The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo

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He saw too much, and not enough.

He saw all, and nothing.

His state was what the author of this book has somewhere expressed as
the blind man dazzled.

Gwynplaine, left by himself, began to walk with long strides. A bubbling
precedes an explosion.

Notwithstanding his agitation, in this impossibility of keeping still,
he meditated. His mind liquefied as it boiled. He began to recall things
to his memory. It is surprising how we find that we have heard so
clearly that to which we scarcely listened. The declaration of the
shipwrecked men, read by the sheriff 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 ceilings--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 discovered. They stole, betrayed,
destroyed, abandoned, disinherited, murdered me! The corpse of my
destiny floated fifteen years on the sea; all at once it touched the
earth, and it started up, erect and living. I am reborn. I am born. I
felt under my rags that the breast there palpitating was not that of a
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 this. I dwelt in
light, they flung me into darkness. 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, they flung me into a sewer. Oh! those scoundrels who tortured
my infancy! Yes, they rise and move in the depths of my memory. Yes; I
see them again. I was that morsel of flesh pecked to pieces on a tomb by
a flight of crows. I bled and cried under all those horrible shadows.
Lo! it was there that they precipitated me, under the crush of those who
come and go, under the trampling feet of men, under the undermost of the
human race, lower than the serf, baser than the serving man, lower than
the felon, lower than the slave, at the spot where Chaos becomes a
sewer, in which 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!"

He sat down, he rose, clasped his head with his hands, began to pace the
room again, and his tempestuous monologue continued within him.

"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 great power, is my home. This temple is in air. I am one of the
gods. I live in inaccessible heights. This supremacy, which I looked up
to from below, and from whence emanated such rays of glory that I shut
my eyes; this ineffaceable peerage; this impregnable fortress of the
fortunate, I enter. I am in it. I am of it. Ah, what a decisive turn of
the wheel! I was below, I am on high--on high for ever! 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. I shall exist. 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,
carriages, millions. I will give fetes. I will make laws. I shall have
the choice of joys and pleasures. And the vagabond Gwynplaine, who had
not the right to gather a flower in the grass, may pluck the stars from
heaven!"

Melancholy overshadowing of a soul's brightness! Thus it was that in
Gwynplaine, who had been a hero, and perhaps had not ceased to be one,
moral greatness gave way to material splendour. A lamentable transition!
Virtue broken down by a troop of passing demons. A surprise made on the
weak side of man's fortress. All the inferior circumstances called by
men superior, 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 parchment in a waif
drifted by the sea. Conscience may be violated by a chance attack.

Gwynplaine drank in great draughts of pride, and it dulled his soul.
Such is the poison of that fatal wine.

Giddiness 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 towards the
great. To watch is to wish. The eaglet is not born in the eyrie for
nothing.

Now, however, at moments, 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 off! Gwynplaine had fallen into the
ambuscade of Better, who is the enemy of Good.

Unhappy is he of whom we say, how lucky he is! Adversity 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 remain erect under the thunderbolt are prostrated by the
flash. Thou who standest without shrinking on the verge of a precipice,
fear lest thou be carried up on the innumerable wings of mists and
dreams. The ascent which elevates will dwarf thee. An apotheosis has a
sinister power of degradation.

It is not easy to understand what is good luck. Chance is nothing but a
disguise. Nothing deceives so much as the face of fortune. Is she
Providence? Is she Fatality?

A brightness may not be a brightness, because light is truth, and a
gleam may be a deceit. You believe that it lights you; but no, it sets
you on fire.

At night, a candle made of mean tallow becomes a star if placed in an
opening in the darkness. The moth flies to it.

In what measure is the moth responsible?

The sight of the candle fascinates the moth as the eye of the serpent
fascinates the bird.

Is it possible that the bird and the moth should resist the attraction?
Is it possible that the leaf should resist the wind? Is it possible that
the stone should refuse obedience to the laws of gravitation?

These are material questions, which are moral questions as well.

After he had received the letter of the duchess, Gwynplaine had
recovered himself. The deep love in his nature had resisted it. But the
storm having wearied itself on one side of the horizon, burst out on the
other; for in destiny, as in nature, there are successive convulsions.
The first shock loosens, the second uproots.

Alas! how do the oaks fall?

Thus he who, when a child of ten, stood alone on the shore of Portland,
ready to give battle, who had looked steadfastly at all the combatants
whom he had to encounter, the blast which bore away the vessel in which
he had expected to embark, the gulf which had swallowed up the plank,
the yawning abyss, of which the menace was its retrocession, the earth
which refused him a shelter, the sky which refused him a star, solitude
without pity, obscurity without notice, ocean, sky, all the violence of
one infinite space, and all the mysterious enigmas of another; he who
had neither trembled nor fainted before the mighty hostility of the
unknown; he who, still so young, had held his own with night, as
Hercules of old had held his own with death; he who in the unequal
struggle had thrown down this defiance, that he, a child, adopted a
child, that he encumbered himself with a load, when tired and exhausted,
thus rendering himself an easier prey to the attacks on his weakness,
and, as it were, himself unmuzzling the shadowy monsters in ambush
around him; he who, a precocious warrior, had immediately, and from his
first steps out of the cradle, struggled breast to breast with destiny;
he, whose disproportion with strife had not discouraged from striving;
he who, perceiving in everything around him a 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, valiantly;
he who, a pigmy in stature, had been a colossus in soul: this
Gwynplaine, who had conquered the great terror of the abyss under its
double form, Tempest and Misery, staggered under a breath--Vanity.

Thus, when she has exhausted distress, nakedness, storms, catastrophes,
agonies on an unflinching man, Fatality begins to smile, and her victim,
suddenly intoxicated, staggers.

The smile of Fatality! Can anything more terrible be imagined? It is the
last resource of the pitiless trier of souls in his proof 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 aggrandisement. A sudden growth disturbs the system, and
produces fever.

In Gwynplaine's brain was the giddy whirlwind of a crowd of new
circumstances; all the light and shade of a metamorphosis; inexpressibly
strange confrontations; the shock of the past against the future. Two
Gwynplaines, himself doubled; behind, an infant in rags crawling through
night--wandering, shivering, hungry, provoking laughter; in front, a
brilliant nobleman--luxurious, proud, dazzling all London. He was
casting off one form, and amalgamating himself with the other. He was
casting the mountebank, and becoming the peer. Change of skin is
sometimes 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 him to
himself. He thought of his brother, of whom he had just heard. Then he
had a family! He, Gwynplaine! He lost himself in fantastic dreams. He
saw visions of magnificence; unknown forms of solemn grandeur moved in
mist before him. He heard flourishes of trumpets.

"And then," he said, "I shall be eloquent."

He pictured to himself a splendid entrance into the House of Lords. He
should arrive full to the brim with new facts and ideas. What could he
not tell them? What subjects he had accumulated! What an advantage to be
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 with illusions. They should tremble, for it
would be the truth. They would applaud, for it would be grand. He would
arise amongst those powerful men, more powerful 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!

And, building up these fantasies in his mind, clear and confused at the
same time, he had attacks of delirium,--sinking on the first seat he
came to; sometimes drowsy, sometimes starting up. He came and went,
looked at the ceiling, examined the coronets, studied vaguely the
hieroglyphics of the emblazonment, felt the velvet of the walls, moved
the chairs, turned over the parchments, read the names, spelt out the
titles, Buxton, Homble, Grundraith, Hunkerville, Clancharlie; compared
the wax, the impression, felt the twist of silk appended to the royal
privy seal, approached the window, listened to the splash of the
fountain, contemplated the statues, counted, with the patience of a
somnambulist, the columns of marble, and said,--

"It is real."

Then he touched his satin clothes, and asked himself,--

"Is it I? Yes."

He was torn by an inward tempest.

In this whirlwind, did he feel faintness and fatigue? Did he drink, eat,
sleep? If he did so, he was unconscious of the fact. In certain violent
situations instinct satisfies itself, according to its requirements,
unconsciously. Besides, his thoughts were less thoughts than mists. At
the moment that the black flame of an irruption disgorges itself from
depths full of 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 broke on the soul of Gwynplaine.

And Dea! said the light.

BOOK THE SIXTH.

_URSUS UNDER DIFFERENT ASPECTS._

CHAPTER I.

WHAT THE MISANTHROPE SAID.

After Ursus had seen Gwynplaine thrust within the gates of Southwark
Jail, he remained, haggard, in the corner from which he was watching.
For a long time his ears were haunted by the grinding of the bolts and
bars, which was like a howl of joy that one wretch more should be
enclosed within them.

He waited. What for? He watched. What for? Such inexorable doors, once
shut, do not re-open so soon. They are tongue-tied by their stagnation
in darkness, and move with difficulty, especially when they have to give
up a prisoner. Entrance is permitted. Exit is quite a different matter.
Ursus knew this. But waiting is a thing which we have not the power to
give up at our own will. We wait in our own despite. What we do
disengages an acquired force, which maintains its action when its object
has ceased, which keeps possession of us and holds us, and obliges us
for some time longer to continue that which has already lost its motive.
Hence the useless watch, the inert position that we have all held at
times, the loss of time which every thoughtful man gives mechanically to
that which has disappeared. None escapes this law. We become stubborn in
a sort of vague fury. We know not why we are in the place, but we remain
there. That which we have begun actively we continue passively, with an
exhausting tenacity from which we emerge overwhelmed. Ursus, though
differing from other men, was, as any other might have been, nailed to
his post by that species of conscious reverie into which we are plunged
by events all important to us, and 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 to 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 he left the arch under which he had taken shelter, a kind of
chance sentry-box, in which he had acted the watchman, and departed with
slow steps. The day was declining, for his guard had been long. From
time to time he turned his head and looked at the fearful wicket through
which Gwynplaine had disappeared. His eyes were glassy and dull. He
reached the end of the alley, entered another, then another, retracing
almost unconsciously the road which he had taken some hours before. At
intervals 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 situated.
Step by step he was approaching Tarrinzeau Field. The lanes in the
neighbourhood of the fair-ground were deserted pathways between enclosed
gardens. He walked along, his head bent down, by the hedges and ditches.
All at once he halted, and drawing himself up, exclaimed, "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; and then he began to growl inwardly, yet now and then
raising his voice.

"It is all right! Oh, the scoundrel! the thief! the vagabond! 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 free of him, and lucky for me; he was compromising us.
Thrust into prison! Oh, so much the better! What excellent laws!
Ungrateful boy! I who brought him up! To give oneself so much trouble
for this! Why should he want to speak and to reason? He mixed 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
permitted himself to make reflections on pennies. He commented wickedly
and maliciously on the copper money of the kingdom. He insulted the
farthings of her Majesty. A farthing! Why, 'tis the same as the queen. A
sacred effigy! Devil take it! a sacred effigy! Have we a queen--yes or
no? Then respect her verdigris! Everything depends on the government;
one ought to know that. I have experience, I have. I know something.
They may say to me, 'But you give up politics, 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 understand 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 arrange the rest; their lordships, the
lords spiritual and temporal. Oh! so Gwynplaine is locked up! So he is
in prison. That is just as it should be. It is equitable, excellent,
well-merited, and legitimate. It is his own fault. To criticize is
forbidden. Are you a lord, you idiot? The constable has seized him, the
justice of the quorum 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 pluck out your crimes, those clever fellows! Imprisoned,
my wag! So much the worse for him, so much the better for me! Faith, I
am satisfied. I own frankly that fortune favours me. Of what folly was I
guilty when I picked up that little boy and girl! We were so quiet
before, Homo and I! What had they to do in my caravan, the little
blackguards? Didn't I brood over them when they were young! Didn't I
draw them along with my harness! Pretty foundlings, indeed; he as ugly
as sin, and she blind of both eyes! Where was the use of depriving
myself of everything for their sakes? The beggars grow up, forsooth, and
make love to each other. The flirtations of the deformed! It was to that
we had come. The toad and the mole; quite an idyl! That was what went on
in my household. All which was sure to end by going before the justice.
The toad talked politics! But now I am free of him. When the wapentake
came I was at first a fool; one always doubts one's own good luck. I
believed that I did not see what I did see; that it was impossible, that
it was a nightmare, that a day-dream was playing me a trick. But no!
Nothing could be truer. It is all clear. Gwynplaine is really in
prison. It is a stroke of Providence. Praise be to it! He was the
monster who, with the row he made, drew attention to my establishment
and denounced my poor wolf. Be off, Gwynplaine; and, see, I am rid of
both! Two birds killed with one stone. Because Dea will die, now that
she can no longer see Gwynplaine. For she sees 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! Oh, I am quite comfortable!"

CHAPTER II.

WHAT HE DID.

He returned to the Tadcaster Inn,

It struck half-past six. It was a little before twilight.

Master Nicless stood on his doorstep.

He had not succeeded, since the morning, in extinguishing the terror
which still showed on his scared face.

He perceived Ursus from afar.

"Well!" he cried.

"Well! what?"

"Is Gwynplaine coming back? It is full time. The public will soon be
coming. Shall we have the performance of 'The Laughing Man' this
evening?"

"I am the laughing man," said Ursus.

And he looked at the tavern-keeper with a loud chuckle.

Then he went up to the first floor, opened the window next to the sign
of the inn, leant over towards the placard about Gwynplaine, the
laughing man, and the bill of "Chaos Vanquished;" unnailed the one, tore
down the other, put both under his arm, and descended.

Master Nicless followed him with his eyes.

"Why do you unhook that?"

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 lieutenant, the boy
Govicum, to announce to every one who should 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 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 Fibi 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 had remained in their drugget petticoats and their
dress 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 music is over. You may put your trumpets into
the drawer. You did well not to equip yourselves as deities. You look
ugly enough as you are, but you were quite right. Keep on your
petticoats. No performance to-night, nor to-morrow, nor the day after
to-morrow. No Gwynplaine. Gwynplaine is clean gone."

Then he looked at Dea again.

"What a blow to her this will be! 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 would be just as if I were to lose
Homo. It will be worse. She will feel more lonely than any one else
could. The blind wade through more sorrow than we do."

He 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 unlaced her bodice too low. There is a
proverb,--

"'Though April skies be bright,
Keep all your wrappers tight.'"

Seeing a pin shining on the floor, he picked it up and pinned up her
sleeve. Then he paced the Green Box, gesticulating.

"I am in full possession of my faculties. I am lucid, quite lucid. I
consider this occurrence quite proper, and I approve of what has
happened. When she awakes I will explain everything to her clearly. The
catastrophe will not be long in coming. No more Gwynplaine. Good-night,
Dea. How well all has been arranged! Gwynplaine in prison, Dea in the
cemetery, they will be _vis-a-vis_! A dance of death! Two destinies
going off the stage at once. Pack up the dresses. Fasten the valise. For
valise, read coffin. It was just what was best for them 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 up your tambourines on the
nail. Your talents for noise will go to rust, my beauties; no more
playing, no more trumpeting 'Chaos Vanquished' is vanquished. 'The
Laughing Man' is done for. 'Taratantara' is dead. Dea sleeps on. She
does well. If I were she 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! Governments are right.
Gwynplaine to the sheriff. Dea to the grave-digger. Parallel cases!
Instructive symmetry! I hope the tavern-keeper has barred the door. We
are going to die to-night quietly at home, between ourselves--not I, nor
Homo, but Dea. As for me, I shall continue to roll on in the caravan. I
belong to the meanderings of vagabond life. I shall dismiss these two
women. I shall not keep even one of them. I have a tendency to become an
old scoundrel. A maidservant in the house of a libertine is like a loaf
of bread on the shelf. I decline the temptation. It is not becoming at
my age. _Turpe senilis amor_. I will follow 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 bucolics were an encumbrance. Oh! that scamp Gwynplaine, who is
never coming back. He has left us stuck here. I say 'All right.' And
now 'tis 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--her dying, I tell you!
See, she awakes!"