of instinct over duty. The sovereign
contour of beauty is imperious. When it leaves the ideal and
condescends to be real, its proximity is fatal to man.
Now and then the duchess moved softly on the bed, with
the vague movement of a cloud in the heavens, changing as a
vapour changes its form, composing and discomposing the
charming curves of her body. Woman is as supple as water ;
and, like water, this one impressed an observer with the idea
that it would be impossible to grasp her.
Absurd as it may appear, though he saw her there in the
flesh before him, yet she seemed a chimera; and, palpable as
she was, she seemed to him afar off. He listened to her
breathing, and fancied he heard only a phantom’s respiration.
He was attracted, though against his will. How was he to
arm himself against her — or against himself 2
He had been prepared for everything except this danger.
A savage door-keeper, a raging monster of a jailer—such
were his expected antagonists. He had looked for Cerberus,
he found Hebe.
A sleeping woman! What an opponent!
He closed his eyes. Too bright a light blinds the eyes.
But through his closed eyelids there penetrated at once the
woman’s form,— not so distinct, but beautiful as ever.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 181
Fly! Easier said than done. He had already tried and
failed. He was rooted to the ground, as if in a dream.
When we try to draw back, temptation clogs our feet, and
glues them to the earth. We can still advance; but to retire
is impossible. The invisible arms of sin rise from below and
drag us down.
There is a common-place idea, accepted by nearly every
one, that feelings become blunted by experience. Nothing
can be more untrue. You might as well say that by drop-
ping nitric acid slowly on a sore it would heal and become
sound, and that torture dulled the sufferings of Damiens.
The truth is, that each fresh application intensifies the pain.
By reason of successive surprises, Gwynplaine had become
desperate. That cup, his reason, overflowed under this new
stupor. He felt within him a terrible awakening. Compass
he no longer possessed. One idea only was before him,—
the woman. An indescribable happiness appeared, which
threatened to overwhelm him. He was no longer able to de-
cide for himself. There was an irresistible current and a
reef. The reef was not a rock, but a siren; a magnet at the
bottom of the abyss. He wished to tear himself away from
this magnet,—— but how was he to carry out his wish? He
had ceased to feel any basis of support. Who can foresee
the fluctuations of the human mind? A man may be wrecked,
as well as a ship. Conscience is an anchor. It is a terrible
thing, but, like the anchor, conscience may be carried away.
He had not even the chance of being repulsed on account of .
his terrible disfigurement. The woman had written to say
that she loved him.
In every crisis there is a moment when the scale hesitates
before kicking the beam. When we lean to the worst side
of our nature, instead of strengthening our better qualities,
the moral force which has been preserving the balance gives
way, and down we go. Had this critical moment in Gwyn-
plaine’s life arrived?
How could he escape?
So it is she! the duchess! the woman! There she was


182 MAN WHO LAUGHS
in that lonely room,— asleep, far from succour, helpless,
alone, at his mercy,— yet he was in her power!
The duchess!
We have, perchance, observed a star in the distant firma-
ment. We have admired it. It is so far off. What can
there be to make us shudder in a fixed star? Well, one day
—one night, rather—it moves. We perceive a trembling
gleam around it. The star which we imagined to be im—
movable, is in motion. It is no longer a star, but a comet,—
the incendiary giant of the skies. The luminary moves on,
grows bigger, shakes off a shower of sparks and fire, and
becomes enormous. It advances towards us. Oh, horror! it
is coming our way ! The comet recognizes us, marks us for its
own, and will not be turned aside. Irresistible attack of the
heavens! What is it that is hearing down upon us? An ex-
cess of light, which blinds us; an excess of life, which kills
us. That proposal which the heavens make we refuse; that
unfathomable love we reject. We close our eyes; we hide;
we tear ourselves away; we imagine the danger is past. We
open our eyes: the formidable star is still before us; but, no
longer a star, it has become a world,-—a world unknown,
a world of lava and ashes; the devastating prodigy of space.
It fills the sky, allowing no compeers. The carbuncle of the
firmament’s depths, the diamond in the distance, when it nears
us becomes a seething furnace. You are caught in its flames.
Yet the first sensation of burning is that of a heavenly
warmth.
CHAPTER IV
SATAN
UDDENLY the sleeper awoke. She raised herself with
a sudden and gracious dignity of movement, her fair
silken tresses falling in soft disorder on her hips; her loos-
ened night-dress disclosing her shoulder. She touched her
"ZAP-"FY 1* r..._" ' a"?


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 188
pink toes with her little hand, and gazed for some mo-
ments on the naked foot, worthy to be worshipped by Pericles,
and copied by Phidias; then stretching herself, she yawned
like a tigress in the rising sun.
Perhaps Gwynplaine breathed heavily, as we often do
when we endeavour to restrain our respiration.
“ Is any one there? ” said she.
She yawned as she spoke, and her very yawn was graceful.
Gwynplaine listened to the unfamiliar voice,— the voice of
a charmer, its accents exquisitely haughty, its caressing in-
tonation softening its native arrogance.
Then rising on her knees,— there is an antique statue
kneeling thus in the midst of a thousand transparent folds,—
she drew her dressing-gown towards her, and springing from
the couch, stood upright by it,— nude; then, suddenly, with
the swiftness of an arrow’s flight, she was clothed. In a
twinkling of an eye the silken robe was around her. The
trailing sleeves concealed her hands; only the tips of her toes,
with little pink nails like those of an infant, were left
visible.
Having drawn from underneath the dressing-gown a mass
of hair which had been imprisoned by it, she crossed behind
the couch to the end of the room, and placed her ear to the
painted mirror, which was, apparently, a door.
Tapping on the glass with her finger, she called,—
“ Is any one there? Lord David? Are you come al-
ready? What time is it, then? Is that you, Barkilphedro? ”
She turned from the glass.
“ No! it was not there. Is there any one in the bathroom?
Will you answer? Of course not. No one could come that
way.”
Going to the silver lace curtain, she raised it with her foot,
thrust it aside with her shoulder, and entered the marble
room.
An agonized numbness fell upon Gwynplaine. There was
no possibility of concealment now. It was too late to fly.
Moreover, he was no longer equal to the exertion. He wished
w.“ “MA 7:1_W_,W\_ u. ----\ “MW-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 185
arrived, she was closeted with her idiot of a chancellor. But
how did you contrive to obtain access to me? That’s what
I call being a man! Obstacles, indeed! There are no such
things! My name, the Duchess Josiana, you knew, I fancy.
Who was it brought you in? No doubt it was the page. Oh,
he is clever! I will give him a hundred guineas. Which way
did you get in? Tell me! No! don’t tell me. I don’t want
to-know. Explanations diminish interest. I prefer the mar-
vellous, and you are hideous enough to be marvellous. You
may vhave fallen from high heaven, or you may have risen
from the depths of hell through the devil’s trap-door. Noth-
ing could be more natural. The ceiling opened or the floor
yawned. A descent in a cloud, or an ascent in a mass of
fire and brimstone, that is the way you travelled. You have
a to enter like the gods, for are you not my lover? ”
Giwynplaine listened bewildered, his will becoming more ir-
resolute every moment. Any further doubt was impossible.
That letter! this woman confirmed its statements. Gwyn~
plaine the lover and the beloved of a duchess! Mighty pride,
with its thousand baleful heads, stirred his wretched heart.
Vanity, that powerful factor within us, works us measure-
less evil.
The duchess went on :—
“ As you are here, it must have been decreed. I ask noth-
ing more. There must be some one in heaven, or in hell,
who brings us together. The betrothal of Styx and Aurora!
The very first day I saw you, I said, ‘ It is he! I recognize
him. He is the monster of my dreams. He shall be mine."
We have to give destiny a helping hand. Therefore 'I Wrote
to you. One question, Gwynplaine,~— do you believe in pre-'
destination? For my part, I have believed in it ever since I-
nead Scipio’s dream, in Cicero. Ah! I did not observe it“
before. Dressed like a gentleman! You in fine clothes!
Why not? You are a mountebank. All the more reason. A
juggler is as good as a lord. Moreover, what are lords?
Clowns. You have a noble figure, you are magnificently made.
It is wonderful that you should be here. When did you ar—
,,__ “a ..\i\- Lax “MMV\ W-‘u. It


186 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
rive? How long have you been here? I am beautiful, am
I not? I was just going to take my bath. Oh, how I love
you! You read my letter! Did you read it yourself or did
some one read it to you? Can you read? Probably you are
ignorant. I ask all these questions, but you needn’t answer
them. I don’t like the sound of your voice. It is too soft.
An extraordinary creature like you should snarl, not speak.
You sing harmoniously. I hate it. It is the only thing
about you that I do not like. Everything else about you is
grand and terrible. In India you would be a god. Were
you born with that frightful laugh on your face? No! No
doubt it is a penal brand. I do hope you have committed
some crime. Come to my arms!”
She sank on the couch and made him sit beside her. They
found themselves close together. What she said passed over
Gwynplaine like a mighty storm. He hardly understood the
meaning of the whirlwind of words. Her eyes were full of
admiration. She spoke tumultuously, frantically, with a
voice at once broken and tender. Her words were music; but
their music affected Gwynplaine like a hurricane. Again she
fixed her gaze upon him, and continued :—
“ I feel degraded in your presence, and oh, what happiness
that is! How insipid it is to be a grandee! What can be
more tiresome? Disgrace is a comfort. I am so satiated with
respect that I long for contempt. We are all a little erratic,
from Venus, Cleopatra, Mesdames de Chevreuse and de Lon-
gueville down to myself. I will make a display of you, I
declare I will. Here ’s a love affair which will be a blow to
my family, the Stuarts. Ah, I breathe again! I have dis-
covered a secret. I am clear of royalty. To be free from its
trammels is indeed deliverance. To break down, defy, make
and destroy at will,— that is true enjoyment. Listen—I
love you!”
She paused; then resumed, with a smile :—
“ I love you, not only because you are deformed, but be-
cause you are low. I love monsters, and I love mountebanks.
A lover despised, mocked, grotesque, hideous, exposed to
' ._,,(:... __._ . :‘..-_,._.__..‘,_,.,.,_ M w - -~_.--._.-_'. a»-. M, g
M . .k "


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 187
laughter on that pillory called the stage, has an extraor-
dinary attraction for me. It is a taste of the fruit of hell.
A base-born lover, how exquisite! To taste the apple, not
of paradise, but of hell,— what a temptation! It is for that
I hunger and thirst. I am an Eve,— an Eve of the depths.
Probably you are, unbeknown to yourself, a devil. I am in
love with a nightmare. You are the incarnation of infernal
mirth. You are the master I require. I wanted a lover like
Medea’s and Canidia’s. I felt sure that some night would
bring me such an one. You are just what I want. I am
talking of a heap of things you probably know nothing
about. Gwynplaine, hitherto I have remained untouched; I
give myself to you, pure as a burning ember. You evidently
do not believe me; but if you only knew how little I care! ”
Her words flowed like a volcanic eruption. Pierce Mount
Etna, and you may obtain some idea of that jet of fiery elo-
quence.
“ Madam -—” stammered Gwynplaine.
But she placed her hand on his lips.
“ Silence,” she said. “ I am studying you. I, myself, am
a vestal bacchante. No man has known me, and I might
be the virgin pythoness at Delphos, and have under my naked
foot the bronze tripod, where the priests lean their elbows on
the skin of the python, whispering questions to the invisible
god. My heart is of stone, but it is like one of those mys—
terious pebbles which the sea washes up on the foot of the
rock called Huntly Nabb, at the mouth of the Tees, and which
if broken are found to contain a serpent. That serpent is
my love,—a love which is all-powerful, for it has brought
you to me. An impassable gulf was between us. I was in
Sims, and you were in Allioth. But you have crossed the
immeasurable space, and here you are. ’T is well. Be silent.
Take me.”
She ceased; he trembled. Then she continued. smiling:
“ You see, Gwynplaine, to dream is to create; to desire is
to summon. To build up the chimera is to provoke the
reality. The all-powerful and terrible mystery will not be
__-~ “.\s~\,_ —\ ~\
A... ‘ ‘A ‘ _ 7"
~\ ~~~w~, .


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 189
my real nature. See how much I resemble you. I did not
know I was so terrible. So I too am a monster. Oh, Gwyn-
plaine, you do amuse me!”
She laughed a strange, childlike laugh; and putting her
mouth close to his ear, whispered,—
“ Do you want to see amad woman? Look at me.”
She poured her searching eyes into Gwynplaine’s. A look
is the most potent of philtres. Her loosened robe provoked a
thousand dangerous emotions. Blind, animal ecstasy Was in—
vading his mind, ecstasy combined with agony.
While she was speaking, though he felt her words like burn-
ing coals, his blood ‘froze within his veins. He had not
strength to utter a word. '
She stopped, and looked at him.
“ O monster!” she cried. She grew wild.
Suddenly she seized his hands.
“ Gwynplaine, I am the throne; you are the footstool. Let
us meet on the same level. Oh, how happy I am in my fall!
I wish all the world could know how abject I am become.
It would bow down all the lower. The more man abhors,
the more does he cringe. It is human nature. Hostile, but
reptile; dragon, but worm. Oh, I am as depraved as were
the gods! They cannot say that I am not a king’s daugh-
ter, for I act like a queen. Who was Rhodope but a queen
who loveleteh, a man with a crocodile’s head? She erected
the third pyramid in his honour. Penthesilea loved the cen-
taur who is now the star called Sagittarius. And what do
you think of Anne of Austria? Mazarin was ugly enough!
Now, you are not only ugly, but hideous. Ugliness is insig—
nificant, deformity is grand. Ugliness is a devil’s grin be~
hind'beau-ty; deformity is akin to sublimity. Olympus has
two aspects,-— one, by day, shows Apollo; the other, by
night, shows Polyphemus. You! you are 8. Titan. You
would be Behemoth in the forests, Leviathan in the deep and
Typhon in the sewer. You surpass everything. There is
the trace of lightning in your deformity; your face has been
hattered by the thunder-bolt. The jagged contortion of


190 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
forked lightning has imprinted its mark on your face. It
struck you and passed on. A mighty and mysterious wrath
has, in a fit of passion, cemented your spirit in a terrible and
superhuman form. Hell is a penal furnace, where the iron
called Fatality is raised to a white heat. You have been
branded with it. To love you, is to understand grandeur. I
enjoy that triumph. To be in love with Apollo, a fine effort,
forsooth! Glory is to be measured by the astonishment it
creates. I love you! I have dreamt of you night after
night. This is my palace. You shall see my gardens.
There are fresh springs under the shrubs, arbours for lovers,
and beautiful groups of marble statuary by Bernini. Flow-
ers! there are too many; during the spring the place is on
fire with roses. Did I tell you that the queen is my sister?
Do what you like with me. I was made for Jupiter to kiss
my feet, and for Satan to spit in my face. What is your
religion? I am a Papist. My father, James 11., died in
France, surrounded by Jesuits. I have never felt before as
I feel now that I am with you. Oh, how I should like to pass
the evening with you, in the midst of music, both reclining on
the same cushion, under a purple awning, in a gilded gondola
on the broad expanse of ocean. Insult me, beat me, kick me,
cuff me, treat me like a brute! I adore you ! ”
Caresses can roar. If you doubt it, observe the lion’s.
The woman was terrible, and yet full of grace. The effect
was tragical. First he felt the claw, then the velvet of the
paw. A feline attack, made up of advances and retreats.
There was death as well as sport in this game of come and
go. She idolized him, but arrogantly. The result was a
contagious frenzy. Fatal language, at once inexpressible,
violent, and sweet. The insulter did not insult; the adorer
outraged the object of adoration. She, who buffeted, deified
him. Her tones imparted to her violent yet amorous words
an indescribable Promethean grandeur.
According to fEschylus, in the orgies in honour of the
great goddess, the women were smitten by this same evil
frenzy when they pursued the satyrs under the stars. Such
_"g..'. ' him~ .
.‘f


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 191
paroxysms raged in the mysterious dances in the grove of
Dodona. This woman was transfigured,—— if, indeed, we can
term that transfiguration which is the antithesis of heavenly.
Her hair quivered like a mane; her bosom rose and fell tu-
multuously. The sunshine of the blue eye mingled with the
fire of the black one. She was unearthly in her loveliness.
Gwynplaine felt himself vanquished by the deep subtilty of
this attack.
“ I love you ! ” she cried.
And she stung him with a kiss.
Homeric clouds were, perhaps, about to be required to en-
compass Gwynplaine and Josiana, as they did Jupiter and
Juno. For Gwynplaine to be loved by a woman who could
see, and who saw him; to feel on his deformed mouth the
pressure of divine lips, was exquisite and maddening. In the
presence of this woman, so full of enigmas, everything else
faded away in his mind. The remembrance of Des still
struggled in the shadows but weakly. There is an antique
has—relief representing the Sphinx devouring a Cupid. The
wings of the sweet celestial are bleeding between the fierce,
grinning fangs.
Did Gwynplaine love this woman? Has man, like the earth,
two poles? Are we, on our inflexible axis, a moving sphere,
--— a star when seen from afar, mud, when seen more closely,
in which night alternates with day? Has the heart two
sides,— one on which love is poured forth in light, the other
in darkness; here upon a divinity of light, there upon
a creature of the slums? Angels are necessary. Is it possi—
ble that demons are also essential? Has the soul the wings
of the bat? Does twilight fall fatally for all? Is sin an in-
tegral and inevitable part of our destiny? Must we accept
evil as a part and portion of our whole? Do we inherit sin
as a debt? What awful subjects for thought!
Yet a voice tells us that weakness is a crime. Gwynplaine’s
feelings are not to be described. The flesh, life, terror, lust.
an overwhelming intoxication of spirit, and all the shame
possible to pride. Was he about to succumb?


192 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
She repeated, “ I love you!” and flung her frenzied arms
around him. Gwynplaine panted for breath.
Suddenly, a little bell close by, rang out clearly and dis-
tinctly. It was the little bell on the wall. The duchess,
turning her head, exclaimed petulantly,—
“ What can she want of me? ”
The silver panel, with the golden crown embossed on it,
. opened.
The end of a shaft, lined with royal blue velvet, appeared;
and, on a golden salver, a letter.
The letter, which was broad and bulky, was so placed as to
exhibit the seal, which was a large impression in red wax.
The bell continued to tinkle. The open panel almost touched
the couch where the duchess and Gwynplaine were sitting.
Leaning over, but still keeping her arm round \his neck,
she took the letter from the plate, and touched the panel.
The compartment closed, and the bell ceased ringing.
The duchess broke the seal, and opening the envelope, drew
out the two documents contained therein, and flung it on the
floor at Gwynplaine’s feet.
The impression of the broken seal was still wdecipherable,
and Gwynplaine’s could distinguish a royal crown over ?the
intitial A. v V
The torn envelope lay open before him, so that ‘he could
read, “ To her Grace the Duchess Josiana.”
The envelope had contained both vellum and parchment.
The former was a small, the latter a large, document. On
the parchment was a large Chancery seal in green wax.
_The face of the duchess, whose bosom was palpitating, and
whose eyes were swimming with passion, became overspread
with a slight expression of dissatisfaction.
“ Ah!” she said. “ What has she sent to me? A lot of
papers! What a spoil-sport the woman is!”
Throwing aside the parchment, she opened the vellum.
“It is her handwriting. It is my sister’s hand. It is
quite provoking. Gwynplaine, I asked you if you could read.
Can you? ”
egg»
‘"--".rm


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 193
:1."
Gwynplaine nodded assent.
She stretched herself at full length on the couch, carefully
drawing her feet and arms under her robe, with a whimsical
afi'ectation of modesty, and giving Gwynplaine the vellum,
watched him with an impassioned look.
“ You are mine. Begin your duties, my beloved. Read me
what the queen writes.”
Gwynplaine took the vellum, unfolded it, and in a voice
trembling with conflicting emotions, began to read :-——-
MADAME,— We are graciously pleased to send to you herewith, sealed
and signed by our trusty and well-beloved William Cowper, Lord High
Chancellor of England, a copy of a report, setting forth the very im-
portant fact that the legitimate son of Linnaeus, Lord Clancharlie, has
just been discovered and recognized, bearing the name of Gwynplaine,
1n the lowest ranks of life, among vagabonds and mountebanks. His
false position dates from his earliest childhood. In accordance with the
laws of the country, and in virtue of his hereditary rights, Lord Fermain
Clancharlie, son of Lord Linnaeus, will be this day admitted, and in-
stalled in his position in the House of Lords. Therefore, having regard
to your welfare, and wishing to preserve for your use the property and
estates 01' Lord Clancharlie of Hunkerville, we substitute him in the
place of Lord David Dirry-Moir, and recommend him to your good
graces. We have caused Lord Fermain to be conducted to Corleone
Lodge. We will and command, as sister and as queen, that the said
Fermain Lord Clancharlie, hitherto called Gwynplaine, shall be your
husband, and that you shall marry him. Such is our royal pleasure.
While Gwynplaine, in tremulous tones which varied at al—
most every word, was reading the document, the duchess, half
risen from the couch, listened with fixed attention. When
Gwynplaine finished, she snatched the letter from his hands.
“ Amne- R.,” she-murmured in a tone of abstraction. -_
Then picking up the parchment she- had thrown aSide, she
ran her eye over it. It was the confession of the shipwrecked
crew of the “ Matutina,” embodied in a report signed by the
sheriff of Southwark and by the Lord Chancellor] I
Having perused the report, she read the queen’s letter over
again. Then she said: “ Be it so.” And calmly pointing
with her finger to the door of the gallery through which he
had entered, she added: “ Be gone!”
Gwlyénplaine sat as if petrified.


194 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
“ As you are to be my husband, begone!” she repeated in
icy tones.
Then as Gwynplaine, speechless, and with eyes downcast
like a criminal, remained motionless, she added,—
“ You have no right to be here; it is my lover’s place.”
Gwynplaine was like a man transfixed.
“ Very well,” said she, “ then I must go myself. So you
are to be my husband. Nothing could be better. I hate
you!”
She rose, and with an indescribably haughty gesture of
adieu, left the room. The curtain in the doorway leading
to the gallery fell behind her.
CHAPTER V
THEY nncoomzrz, BUT no nor KNOW, EACH o'rrmn
WYNPLAINE was alone.
The confusion in his mind had reached its culminat-
ing point. His thoughts no longer resembled thoughts.
They overflowed and ran riot; it was the anguish of a crea-
ture wrestling with perplexity. He felt as if he were waking
from a horrible nightmare. The entrance into unknown
spheres is no simple matter.
From the time he had received the duchess’s letter, brought
by the page, a series of surprising adventures had befallen
Gwynplaine, each one less intelligible than the other. Up to
this time, though in a dream, he had seen things clearly.
Now he could only grope his way. He no longer thought, or
even dreamed. He collapsed.
He sank down upon the couch which the duchess had va-
cated.
Suddenly, he heard a sound of footsteps,— the footsteps of
a man. The noise came from the opposite side of the gallery


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 195
from that by which the duchess had departed. The man ap-
proached, and his footsteps, though softened by the carpet,
were clear and distinct. Gwynplaine, in spite of his abstrac-
tion, listened.
Suddenly, beyond the silver web of curtain which the duch—
ess had left partly open, a door, evidently concealed by the
painted glass, opened wide, and there came floating into the
room the refrain of an -old French song, carolled at the top
of a manly and joyous voice,—
“Trois petits gorets sur leur fumier
Juraient comme de porteurs de chaise,”
and a man entered. He had a sword at his side, wore a
magnificent naval uniform, covered with gold lace, and held
in his hand a plumed hat with loops and cockade.
Gwynplaine sprang up erect, as if moved by springs. He
recognized the man, and was in turn recognized by him.
From their astonished lips came, simultaneously, this dou-
ble exclamation,-
“ Gwynplaine ! ”
“ Tom-Jim-Jack ! ”
The man with the plumed hat advanced towards Gwyn-
plaine, who stood with folded arms.
“ What are you doing here, Gwynplaine? ”
“ And you, Tom-Jim-Jack, what are you doing here? ”
“ Oh, I understand. Josiana! a caprice. A mountebank
and a monster! The double attraction was too powerful to be
resisted. So you disguised yourself in order to get here,
Gwynplaine? ”
“ And you, too, Tom-Jim-Jack? ”
“ Gwynplaine, what does this gentleman’s dress mean?”
“ Tom-Jim-Jack, what does that officer’s uniform mean?”
“ Gwynplaine, I answer no questions.”
“ Neither do I, Tom-Jim-Jack.”
“ Gwynplaine, my name is not Tom-Jim-Jack.”
“ Tom-Jim-Jack, my name is not Gwynplaine.”
“ Gwynplaine, I am in my own house.”


196 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
“ And I, too, am in my own house, Tom—Jim-Jack.”
“ I will not have you echo my words. You are ironical;
but I’ve got a cane. Cease your jokes, you wretched fool.”
Gwynplaine became ashy pale.
“ You are a fool yourself, and you shall give me satis-
faction for this insult.”
“ Yes, in your booth with fisticufi's.”
“ No, here, and with swords!”
“ My friend, Gwynplaine, the sword is a weapon for gentle—
men. I can only fight my equals with it. At fisticuffs we
are equal; but not so with swords. At the Tadcaster Inn,
Tom—Jim-Jack could box with Gwynplaine. At Windsor,
the case is very different. Understand this; I am a rear-
admiral.”
“ And I am a Peer of England.”
The man whom Gwynplaine knew as Tom-Jim—Jack burst
out laughing.
“Why not a king? Indeed, you are right. An actor
plays every part. You ’ll tell me next that you are Theseus,
Duke of Athens.”
“ I am 8. Peer of England, and we are going to fight.”
“ Gwynplaine, this is growing tiresome. Don’t play with
one who can order you to be flogged. I am Lord David
Dirry-Moir.”
“ And I am Lord Clancharlie.”
Again Lord David burst out laughing.
“ Well said! Gwynplaine, Lord Clancharlie! That is in-
deed the name the man must bear who is to win Josiana.
Listen, I forgive you; would you know the reason? It’s be
cause we are both lovers of the same woman.”
The curtain of the door was lifted, and a voice exclaimed,—
“ You are the two husbands, my lords.”
They turned.
“ Barkilphedro ! ” cried Lord David. -
It was indeed be. He bowed low to the two lords, with a
smile on his face.
Some few paces behind him was a gentleman with a stern


THE MAN 'WHo LAUGHS 197
and dignified countenance, who carried a black wand in his
hand. This gentleman advanced, and bowing three times
to Gwynplaine, said,—
“ I am the Usher of the Black Rod. I am come to fetch
your lordship in obedience to her Majesty’s commands.”
a“


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 199
observed steps, a raised platform, a dais, a large escutcheon
glittering between a lion and a unicorn, and at the top of
the steps, on the platform under the dais, resting against the
escutcheon, was a gilded chair with a crown over it. This
was the throne.
The throne of Great Britain.
Gwynplaine, himself a Peer of England, was in the House
of Lords. How Gwynplaine’s introduction to the House of
Lords came about, we will now explain.
Throughout the entire day, from morning until night,
from Windsor to London, from Corleone Lodge to West-
minster Hall, he had, step by step, mounted higher in the
social grade. At each step he grew giddier.
He had been conveyed from Windsor in a royal carriage
with a peer’s escort. There is not much difference between
a guard of honour, and a prisoner’s. On that day travellers
on the London and Windsor road saw a galloping cavalcade
of gentlemen pensioners of her Majesty’s household, escorting
two carriages drawn at a rapid pace. In the first carriage
sat the Usher of the Black Rod, his wand in his hand. In
the second could be seen a large hat with white plumes, cast—
ing into shadow and hiding the face underneath it. Who
was it who was being thus hurried on—a prince? a pris-
oner?
It was Gwynplaine.
It looked as if they were conducting some one to the Tower,
unless, indeed, they were escorting him to the House of Lords.
The queen had done things well. As it was for her future
brother-in—law, she had provided an escort from her own
household. The officer of the Usher of the Black Rod rode
on horseback at the head of the cavalcade. The Usher of
the Black Rod carried, on a cushion placed on a seat of the
carriage, a black portfolio, stamped with the royal crown.
At Brentford, the last relay before London, the carriages
and escort halted.
A four—horse carriage of tortoise—shell, with two postilions,
a coachman in a wig, and four footmen, was in waiting. The


200 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
wheels, steps, springs, pole, and all the fittings of this car-
riage were gilt. The horses’ harness was of silver.
This state coach was of ancient and extraordinary shape,
and would have been distinguished by its grandeur among
the fifty-one celebrated carriages of which Roubo has left us
drawings.
The Usher of the Black Rod and his officer alighted. The
latter, having lifted the cushion on which the royal portfolio
rested from the seat in .the post-chaise, held it on outstretched
hands, and stood behind the Usher, who first opened the door
of the empty carriage, then the door of that occupied by
Gwynplaine, and, with downcast eyes, respectfully invited him
to descend.
Gwynplaine left the chaise, and took his seat in the car-
riage. ‘
The Usher carrying the rod, and the officer supporting the
cushion, followed, and took their places on the low front seat
provided for pages in old state coaches. The inside of the
carriage was lined with white satin, with tufts and tassels of
silver. 'The roof was painted with armorial bearings. The
postilions of the chaises they were leaving were dressed in
the royal livery. The attendants of the carriage they now
entered wore a different but very magnificent livery.
Gwynplaine, in spite of his bewildered state, noticed the
gorgeously attired footmen, and asked the 'Usher of the Black
Redf— - v
“ Whose livery is that?”
He answered,-— -
“ Yours, my lord.”
The House of Lords was to sit that evening. Curio erat
werena, run the old records. In England, parliamentary work
is by preference undertaken at night. It once happened
that Sheridan began a speech at midnight'and’finished it at
' sunrise. -
The two post-chaises returned to Windsor. Gwynplaine’s
carriage set out for London.
This highly ornamented four-horse carriage proceeded at a


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 201
walk from Brentford to London, as befitted the dignity of
the bewigged coachman. Gwynplaine’s slavery to ceremony
was beginning in the shape of his solemn-looking coachman.
The delay was, moreover, apparently pre—arranged; and we
shall see its probable motive presently.
Night was falling, though it was not quite dark, when the
carriage stopped at the King’s Gate,—- a large sunken door
between two turrets, connecting Whitehall with Westminster.
The escort of gentlemen pensioners formed a circle around the
carriage. A footman jumped down from behind it and
opened the door.
The Usher of the Black Rod, followed by the officer carry-
ing the cushion, got out of the carriage, and addressed Gwyn-
plaine:-—
“ My lord, be pleased to alight. I beg your lordship to
keep your hat on.”
Gwynplaine wore under his travelling cloak the suit of black
silk, which he had not changed since the previous evening.
He had no sword. He left his cloak in the carriage. Under
the archway of the King’s Gate there was a small side door,
raised a few steps above the ground. In ceremonial proces—
sions the greatest personage never walks first.
The Usher of the Black Rod, followed by his officer, walked
first; Gwynplaine followed. They ascended the steps, and
entered by the side door. Presently they reached a wide,
circular room, with a pillar in the centre,— the lower part
of a turret. The room, being on the ground-floor, was lighted
by narrow lancet windows, which served only to make dark-
ness visible. Twilight often lends solemnity to a scene. Ob—
scurity is in itself majestic.
In this room, thirteen men, disposed in ranks, were stand-
ing; three in the front row, six in the second row, and four
behind. One man in the front row wore a crimson velvet
gown; the other two, gowns of the same colour, but of satin.
All three had the arms of England embroidered on their
shoulders. The second rank wore tunics of white silk, each
one having a different coat-of—arms emblazoned in front,


202 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
The men in the last row were clad in black silk; and were
distinguished thus: the first wore a blue cape; the second had
a St. George embroidered in scarlet upon his breast; the third,
two embroidered crimson crosses, one in front and one be-
hind; the fourth wore a collar of black sable fur. All were
uncovered, wore wigs, and carried swords. Their faces were
scarcely visible in the dim light, neither could they see Gwyn-
plaine’s face.
The Usher of the Black Rod, raising his wand, said:
“ My Lord Fermain Clancharlie, Baron Clancharlie and
Hunkerville, I, the Usher of the Black Rod, first ofiicer of the
presence chamber, hand your lordship over to Garter King-
at—Arms.”
The person clothed in velvet, quitting his place in the
ranks, bowed to the ground before Gwynplaine, and said,—
“ My Lord Fermain Clancharlie, 1 am Garter, Principal
King—at—Arms of England. I am the officer appointed and
installed by his Grace the Duke of Norfolk, hereditary Earl
Marshal. I have sworn obedience to the king, peers, and
knights of the garter. The day of my installation, when the
Earl Marshal of England anointed me by pouring a goblet
of wine on my head, I solemnly promised to be attentive to
the nobility; to avoid ad company; to excuse, rather than
accuse, gentlefolks; and to assist widows and virgins. It is I
- who have the charge of arranging the funeral ceremonies of
peers, and the supervision of their armorial bearings.
myself at the orders of your lordship.”
The first of those wearing the satin tunics, having bowed
deeply, said,—
“ My lord, I am Clarenceaux, Second King-at-Arms of
I place
England. I am the ofiicer who arranges the obsequies of
nobles below the rank of peers. I am at your lordship’s dis-
posal.”
The other wearer of the satin tunic, bowed, and spoke
thus 2—.-
“My lord, I am Norroy, Third King-at-Arms of Eng-
land. Command me.”


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 203
The second row, erect and without bowing, advanced a pace.
The right—hand man said,—
“ My lord, we are the six Dukes-at-Arms of England. I
am York.”
Then each of the heralds, or Dukes-at-Arms, speaking in
turn, proclaimed his title :—
“ I am Lancaster.”
“ I am Richmond.”
“ I am Chester.”
“ I am Somerset.”
“ I am Windsor.”
The coats-of—arms embroidered on their breasts were
those of the counties and towns from which they took their
names.
The third rank, dressed in black, remained silent. Garter
King-at—Arms, pointing them out to Gwynplaine, said,—
“My lord, these are the four Pursuivants—at—Arms Blue
Mantle.”
The man with the blue cape bowed.
“ Rouge Dragon.”
He with the St. George inclined his head.
“ Rouge Croix.”
He with the scarlet crosses saluted.
“ Portcullis.”
He with the sable fur collar made his obeisance.
At a sign from the King-at—Arms, the first of the pur-
suivants, Blue Mantle, stepped forward and received from
the oflicer of the Usher the cushion of silver cloth, and crown—
emblazoned portfolio. And the King—at-Arms said to the
Usher of the Black Rod :——-
“ Proceed; I leave the introduction of his lordship in your
hands!”
The observance of these customs, and also of others which
will be described hereafter, were the old ceremonies in use
prior to the time of Henry VIII., and which Anne for some
time attempted to revive. There is nothing like them in ex-
istence now. Nevertheless, the House of Lords thinks that it


204 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
is unchangeable; and, if Conservatism exists anywhere, it is
there.
It changes, neVertheless. E par 85 muove.
For instance, what has become of the May-pole, which the
citizens of London erected on the 1st of May, when the peers
went down to the House? The last one was erected in 1713.
Since then the May-pole has disappeared.
Outwardly, unchangeable; inwardly, 'mutable. Take, for
example, the title of Albemarle. It sounds eternal._ _Yet it
has been through six different families,—- Odo, Mandeville,
Bethune, Plantagenet, Beauchamp, Monck. Into the title
of Leicester, five different names have been merged,— Beau-
mont, Breose, Dudley, Sydney, Coke. Into Lincoln, six;
into Pembroke, seven. The families change under unchang~
ing titles. A superficial historian believes in immutability.
In reality, it does not exist. Man can never be more than a
wave; humanity is the ocean.
Aristocracy is proud of what women consider a reproach,
——- age! Yet both cherish the same illusion,-—— that they do
not change.
It is probable the House of Lords will not recognize itself
in the foregoing description, nor yet in that which follows,
thus resembling the once pretty woman, who objects to having
any wrinkles. The mirror is ever a scapegoat, yet its truths
cannot be contested.
To portray exactly, constitutes the duty of an historian.
The King-at-Arms, turning to Gwynplaine, said,—
“ Be pleased to follow me, my lord.”
And he added,—
“ You will be saluted. Your lordship, in returning the
salu’te, will be pleased merely to raise the brim of your hat.”
They moved off, in procession, towards a door at the farther
0nd of the room. The Usher of the Black Rod walked in
front; _then Blue Mantle, carrying the cushion; then the
King—at-Arms; and after him Gwynplaine, wearing his hat.
The rest, kings-at-arms, heralds, and pursuivants, remained
in the circular room.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 205
Gwynplaine, preceded by the Usher of the Black Rod, and
escorted by the King-at-Arms, passed from room to room, in a
direction which it would now be impossible to trace, the old
houses of Parliament having been pulled down.
Among others, he crossed that Gothic state-chamber in
which the last meeting of James II. and Monmouth took
place, and whose walls witnessed the useless humiliation of
the cowardly nephew at the feet of his vindictive uncle. On
the walls of this chamber hung, in chronological order, nine
full-length portraits of former peers, with their dates,—
Lord Nansladron, 1305; Lord Baliol, 1306; Lord Benestede,
1314; Lord Cantilupe, 1356; Lord Montbegon, 1357; Lord
Tibotot, 1373; Lord Zouch of Codnor, 1615; Lord Bella-
Aqua, with no date; Lord Harren and Surrey, Count of Blois,
also without date.
It being dark now, lamps were burning at intervals in the
galleries. Brass chandeliers, with wax candles, illuminated the
rooms, lighting them like the side aisles of a church.
None but oflicials were present.
In one room, which the procession crossed, stood the four
clerks of the signet, and the Clerk of the Council, with heads
respectfully bowed.
In another room stood the distinguished Knight Banneret,
Philip Sydenham, of Brympton, in Somersetshire. The r
Knight Banneret is a title conferred in time of war, under _
the unfurled royal standard.
In: another room was the senior baronet of England, Sir
Edmund Bacon, of Suffolk, heir of Sir Nicholas Bacon,
styled, Primus baronetorum Anglia. Behind Sir Edmund
was an amour-bearer with an arquebus, and an esquire car-
rying the arms of Ulster, the baronets being the hereditary
defenders of the province of Ulster in Ireland.
In another room was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with
his four accountants, and the deputies of the Lord Chamber-
lain.
At the entrance of a corridor covered with matting, which
connected the Lower and the Upper House, Gwynplaine was


206 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
saluted by Sir Thomas Mansell, of Margam, Comptroller of
the Queen’s Household and Member for Glamorgan; and at
the exit from the corridor by a deputation of one for every
two of the Barons of the Cinque Ports, four on the right and
four on the left, the Cinque Ports being eight in number.
William Hastings did obeisance for Hastings; Matthew Ayl-
mor, for Dover; Josias Burchett, for Sandwich; Sir Philip
Boteler, for Hythe; John Brewer, for New Rumney; Ed-
ward Southwell, for the town of Rye; James Hayes, for
Winchelsea; George Nailor, for Seaford.
As Gwynplaine was about to return the salute, the King—
at—Arms reminded him in a low voice of the etiquette.
“ Only the brim of your hat, my lord.”
Gwynplaine did as directed.
He now entered the so—called Painted Chamber, in which
there were no paintings, except a few pictures of saints, Saint
Edward among them, in the high arches of the long and
deep—pointed windows, which were cut in two by a platform
that formed the ceiling of Westminster hall and the floor of
the Painted Chamber.
On the further side of the wooden barrier which divided
the room from end to end, stood the three Secretaries of
State, men of mark. The functions of the first of these
ofl'icials comprised the supervision of all affairs relating to
the south of England, Ireland, the Colonies, France, Switzer—
land, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Turkey. The second had
charge of the north of England, and watched affairs in the
Low Countries, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, and
Russia.
The third, a Scot, had charge of Scotland. The two first
mentioned were English, one of them being the Honourable
Robert Harley, Member for the borough of New Radnor.
A Scotch member, Mungo Graham, Esquire, a relation of the
Duke of Montrose, was present. All bowed, without speak-
ing, to Gwynplaine, who returned the salute by touching his
hat.
The door—keeper lifted the wooden rail which barred the


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 207
entrance to the other side of the Painted Chamber, where
stood the long table, covered with green cloth, reserved for
peers. An immense candelabrum was on the table. Gwyn—
plaine, preceded by the Usher of the Black Rod, Garter
King-at—Arms, and Blue Mantle, penetrated into this privi-
leged compartment. The gate-keeper closed the opening im—
mediately Gwynplaine had passed. The King-at-Arms, hav—
ing entered the precincts of the privileged compartment,
halted.
The Painted Chamber was a spacious apartment. At the
farther end, beneath the royal escutcheon which was placed
between the two windows, stood two old men, in red velvet
robes trimmed with ermine, and gold lace on their shoulders,
and wearing wigs, and hats with white plumes. Through the
openings of their robes one caught a glimpse of silken gar—
ments and sword—hilts.
Motionless behind them stood a man dressed in black silk,
holding on high a great mace of gold surmounted by a
crowned lion.
It was the Mace-bearer of the Peers of England.
The lion is their crest. “ Et les Lions ce sont les Barons
et 1i Per,” runs the manuscript chronicle of Bertrand Du-
guesclin.
The King-at-Arms pointed out the two persons in velvet,
and whispered to Gwynplaine:—
“My lord, these are your equals. Be pleased to return
their salute exactly as they make it. These two peers are
barons, and have been named by the Lord Chancellor as your
sponsors. They are very old, and almost blind. They will
introduce you to the House of Lords. The first is Charles
Mildmay, Lord Fitzwalter, sixth on the roll of barons; the
second is Augustus Arundel, Lord Arundel of Trerice, thirty-
eighth on the roll of barons.”
The King-at-Arms having advanced a step towards the two
old men, proclaimed: ——
“ Fermain Clancharlie, Baron Clancharlie, Baron Hunker-
ville, Marquis of Corleone, in Sicily, greets your lordship!”


208 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
The two peers raised their hats as high as they could reach
amd then replaced them.
Gwynplaine did the same.
The Usher of the Black'Rod stepped forward, followed by
Blue Mantle and Garter King-a‘t-Arms. The Mace-bearer
took up his position in front of Gwynplaine, the two peers at
- his side, Lord Fitzwalter on the right, and Lord Arundel of
Trerice on the left. Lord Arundel, the elder ‘of the two, was
very feeble. He died the following year, bequeathing to his
grandson John, a minor, the title, which became extinct in
1768.
The procession, leaving the Painted Chamber, entered a
gallery supported by pilasters, and in the arches thus formed,
were stationed guards,—- English pike-men and Scottish hal-
berdiers alternately. The ‘Scotch (halberdiers were magnifi-
cent looking soldiers, worthy to contend later on, at Fonte-
noy, with the French cavalry, and the royal vc'uirassiers, whom
their colonel addressed thus: “ Messieurs les maitres, as-
surez vos chapeaux. Nous allons avoir l’honneur de charger.”
The captain of these soldiers saluted Gwynplaine, and the
peers, his sponsors, with their swords. The men saluted with
their pikes and halberds.
At the end of the gallery shone a large door, so magnificent
that it seemed to be a mass of gold. On each side of the door
stood the door-keepers, erect and motionless.
Just before you came to this door, the gallery widened out
into a large circular space. In this space stood an arm—chair
with an immense back, and upon it, judging by his wig and
from the amplitude of his robes, sat a highly distinguished
personage. It was William Cowper, Lord Chancellor of Eng-
land.
To be able to cap a royal infirmity with a similar one has
its advantages. William Cowper was short-sighted. Anne
was also troubled with defective vision, but in a lesser degree.
The near-sightedness of William Cowper found favour in the
eyes of the short-sighted queen, and induced her to appoint
him Lord Chamcellor, and Keeper of the Royal Conscience.
. _-_._..,__ _-.__.. ,.._._,_. ..__ . ,_ ......_-...______..__ .—
, ____,_


210 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
The Clerk received it ceremoniously, and then sat down.
The Clerk of Parliament then opened the portfolio, and
arose.
The portfolio contained the two usual messages,-— the royal
patent addressed to the House of Lords, and the writ of sum-
mons.
The Clerk read these two messages aloud, with respectful
deliberation, standing the while.
The writ of summons, addressed to Fermain Lord Clan-
charlie, concluded with the usual formalities : ——
“ We strictly enjoin you, by the faith and allegiance that
you owe, to come and take your place in person among the
prelates and peers sitting in our Parliament at Westminster,
for the purpose of giving your advice, in all honour and con-
science, on the business of the kingdom and of the Church.”
The reading of the message being concluded, the Lord
Chancellor raised his voice: ——
“ The message of the Crown has been read. Lord Clan-
charlie, does your lordship renounce transubstantiation, ado-
ration of saints, and the Mass? ”
Gwynplaine bowed.
“ The test has been administered,” said the Lord Chan-
cellor.
And the Clerk of Parliament resumed,—
“ His lordship has taken the test.”
The Lord Chancellor added,—
“ My Lord Clancharlie, you can now take your seat.”
“ So be it,” said the two sponsors.
The King-at-Arms rose, took the sword from the stand,
and buckled it round Gwynplaine’s waist.
“ Ce faict,” says the old Norman charter, “ le pair prend
son espée et monte aux hauts siéges, et assiste a l’audience.”
Gwynplaine heard a voice behind him, saying: —
“ I array your lordship in a peer’s robe.”
At the same time, the officer who spoke to him, and who
was holding the robe, placed it on him, and tied the strings
of the ermine cape round his neck.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 211
Gwynplaine, with the scarlet robe on his shoulders, and the
golden sword by his side, was now attired like the peers to the
right and left of him.
The librarian presented the red book to him, and put it in
his waistcoat pocket.
The King-at-Arms murmured in his ear: —
“ My lord, on entering, will bow to the royal chair.”
The royal chair is the throne.
Meanwhile the two clerks were writing, each at his table,—
one in the register of the Crown; the other in the register of
the House.
Then both ——the Clerk of the Crown preceding the other
—-brought their books to the Lord Chancellor, who signed
them. Having signed the two registers, the Lord Chancellor
rose.
“ Fermain Lord Clancharlie, Baron Clancharlie, Baron
Hunkerville, Marquis of Corleone in Sicily, be welcome among
your peers, the lords spiritual and temporal, of Great Brit-
ain.”
Gwynplaine’s sponsors touched his shoulder.
He turned round.
The double portals of the great gilded door at the end of
the gallery opened.
It was the door of the House of Lords.
Only thirty-six hours had elapsed since Gwynplaine, sur—
rounded by a very different retinue, entered the iron door of
Southwark jail.
What wild chimeras had passed, with terrible rapidity,
through his brain! Chimeras which were facts; rapidity
which amounted to a capture by assault.


212 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
CHAPTER II
IMPARTIALITY
HE creation of an equality with the king called the peer~
age, was, in barbarous epochs, a useful fiction. This
rudimentary political expedient produced in France and Eng-
land entirely difi'ercnt results however. In France, the peer
was a mock king; in England, a real prince—less preten-
tious than in France, but more genuine.
This so—called peerage originated in France; the date is
uncertain,—— under Charlemagne, says the legend; under Rob-
‘ ert 1e Sage, says history; and history is no more to be relied
on than legend. Favin writes: “ The King of France
wished to attach to himself the great of his kingdom, by the
magnificent title of peers, as if they were his equals.”
Peerage soon thrust forth branches, and from France passed
over to England.
The English peerage has been a great and almost a mighty
institution. It had for precedent the Saxon witenagemot.
The Danish thane and the Norman vavasour commingled in
the baron. Baron is the same as vir, which is translated
into Spanish by varon, and which signifies, par excellence,
“ Man.” As early as 1075, the barons made their power felt
by the king—and by what king? By no less a personage
than William the Conqueror. In 1086 they laid the founda-
tion of feudality, and its basis was the “ Doomsday Book.”
Under John Lackland came conflict. The French peerage
undertook to carry things with a high band with Great
Britain, and demanded that the King of England should ap—
pear at their Bar. Great was the indignation of the English
barons. At the coronation of Philip Augustus, the King of
England, as Duke of Normandy, carried the first square ban-
ner, and the Duke of Guyenne, the second. Against this
king, a vassal of the foreigner, the War of the Barons burst


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 218
forth. The barons wrested from the weak-minded King
John the Magna Charta, from which sprung the House of
Lords. The pope sided with the king, and excommunicated
the Lords. The date was 1215, and the pope was Inno-
cent III., who wrote the “Veni Sancte Spiritus,” and who
sent to John Lackland the four cardinal virtues in the shape
of four gold rings. The Lords persisted. The conflict con-
tinued through many generations. Pembroke struggled val-
iantly. 1248 was the year of “ the provisions of Oxford.”
Twenty-four barons limited the king’s powers, censured him,
and called upon a knight from each county to take part in
the widened breach. This was the beginning of the House
of Commons. Later on, the Lords added two citizens from
each city, and two burgesses from each borough. The result
of this was that, up to the time of Elizabeth, the peers were
judges of the validity of elections to the House of Commons.
From their jurisdiction sprang the proverb that the mem-
bers returned must be without the three P’s — sine Prece, si/ne
Pretz'o, rim Poculo. This did not obviate rotten boroughs
however. In 1293, the Court of Peers in France still had
the King of England under their jurisdiction, and Philippe
de Bel cited Edward I. to appear before him. Edward I.
was the king who ordered his son to boil him down after
death, and to carry his bones to the wars. The follies of their
kings made the Lords feel the necessity of strengthening Par-
liament. They divided it into two chambers, the upper and
the lower. The Lords arrogantly maintained the supremacy.
“ If it happens that any member of the Commons should be
so bold as to speak to the prejudice of the House of Lords,
he is called to the bar of the House to be reprimanded, and,
sometimes, to be sent to the Tower.” There is the same dis-
tinction in voting. In the House of Lords they vote one by
one, beginning with the junior, called the puisne baron.
Each peer answers “ Content,” or “ Not content.” In the
Commons they vote together, by “ Ay,” or “ No,” in a crowd.
The Commons accuse, the peers judge. The peers, in their
contempt for figures, delegated to the Commons, who were


214 THE MAN VVIIO LAUGHS
.._-__'= ______I=I;' " ' ‘ i-J£4,;;w
to profit by it, the superintendence of the Exchequer, so called,
according to some, after the table—cover, which was like a
chess-board, and according to others, from the drawers of the
old safe, Where the treasure of the kings of England
was kept behind an iron grating. The “ Year-Book ” dates
from the end of the thirteenth century. In the War of the
Roses, the influence of the Lords was thrown, now on the side
of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, now on the side of
Edmund, Duke of York. Wat Tyler, the Lollards, War-
wick, the king-maker, all the anarchy from which freedom was
to spring, had for its real or pretended foundation, the Eng-
lish feudal system. The Lords were usefully jealous of the
Crown; for to be jealous is to be watchful. They circum—
scribed the royal prerogatives, diminished the category of
cases of high treason, raised up pretended Richards against
Henry IV., appointed themselves arbitrators, decided the
question of the three crowns between the Duke of York and
Margaret of Anjou, levied armies if necessary and fought the
battles of Shrewsbury, Tewkesbury, and St. Albans, some—
times winning, sometimes losing. Before this, in the thir—
teenth century, they had gained the battle of Lewes, and had
driven from the kingdom the four brothers of the king, bas—
tards of Queen Isabella by the Count de la Marche; all four
usurers, who extorted money from Christians by means of the
Jews; half princes, half sharpers,~—a thing common enough
in more recent times, but not regarded with favour in those
days. Up to the fifteenth century the Norman duke peeped
out in the King of England, and the acts of Parliament were
written in French. From the reign of Henry VIL, by the
will of the Lords, these were written in English. England,
Briton under Uther Pendragon; Roman under Caesar; Saxon
under the Heptarchy; Danish under Harold; Norman after
William; then became, thanks to the Lords, English. After
that she became Anglican. To have a home religion is a
great advantage. A foreign pope drags down the national
life. A Mecca is an octopus that devours it. In 1534‘, Lon-
don bowed Rome out. The peerage adopted the reformed
; L'1’~ M-nr’w


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 215
religion, and the Lords accepted Luther. Here we have the
answer to the excommunication of 1215. It was agreeable
to Henry VIII.; but in other respects the Lords were a trou—
ble to him. As a bulldog to a hear, so was the House of
Lords to Henry VIII. When Wolsey robbed the nation of
Whitehall, and when Henry robbed Wolsey of it, who com-
plained? Four Lords,— Darcie of Chichester; Saint John,
of Bletsho; and (two Norman names) Mountjoie and Mount-
eagle. The king encroached, the peerage protested. There
is something in hereditary power which is incorruptible.
Hence the insubordination of the Lords. Even in Elizabeth’s
reign the barons were restless. From this resulted the tor—
tures at Durham. Elizabeth assembled Parliament as rarely
as possible, and reduced the House of Lords t0 sixty-five
members, among whom there was but one marquis (Winches-
ter), and not a single duke. In France the kings felt the
same jealousy, and carried out the same elimination. Under
Henry III. there were not more than eight dukedoms in the
peerage; and it was to the great annoyance of the king that
the Baron de Mantes, the Baron de Coucy, the Baron de
Coulommiers, the Baron de Chateauneuf-en-Thimerais, the
Baron de la Fere-en-Tardenois, the Baron de Mortagne,
and several others, persisted in declaring themselves barons,
—-peers of France. In England, the Crown saw the peer—
age diminish with pleasure. Under Anne, to quote but one
example, the peerages which had become extinct since the
twelfth century amounted to five hundred and sixty-five. The
War of the Roses began the extermination of dukes, which
the axe of Mary Tudor completed. There was a wholesale
decapitation of the nobility. Good policy, perhaps; but it is
better to corrupt than to decapitate,— at least, James I. was
of this opinion. He restored dukedoms. He made a duke
of his favourite Villiers,—a change from the feudal duke to
the courtier duke. This sowing was to bring forth a rank
harvest: Charles II. made two of his mistresses duchesses,—
Barbara of Southampton and Louise de la Querouel of Ports-
mouth. Under Anne there were twenty-five dukes, of whom
.~*»~_..v_~-~_,_ \_.¢\ M... _ __


216 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
three were foreigners, Cumberland, Cambridge, and Schom»
berg. Did this court policy, invented by James 1., succeed?
No. The House of Peers was incensed by this effort to
shackle it. It was incensed against James I., it was in-
censed against Charles I., who may have had something to
do with the death of his father, just as Marie de Medicis may
have had something to do with the death of her husband.
There was a rupture between Charles I. and the peerage.
The Lords who, under James I., had tried at their bar, ex-
tortion, in the person of Bacon, unde-r Charles I. tried treason,
in the person of Strafi'ord. They had condemned Bacon,—
they condemned Straiford. One had lost his honour, the other
lost his life. Charles I. was first beheaded in the person of
Strafford. 'The Lords lent their aid to the Commons. The
king convened Parliament in Oxford, the revolution convened
it in London. Forty—three peers sided with the king, twenty-
two with the Republic. From this union of the people with
the Lords arose the Bill of Rights,—— a sketch of the French
Droits de l’homme; a vague shadow flung back from the depths
of futurity by the revolution of France on the revolution of
England.
Such were the services of the peerage,-— involuntary ones,
we admit, and dearly purchased, because the said peerage is
a huge parasite,— but valuable services, nevertheless.
The despotic work of Louis XI., of Richelieu, and of Louis
XIV., the creation of a sultan, the degradation of the peo-
ple,-— all these Turkish tricks practised in France, the peers
prevented in England. The aristocracy was a wall, restrain-
ing the king on one side, sheltering the people on the
other. They atoned for their arrogance towards the people
by their insolence towards the king. Simon, Earl of Leices—
ter said to Henry III.: “King, thou hast lied!” The
Lords curbed the Crown, and touched their kings in the ten-
derest point, that of venery. Every lord, passing through
a royal park, had the right to kill a deer; in the house of the
king the peer was at home; in the Tower of London the allow-
ance for the king was no more than that for a peer; namely,


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 217
twelve pounds sterling per week. This was the House of
Lords’ doing.
Yet more. We owe to it the deposition of kings. The
Lords ousted John Lackland, degraded Edward II., deposed
Richard IL, broke the power of Henry VI., and made Crom—
well a possibility. What a Louis XIV. there was in Charles
I.! Thanks to Cromwell, it remained latent. By—the-bye,
we may here observe‘that Cromwell himself, though no his-
torian seems to have noticed the fact, aspired to the peer-
age. This was why he married Elizabeth Bouchier, descend—
ant and heiress of a Cromwell, Lord Bouchier, whose peerage
became extinct in 1471, and of a Bouchier, Lord Robesart,
another peerage extinct in 1429. Carried on with the for-
midable increase of important events, he found the suppression
of a king a shorter road to power than the recovery of a
peerage. TWo men-at-amns from the Tower, with their axes
on their shoulders, between whom an accused peer stood at
the bar of the House, might have been there in like attend—
ance on the king. For five centuries the House of Lords acted
on a system, and carried it out with determination. They
had their days of idleness and weakness,-— as, for instance,
that strange time when they allowed themselves to be seduced
by the vessels loaded with cheeses, hams, and Greek wines sent
them by Julius II. The English aristocracy was generally
restless, haughty, ungovernable, watchful, and patriotically
distrust-ful. It was that same aristocracy which, at the end
the seventeenth century, by Act the Tenth of the year
1694, deprived the borough of Stockbridge, in Hampshire,
of the right of sending members to Parliament, and forced the
Commons to declare mull the election for that borough, stained
by papistical fraud. It imposed the test oath on James,
Duke of York, and on his refusal to take it, excluded him
from the throne. He reigned, notwithstanding; but the
Lords finally called him to account, and banished him. That
same aristocracy has had, in its long duration, some instinct
of progress. It has always given out a certain quantity of
appreciable light except now towards its end, which is close


220 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
What are concessions? Restitutions,— and the people
know it.
“ I grant,” says the king.
“ I am getting back my own,” says the people.
The House of Lords believed that it was ensuring the priv-
ileges of the peerage, but it has created the rights of the citi—
zen. That vulture, aristocracy, has hatched the eagle’s egg,
“liberty.
And now the egg is broken, the eagle is soaring, the Vul—
ture is dying.
Aristocracy is at its last gasp; England is growing up.
Still, let us be just towards the aristocracy. It entered
the scale against royalty, and was its counterpoise. It was an
obstacle to despotism. It was a barrier. '
Let us thank it and bury it.
CHAPTER III
THE OLD HALL
NEAR Westminster Abbey was an old Norman palace
which was burnt in the time of Henry VIII. Its
wings were spared. In one of them Edward VI. placed the
House of Lords, in the other the House of Commons. Neither
the two wings nor the two chambers are now in existence.
The whole has been rebuilt.
We have already said, and we must repeat, that there is
no resemblance between the House of Lords of the present
day, and that of the past. In demolishing the ancient palace,
they demolished its ancient usages. The strokes of the pick-
axe on the monument produce their counter-strokes on cus-
toms and charters. An old stone cannot fall without drag-
ging an old law down with it. Place in a round room a par-
liament which has hitherto been held in a square room, and


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 221
it will no longer be the same thing. A change in the shape
of the shell changes the shape of the fish inside.
If you wish to preserve an old thing, human or divine, a
code or a dogma, a nobility or a priesthood, never repair
anything about it thoroughly, even its outside cover. Patch
it up, nothing more. For instance, J esuitism is a piece added
to Catholicism. Treat edifices as you would treat institu-
tions. Shadows should dwell in ruins. Worn-out powers are
uneasy in freshly decorated chambers. Ruined palaces har-
monize best with tattered institutions. To attempt to de-
scribe the House of Lords of other days would be to attempt
to describe the unknown. History is night. That which is
no longer on the stage immediately fades into obscurity. The
scene is shifted, and all is forgotten. The past has a syn-
onym,-—- the Unknown.
The peers of England sat as a court of justice in West-
minster Hall, and as the higher legislative chamber in a cham-
ber specially reserved for the purpose, called The House of
Lords.
In addition to the House of Peers, which did not assem-
ble as a court, unless convoked by the Crown, two great Eng-
lish tribunals, inferior to the House of Peers, but superior to
all other jurisdiction, sat in Westminster Hall. They occu—
pied adjoining apartments at the end of the hall. The first
was the Court of King’s Bench, over which the king was sup—
posed to preside; the second, the Court of Chancery, over
which the chancellor presided. The one was a court of jus-
tice, the other a court of mercy. It was the chancellor who
counselled the king to pardon,—— very rarely, however.
These two courts, which are still in existence, interpreted
the laws, and reconstructed them somewhat, for it is the busi-
ness of the judge to carve the code into jurisprudence,-- a
process not infrequently plays sad havoc with justice. Leg—
islation was worked up and sternly applied in the great hall
of Westminster, the rafters of which were of chestnut wood,
over which spiders could not spread their webs. There are
enough of them in all conscience in the laws. ' '


222 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
To sit as a court, and to sit as a chamber, are two distinct
things. This double function constitutes supreme power.
The Long Parliament, which began in November, 1640, felt
the revolutionary necessity for this two—edged sword. So it
declared that, as House of Lords, it possessed judicial as well
as legislative power.
This double power has been, from time immemorial, vested
in the House of Peers. We have just mentioned that as
judges they occupied Westminster Hall; as legislators they
had another chamber. This other chamber, properly called
the House of Lords, was oblong and narrow. All the light
in it came from four windows in deep embrasures, which re-
ceived their light through the roof, and a bull’s-eye, composed
of six panes with curtains, over the throne. At night there
was no light save that which came from twelve candelabra,
fastened to the wall. The chamber of Venice was darker still.
A dim light is always preferred by these owl—like personages.
A vaulted ceiling adorned with many—faced relievos and
gilded cornices surmounted the chamber where the Lords
assembled. The Commons had a flat ceiling. There is a bid-
den meaning in all monarchical buildings. At one end of the
long chamber of the Lords was the door; at the end opposite
to it, the throne. A few paces from the door, the bar, a
transverse barrier, marked the spot where the people ended
and the peerage began. To the right of the throne was a
fireplace with emblazoned pinnacles, and two bas-reliefs of
marble, representing, one, the victory of Cuthwolf over the
Britons, in 572 ; the other, the geometrical plan of the borough
of Dunstable, which had four streets, parallel to the four
quarters of the world. The throne was approached by three
steps. It was called the royal chair. On the two walls, 0p-
posite each other, were displayed in successive pictures on a
huge piece of tapestry, given to the Lords by Elizabeth, the
adventures of the Armada, from the time of its leaving Spain,
until it was wrecked on the coast of Great Britain. The
great hulls of the ships were embroidered with threads of
gold and silver, which had become blackened by time.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 223
Against this tapestry, cut at intervals by the candelabra fas-
tened in the wall, were placed, to the right of the throne,
three rows of benches for the bishops, and to the left three
rows of benches for the dukes, marquises, and earls, in tiers,
and separated by aisles. On the three benches of the first
section sat the dukes; on those of the second, the marquises;
on those of the third, the earls. The viscounts’ bench was
placed across, opposite the throne, and behind, between the
viscounts and the bar, were two benches for the barons.
On the highest bench to the right of the throne sat the two
archbishops of Canterbury and York; on the middle bench,
the bishops of London, Durham, and Winchester, and the
other bishops on the lowest bench. Between the Archbishop
of Canterbury and the other bishops there is this great differ-
ence, he is bishop “ by divine Providence,” while the others
are only so “ by divine permission.” To the right of the
throne was a chair for the Prince of Wales, and to the left,
folding chairs for the royal dukes, and behind the latter a
raised seat for minor peers, who had not the privilege of vot-
ing. Plenty of fleurs-de—lis everywhere, and the great
escutcheon of England over the four walls, above the peers,
as well as above the king. I
The sons of peers, and the heirs to peerages, assisted at
the debates, standing behind the throne, between the dais and
the wall. A large square space was left vacant between the
tiers of benches placed along three sides of the chamber and
the throne. In this space, which was covered with the state
carpet, interwoven with the arms of Great Britain, were four
wool—sacks, one in front of the throne, between the mace and
the seal, occupied by the Lord Chancellor; one in front of the
bishops, on which sat the judges, Counsellors of State, who
had the right to be present, but not to vote; one in front of
the dukes, marquises, and earls, on which sat the Secretaries
of State; and one in front of the viscounts and barons, on
which sat the Clerk of the Crown and the Clerk of Parliament,
and on which the two under-clerks wrote, kneeling.
In the middle of the space was a large covered table, heaped


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 225
Lords contained a large number of members. It has increased
very considerably since that period. To dilute the aristoc-
racy is politic. Elizabeth most probably erred in condensing
the peerage into sixty-five lords. The less numerous, the
more intolerant the peerage. In assemblies, the more numer-
ous the members, the fewer the heads. I James II. understood
this when he increased the Upper 'House to a hundred and
eighty-eight lords,-—a hundred and eighty-six, if we sub-
tract from the peerages the two duchies of royal favourites,
Portsmouth and Cleveland. Under Anne, the total number
of lords, including bishops, was two hundred and seven. Not
counting the Duke of Cumberland, husband of the queen,
there were twenty—five dukes, of whom the premier, Norfolk,
did not take his seat, being a Catholic, and of whom the
junior, Cambridge, the Elector of Hanover, did, although
a foreigner. Winchester, styled first and sole Marquis of
England,—— as Astorga was “termed sole Marquis of Spain,—
was absent, being a Jacobite; so that there were only five
marquises, of whom the premier was Lindsay, and 'the junior
Lothian ; seventy-nine earls, of whom Derby was premier, and
Islay junior; nine viscounts, of whom Hereford was premier,
and Lonsdale junior; and sixty-two barons, of whom Aber-
gavenny was premier, and Hervey junior. Lord Hervey,
the junior baron, was what was called the “ Puisne of the
House.” Derby, of whom Oxford, Shrewsbury, and Kent
took precedence, and who was therefore but the fourth under
James 11., became (under Anne) premier earl. Two c‘han-
cellor’s names had disappeared from the list of barons,—
Verulam, under which designation history finds us Bacon; and
Wem, under which it finds us Jefl'eries. Bacon and Jefi'eries!
both names overshadowed, though by different crimes. In
1705, the twenty-six bishops were reduced to twenty-five, the
See of Chester being vacan‘t. Among the bishops some were
peers of high rank, such as William Talbot, Bishop of Ox-
ford, who was head of the Protestant branch of that family.
Others were eminent Doctors, like John Sharp, Archbishop of
York,15formerly Dean of Norwich; the poet, 'Thomas Spratt,
‘ _ \-_~ _., _ _--_-—---\~.-—~.---——-—\'


226 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Bishop of Rochester, an apoplectic old man; and that Bishop
of Lincoln who was to die Archbishop of Canterbury, Wake,
the adversary of Bossuet.
On important occasions, and when a message from the
Crown to the House was expected, the whole of this august
assemblage — in robes, in wigs, in mitres, or plumes —
formed in line, and displayed their rows of heads, in tiers,
along the walls of the House, where the storm could be vaguely
seen exterminating the Armada, almost as much as to say,
“ Even the elements are at the service of England.”

CHAPTER IV
THE OLD CHAMBER.
HE whole ceremony of Gwynplaine’s investiture, from
his entry under the King’s Gate to his taking the test
oath under the nave window, was enacted in a sort of twi—
light.
Lord William Cowper had not listened to many details con-
nected with the disfigurement of the young Lord Fermain
Clancharlie, considering it beneath his dignity to know whether
or not a peer was handsome, or allow an inferior to intrude
information of such a nature upon him. We know that a
common fellow will take pleasure in saying, “ That prince
is humpbacked;” therefore, it is abusive to say that a lord
is deformed. To the few words dropped on the subject by
the queen the Lord Chancellor had contented himself with re—
plying: —
“ The face of a peer is in his peerage! ”
The affidavits he read and certified enlightened him ulti-
mately, however. Hence the precautions which he took. The
face of the new lord, on his entrance into the House, might
cause a sensation.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 227
It was necessary to prevent this, so the Lord Chancellor
took measures accordingly. It is a fixed idea, and rule of
conduct with great personages, to create as little disturbance
as possible; consequently he felt the necessity of so ordering
matters that the admission of Gwynplaine would take place
without any hitch, and like that of any other successor to the
peerage.
It was for this reason that the Lord Chancellor directed
that the reception of Lord Fermain Clancharlie should take
place at the evening sitting. The Chancellor being the door-
keeper —“ Quodammodo ostiarus,” says the Norman char-
ter; “ J anuarum cancellorumque potestas,” says Tertullian —-
he can ofliciate outside the room on the threshold; and Lord
William Cowper had used his right by carrying out under
the nave the formalities of the investiture of Lord Fermain
Clancharlie. Moreover, he had appointed the hour for the
ceremonies, so that the new. peer actually made his entrance
into the house before the house had assembled.
For the investiture of a peer on the threshold, and not in
the chamber itself, there happened to be a precedent. The
first hereditary baron, John de Beauchamp, of Holt Castle,
created by patent of Richard II., in 1587, Baron Kidder-
minster, was thus installed. In renewing this precedent the
4 Lord Chancellor was creating for himself a cause of embar—
rassment in the future, the inconvenience of which he felt less
than two years afterwards on the entrance of Viscount New-
haven into the House of Lords.
Short-sighted as we have already stated him to be, Lord
William Cowper scarcely perceived Gwynplaine’s disfigure-
ment; while the two sponsors, being old and nearly blind, did
not notice it at all.
The Lord Chancellor had chosen them for that very reason.
Moreover, the Lord Chancellor, having seen only the bear—
ing and stature of Gwynplaine, thought him a rather fine-
looking man. When the door-keeper opened the folding doors
to Gwynplaine there were but few peers in the house; and
these few were nearly all old men. In assemblies the old mem—


228 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
bers are the most punctual, just as towards women they are the
most assiduous in their attentions.
On the d'uke’s benches there were but two persons, one
white—headed, the other grey,-— Thomas Osborne, Duke of
Leeds, and Schomberg, son of that Schomberg, German by
birth, French by his marshal’s baton, and English by his
peerage, who was banished by the edict of Nantes, and who,
having fought against England as a Frenchman, fought
against France as an Englishman. On the benches of the
spiritual lords there sat only the archbishop of Canterbury,
Primate of England, above; and below, Dr. Simon Patrick,
Bishop of Ely, deeply engaged in conversation with Evelyn
Pierrepoint, Marquis of Dorchester, who was explaining to
him the difference between a gabion considered singly and
when used in the parapet of a field-work, and between pali-
sades and fraises,-—the former being a row of posts driven
into the ground in front of the tents, for the purpose of pro-
tecting the camp; the latter, sharp-pointed stakes set up under
the wall of a fortress, to prevent the escalade of the besiegers
and the desertion of the besieged; and the marquis was ex-
plaining further the method of placing fraises in the ditches
of redoubts, half of each stake being buried and half ex—
posed. Thomas Thynne, Viscount YVeymouth standing under
the light of a chandelier, was examining a plan of his archi-
tect’s for laying out his gardens at Longleat, in Wiltshire, in
the Italian style,— as a- lawn, broken up into plots, with
squares of turf alternating with squares of red and yellow
sand, of river shells, and of fine coal dust. On the viscounts’
benches was a group of aged peers, Essex, Ossulstone, Pere-
grine, Osborne, William Zulestein, and the Earl of Roch-
ford, together with a few more youthful ones, of the faction
which did not wear wigs, who were gathered round Price
Devereux, Viscount Hereford, discussing the question whether
an infusion of Apalachian holly was tea. “Very nearly,”
said Osborne.—“ Quite,” said Essex. This discussion was at-
tentively listened to by Paulet St. John, a cousin of Boling-
broke, of whom Voltaire was, later on, in some degree the
a - -,-_nf---- .- _. ....#J..---~r:£---: wt—ZM


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 229
pupil; for Voltaire’s education, commenced by Pere Porée,
was finished by Bolingbroke. On the marquises’ benches,
Thomas de Grey, Marquis of Kent, Lord Chamberlain to the
queen, was informing Robert Bertie, Marquis of Lindsay,
Lord Chamberlain of England, that the first prize in the
great English lottery of 1694 had been won by two French
refugees, Monsieur le Coq, formerly councillor in the parlia—
ment of Paris, and Monsieur Ravenel, a gentleman of Brit-
tany. The Earl of Wemyss was reading a book, entitled
“ Pratique Curieuse des Oracles des Sybilles.” John Camp-
bell, Earl of Greenwich, famous for his long chin, his gaiety,
and his eighty—seven years, was writing to his mistress. Lord
Chandos was trimming his nails.
The sitting which was about to take place, being a royal
one, where the Crown was to be represented by commissioners,
two assistant door—keepers were placing in front of the throne
a bench covered with purple velvet. On the second wool-sack
sat the Master of the Rolls, sacrorum scrim'or'um magister,
who had then for his residence the house formerly belonging
to the converted Jews. Two under-clerks were kneeling, and
turning over the leaves of the registers which lay on the fourth
wool—sack. In the mean time the Lord Chancellor had taken
his place on the first wool—sack. The members of the chamber
took theirs, some sitting, others standing; then, the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury rose and read the prayer, and the ses-
sion of the house began.
Gwynplaine had already been there some time without at—
tracting any notice. The second bench of barons, which was
his place, was close to the bar, so that he had had to take but
a few steps to reach it. The two peers, his sponsors, sat, one
on his right hand, the other on his left; thus almost con-
cealing the new-comer.
No one having been furnished with any previous informa-
tion, the Clerk of Parliament had read in a low voice, and, as
it were, mumbled through the different documents concerning
the new peer, and the Lord Chancellor had proclaimed his ad-
mission in the midst of what is called, in the reports, “ gen-


230 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
eral inattention.” Every one was talking. There buzzed
through the House that cheerful hum of voices during which
assemblies pass things which will not bear the light, and at
which they marvel too late, when they find out what they have
done.
Gwynplaine was seated in silence, with his head uncovered,
between the two old peers, Lord Fitzwalter and Lord Arundel.
Let us add that Barkilphedro, like the wily scoundrel that
he was, had, in his official communications to the Lord Chan-
cellor, made light to a certain extent of the disfigurement of
Lord Clancharlie, maintaining that Gwynplaine could at will
suppress the grin and look serious. Besides, from an aristo-
cratic point of view, what did it matter? Lord Cowper, as a
lawyer, had declared, “ The restoration of a peer is of
more importance than the restoration of a king.” It is a
shame and an outrage for a lord to be deformed, but how
does that affect his rights? The right of being a peer or a
king is superior to deformity or infirmity. Was not a wild
beasts’ cry as hereditary as the peerage in the ancient family
of the Comyns Earls of Buchan, extinct in 13%7, so that it
was by the tiger-yell that the Scotch peer was recognized?
Did his blood-spotted face prevent Caesar Borgia from being
Duke of Valentinois? Did blindness prevent John of Luxem-
bourg being King of Bohemia? Did a humped back pre—
vent Richard III. from being King of England? Viewed
aright, infirmity or deformity, accepted with haughty indif—
ference, affirm and confirm grandeur. This is another view
of the question, and not the least important. As we have
seen, no one could oppose the admission of Gwynplaine, and
the prudent precautions of the Lord Chancellor were super—
fluous from the point of view of aristocratic principle.
On entering, according to the instructions of the King-at-
Arms,— afterwards renewed by his sponsors,— he had bowed
to the throne.
Thus all was over. He was a peer.
That pinnacle, under the glory of which he had, all his
life, seen his master Ursus bow down in fear,— that prodi—
_._...\1|_.__._7 __,_.


284 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
He has an extraordinary face, which people gave a penny to
look at. A mountebank.”
“ Well, what then? ”
“ He has just been installed as a Peer of England.”
“ You must be the Laughing Man, my Lord Montacute ! ”
“ I am not jesting, my Lord Dorchester.”
Lord Montacute made a sign to the Clerk of Parliament,
who rose from his wool—sack, and confirmed to their lordship:
the fact of the admission of the new peer. Moreover, he re—
lated the circumstances.
“ How wonderful!” said Lord Dorchester. “ I was talk-
ing to the Bishop of Ely all the while.”
The young Earl of Annesley addressing old Lord Eure,
who had but two years more to live, as he died in 1707,
asked,—
“ My Lord Eure, did you know Lord Linnaeus Clanchar-
lie? ”
“ A man of by-gone days. Yes, I did.”
“ He died in Switzerland? ”
“ Yes; we were distantly related.”
“ He was a republican under Cromwell, and remained a re-
publican under Charles 11., did he not?”
“ A republican? Not at all! He was only sulking. He
had a personal quarrel with the king. I know from good au—
thority that Lord Clancharlie would have returned to his
allegiance, if they had given him the office of chancellor, which
Lord Hyde held.”
“ You astonish me, Lord Eure. I heard that Lord Clan-
charlie was an honest politician.”
“ An honest politician! Does such a thing exist? Young
man, there is no such thing!”
“ And Cato? ”
“ Oh, you believe in Cato, do you? ”
“ And Aristides? ”
“ They did well to exile him.”
“ And Thomas More? ”
“ They did well to cut off his head.”


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 235
“ And in your opinion, Lord Clancharlie -——” _
“ Was a man of the same stamp. As for a man remaining
in exile, why, that is simply ridiculous.”
“ He died there.”
“ An ambitious man disappointed. You ask if I knew
him? I should think so, indeed. I was his most intimate
friend.”
“ Were you aware, Lord Eure, that he married while in
Switzerland? ”
“ I am pretty sure of it.”
“ And that he had a lawful heir by that marriage? ”
“ Yes; who is dead.”
“ Who is living.”
“ Living? ”
“ Living.”
“ Impossible! ”
“ It is a fact,— proved, authenticated, confirmed, regis-
tered.”
“ Then that son will inherit the Clancharlie peerage? ”
“ He is not going to inherit it.”
“ !,
“ Because he has inherited it already. It is an accom-
plished fact.”
“ Done? ”
“ Turn your head, Lord Eure; he is sitting behind you, on
the barons’ benches.”
Lord Eure turned, but Gwynplaine’s face was concealed
under his forest of hair.
“ So he has already adopted the new fashion,” said the old
man, who could see nothing but his hair. “ He does not wear
a wig.”
Grantham accosted Colepepper.
“ Some one is finely sold.”
“ Who is that?”
“ David Dirry—Moir.”
“ How is that?”
" He is no longer a peer.”


236 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
“ How can that be? ”
And Henry Auverquerque, Earl of Grantham, proceeded
to tell John Baron Colepepper the whole story about tln
flask which had been carried to the Admiralty, about the con-
fession of the Comprachicos, the Jussu regis, countersigned
Jefi‘eries, and the confrontation in the torture-cell at South—
wark, the proofs of all the facts acknowledged by the Lord
Chancellor and by the queen; the taking of the oath under
the nave, and finally the admission of Lord Fermain Clan—
charlie at the commencement of the sitting. Both the lords
endeavoured to distinguish his face as he sat between Lord
Fitzwalter and Lord Arundel, but with no better success than
Lord Eure and Lord Annesley.
Gwynplaine, either by chance or by the arrangement of his
sponsors, forewarned by the Lord Chancellor, was so placed
in shadow as to escape their curiosity.
“ Who is it? Where is he? ”
Such was the exclamation of all the new-comers, but no one
succeeded in making him out distinctly. Some, who had seen
Gwynplaine in the Green Box, were exceedingly curious, but
without avail. As it sometimes happens that a young lady
is in'trenched within a troop of dowagers, Gwynplaine was,
as it were, enveloped in several layers of lords, old, infirm,
and indifferent. Good livers, with the gout, are marvelloust
indifferent to stories about their neighbours.
There passed, from hand to hand, copies of a letter three
lines in length, written, it was said, by the Duchess Josiana to
the queen, her sister, in answer to the command given by her
Majesty, that she should espouse the new peer, the lawful
heir of the Clancharlies, Lord Fermain. This letter was
couched in the following terms: ——-
Mmsm,— The arrangement will suit me just as well. I can have
Lord David for my lover.
' (Signed) JOSIAXA.
This note, whether a true copy or a forgery, was received
by all with the greatest enthusiasm. A young lord, Charles


238 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
“ My Lord Cholmondeley, what will be the rank of this
young Lord Clancharlie in the House?”
“ My Lord Bishop, the interruption of the Republic hav-
ing displaced ancient rights of precedence, Clancharlie now
ranks in the peerage between Barnard and Somers, so that
should each be called upon to speak in turn, Lord Clancharlie
would be the eighth in rotation.”
“ Really! he, a mountebank from a public show! ”
“ The act, per se, does not astonish me, my Lord Bishop.
We meet with such things. Still more wonderful circum-
stances occur. Was not the War of the Roses predicted by
the sudden drying up of the river Ouse, in Bedfordshire, on
January 1, 1399. Now, if a river dries up, a peer may,
quite as naturally, fall into a servile condition. Ulysses,
King of Ithaca, played all kinds of roles. Fermain Clan-
charlie remained 9. lord under his player’s garb. Sordid gar-
ments do not mar the soul’s nobility. But taking the test
and the investiture outside the sitting, though strictly legal,
might give rise to objections. I am of opinion that it will
be necessary to look into the matter, to see if there be any
ground to question the Lord Chancellor in Privy Council,
later on. We shall see in a week or two what is best to be
done.”
And the Bishop added;—
“ All the same. It is an adventure such as has not oc-
curred since Earl Gesbodus’s time.”
Gwynplaine, the Laughing Man; the Tadcaster Inn; the
~Green Box; “ Chaos Vanquished;” Switzerland; Chillon; the
Comprachicos; exile; mutilation; the Republic; Jefi'eries;
James IL; the jussu regis; the bottle opened at the Admir-
alty; the father, Lord Linnwus; the legitimate son, Lord
Fermain; the illegitimate son, Lord David; the probable
law suits; the Duchess Josiana; the Lord Chancellor; the
queen,~——~ all these topics of conversation ran from bench to
bench.
Whispering is like a train of gunpowder.
They seized on every incident. The details of the occur-


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 289
rence caused an excited murmur through the house. Gwyn-
plaine, absorbed in reverie, heard the buzzing without know-
ing that he was the cause of it. He was strangely attentive
to the depths, not to the surface. Excessive attention pro-
duces isolation. ‘
The buzz of conversation in the House impedes the prog-
ress of business no more than the dust raised by a troop im-
pedes its march. The judges—who in the Upper House
were mere assistants, without the privilege of speaking, except
when questioned —- had taken their places on the second wool-
sack; and the three Secretaries of State theirs, on the third.
The heirs to peerages flowed into their compartment, at
once without and within the House, at the back of the throne.
The peers, who were still minors, were on their own benches.
In 1705 the number of these lords amounted to no less than a
dozen,— Huntingdon, Lincoln, Dorset, Warwick, Bath, Bar--
lington, Derwentwater (destined to a tragical death), Longue-
ville, Lonsdale, Dudley, Ward, and Carteret: a party of
youths consisting of eight earls, two viscounts, and two
barons.
Each lord had taken his seat on the three stages of benches
in the centre. Almost all the bishops were there. The dukes
mustered strong, beginning with Charles Seymour, Duke of
Somerset, and ending with George Augustus, Elector of Han-
over, and Duke of Cambridge, junior in date of creation, and
consequently junior in rank. All were seated in order, ac-
cording to right of precedence: Cavendish, Duke of Devon-
shire, whose grandfather had sheltered Hobbs, at Hardwicke,
when he was ninety-two; Lenox, Duke of Richmond; the three
Fitzroys, the Duke of Southampton, the Duke of Grafton,
and the Duke of Northumberland; Butler, Duke of Ormond;
Somerset, Duke of Beaufort; Beauclerc, Duke of St. Albans;
Paulet, Duke of Bolton; Osborne, Duke of Leeds; Wrottesley
Russell, Duke of Bedford,-— whose motto and device was che
sara. sara, which expresses a determination to take things as
they come; Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham; Manners, Duke
of Rutland; and others. Neither Howard, Duke of Norfolk,


2&0 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
nor Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, were present, being Catho-
lics; nor Churchill, Duke of Marlborough (the French Mal-
brouck), who was at that time fighting the French and heat-
ing them. There were no Scotch dukes then,— Queensberry,
Montrose, and Roxburgh not being admitted till 1707.
CHAPTER VI
'rn‘n men AND THE Low
LL at once a bright light illumined the House. Four
door-keepers brought in and placed on each side of the
throne four high candelabra filled with wax—lights. The
throne, thus illuminated, shone in a kind of purple light. It
was empty, but august. The presence of the queen herself
could not have added much majesty to it.
The Usher of the Black Rod entered with his wand, and
announced?—
“The Lords Commissioners of her Majesty.”
The hum of conversation immediately subsided.
A clerk, in a wig and gown, appeared at the great door,
holding a. velvet cushion embroidered with fleurs-de-lis, on
which lay several rolls of parchment. These were bills.
From each hung by a silken string the bills, or bulle, from
which laws are called bills in England, and bulls in Rome.
Behind the clerk walked three men in peers’ robes, and wearing
plumed hats. -
These were the Royal Commissioners. The first was the
Lord High Treasurer of England, Godolphin; the second, the
Lord President of the Council, Pembroke; the third, the Lord
of the Privy Seal, Newcastle.
They walked one by one according to precedence, not of
their rank, but of their creation,—— Godolphin first, Newcastle
last, although a duke.


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 241
On reaching the bench in front of the throne, to which they
bowed, removing and replacing their hats, they sat down on
the bench.
The Lord Chancellor turned towards the Usher of the
Black Rod, and said,—
“ Summon the Commons to the bar of the House.”
The Usher of the Black Rod retired.
The Clerk, who was cne of the clerks of the House of Lords,
placed on the table, between the four wool—sacks, the cushion
on which the bills rested.
Then came a pause, which continued several minutes. Two
door—keepers placed before the bar a stool, with three steps.
This stool was covered with crimson velvet, on which fleurs-de—
Zia were designed in gilt nails.
The great door, which had been closed, was reopened; and
a voice announced,—
“ The faithful Commons of England.”
It was the Usher of the Black Rod announcing the other
half of Parliament.
The Lords put on their hats.
The members of the House of Commons entered preceded
by their Speaker, all with uncovered heads.
They stopped at the bar. They were in their ordinary
garb; for the most part dressed in black and wearing swords.
! The Speaker, the Right Honourable John Smith, an es-
quire, member for the borough of Andover, got up on the
stool which was at the centre of the bar. The Speaker of
the House of Commons wore a robe of black satin, with large
hanging sleeves, embroidered before and behind with bran-
denburgs of gold, and a wig smaller than that of the Lord
Chancellor. He was majestic, but inferior.
The Commons, both Speaker and members, stood waiting
with uncovered heads, before the peers, who remained seated,
with their hats on.
Among the members of Commons might have been noticed
the Chief Justice of Chester, Joseph Jekyll; the queen’s three
Serjezliéits-at-Law,—- Hooper, Powys, and Parker; James


242 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
Montagu, Solicitor-General; and the Attorney-General, Smon
Harcourt. With the exception of a few baronets and
knights, and nine lords by courtesy,-— Hartington, Windsor,
Woodstock, Mordaunt, Granby, Scudamore, Fitzhardinge,
Hyde, and Berkeley (sons of peers and heirs to peerages),——
all were of the people; a sort of gloomy and silent crowd.
When the noise made by the trampling of feet had ceased,
the Crier of the Black Rod, standing by the door, ex-
claimed,—
“ ! ’5
The Clerk of the Crown arose. He took, unfolded, and
read the first of the documents on the cushion. It was a
message from the queen, naming three commissioners to rep—
resent her in Parliament, with power to sanction bills pre-
sented for consideration.
“ To-wit : —-—”
Here the Clerk raised his voice.
“ Sidney Earl Godolphin.”
The Clerk bowed to Lord Godolphin. Lord Godolphin
raised his hat.
The Clerk continued:—
“ Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery.”
The Clerk bowed to Lord Pembroke. Lord Pembroke
touched his hat.
The Clerk resumed:—
“ John Holles, Duke of Newcastle.”
The Duke of Newcastle nodded.
The Clerk of the Crown resumed his seat. .
The Clerk of Parliament arose. His under-clerk, who had
been on his knees behind him, got up also. Both turned
their faces to the throne, and their backs to the Commons.
There were five bills on the cushion. These five bills voted
by the Commons and agreed to by the Lords, awaited the
royal sanction.
The Clerk of the Parliaments read the first bill.
It was a bill passed by the Commons, charging the coun-
try with'the costs of the improvements made by the queen


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 243
to her residence at Hampton Court, amounting to a million
sterling.
The reading over, the Clerk bowed low to the throne. The
under-clerk bowed lower still; then, half turning his head
towards the Commons, he said,—
“ The queen accepts your benevolence,— et ainsi le went.”
The Clerk read the second bill.
It was a law condemning to imprisonment and fine whom—
soever withdrew himself from the service of the train-bands.
The train-bands were a militia, recruited from the middle
and lower classes, serving gratis, which in Elizabeth’s reign
furnished, on the approach of the Armada, one hundred and
eighty-five thousand foot-soldiers and forty thousand horse.
The two clerks made a fresh bow to the throne, after which
the under-clerk, again half turning his face to the Com-
mons, said,—
“ La Reine le veut.”
The third bill was for _ncreasing the tithes and prebends
of the Bishopric of Lichfield and Coventry, which was one
of the richest in England; for making an increased yearly
allowance to the cathedral, for augmenting the number of its
canons, and for increasing its deaneries and benefices, “to
the benefit of our holy religion,” as the preamble set forth.
The fourth bill added to the budget fresh taxes,—— one on
marbled paper; one on hackney coaches, fixed at the number
of eight hundred in London, each taxed at a sum equal to
fifty—two francs yearly; one on barristers, attorneys, and so-
licitors, at forty-eight francs a year per head; one on tanned
skins, notwithstanding, said the preamble, the complaints of
the workers in leather. One on soap, notwithstanding the
petitions of the City of Exeter and of the whole of Devon-
shire, where great quantities of cloth and serge were manu—
factured; one on wine at four shillings; one on flour; one on
barley and hops; and one renewing for four years “ the ne-
cessities of the State,” said the preamble, “ demanding atten-
tion in spite of the remonstrances of commerce; ” and tonnage-
dues, varying from six francs per ton, for ships coming from


244 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
the westward, to eighteen francs on those coming from the
eastward. Finally, the bill, declaring the sums already levied
for the current year insufficient, concluded by decreeing a
poll—tax on each subject throughout the kingdom of four
shillings per head, adding that a double tax would be levied
on every person who endeavoured to evade the demands of the
Government.
The fifth bill forbade the admission into the hospital of
any sick person who on entering did not deposit a pound
sterling to pay his funeral eXpenses in case of death. These
last three bills, like the first two, were sanctioned one after
another, and made law by a bow to the throne, and the four
words pronounced by the under-clerk, “la Reine le veut,”
spoken over his shoulder to the Commons. Then the under—
clerk knelt down again before the fourth Wool-sack, and the
Lord Chancellor said,—
“ Soit fait comme il est désiré.”
This terminated the royal sitting. The Speaker, bending
nearly double before the Chancellor, descended from the stool,
backwards, lifting up his robe behind him; the members of
the House of Commons bowed to the ground, and as the
Upper House resumed the business of the day, heedless of
all these marks of respect, the Commons departed.

CHAPTER VII
s'roams or MEN ARE wonsn THAN s'ronns or ocsarzs
HE doors having closed again, the Usher of the Black
Rod re-entered; the Lords Commissioners left the bench
of State and took their places at the top of the dukes’ benches,
by right of their commission, and the Lord Chancellor ad-
dressed the House.
“ My lords, the House having deliberated for several days


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 245
on the Bill which proposes to augment, by £100,000 sterling
the annual provision for his Royal Highness the Prince, her
Majesty’s Consort, and the debate having been closed, the
House will now proceed to vote; the votes will be taken ac—
cording to custom, beginning with the puisne baron. Each
lord, on his name being called, will rise and answer “ con-
tent,” or “ not content,” and will be at liberty to explain his
reasons for his vote, if he thinks fit to do so. Clerk, take
the vote.”
The Clerk of the House, standing up, opened a large
folio, and spread it open on a gilded desk. This book was
the list of the Peerage.
The puisne of the House of Lords at that time, was John
Hervey, created Baron and Peer in 1703, from whom is de-
scended the Marquis of Bristol.
The Clerk called,—
“My Lord John, Baron Hervey.”
An old man in a fair wig arose, and said, “ Content.”
Then he sat down.
The Clerk registered his vote.
The Clerk continued,—
“ My Lord Francis Seymour, Baron Conway, of Killul-
tagh.”
“ Content,” murmured, half rising, an elegant young man,
with a face like a page, who little thought that he was to be
the ancestor of the Marquises of Hertford.
“ My Lord John Leveson, Baron Gower,” continued the
Clerk.
This baron, from whom the Dukes of Sutherland
were to spring, rose, and, as he reseated himself, said, “ Con-
tent.”
“ My Lord Heneage Finch, Baron Guernsey,” continued
the Clerk.
The ancestor of the Earls of Aylesford, neither older nor
less elegant than the ancestor of the Marquises of Hertford,
justified his device, aperto rivers veto, by the proud tone in
which he exclaimed, “ Content.”


246 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
While he was resuming his seat, the Clerk called the fifth
Baron.
“ My Lord John, Baron Granville.”
Rising and resuming his seat quickly, “ Content,” exclaimed
Lord Granville, of Potheridge, whose peerage was to become
extinct in 1709.
The Clerk passed to the sixth.
“ My Lord Charles Montague, Baron Halifax.”
“ Content,” said Lord Halifax, the bearer of a title which
had become extinct with the Saville family, and was destined
to become extinct again in that of Montague. (Montague
is distinct from Montagu and Montacute.) And Lord Hali-
fax added, “ Prince George has an allowance as her Majesty’s
Consort; he has another as Prince of Denmark; another as
Duke of Cumberland; another as Lord High-Admiral of
England and Ireland; but he has none as Commander-in-
Chief. This is an injustice and a wrong which must be set
right, in the interest of the English people.”
Then Lord Halifax proceeded to utter an eulogium on the
Christian religion, abused popery, and voted the subsidy.
Lord Halifax sat down, and the Clerk resumed:—
“ My Lord Christopher, Baron Barnard.”
Lord Barnard, from whom were to descend the Dukes of
Cleveland, rose to answer to his name.
“ Content.”
He took some time in reseating himself, for he wore a lace
band which was well worth showing. For all that, Lord Bar-
nard was a worthy gentleman and a brave officer.
While Lord Barnard was resuming his seat, the Clerk, who
read by routine, hesitated for an instant; he readjusted his
spectacles, and leaned over the register with renewed atten-
tion; then, lifting up his head, he said:
“ My Lord Fermain Clancharlie, Baron Clancharlie and
Hunkerville.”
Gwynplaine arose.
“ Not content,” said he.
Every face was turned towards him. Gwynplaine re-
“ 31%“ f?”
n.


248 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
many men and many things, and who was destined for a duke-
dom,— Thomas, Earl of Wharton,—-— rose in terror.
“ What does this mean?” he cried. “ Who brought this
man into the House? Let him be put out.”
Then addressing Gwynplaine, haughtily:—
“ Who are you? Whence do you come?”
Gwynplaine answered,—
“ Out of the depths.”
And folding his arms, he looked at the lords.
“Who am I? I am wretchedness. My lords, I have a
word to say to you.”
A shudder ran through the House. Then all was silent.
“My lords, you are highly placed,” Gwynplaine contin—
ued. “ It is well. We must believe that God has his reasons
that it should be so. You have power, opulence, pleasure, the
sun ever shining in your zenith, authority unbounded, en joy-
ment without a sting, and a total forgetfulness of others. So
be it. But there is something below you -— above you, may
be. My lords, I bring you news,— news of the existence of
mankind.”
Assemblies are like children. A strange occurrence is like
a Jack-in-the—box to them. It frightens them; but they like
it. It is as if a spring were touched, and the devil jumps up.
Mirabeau, who was 111% deformed, was a case in point in
France.
Gwynplaine felt within himself, at that moment, a strange
elevation of soul. In addressing a body of men, one’s foot
seems to rest on them; to rest, as it were, on a pinnacle of
souls, on human hearts, that quiver under one’s heel. Gwyn-
plaine was no longer the man who had been almost contempti-
ble only the night before. The fumes of the sudden elevation
which had disturbed him, had cleared off and become trans—
parent, and in the lofty rank which had so excited his vanity
at first, he now saw only a duty. That which had at first
degraded, now elevated, him. He was illuminated by one of
those dazzling flashes which emanate from duty.
All round Gwynplaine arose cries of “ Hear, hear!”


250 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
of the stuff of which the great are made, for such was the
pleasure of a king. That is my history. Many among you
knew my father. I knew him not. His connection with you
was his noble descent; his outlawry is the bond between him
and me. What God willed was well. I was cast into the
abyss. For what end? To search its depths. I am a diver,
and I have brought back the pearl of truth. I speak, be-
cause I know. You shall hear me, my lords. I have seen, I
have felt! Suffering is not a mere word, ye happy ones! I
grew up in poverty; winter has frozen me; I have known
hunger; I have suffered contempt; I have undergone pesti-
lence; I have drunk of shame. And I will vomit all these up
before you, and this ejection of misery shall sully your feet
and flame about them. I hesitated before I allowed myself
to be brought to the place where I now stand, because I owed
duties to others elsewhere, and my heart is not here. What
passed within me has nothing to do with you. When the
man whom you call Usher of the Black Rod came to seek me
by order of the woman whom you call the queen, the idea
struck me for a moment that I would refuse to come. But it
seemed to me that the hidden hand of God pressed me to the
spot, and I obeyed. I felt that I must come_ among you.
Why? Because of my rags of yesterday. It is to raise my
voice among those who have eaten their fill that God reared
me with the famished. Oh, have pity! Of this fatal world
to which you believe yourselves to belong, you know nothing.
Placed so high, you are out of it. But I will tell you what it
is; I have had experience enough. I come from beneath the
pressure of your feet. I can tell you your weight. 0 you
who are masters, do you know what you are? Do you realize
what you are doing? No. Oh, it is dreadful! One night,
a night of tempest, a little deserted child, an orphan alone
in the immeasurable creation, I made my entrance into that
darkness which you call society. The first thing that I saw
was the law, in the form of a gibbet; the second was riches,
your riches, in the form of a woman dead of cold and hun-
ger; the third, the future, in the form of a child left to die;


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 251
_ the fourth, goodness, truth, and justice, in the form of a
vagabond, whose only friend and companion was a wolf.”
Just then, Gwynplaine, stricken by a sudden emotion, felt
the sobs rising in his throat, causing him unfortunately to
burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
The contagion was immediate. A cloud had hung over
the assemblage. It might have broken into terror; it broke
into delight. Wild merriment seized the entire House.
Nothing pleases the great assemblies of sovereign man so
much as bufi'oonery. It is their revenge upon their graver
moments.
The laughter of kings is like the laughter of the gods.
There is always a cruel sting in it. The lords set to play.
Sneers gave sting to their laughter. They clapped their
hands around the speaker, and insulted him. A volley of
gay exclamations assailed him like bright but wounding
hailstones.
“ Bravo, Gwynplaine!”—“ Bravo, Laughing Man! ”—
“ Bravo, Snout of the Green Box!”—“ Mask of Tarrinzeau
Field!”——“ You are going to give us a performance!”—
“ That’s right; talk away! ”—“ There’s a funny fellow!”—
“ How the beast does laugh, to be sure! ”—“ Good-day, pan-
taloon!”——“ How d’ye do, my lord clown! ”-—“ Go on with
your speech! ”——“ That fellow a Peer of England!”——“ Go
on ! ”—“ No, no! ”——“ Yes, yes ! ” '
The Lord Chancellor was much disturbed.
A deaf peer, James Butler, Duke of Ormond, placing his
hand to his ear like an ear—trumpet, asked Charles Beauclerk,
Duke of Saint Albans:—-—
“ How has he voted? ”
“ Not content.”
“By heavens!” said Ormond, “I can understand that,
with such a face as his!” '
Do you think that you can ever recapture a crowd once
it has escaped your grasp? No, eloquence is a bit; if the bit
breaks, the audience runs away, and rushes on till it has
thrown the orator. Heaters naturally dislike the speaker,


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 253
in old age at twenty. As to the severities of the criminal
code, they are fearful. I speak somewhat at random, and
cannot choose my words. I say everything that comes into
my head. No later than yesterday, I, who stand here, saw
a man lying in chains, naked, with stones piled on his chest,
expire in torture. Do you know of these things? No. If
you knew what goes on, you would not dare to be happy.
Who of you have been to Newcastle-upon—Tyne? There, in
the mines, are men who chew coals to fill their stomachs and
cheat hunger. Look here! in Lancashire, Ribblechester has
sunk, by poverty, from a town to a village. I do not see that
Prince George of Denmark requires a hundred thousand
pounds extra. I should prefer receiving a poor sick man
into the hospital without compelling him to pay his funeral
expenses in advance. In Caérnarvon, and at Strathmore, as
well as at Strathbickan, the sufferings of the poor are horri—
ble. At Strafford, they cannot drain the marsh for want of
money. The manufactories are shut up all over Lancashire.
There is enforced idleness everywhere. Do you know that
the herring fishers in Harlech eat grass when the fishery fails?
Do you know that in Burton—Lazars there are still lepers con-
fined, on whom they fire if they leave their tan houses? In
Ailesbury, a town of which one of you is lord, destitution is
chronic. At Penkridge, in Coventry, where you have just
endowed a cathedral and enriched a bishop, there are no beds
in the~cabins, and they dig holes in the earth, in which to
put the little children to sleep, so that instead of beginning
life in the cradle, they begin it in the grave. I have seen
these things. My lords, do you know who pays the taxes
you assess? The dying! Alas! you deceive yourselves. You
are going the wrong road. You augment the poverty of the
poor to increase the riches of the rich. You should do the
reverse. What! take from the worker to give to the idle;
take from the tattered to give to the well-clad; take from the
beggar to give to the prince! Oh, yes, I have old republican
blood in my veins. I have a horror of these things. How I
execrate kings! And how shameless are the women! I have


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 257
And John Campbell, Earl of Greenwich; Savage, Earl
Rivers; Thompson, Baron Haversham; Warrington, Escrick,
Rolleston, Rockingham, Carteret, Langdale, Barcester, May—
nard, Hunsdon, Ca'érnarvon, Cavendish, Burlington, Robert
Darcy, Earl of Holderness, Otho Windsor, Earl of Plymouth,
applauded.
I There was a tumult as of pandemonium, in which the words
of Gwynplaine were lost.
Amid it all, but one word of Gwynplaine’s was audible:
“ Beware! ”
Ralph, Duke of Montagu, recently down from Oxford, and
still a beardless youth, descended from the bench of dukes,
where he sat the nineteenth in order, and placed himself in
front 'of Gwynplaine, with his arms folded. In a sword there
is a spot which 'cuts sharpest, and in a voice an accent which
insults most keenly. Montagu spoke with that accent, and
sneering with his face close to that of Gwynplaine, shouted,—
“ What are you talking about?”
'“ I am prophesying,” said Gwynplaine.
The laughter exploded anew; and below this laughter, anger
growled a continuous bass. One of the minors, Lionel Cran—
' field Sackville, Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, stood up on
his seat, not smiling, but grave as became a future legislator,
and, without saying a word, looked at Gwynplaine with his
fresh twelve-year-old face, and shrugged his shOulders.
Whereat the Bishop of St. Asaph’s whispered in the ear of
the Bishop of St. David’s, who was sitting beside him, as he
pointed to Gwynplaine, “ There is the fool;” then pointing
to the child, “ there is the sage.”
A churns of complaint was heard amid the general con-
fusion.
“ Gorgon face!”—-“ What does it all mean? ”—“ An in-
sult to the House! ”—“ The fellow ought to be put out! ”—
“What a madman!”—“ Shame! shame!”—“ Adjourn the
House! ”——“ No; let him finish his speech!”-——“ Talk 'away,
you buffoon ! ”
Lord Lewis Duras, with his arms a-kimbo, shouted: “ Ah!
l7
..... . y~v_.__-—-~| ~-~.._... mm. a, :- _ »~ 9 ~kjj A91 m~-~--~t-t h


258 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
it does one good to laugh. My spleen is cured. I propose
a vote of thanks in these terms: ‘ The House of Lords re-
turns thanks to the Green Box.’ ”
Gwynplaine, it may be remembered, had dreamt of a differ-
ent welcome.
A man who, climbing up a steep and crumbling acclivity
above a giddy, precipice, has felt it giving way under his
hands, his nails, his elbows, his knees, his feet; who —losing
instead of gaining on his treacherous way, a prey to every
terror, slipping back instead of ascending, increasing the cer-
tainty of his fall by his very efforts to gain the summit, and
losing ground in every struggle for safety—has felt the
abyss approaching nearer and nearer, until the certainty of
his fall into the yawning jaws, open to receive him, has frozen
the marrow of his bones; — that man has experienced the sen-
sations of Gwynplaine.
He felt the ground he had ascended crumbling under him,
and his audience was the precipice.
There is always some one to say the word which sums all
up.
Lord Scarsdale expressed the feelings of the entire assem-
blage in one exclamation:—
“ What is that monster doing here?”
Gwynplaine stood up, dismayed and indignant, in a sort of
final protest. He looked at them all fixedly.
“ What am I doing here? I have come to be a warning
to you! I am a monster, you say? No! I am the people!
I am an exception? No! I am the rule; you are the excep-
tion!
“ You are the chimera; I am the reality! I am the fright-
ful man who laughs! Who laughs at what? At you, at
himself, at everything! What is his laugh? Your crime
and his torment! That crime he fiings at your head! That
punishment he casts in your face! I laugh, and that means
I weep!”
He paused. There was less noise. The laughter contin-
ued, but it was more subdued. He may have fancied that he


260 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
-- —_.o-L.Ai- . . ,_ v
The people are suffering —- they are suffering; and the moun—
tains above are tottering, the chasm below is yawning. Dark-
ness demands its change to light; the damned are discussing
the elect. Behold! the coming of the people is at hand, the
elevation of mankind, the beginning of the end, the red dawn
of the catastrophe! Yes, all these things are in- this laugh
of mine, at which you sneer to-day! London is one perpetual
féte. Be it so. England rings with acclamations from end
to end. Well! but listen. You have your fétes,-— they are
my laugh; you have your public rejoicings,— they are my
laugh; you have your weddings, consecrations, and corona-
tions,—— they are my laugh. The births of your princes are
my laugh. But above you is the thunderbolt,— that too is
my laug .”
How could they stand such nonsense? The laughter burst
out afresh; and now it was overwhelming. Of all the lava
which that crater, the human mouth, ejects, the most corrosive
is ridicule. Ridicule is a contagion which no crowd can re-
sist. All executions do not take place on the scaffold; and
men, from the moment they are assembled in a body, whether
in mobs or in senates, have always a ready executioner among
them, called sarcasm. There is no torture to be com—
pared to that of the wretch condemned to execution by ridi-
cule. This was Gwynplaine’s fate. He was stoned with their
jokes, and riddled by the scoffs shot at him. He stood there
a mark for all. They sprang up; they cried “ Encore; ” they
shook With laughter; they stamped their feet; they pulled
each other’s bands. The majesty of the place, the chaste er—
mine, the dignity of the wigs, had no effect. The lords
laughed, the bishops laughed, the judges laughed, the old men
derided, the youths’ benches were in convulsions. The Arch-
bishop of' Canterbury nudged the Archbishop of York; Henry
Compton, Bishop of London, brother of Lord Northampton,
held his sides; the Lord Chancellor bowed his head, probably
to conceal his inclination to laugh; and, at the bar, that statue
of respect, the Usher of the Black Rod, was laughing also.
Gwynplaine had folded his arms; and, surrounded by all
'~_..“m-_p.-'¢nr .~ .w.LMJ%TFI-’r ““'





262 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
The House was obliged to rise, adjourned by the Lord
Chancellor, “ owing to extraordinary circumstances,” to the
next day. The peers broke up. They bowed to the royal
throne and departed. Echoes of prolonged laughter were
heard dying away in the corridors.
Assemblies, besides their official doors, have — under tapes—
try, under projections, and under arches — all sorts of hidden
doors, by which the members escape like water through the
cracks in a vase.
In a short time the chamber was deserted. This takes
place quickly and almost imperceptibly, and these places, so
lately full of commotion, suddenly relapse into silence.
Reverie carries one far; and one by long dreaming seems
to reach, as it were, another planet.
Gwynplaine suddenly awoke from such a dream. He was
alone. The chamber was empty. He had not even observed
that the House had been adjourned. All the peers had de-
parted, even his sponsors. There only remained here and
there some of the lower officers of the House, waiting for his
lordship to depart before they put the covers on, and extin-
guished the lights.
Mechanically he placed his hat on his head, and leaving
his seat, directed his steps to the great door opening into the
gallery. As he was passing through the opening, a door—
keeper relieved him of his peer’s robes. He was scarcely con-
scious of the fact. In another instant, he was in the gallery.
The officials who remained, noticed with astonishment that
the peer had gone out without bowing to the throne!


BOOK IX
IN RUINS

CHAPTER I
IT 18 THROUGH EXCESS OF GREATNES THAT MAN BEACHES
EXCESS OF MISEBY
S midnight tolled from St. Paul’s, a man who had just
crossed London Bridge struck into the lanes of South—
wark. There were no lamps lighted, it being at that time
the custom in London, as in Paris, to extinguish the street-
lamps at eleven o’clock,——— that is, to put them out just as they
became necessary. The streets were dark and deserted. When
the lamps are out, men stay in. He whom we speak of ad-
vanced with hurried strides. He was strangely dressed for
walking at' such an hour. He wore a coat of embroidered
silk, a sword by his side, a hat with white plumes, and no cloak.
The watchmen, as they saw him pass, said, “ It is a lord walk—
ing for a wager,” and they moved out of his way with the
respect due to a lord and to a better.
This man was Gwynplaine.
He was making his escape.
Where was he? He did not know. We have said that the
soul has its cyclones,——- fearful whirlwinds, in which heaven,
the sea, day, night, life, death, are all mingled in unintelligi—
ble horror. It can no longer distinguish Truth; it is crushed
by things in which it does not believe. All becomes chaos.
The firmament pales. Infinity is empty. The mind of the
_..______. _ ..* _
269


270 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
sufferer wanders. He feels himself dying. He craves for
a star. What did Gwynplaine feel? a thirst,——a thirst to
see Dea.
He was conscious only of that craving. To reach the
Green Box again, and the Tadcaster Inn, with its noise and
lights, full of the cordial laughter of the people; to find Ursus
and Homo, to see Dea again, to re—enter life.
Disillusion, like a bow, shoots its arrow, man, towards the
True. Gwynplaine hastened on. He approached Tarrinzeau
Field. He no longer walked now, he ran. His eyes pierced
the darkness before him. His glance preceded him, eagerly
seeking his goal. What a moment it would be for him when
he should see the lighted windows of the Tadcaster Inn again.
He reached the bowling—green. He turned the corner of
the wall, and saw before him, at the other end of the field,
some distance off, the inn,— the only house, it will be remem-
bered, in the field where the fair was held.
He looked. There was no light; nothing but a dark mass
there.
He shuddered. Then he said to himself that it was late;
that the tavern was shut up, as was very natural; that every
one was asleep; that he had only to awaken Nicless or Govi-
cum; that he must go up to the inn and knock at the door.
He did so, no longer running now, but rushing wildly.
He reached the inn, breathless. It is when struggling in
the invisible convulsions of the soul until he knows not
whether he is in life or death, that all the delicacy of a man’s
affection for his loved ones, being yet unimpaired, proves a
heart true. When all else is swallowed up, tenderness still
floats unshattered.
He approached the inn as noiselessly as possible. He rec-
ognized the nook, the old dog kennel, where Govicum used
to sleep. In it, contiguous to the lower room, was a window
overlooking the field. Gwynplaine tapped softly on the pane.
It would suffice to awaken Govicum, he thought. There was
no sound in Govicum’s room.
“ At his age,” said Gwynplaine, “ a boy sleeps soundly.”


274 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
This parapet bounded a part of the quay, which was very
short and very narrow. Under it, the high wall extended
straight down to the dark water below.
Gwynplaine walked to the parapet, and leaning his elbows
on it, rested his head in his hands, and fixed his eyes on the
depths below.
Did he see the water? No. Then at what was he gazing?
At the shadow,~—— not the shadow below, but within him. In
the melancholy landscape, which he scarcely noticed; in the
outer depths, which his eyes did not pierce,—— were the blurred
outlines of masts and spars. Below the Efi'roe Wall there
was nothing on the river; but the quay sloped insensibly
downwards till, some distance off, it met a pier, at which sev-
eral vessels were lying, some of which had just arrived, while
*thers were on the point of departure. These vessels were
connected with the shore by little jetties, constructed for the
purpose, some of stone, some of wood, or by movable gang-
ways.
All of them, whether moored to the jetties or at anchor,
were wrapt in silence. There was no noise or stir on board,
it being a habit of sailors to sleep when they can, and
wake only when wanted. If any of the craft were to sail at
high tide that night, the crews were not yet awake.
The hulls, like huge black bubbles, and the rigging, like
threads mingled with ladders, were barely visible. All was
dim and confused. Here and there a red light pierced the
gloom.
Gwynplaine saw nothing of all this. What he was musing
on was destiny.
He was in a dream,——a vision,— giddy in presence of an
inexorable reality.
He fancied that he heard something like an earthquake be-
hind him,— it was the laughter of the lords.
He had just emerged from that ordeal. He had come out
of it, having received a blow, and from whom?
From his own brother!
Flying from the laughter, carrying the blow with him,


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 275
seeking refuge, a wounded bird, in his nest, rushing from hate
and seeking love, what had he found?
Darkness. No one. Everything gone.
He compared this darkness with the brilliant dream in which
he had indulged.
What a crumbling away!
Gwynplaine had just reached that grim region,—— vacancy.
The Green Box gone, the universe too had vanished.
What could have happened? Where were they? They
had evidently been carried away. The decree of fortune
which had made him great had annihilated the only friends he
had in the world. It was almost certain that he would never
see them again. Precautions had been taken against that.
They had cleared the fair-green, beginning with Nicless and
Govicum, so that he should gain no clew through them. In-
exorable dispersion! That fearful s0cial system, at the same
time that it pulverized him in the House of Lords, crushed
them in their little cabin. They were lost; Dea was lost,—
lost to him forever. Powers of heaven! where was she? And
he had not been there to defend her!
To make conjectures concerning the absent whom we love,
is to put one’s self to the torture. He inflicted this torture
on himself. But every supposition which he made, caused him
to groan with agony.
Through a succession of bitter reflections he remembered
a man who was evidently fatal to him, and who had called
himself Barkilphedro. That man had inscribed on his brain
an ominous sentence which reappeared now. He had written
in such flaming ink that each letter seemed formed of fire, the
enigmatical words, the meaning of which was now only too
apparent: “ Destiny never opens one door without closing
another.”
All was over. The final shadows had gathered around him.
In every man’s fate there may be an end of the world so far
as he is concerned. This is called despair.
This, then, was what he had come to.
The cloud had passed. He had been mingled with it. It


276 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
had lain heavily on' his eyes, it had disordered his brain. He
had been blinded outwardly, intoxicated inwardly. This had
lasted but for a brief moment. Then everything melted
away, the cloud and his life as well. Awaking from the
dream, he found himself alone.
All vanished, all gone, all lost. Night. Nothingness.
Such was his horizon.
He was alone.
Alone has a synonym; it is dead. Despair is a good ac-
countant. It sets itself to find the sum total, it adds up
everything, even to the farthings. It charges Heaven with
its thunder-bolts and its pin-pricks, alike. It tries to find
out what it has to expect from fate. It argues, weighs, and
calculates, outwardly cool, while the burning lava is flowing
fiercely within.
Gwynplaine examined himself, and examined his fate.
The backward glance of thought,— terrible recapitulation!
When we are at the top of a mountain, we gaze down the
precipice; when we are at its base, we look up at heaven.
And we say, I was there.
Gwynplaine was in the very lowest depths of misery. How
sudden, too, had been his fall!
Such is the hideous swiftness of misfortune, although it is
so heavy that we might fancy it slow. But no! It would
likewise appear from its whiteness, snow should possess the
immobility of a winding-sheet; yet this is contradicted by the
avalanche.
The avalanche is snow transformed into a devouring fur-
nace. It remains frozen, but it devours nevertheless. The
avalanche had enveloped Gwynplaine. He had been torn like
a rag, uprooted like a tree, precipitated like a stone. He re
called all the circumstances of his fall. He put questions
to himself and returned answers. There is no judge so search-
ing as conscience conducting its own trial.
How much remorse was mingled with his despair? This
he wished to find out, and dissected his conscience. Excruci-
sting vivisection!


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 277
.Fl n.flrfi».._-. w: y “'rm
at-s-lfl—
7 \i‘
“la W W1
His absence had caused a catastrophe. But had this ab-
sence depended on him? In all that had happened, had he
been a free agent? N 0! He had felt himself captive. What
was that which had arrested and detained him,—a prison?
No. A chain? No. What then? Lust! He had sunk
into the slough of greatness.
To whom has it not happened to be free in appearance, yet
to feel that his wings are hampered?
There had been something like a snare spread for him.
What is: at first temptation, ends in captivity.
Nevertheless (and his conscience pressed him on this point)
had he merely submitted to the inevitable? No, he had wel-
comed it.
Force had been used with him to a certain extent, it is
true; but he, to a certain extent, had yielded. To have al-
_ lowed himself to be carried off was not his fault; but to have
allowed himself to be thus inebriated, was his weakness. There
had been a moment —- a decisive moment — when the question
was put to him. This Barkilphedro had placed an alterna—
tive before Gwynplaine, and had given him full power to
decide his fate by a word. Gwynplaine might have said,
“ No.” He had said, “ Yes.”
From that “ Yes,” uttered in a moment of weakness, all
this misery had come. Gwynplaine realized this now in the
bitter after-taste of that consent.
Nevertheless,— for he debated with himself,— was it then
so great a crime to take possession of his rights, of his patri—
mony, of his heritage, of his home; and, as a patrician, of the
rank of his ancestors, as an orphan of the name of his father?
What had he accepted? A restitution. Made by whom?
By Providence.
Then his mind revolted. Senseless acceptance! What a
bargain he had made, what a foolish exchange! He had
traflicked with Providence at a loss. For an income of £80,-
000 a year; for seven or eight titles; for ten or twelve pal-
aces: for houses in town, and castles in the country; for a
hundred lackeys; for packs of bounds, and carriages, and


278 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
armorial hearings; to be a judge and legislator; for a coronet
and purple robes, like a king; to be a baron and a marquis;
to be a Peer of England, he had given the humble home of
Ursus and the smile of Dea. >For shipwreck and destruction
in the surging immensity of greatness, he had bartered hap-
piness. For the ocean he had given the pearl. O madman!
O fool! O dupe!
Nevertheless,— and here the objection seemed based on
firmer ground,—— everything connected with this wonderful
good fortune which had befallen him had not been reprehensi-
ble. Perhaps there would have been selfishness in renuncia-
tion; perhaps he had only done his duty in the acceptance.
Suddenly transformed into a lord, what ought he to have
done? Such complications are apt to create perplexity of
mind. This had been the case with him. Duty gave con-
flicting orders. Duty on both sides at once, duty multiple
and contradictory; this was the bewilderment which he had
suffered. It was this that had paralyzed him, especially when
he had not refused to take the journey from Corleone Lodge
to the House of Lords. What we call rising in life is leav-
ing the safe for the dangerous path. Which is, henceforth,
the straight line? Towards whom is our first duty? Is it
towards those nearest to ourselves, or is it towards mankind
generally? Do we not cease to belong to our own circum-
scribed circle, and become part of the great family of men?
As we ascend, we feel an increased strain on our virtue. The
higher we rise, the greater this strain becomes. The increase
of privileges entails an increase of duty. We come to many
by-ways, phantom roads perchance, and we imagine that we
see the finger of conscience pointing each one of them out to
us. Which shall we take? Change our direction, remain
where we are, advance, go back? What are we to do? That
there should be cross-roads in conscience is strange enough;
but responsibility may become a labyrinth.
And when a man is imbued with an idea, when he is the
incarnation of a fact,—— when he is a symbolical man at the
same time that he is a man of flesh and blood,— is not the
r“ "' ' “*"d’vd '- n- "- -'"' -"____~_-;fl=-L'_-:


280 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
-
Yes; it is fine to plead for the dumb; but to plead to the
deaf is disheartening. And that was the second scene in the
drama.
Alas! he had failed irremedisbly.
The elevation in which he had believed, the high fortune,
had melted away like a mirage. And what a fall! To be
drowned in a surge of laughter!
He had fancied himself strong, he who, for so many years,
had floated with observant mind on the wide see. of suffering
he who had brought back out of the great shadow so touching
a cry. He had been dashed against that huge rock, the
heartlessness of the fortunate. He had believed himself an
avenger; he was but a clown. He thought that he wielded
a thunder-bolt; he could only excite mirth. In place of emo-
tion, he met with mockery. He sobbed; they shouted with
laughter; and under that gaiety he had sunk, fatally sub-
merged.
And what had they laughed at? At his laugh.
So that trace of an execrable act, of which he must bear
the mark forever,—— the stigma of laughter, image of the
sham contentment of nations under their oppressors; that
mask of joy produced by tortUre; that grimace which he car—
ried on his features; the scar which signified “ Jussu regis,”
the attestation of a crime committed by the king towards him,
and the symbol of crime committed by royalty towards the
people,— that it was which had triumphed over him; that it
was which had overwhelmed him; so the accusation against
the executioner turned into sentence upon the victim. What
a shameful withholding of justice! Royalty, having got the
better of his father, had also got the better of him! The evil
that had been done had served as pretext and as motive for
the evil that remained to be done. Against whom were the
lords incensed? Against the torturer? No. Against the
tortured. Here is the throne; there, the people. Here,
James II.; there, Gwynplaine. That confrontation, indeed,
brought to light an outrage and a crime. What was the
outrage? Disfigurement. What was the crime? Suffering.
.. . ~.~ _:1:.:_—.,~ .JNT. ,._ M


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 281
Let misery hide itself in silence, otherwise it becomes treason.
And those men who had dragged Gwynplaine on the hurdle
of sarcasm, were they wicked? No; but they, too, had their
fatality,—— they were happy. They were executioners, igno—
rant of the fact. They were good—humoured; they saw no
use in Gwynplaine. He tore out his heart to show to them,
and they cried, “ Go on with your play!” But— sharpest
sting ! —— he had laughed himself. The frightful chain which
bound down his soul hindered his thoughts from rising to his
face. His disfigurement extended even to his senses; and,
while his conscience was indignant, his face gave it the lie,
and jested. Then all was over. He was the laughing man,
the caryatid of the weeping world. He was an agony petri*
fied in hilarity, carrying the weight of a universe of calamity,
and walled up forever by the gaiety, the ridicule, and the
amusement of others. Of all the Oppressed, of whom he
was the Incarnation, his was the most odious fate. They
jeered at his distress; to them he was but an extraordinary
bufi'oon lifted out of some frightful cendensation of misery,
escaped from his prison, changed to a deity, risen from the
dregs of the people to the foot of the throne, mingling with
the stars, and who, having once amused the damned, now
amused the elect. All that was in him of generosity, of
enthusiasm, of eloquence, of heart, of soul, of fury, of anger,
of love, of inexpressible grief, ended in—a burst of laugh~
ter! And he proved, as he had told the Lords, that this was
not the exception, but that it was the normal, ordinary, unr-
versal, unlimited, sovereign fact, so amal amated with the
routine of life that they took no account of5 it. The hungry
pauper laughs, the beggar laughs, the felon laughs, the pros-
titute laughs, the orphan laughs to gain his bread; the slave
laughs, the soldier laughs, the people laugh. Seciety is so
constituted that sin and want and each and every catastrophe,
fever, ulcer, and pang, is resolved on the surfaCe of the abyss
into one frightful grin of joy. Now, he was the prototype
of that universal grin; that grin was himself. The law of
Heaven, the unknown power which governs, had willed that a


286 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
the House of Lords made up the background in a monstrous
Chiaroscuro full of tragic shadows.
And that brother seemed so brave and chivalrous! Alas!
he had hardly seen the Tom—Jim-Jack, who had defended
Gwynplaine, the Lord David, who had defended Lord Clan-
charlie; but he had had time to receive a blow from him and
to love him.
He was crushed.
He felt that it was impossible for him to proceed further.
Everything had crumbled into ruin about him. Besides, what
was the good of it? Unutterable weariness dwells in the
depths of despair.
The trial had been made. It could not be repeated.
Gwynplaine was like a gamester who has played all his
trumps away, one after another. He had allowed'himself
to be lured to a fearful gambling table without knowing what
he was about; for— so subtle is the poison of illusion ! —— he
had staked Dea against Josiana, and had gained a monster;
he had staked Ursus against a family, and had gained
only insult; he had staked his mountebank platform against
his seat in the House of Lords, and in place of the applause
which had been his, he had gained only insult. His last
card had fallen on that fatal green cloth, the deserted bowl-
ing-green. Gwynplaine had lost. Nothing remained but
to pay. Pay, wretched man!
The thunder-stricken lie still. Gwynplaine remained m0-
' tionless. Any one watching him from afar, in the shadow,
rigid and motionless, might have fancied that he saw an up-
right stone.
Hell, the serpent, and reverie are all tortuous. Gwynplaine
was now descending the sepulchral spirals of profound
thought.
He reviewed the strange world of which he had just caught
a glimpse, with the cold scrutiny of a last look. Marriage,
but no love; family, but no brotherly affection; riches', but
no conscience; beauty, but no modesty; justice, but no equity;
order, but no equilibrium ; authority, but no right; power, but


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 287
no intelligence; splendour, but no refinement. Inexorable bal-
ance-sheet! He went throughout the strange vision in which
his mind had been plunged. He examined successively des-
tiny, situation, society, and himself. What was destiny? A
snare. Rank? Despair. Society? Hatred. And him-
self? A defeated man. In the depths of his soul he cried:
Society is a step—mother; Nature is the real mother. Society
is the world of the flesh, Nature is the world of the soul.
The one leads to the coffin, to the deal box in the grave, to
the earth-worms, and ends there. The other tends to ex-
panded wings, to transformation into the morning light, and
to ascent into celestial spheres where life begins again under
new and much more favourable conditions.
At last a paroxysm came over him, like a sweeping surge.
At the close of life there is always a final flash, in which every-
thing stands clearly revealed once more. The judge meets
the accused face to face. Gwynplaine reviewed all that so-
ciety and all that Nature had done for him. How kind Na-
ture had been to him! How she, who is the soul, had suc-
coured him! Every blessing had been taken from him, even
his features. The soul had given them all back,— all, even
his features; because there was on earth a heavenly blind girl
intended expressly for him, who could not see his ugliness, and
believed him beautiful beyond comparison.
And it was from these blessings that he had allowed him-
self to be separated. It was from this adorable girl, from his
beloved one, from her tenderness, from her divine gaze, the
only gaze on earth that saw his real nature, that he had
strayed! Dea was his sister, because he felt between them
the grand fraternity of the sky,— that mystery in which the
whole of heaven is comprised. Dea, when he was a little
child, was his holy virgin; because every child has his virgin,
and in childhood a marriage of souls is always contracted in
the fulness of innocence. Dea was his wife, for theirs was
the' same nest on the highest branch of the deep-rooted tree
of Hymen. Dea was still more,——— she was his light, for with-
out her the entire earth was a void and nothingness; and in


288 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
his eyes her head was encircled with a dazzling halo. What
would become of him without Dea? What could he do with
all that was himself? There was no part of him that could
live without her. How, then, could he have lost sight of her
for a moment? Oh, unfortunate man! He had allowed dis-
tance to intervene between himself and his star; and, by the
unknown and terrible laws of gravitation in such matters,
distance means immediate loss.
Where was she, his star? Dea! Dea! Dea! Dea! Alas!
he had lost her light. Take away the star, and what is the
sky? A dark, shapeless mass. And why had all this be-
fallen him? Oh, what happiness had once been his! For
him God had made another Eden. Too close was the re-
semblance, alas! even to allowing the serpent to enter; but
this time it was the man who had been tempted. He had
been enticed outside, and then, through a frightful snare,
had fallen into a chaos of murky laughter, which was hell.
Oh, misery! misery! How loathsome all that had fascinated
him seemed now. Even that Josiana, frightful creature!—
half beast, half goddess. Gwynplaine was now on the rear
side of the eminence and could see the other aspect of that
which had so dazzled him. It was baleful! His peerage was
deformed; his coronet was hideous; his velvet robe, a funeral
garment. The unwholesome and treacherous air of palaces
seemed to poison all who breathed it, and turn them mad.
How brilliant the rags of the mountebank Gwynplaine ap—
peared to him now! Alas! where was the Green Box, the pov-
erty, the joy, the sweet wandering life,— wandering together,
like the swallows? They were never separated then; he saw
her every minute, morning and evening. At table their knees,
their elbows, touched; they drank from the same cup; the
sun shone through the pane, but it was only the sun, and Des.
was Love. At night they slept not far from each other; and
a vision of Dea came and hovered over Gwynplaine, and a
vision of Gwynplaine spread itself mysteriously above the
head of Dea. When they woke they never could be quite
sure that they had not exchanged kisses in the azure mist of


290 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
demned and damned as Gwynplaineywas, what was the use of
further struggle? He had nothing more to expect either of
men or of heaven. Dea! Dea! Where was Dea? Lost!
What! lost? He who has lost his soul can regain it through
but one outlet,—— death.
Gwynplaine, tragically distraught, placed his hand firmly
on the parapet, as on a solution, and looked at the river.
It was his third night without sleep. A violent fever was
raging in his veins. His thoughts, which he believed to be
clear, were blurred. He felt an imperative need of sleep.
He remained for a few instants leaning over the water. Its
dark depths offered him a tranquil resting—place,-- the peace
of oblivion. Sinister temptation!
He took off his coat, which he folded and placed on the
parapet; then he unbuttoned his waistcoat. As he was about
to take it off, his hand struck against something in the pocket.
It was the red book which had been given him by the librarian
of the House of Lords; he drew it out, examined it in the
dim light, and finding a pencil in it, he hastily wrote on the
first blank page he came to, these lines :—
“I depart. Let my brother David take my place, and may he be
happy!”
Then he signed, “ FERMAIN CLANCHARLIE, Peer of Eng-
land.”
He took ofi' his waistcoat and placed it on the coat; then
his hat, which he placed upon the waistcoat. In the hat he
laid the red book, open at the page on which he had written.
Seeing a stone lying on the ground near by, he picked it up
and placed it in the hat.
Having done all this, he glanced up at the dark heavens
above him; then his head sank slowly, as if drawn by an in—
visible thread toward the abyss.
There was a hole in the masonry near the base of the para—
pet; he placed his foot in it, so that his knee reached above
the top, and little or no effort would be required to spring


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 291
over it. He clasped his hands behind his back and leaned
over.
“ So be it,” he murmured, fixing his eyes on the deep waters
below.
Just then he felt a tongue licking his hands.
He started violently, and turned around.
Homo was behind him.

“‘v%-~~.~


CONCLUSION
THE NIGHT AND THE SEA
CHAPTER I
A wow MAY PROVE A GUARDIAN mom.
WYNPLAINE uttered a cry.
“ Is that you, Homo?”
Homo wagged his tail. His eyes gleamed in the darkness.
He was looking earnestly at Gwynplaine.
Then he began to lick his hands again. For a moment
Gwynplaine was like a drunken man, so great was the revul-
sion of feeling caused by a return of hope.
Homo! What an apparition! During the last forty-
eight hours Gwynplaine had experienced every variety of the
thunder-bolt. But one was left to strike him,— the thunder-
bolt of joy. And it had just fallen upon him. Certainly, or
at least the clew which led to it, regained; the sudden inter-
vention of a mysterious clemency on the part of destiny; life
suddenly exclaiming, “ Behold me!” in the very depths of
the grave, and bringing back health and deliverance at the
very moment when all expectancy had ceased; a place of safety
discovered at the most critical moment in the midst of crum-
bling ruins,——~ Homo meant all this to Gwynplaine. The
wolf seemed to him enveloped in a halo of light.
Meanwhile, Homo had turned round and advanced a few
steps, looking back all the while to see if Gwynplaine was

292


296 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
seemed worn out with fatigue. Altogether, it presented an
indescribable appearance of beggary and decay. The shafts,
which were tied up, looked like two arms raised heavenward.
The whole thing was in a state of dismemberment. Under it
dangled Homo’s chain.
Does it not seem as if the laws and promptings of Na-
ture would have led Gwynplaine to rush headlong forward,
now that happiness and lover were once more within his reach?
So they would, except in a case of deep terror like his. But
he who emerges, shattered in nerve and uncertain of his way,
from a series of dire catastrophes, each of which has been a
fresh disappointment, is prudent even in his joy, and hesi-
tates, lest he should bear the fatality of which he has been
the victim to those whom he loves, feeling that some evil con-
tagion may still hang about him, and so advancing towards
happiness with wary steps. The gates of paradise may re-
open; but before he enters, he examines the ground carefully.
So Gwynplaine, staggering under the weight of his emo—
tion, paused and gazed around him. The wolf went and lay
down silently by his chain.

CHAPTER II
BARKILPHEDBO, HAVING AIMED AT THE EAGLE, BRINGS DOWN
THE DOVE
HE step of the little van was down, the door ajar; there
was no one within. The dim light which stole through
the pane in front revealed the interior of the van in a sort of
melancholy chiaroscuro. The inscriptions of Ursus, glorify-
- ing the greatness of Lords, were distinctly visible on the dilap-
idated boards, which formed both the outer wall and the in-
'side wainscotting. On a nail, near the door, Gwynplaine saw
his leather gorget and his cape, as the clothes of a corpse are


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 297'
hung up in a dead-house. He himself had neither coat nor
waistcoat on.
Behind the van there was something lying on the deck
at the foot of the mast, dimly lighted by the lantern. It was
a mattress, of which he could see but one corner. Some one
was probably lying on this mattress, for he could see a shadow
move.
He could also hear some one talking, so hiding behind the
van, Gwynplaine listened.
It was Ursus’ voice he heard.
That voice, so harsh in its upper, so tender in its lower,
pitch; that voice which had so often upbraided Gwynplaine,
but which had taught him so well, had lost all its wonted vi-
vacity and clearness of tone. It was husky and low, and died
away in a sigh at the end of every sentence. It bore but a
faint resemblance to the firm voice of old. It was the voice
of one from whom all hope had fled. A voice may become a
ghost.
Ursus seemed to be engaged in a monologue rather than a
conversation. We are already aware, however, that solilo-
quizing was a habit with him. It was for this reason that
he passed for a madman.
Gwynplaine held his breath, so as not to lose a word that
Ursus said, and this is what he heard :—
“ This is a very dangerous kind of craft, because there are
no bulwarks to it. If we were to slip, there is nothing to
prevent our going overboard. If we have bad weather, we
shall have to take her below, and that will be dreadful. An
awkward step, a fright, and we shall have a rupture of the
aneurism. I have seen instances of it. 0 my God! what is
to become of us? Is she asleep? Yes. She is asleep. Is
she in a swoon? No. Her pulse is pretty strong. She is
only asleep. Sleep is a reprieve. It is the best of blindness.
What can I do to prevent people from walking about here?
Gentlemen, I beg you will make no noise. Do not come near
us, if you please. You know a person in delicate health re—
quires great care. She is feverish, you see. She is very
wf':


298 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
young. ’T is a little creature who is rather feverish. I have
put this mattress down here so that she may have a little air.
I explain all this so that you will be careful. She sank down
exhausted on the mattress as if in a swoon. But she is
asleep now. I do hope that no one will wake her. I appeal
to the ladies, if there are any present. Such a young girl,
it is pitiful! We are only poor mountebanks, but I beg a
little kindness, and if there is anything to pay for not making
a noise, I will pay it. I thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Is
there anybody there? No. I don’t think there is. My talk
is mere waste of breath. So much the better. Gentlemen,
I thank you, if you are there; and I thank you still more if
you are not. Her forehead is covered with perspiration. So
we must take our places in the galleys again, and resume our
chains. Misery is come back. We are sinking again. A
hand, a dread hand which we cannot see, but the weight of
which we feel ever upon us, has suddenly hurled us back into
obscurity and poverty. Be it so. We must bear it. But I
will not have her ill. I must seem a fool to talk out loud
like this, when I am alone; but she must feel she has some
one near her when she wakes. What shall I do if somebody
wakes her suddenly? No noise, in the name of Heaven! A
sudden shock which would wake her suddenly, would end
everything. It will be a pity if anybody comes. I believe
every one on board is asleep. Thanks be to Providence for
that mercy. And Homo? Where is he, I wonder? In all
the confusion I forgot to tie him up. I do not know what
I am doing half the time. It is more than an hour since I
saw him. I suppose he has gone to look for his supper some-
where ashore. I hope nothing has happened to him. Homo!
Homo!”
Homo struck his tail softly on the planks of the deck.
“ You are here. Oh, you are here! Thank God for that.
If Homo had been lost, it would have been too much to bear.
She has moved her arm. Perhaps she is going to wake. Be
quiet, Homo! The tide is turning. We shall sail directly.
I think it will be a fine night. There is no wind: the flag


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 303
I command you to rest. After all, you cannot be expected to
know what it is to rupture a blood-vessel. I should be calm
if you were calm. My child, you owe me something as well;
for though he picked you up, I sheltered you. You will
make me ill. That is wrong. You must calm yourself, and
go to sleep. All will come right. I give you my word of
honour, all will come right. Besides, it is very fine Weather.
The night might have been made on purpose. To-morrow
we shall be at Rotterdam, which is a city in Holland, at the
mouth of the Meuse.”
“ Father,” said the voice, “look here; when two beings
have always been together from infancy, their union should
not be disturbed, or death must come. It cannot be other-
wise. I love you just the same, but I feel that I am no longer
altogether with you, although I am as yet not altogether with
him.”
“ Come! try to sleep,” urged Ursus.
“ I shall have sleep enough soon,” the voice answered softly.
“ I tell you that we are going to Holland, to Rotterdam,
a large and beautiful city,” Ursus replied in trembling tones.
“ Father,” continued the voice, “ I am not ill; if you are
anxious about that, you may rest easy. I have no fever. I
am rather hot; but that is nothing.”
“ At the mouth of the Meuse —” stammered Ursus.
“ I am quite well, father, but look here! I feel that I am
going to die!”
“ Don’t‘be so foolish,” said Ursus. Then he muttered un-
der his breath: “ Above all, God forbid that she should have
a shock!”
There was a silence. Suddenly Ursus cried out, “ What
are you doing? Why are you getting up? Lie down again,
I implore you.”
Gwynplaine shuddered and stretched out his head.
. . ~W ~__. u- -- - '~.»~_..v --W-‘-~~_ ~ e<»~~~HWWs~—-I‘W


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 807
all ecstasy and all grief are mingled. They have no mean—
ing, and yet tell all.
“ Yes! it is! It is I, Gwynplaine, of whom you are the
soul. Do you hear me? I, whose child, whose wife, whose
star, whose breath of life you are! I, to whom you are eter-
nity itself. It is I. I am here. I hold you in my arms.
I am alive. I am yours. Oh, when I think that in a mo-
ment all would have been over —- one minute more —-but for
Homo! I will tell you everything. How near hope is to
despair! Dea, we live again! Dea, forgive me! Yes, yours
forever. You are right. Touch my forehead. Make sure
that it is I. If you only knew—but nothing can separate
us now. I rise out of hell, and ascend into heaven. Am I
not with you? You said that I descended. Not so; I re-
ascend. Once more with you! Foreverl—I tell you for-
ever. Together! We are together! Who would have be-
lieved it? We have found each other again. All our trou-
bles are past. Before us now, there is nothing but enchant—
ment. We will renew our happy life, and we will shut the
door so fast that misfortune shall never enter again. I will
tell you all. You will be astonished. The vessel has sailed.
No one can prevent that now. We are on our voyage, and
at liberty. We are going to Holland. We will marry. I
have no fear about gaining a livelihood. What can hinder it?
There is nothing to fear. I adore you!”
“ Not so quick,” stammered Ursus.
Dea, trembling, and with the delicacy of an angel’s touch,
passed her hand over Gwynplaine’s face. He heard her say
to herself ,—
“ It is thus that God is made.”
Then she touched his clothes.
“ The esclavine,” she said, “ the cape. Nothing changed.
All as it was before.” ,
Ursus, bewildered, delighted, smiling, drowned in tears,
gazed at them, and addressed this aside to himself : —-
“ I don’t understand it in the least. I am a stupid idiot,
—- I, who saw him carried to the grave! I cry, and I laugh.


308 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
That is all I know. I am as great a fool as if I were in love
myself. And that is just what I am. I am in love with
them both. Old fool! Too much emotion! too much emo—
tiOn! It is what I was afraid of. No, it is exactly. what I
wished for. Gwynplaine, be careful of her. Yes, let them
kiss! It is no affair of mine. I am but a spectator. I am
of no account whatever here, evidently, and yet it strikes me
that I am. Bless you, my children!”
While Ursus was thus communing with himself, Gwyn-
plaine exclaimed,—— I
“ Dea, you are too beautiful! I don’t know where my wits
were these last few days. Truly, there is no one to compare
with you on earth. I see you again, but as yet I can hardly
believe it. In this ship! But tell me, how did it all hap-
pen? To what a condition they have reduced you! But
where is the Green Box? They have robbed you. They
have driven you away. It is infamous. Oh, I will avenge
you! I will avenge you, Dea! They shall answer for it.
I am a Peer of England.”
Ursus, as if stricken by a planet full in his breast, drew
back, and looked at Gwynplaine attentively.
“ It is certain that he is not dead; but can he have gone
mad? ” And he listened to him, dubiously.
“ HaVe no fears, Dea,” Gwynplaine resumed; “ I will carry
my complaint to the House of Lords.”
Ursus looked at him again, and tapped his forehead with the
tip of his forefinger. Then making up his mind: —
“ It is all one to me,” he said. “ It will be all right, all
the same. Be as mad as you like, my Gwynplaine. It is one
of the rights of man. As for me, I am happy; but how did
all this come about?”
The vessel continued to sail smoothly and swiftly on. The
night grew darker and darker. The mists, which came in-
land from the ocean, were invading the zenith, from which
no breeze blew them away. Only a few large stars were
visible, and they disappeared one after another, so that soon
there were none at all. and the whole sky was dark and soft.


810 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
man aft. At the bow, the lantern lighted up the happy
group of beings who, from the depths of misery, had been
suddenly raised to happiness by such an unexpected meeting.
CHAPTER IV
NAY; 0N HIGH
UDDENLY Dea, disengaging herself from Gwynplaine’l
embrace, arose. She pressed both her hands against
her heart, as if to still its throbbings.
“What is wrong with me? ” she exclaimed. “There is
something the matter. Joy is suffocating. Now, it is noth-
ing! That is lucky. Your reappearance, O my Gwynplaine,
has overwhelmed me,—-— overwhelmed me with happiness. All
this heavenly joy which you have aroused in my heart has
intoxicated me. When you were absent, I felt myself dying.
The life which was forsaking me you have brought back. I
felt as if something was being torn away within me. It
must have been only the shadows, for I feel life dawning in
my brain,— a glowing life, a life of fever and delight. This
life which you have just given me is wonderful. It is so
heavenly, that it makes me suffer a little. It seems as if my
soul is enlarging and can scarcely be retained in my body. I
feel something like a beating of wings within my breast. I
feel strangely, but oh, so happy! Gwynplaine, you have
saved my life!”
She flushed, became pale, then flushed again, and fell.
“ Alas!” said Ursus, “ you have killed her.”
Gwynplaine extended his arms towards Dea. Extreme
anguish suddenly superseding extreme ecstasy,-—- what a.
shock! He would himself have fallen, had he not had to
support her.
“ Dea! ” he cried, shuddering, “ what is the matter? "
“ Nothing,” said she; “ I love you 1 ”


THE MAN WHO LAUGHS 811
She lay in his arms limp, like a piece of linen; her hands
were hanging down helplessly.
Gwynplaine and Ursus placed Dea on the mattress.
“ I cannot breathe lying down,” she said feebly.
They lifted her up.
“ Fetch a pillow,” said Ursus.
“What for? I have Gwynplaine,” she replied.
She laid her head on the shoulder of Gwynplaine, who was
sitting behind her, supporting her, his eyes wild with grief.
“ Oh, how happy I am!” she exclaimed.
Ursus took her wrist, and counted the pulsation of the
artery. He did not shake his head. He said nothing, nor
did he express his opinion except by the rapid movement of
his eyelids, which were opening and shutting convulsively, as
if to prevent a flood of tears from bursting forth.
“ What is the matter?” asked Gwynplaine.
Ursus placed his ear against Dea’s left side.
Gwynplaine repeated his question eagerly, fearful of the
answer.
Ursus looked at Gwynplaine, then at Dea. His face was
livid. '
“ We must be just opposite Canterbury,” he stammered.
“ The distance from here to Gravesend cannot be very great.
We shall have fine weather all night. We need fear no at-
tack at sea, because the fleets are all on the coast of Spain.
We shall have a good passage.”
Dea, growing paler and paler, clutched her robe convul-
sively. She heaved a sigh of inexpressible sadness, and mur-
mured:—
“ I know what this is,—— I am dying!”
Gwynplaine rose in' terror. Ursus held Dea.
“ Die! You die! No; it shall not be! You cannot die!
Die now! Die at once! It is impossible! God is not so
ferociously cruel as to give you and to take you back in the
same moment. No; such a thing cannot be. It would make
one lose all faith in him. Then, indeed, would everything he
a. snare,—- the earth, the sky, the cradles of infants, the


312 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
human heart, love, the stars above us. God would be a trai-
tor, and man a dupe. There would be nothing in which
one could believe. It would be an insult to creation. Every-
thing would be chaos. You do not know what you are say—
ing, Dea. You shall live! I command you to live! You
must obey me! I am your husband and your master; I for-
bid you to leave me! Oh, heavens! Oh, wretched man that
I am! No, it cannot be; I remain in the world after you!
Why, it is as monstrous as that there should be no sun! Dea!
Dea! arouse yourself. It is but a moment of passing pain.
One feels a shudder at times, and thinks no more about it.
It is absolutely necessary that you should get well and
cease to suffer. You die! What have I done to you? The
very thought of it drives me mad. We belong to each other,
and we love each other. You have no reason for going! It
would be unjust! Have I committed any crime? Besides,
you have forgiven me. Oh, you would not make me desper—
ate; haVe me become a villain, a madman; drive me to perdi-
tion? Dea, I entreat you! I conjure you! I supplicate
you! Do not die!”
And clinching his hands in his hair, agonized with fear,
stifled with tears he threw himself at her feet.
“ My Gwynplaine,” said Dea, “ it is no fault of mine.”
There rose to her lips a red froth, which Ursus wiped away
with a fold of her robe, before Gwynplaine, who was prostrate
at her feet, could see it.
Gwynplaine took her feet in his hands, and implored her in
all kinds of confused words.
“ I tell you, I will not have it! You die? I have no
strength left to bear it. Die? Yes; but both of us to-
gether—not otherwise. You die, my Dea? I will never
consent to it! My divinity! my love! Do you not under-
stand that I am with you? I swear that you shall live! Oh,
you cannot have thought what will become of me after you
are gone. If you had any idea how necessary you are to me,
you would see that it is absolutely impossible! Dea, you see
I have no one but you! The most extraordinary things have
_u»--,.,—-_~ "- '»'I--~ - e a ~ ~ --~--


814 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
are they? One gets to love everybody. One feels a friend-
ship for all those who have been connected with one’s happi—
ness- We have a kindly feeling towards them for having wit—
nessed our joy. Why has all this passed away? I have not
clearly understood what has happened during the last two
days. Now I am dying. Leave me in my dress. When I
put it on, I foresaw that it would be my shroud. I wish to
keep it on. Gwynplaine’s kisses are upon it. Oh, what
would I not have given to have lived! What a happy life we
led in our poor little van! How we sang! How I listened
to the applause! What joy it was never to be separated
from each other! It seemed to me that I was living in a
cloud with you. I knew one day from another, although I
was blind. I knew that it was morning, because I heard
Gwynplaine; I felt that it was night, because I dreamed of
Gwynplaine. I felt that I was wrapped up in something,
which was his soul. We adored each other so rapturously.
It is all fading away; and there will be no more songs. Alas,
that I cannot live on! You will think of me, my beloved!”
Her voice was growing fainter. Death was stealing away
her breath. She folded her thumbs within her fingers,-—a.
sign that her last moments were approaching. It seemed as
though the first uncertain utterances of an angel, just cre-
ated, were blended with the last faltering accents of the dying
girl.
“ You will think of me, won’t you?” she murmured. “ It
would be very sad to be dead, and to be remembered by no
one. I have been wayward at times; I beg pardon of you all.
I am sure that, if God had so willed it, we might yet have
been happy, my Gwynplaine; for we take up but very little
room in the world and we might have earned our bread to-
gether in another land. But God has willed it otherwise.
I cannot make out in the least why I am dying. I never
complained of being blind, so that I cannot have ofi’ended any
one. I should never have asked for anything, but always to
be blind as I was, by your side. Oh, how sad it is to have
to part!”
. , .. . _. ....'. ..._~.. .< .. ........—___,._. . ,wnvsll" -- --.U-W|_J


316 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
“ Yes!” he cried out.
the vessel’s side.
His gait was rigid, his arms were extended, his head was
thrown back, his eyes were fixed, his movements were ghost-
like.
He advanced without haste and without hesitation with
Every step brought him nearer to
.fatal precision, as though there were no yawning gulf and
open grave before him.
“Yes, I will follow you,” he murmured.
the sign that you are making to me.”
His eyes were fixed upon a certain spot in the sky where
the shadow was deepest. The smile was still upon his face.
The sky was perfectly black; there was no star visible in it,
and yet he evidently saw one.
He crossed the deck.
A few stiff and ominous steps, and he had reached the very
edge.
“ I come,” said he; “ Dea, behold, I come!”
One step more,— there was no bulwark,— the void was be-
fore him; he strode into it.
He fell.
The night was thick and dull, the water deep. It swal—
lowed him up. He disappeared calmly and silently. No one
saw or heard him. The ship sailed on, and the river flowed
tranquilly on.
Shortly afterwards the vessel reached the sea.
When Ursus recovered consciousness, he found that Gwyn~
plaine was no longer with him, and he saw Homo by the ves-
sel’s edge, haying in the darkness and gazing down into the
water.
“ I understand
On the last page of the manuscript is the following note:—
“ Finished August 93, 1868, at half-past ten o’clock in the morning, in
Brussels, No. 4 Place des Barricades.”
This work, most of which was written in Guernsey, was begun in
Brussels, July 21, 1866, and finished in Brussels, August 23, 1868.
THE END.

, _.-u::grl





CLAUDE GUEUX
LAUDE GUEUX was a poor workman, living in Paris
about eight years ago, with his mistress and child.
Although his education had been neglected, and he could not
even read, the man was naturally clever and intelligent, and
thought deeply over matters. Winter came with its attend-
ant miseries,-— want of work, want of food, want of fuel.
The man, the woman, and the child were frozen and famished.
The man turned thief. I know not what he stole. What
signifies, as the result was the same: to the woman and child
it gave three days’ bread and warmth; to the man, five years’
imprisonment. He was taken to Clairvaux,-—— the abbey now
converted into a prison, its cells into dungeons, and the altar
itself into a pillory. This is called progress.
Claude Gueux the honest workman, who turned thief from
force of circumstances, had a countenance which impressed
you,——a high forehead somewhat lined with care, dark hair
already streaked with gray, deep-set eyes beaming with kind-
ness, while the lower part clearly indicated firmness mingled
with self-respect. He rarely spoke, yet there was a certain
dignity in the man which commanded respect and obedience.
A fine character, and we shall see what society made of it.
Over the prison workshop was an inspector, who rarely for-
got that he was a jailer also to his subordinates, handing
them the tools with one hand, and casting chains upon them
with the other. A tyrant, never using even self-reasoning;
with ideas against which there was no appeal; hard rather
than firm, at times he could even be jocular,——— doubtless a
good father, a good husband, really not vicious, but bad.
319


CLAUDE GUEUX 828
me. Could you not manage to let him resume his old place
near me? ”
“ Impossible; the order cannot be revoked.”
“ By whom was it given?”
“ Ina-3,
“ Monsieur D—-—,” replied Claude, “ on you my life de-
pends.”
“ I never cancel an order once given.”
“ Sir, what have I ever done to you?”
“ Nothing.”
“ Why, then,” cried Claude, “ separate me from Albin? ”
“ Because I do,” replied the inspector, and with that he
passed on.
Claude’s head sank down, like the poor caged lion deprived
of his dog; but the grief, though so deeply felt, in no way
changed his appetite,— he was famished. Many offered to
share their rations with him, but he steadily refused, and con—-
tinued his usual routine ‘in silence,—— breaking it only to ask
- the inspector daily, in tones of anguish mingled with rage,
something between a prayer and a threat, these two words:
“ And Albin? ”
The inspector simply passed on, shrugging his shoulders;
but had he only observed Claude he would have_ seen the evi-
dent change, noticeable to all present, and he would have
heard these words, spoken respectfully but firmly: --- a
“ Sir, listen to me; send my companion to me. It would
be wise to do so, I can assure you. Remember my words!”
On Sunday he had sat for hours in the courtyard, with his
head bowed in his hands, and when a prisoner called Faillette
came up laughing, Claude said: “ I am judging some one.”
On the 25th of October, 1831, as the inspector went his
rounds, Claude, to draw his attention, smashed a watch-glass
he had found in the passage. This had the desired effect.
“It was I,” said Claude. “ Sir, restore my comrade to
me.”
“ Impossible,” was the answer.
Looking the inspector full in the face, Claude firmly
. _‘__fl,.w_~_~‘ ““W -


824 CLAUDE GUEUX
added: “ Now, reflect! To-day is the 25th of October; I
give you till the 4th of November.”
A warder remarked that Claude was threatening Monsieur
D—, and ought at once to be locked up.
“ No, it is not a case of blackhole,” replied the inspector,
smiling disdainfully; “ we must be considerate with people of
this stamp.”
The following day Claude was again accosted by one of
the prisoners named Pernot, as he was brooding in the court-
yard.
“ Well, Claude, you are sad indeed; what are you ponder-
ing over? ”
“ I fear some evil threatens that good Monsieur D ,”
answered Claude.
_ Claude daily impressed the fact on the inspector how much
Albin’s absence affected him, but with no result save f our—and—
twenty hours’ solitary confinement. On the 4ith of Novem—
ber he looked round his cell for the little that remained to
remind him of his former life. A pair of scissors, and an old
volume of the “ Emile,” belonging to the woman he had loved
so well, the mother of his child,— how useless to a man who
could neither work nor read!
As Claude walked down the old cloisters, so dishonoured
by its new inmates and its fresh whitewashed walls, he noticed
how earnestly the convict Ferrari was looking at the heavy
iron bars that crossed the window, and he said to him: “ To-
night I will cut through those bars with these scissors,” point-
ing to the pair he still held in his hand.
Ferrari laughed incredulously, and Claude joined in the
mirth. During the day he worked with more than ordinary
ardour, wishing to finish a straw hat, which he had been paid
for in advance by a tradesman at Troyes,— M. Bressier.
Shortly before noon he made some excuse to go down into
the carpenters’ quarters, a story below his own, at the time
the warders were absent. Claude received a hearty welcome,
as he was equally popular here as elsewhere.
“ Can any one lend me an axe? ” he said.


CLAUDE GUE UK 327
alone, looking quite jovial and self-satisfied, passing rapidly
along, tossing his head at one, grinding words out to an-
other, little heeding the eyes fixed so fiercely upon him. Just
then he heard Claude’s step, and turning quickly round
said,—
“What are you doing here? Why are you not in your
place? ” just as he would have spoken to a dog.
Claude answered respectfully, “ I wish to speak to you,
sir.”
“ On what subject?”
“ Albin.”
“ Again! ”
“ Always the same,” said Claude.
“ So then,” replied the inspector, walking along, “you
have not had enough with twenty-four hours in the black-
hole.”
Claude, following him closely, replied: “ Sir, return my
companion to me!”
“ Impossible! ”
“ Sir,” continued Claude, in a voice which would have
moved Satan, “ I implore you to send Albin back to me; you
will then see how I will work. You are free, and it would
matter but little to you; you do not know the feeling of
having only one friend. To me it is everything, encircled by
the prison walls. You can come and go at your pleasure; I
have but Albin. Pray let him come back to me! You know
well he shared his food with me. What can it matter to you
that a man named Claude Gueux should be in this hall, hav-
ing another by his side called Albin? You have but to say
‘Yes,’ nothing more. Sir, my good sir, I implore you, in
the name of Heaven, to grant my prayer!”
Claude, overcome with emotion, waited for the answer.
“ Impossible!” replied the inspector, impatiently; “ I will
not recall my words. Now go, you annoyance!” And with
that he hurried on towards the outer door, amidst the breath-
less silence maintained by the eighty—one thieves.
Claude, following and touching the inspector, gently asked:


328 CLAUDE GUEU'X
“ Let me at least know why I am condemned to death. Why
did you separate us? ”
“ I have already answered you: because I chose,” replied the
inspector.
With that he was about to lift the latch, when Claude raised
the axe, and without one cry the inspector fell to the ground,
with his skull completely cloven from three heavy blows dealt
with the rapidity of lightning. A fourth completely disfig—
ured his face, and Claude, in his mad fury, gave another and
a useless blow; for the inspector was dead.
Claude, throwing the axe aside, cried out, “ Now for the
other!”
The other was himself; and taking the scissors, his wife’s,
he plunged them into his breast. But the blade was short,
and the chest was deep, and vainly he strove to give the fatal
blow. At last, covered with blood he fell fainting across the
dead. Which of the two would be considered the victim?
When Claude recovered consciousness he was in bed, sur-
rounded by every care and covered with bandages. Near
him were Sisters of Charity, and a recorder ready to take
down his deposition, who with much interest inquired how
he was. Claude had lost a great deal of blood; but the scis-
sors had done him a bad turn, inflicting wounds not one of
which was dangerous: the only mortal blows he had struck
were on the body of Monsieur D Then the interroga-
tory commenced.
“ Did you kill the inspector of the prison workshops at
Clairvaux? ”
“ Yes,” was the reply.
“ Why did you do so?”
“ Because I did.”
Claude’s wounds now assumed a more serious aspect, and
he was prostrath with a fever which threatened his life.
November, December, January, February passed, in nursing
and preparations, and Claude in turn was visited by doctor
and judge,-— the one to restore him to health, the other to
glean the evidence needful to send him to the scaffold.


CLAUDE GUEUX 829
On the 16th of March, 1832, perfectly cured, Claude ap~
peared in court at Troyes, to answer the charge brought
against him. His appearance impressed the court favoura-
bly; he had been shaved and stood bareheaded, but still clad
in prison garb. The court was well guarded by a strong mili-
tary guard, to keep the witnesses within bounds, as they were
all convicts. But an unexpected difficulty occurred; not one
of these men would give evidence; neither questions nor
threats availed to make them break their silence, until Claude
requested them to do so. Then they in turn gave a faithful
account of the terrible event; and if one, from forgetfulness
or affection for the accused, failed to relate the whole facts,
Claude supplied the deficiency. At one time the women’s
tears fell fast.
The usher now called the convict Albin. He came in
trembling with emotion and sobbing painfully, and threw
himself into Claude’s arms. Turning to the Public Prose-
cutor, Claude said,—
“ Here is a convict who gives his food to the hungry,” and
stooping, he kissed Albin’s hand.
All the witnesses having been examined, the counsel for
the prosecution then rose to address the court. “ Gentlemen
of the jury, society would be utterly put to confusion if a
public prosecution did not condemn great culprits like him,
who, etc.”
After the long address by the prosecution, Claude’s coun-
sel rose. Then followed the usual pleading for and against,
which ever takes place at the criminal court.
Claude in his turn gave evidence, and every one was as-
tonished at his intelligence; there appeared far more of the
orator about this poor workman than the assassin. In a
clear and straightforward way he detailed the facts as they
were,— standing proudly there, resolved to tell the whole
truth. At times the crowd was carried away by his elo-
quence. This man, who could not read, would grasp the
most difficult points of argument, yet treat the judges with
all duedeference. Once Claude lost his temper, when the


330 CLAUDE GUEUX
counsel for the prosecution stated that he had assassinated
the inspector without provocation.
“ What!” cried Claude, “ I had no provocation? Indeed!
A drunkard strikes me,—I kill him; then you would allow
there was provocation, and the penalty of death would be
changed for that of the galleys. But a man who wounds me
in every way during four years, humiliates me for four
years, taunts me daily, hourly, for four years, and heaps
every insult on my head, what follows? You consider I
have had no provocation! I had a wife for whom I robbed,
--—he tortured me about her. I had a child for whom I
robbed,—— he taunted me about this child. I was hungry, a
friend shared his bread with me,——- he took away my friend.
I begged him to return my friend to me,— he cast me into a
dungeon. I told him how much I suffered,— he said it
wearied him to listen. What then would you have me do?
I took his life; and you look upon me as a monster for
killing this man, and you decapitate me: then do so.”
Provocation such as this the law fails to acknowledge,
because the blows have no marks to show.
The judge then summed up the case in a clear and impar-
tial manner,——- dwelling on the life Claude had led, living
openly with an improper character; then he had robbed, and
ended by being a murderer. All this was true. Before the
jury retired, the judge asked Claude if he had any questions
to ask, or anything to say.
“Very little,” said Claude. “I am a murderer, I am a
thief; but I ask you, gentlemen of the jury, why did I kill?
Why did I steal?”
The jury retired for a quarter of an hour, and according
to the judgment of these twelve countrymen — gentlemen of
the jury, as they are styled— Claude Gueux was condemned
to death. At the very outset several of them were much
impressed with the name of Gueux (vagabond), and that
influenced their decision.
When the verdict was pronounced, Claude simply said:
“Very well; but there are two questions these gentlemen


CLAUDE GUEUX 331
have not answered. Why did this man steal? What made
him a murderer? ”
He made a good supper that night, exclaiming, “ Thirty—
six years have now passed me.” He refused to make any
appeal until the last minute, but at the instance of one of
the sisters who had nursed him he consented to do so. She
in her fulness of heart gave him a five-franc piece.
His fellow-prisoners, as we have already noticed, were de-
voted to him, and placed all the means at their disposal to
help him to escape. They threw into his dungeon, through
the air-hole, a nail, some wire, the handle of a pail: any one
of these would have been enough for a man like Claude to
free himself from his chains. He gave them all up to the
warder.
On the 8th of June, 1832, seven months and four days
after the murder, the recorder of the court came, and Claude
was told that he had but one hour more to live, for his ap-
peal had been rejected.
“ Indeed,” said Claude, coldly; “ I slept well last night,
and doubtless I shall pass my next even better.”
First came the priest, then the executioner. He was hum-
ble to the priest, and listened to him with great attention,
regretting much that he had not had the benefit of religious
training, at the same time blaming himself for much in the
past.
He was courteous in his manner to the executioner; in
fact he gave up all,—— his soul to the priest, his body to the
executioner.
While his hair was being cut, some one mentioned how the
cholera was spreading, and Troyes at any- moment might
become a prey to this fearful scourge. Claude joined in the
conversation, saying, with a smile, “ There is one thing to be
said,-— I have no fear of the cholera!” He had broken half
of the scissors,—— what remained he asked the jailer to give
to Albin; the other half lay buried in his chest. He also
wished the day’s rations to be taken to his friend. The only
trifle be retained was the five-franc piece that the sister had