 Section 54 of The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo. Yet true things are told in stories. The burnt scar of the invisible fiend who has touched you is remorse for a wicked thought. In Gwyn Plain's evil thoughts never ripened, and he had therefore no remorse. Sometimes he felt regret. Feg missed of conscience. What was this? Nothing. Their happiness was complete, so complete that they were no longer even poor. From 1680 to 1704 a great change had taken place. It happens sometimes in the year 1704 that as night fell on some little village on the coast, a great heavy van drawn by a pair of stout horses made its entry. It was like the shell of a vessel reversed. The keel for a roof, the deck for a floor, placed on four wheels. The wheels were all of the same size and high as wagon wheels. Wheels, pole, and van were all painted green with the rhythmical graduation of shades, which ranged from bottle green for the wheels to apple green for the roofing. This green color had succeeded in drawing attention to the carriage, which was known in all the fairgrounds as the green box. The green box had but two windows, one at each extremity and at the back a door with steps to let down. On the roof from a tube painted green like the rest, smoke arose. This moving house was always varnished and washed afresh. In front, on a ledge, fastened to the van, with the window for a door, behind the horses and by the side of an old man who held the reins and directed the team. Two gypsy women, dressed as goddesses, sounded their trumpets. The astonishment with which the villagers regarded this machine was overwhelming. This was the old establishment of urses, its proportions augmented by success, and improved from a wretched booth into a theater. 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 this improvement from the miserable hut to the Olympic caravan? From this guin plane had become famous. It was with the correct scent of what would succeed amongst men that urses had said to guin plane. They made your fortune. Urses, it may be remembered, had made guin plane his pupil. Unknown people had worked upon his face. He, on the other hand, had worked on his mind. And behind this well-executed mask he had placed all that he could have thought. So soon as the growth of the child had rendered him fitted for it, he had brought him out on the stage. That is, he had produced him in front of the van. The effect of his appearance had been surprising. The passers-by were immediately struck with wonder. Never had anything been seen to be compared to this extraordinary mimic of laughter. They were ignorant how the miracle of infectious hilarity had been obtained. Some believed it to be natural. Others declared it to be artificial. And as conjecture was added to reality, everywhere at every crossroad on the journey, in all the grounds of ferris and fates, the crowd ran after guin plane. Thanks to this great attraction there had come into the poor purse of the wandering group, first a rain of farthings, then of heavy pennies, and finally of shillings. The curiosity of one place exhausted, 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 Gwyn Plains' person and of his ugliness, the fortune predicted by Ursus had come. What a good turn they did you there, my boy! said Ursus. This fortune had allowed Ursus, who was the administrator of Gwyn Plains' success, to have the chariot of his dreams constructed. That is to say, a caravan large enough to carry a theater, and to sow science and art in the highways. Moreover, Ursus had been able to add to the group composed of himself, Homo Gwyn Plain and Dea, two horses and two women, who were the goddesses of the troop, as we have just said, and its servants. A mythological frontispiece was, in those days, of service to a caravan of mount-a-banks. We are a wandering temple, said Ursus. These two gypsies, picked up by the philosopher, from amongst the vagabondage of cities and suburbs, were ugly and young, and were called by order of Ursus, the one Phoebe, and the other Venus. For these read Phoebe and Venus, that we may conform to English pronunciation. Phoebe cooked, Venus grubbed the temple. Moreover, on days of performance they dressed Dea. Mount-a-Banks have their public life as well as princes, and on these occasions Dea was arrayed, like Phoebe and Venus, in a Florentine petticoat of flowered stuff, and a woman's jacket without sleeves, leaving the arms bare. Ursus and Gwyn Plain wore men's jackets, and like sailors on board a manowar, great loose trousers. Gwyn Plain had, besides for his work and for his feats of strength, round his neck and over his shoulders, an esclavine of leather. He took charge of the horses. Ursus and Homo took charge of each other. Dea, being used to the green box, came and went in the interior of the wheeled house, with almost as much ease and certainty as those who saw. The eye which could penetrate within this structure and its internal arrangements might have perceived, in a corner, fastened to the planks, and, immovable on its four wheels, the old hut of Ursus, placed on half-pay, allowed to rust, and from thenceforth dispensed the labour of rolling as Ursus was relieved from the labour of drawing it. This hut, in a corner at the back, to the right of the door, served as bed-chamber and dressing-room to Ursus and Gwyn Plain. It now contained two beds. In the opposite corner was the kitchen. The arrangement of a vessel was not more precise and concise than that of the interior of the green box. Everything within it was in its place, arranged, foreseen, and intended. The caravan was divided into three compartments, partitioned from each other. These communicated by open spaces without doors. A piece of stuff fell over them and answered the purpose of concealment. The compartment behind belonged to the men, the compartment in front to the women. The compartment in the middle, separating the two sexes, was the stage. The instruments of the orchestra and the properties were kept in the kitchen. A loft under the arch of the roof contained the scenes, and on opening a trap-door lamps appeared, producing wonders of light. Ursus was the poet of these magical 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 things—shocks of light and darkness, spontaneous formations of figures or words, as he willed on the partition, vanishing figures and cheer scuro, strange things amidst which he seemed to meditate, unmindful of the crowd who marveled at him. One day, when Plain said to him, Father, you look like a sorcerer, and Ursus replied, Then I look perhaps like what I am. The green box, built on a clear model of Ursus's, contained this refinement of ingenuity, that 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 on hinges, which supported the panel when let down, and which placed themselves straight on the ground like the legs of a table, and supported it above the earth like a platform. This exposed the stage, which was thus enlarged by the platform in front. This opening looked for all the world like a mouth of hell. In the words of the itinerant Puritan preachers, who turned away from it with horror, it was perhaps for some such pious invention that Solon kicked out Thespis. For all that Thespis has lasted much longer than is generally believed. The traveling theater is still in existence. It was on those stages on wheels that, in the 16th and 17th centuries, they performed in England the ballets and dances of Amner and Pilkington, in France the pastorals of Gilbert Cullen, in Flanders at the annual fairs the double choruses of Clement, called Non Papa, in Germany the Adam and Eve of Thales, and in Italy the Venetian exhibitions of Annemusia and of Caphosis. The Silve of Gesualdo. The Prince of Enosa. The Seder of Laura Guidicione. The Despair of Feline. The Death of Uglina. By Vincent Galileo, father of the astronomer, which Vincent Galileo sank his own music, and accompanied himself on his viol de Gamba, as well as all the first attempts of the Italian opera, which was from 1580, substituted free inspiration for the madrigal style. The chariot of the color of hope, which carried Ursus, Gwynnplain, and their fortunes, and in front of which Phoebe and Venus trumpeted like figures of fame, played its part of this grand bohemian and literary brotherhood. Thespis would no more have disowned Ursus than Congrio would have disowned Gwynnplain. Arrived at open spaces in towns or villages, Ursus in the intervals between the two two-ing of Phoebe and Venus, gave instructive revelations as to the trumpetings. This symphony is Gregorian, he would exclaim. Citizens and townsmen, the Gregorian form of worship, this great progress, is opposed in Italy to the Ambrosial's ritual, and in Spain to the Moserabic ceremonial, and has achieved its triumph over them with difficulty. After which the green box drew up in some places chosen by Ursus, an evening having fallen, and the panel stage having been let down, the theater opened, and the performance began. The scene of the green box represented a landscape painted by Ursus, and as he did not know how to paint, it represented a cavern just as well as a landscape. The curtain, which we call Drop nowadays, was a checked silk with squares of contrasted colors. The public stood without, in the street, in the fair, forming a semi-circle round the stage, exposed to the sun and the showers, an arrangement which made rain less desirable for theaters in those days than now. When they could, they acted in an in-yard, on which occasions the windows of the different stories made rows of boxes for the spectators. The theater was thus more enclosed, and the audience a more paying one. Ursus was in everything, in the piece, in the company, in the kitchen, in the orchestra. Venus beat the drum and handled the sticks with a great dexterity. Vibi played on the mirachi, a kind of guitar. The wolf had been promoted to a utility gentleman, and played as occasion required his little parts. Often when they appeared side by side on the stage, Ursus in his tightly placed bearskin, homo with his wolf's skin fitting still better, no one could tell which was the beast. This flattered Ursus. EBSERTITIES WHICH FOLKS WITHOUT TASTE CALL POETRY The 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 versus. It is probable that he played the principal part himself. A pretended exit, followed by a reappearance, was apparently its praiseworthy and sober subject. The titles of the interludes of Ursus were sometimes Latin, as we have seen, and the poetry frequently Spanish. The Spanish verses written by Ursus were rhymed, as was nearly all the Castilian poetry of that period. This did not puzzle the people. Spanish was then a familiar language. And the English sailors spoke Castilian, even as the Roman sailors spoke Cartaganean, C. Plautus. Moreover, at a theatrical representation as at Mass, Latin, or any other language unknown to the audience, is by no means a subject of care with them. They get out of the dilemma by adapting to the sounds familiar words. Our old Gaelic France was particularly prone to this manner of being devout. At church, under cover of an emulatus, the faithful chanted, I will make marry, and under a sanctus, kiss me, sweet! The Council of Trent was required to put an end to these familiarities. Ursus had composed expressly for Gwen Plain and interlude, in which he was well pleased. It was his best work. He had thrown his whole soul into it. To give the sum of all one's talents 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? Try then to do as much. Ursus had carefully polished this interlude. This bear's cub was entitled Chaos Vanquished. Here it was. A night scene. When the curtain drew up, the crowd, masked around the green box, saw nothing but blackness. In this blackness three confused forms moved in the reptile state. Wolf, a bear, and a man. The wolf acted the wolf. Ursus, the bear. Gwen Plain, the man. The wolf and the bear represented the ferocious forces of nature, unreasoning hunger and savage ignorance. Both rushed on Gwen Plain. It was chaos combating man. No face could be distinguished. Gwen Plain fought enfolded in a winding sheet and his face was covered by his thickly falling locks. All else was shadow. The bear growled, the wolf gnashed his teeth, and the man cried out. The man was down. The beasts overwhelmed him. He cried for aid and succor. He hurled to the unknown and agonized appeal. He gave a death rattle. To witness this agony of the prostrate man, now scarcely distinguishable from the brutes, was appalling. The crowd looked on breathless. In one minute more the wild beasts would triumph and chaos reabsorbed man. A struggle cries howlings. Then, all at once, silence. A song in the shadows. A breath had passed and they heard a voice. Mysterious music floated, accompanying this chant of the invisible. And suddenly, none knowing whence or how, a white apparition arose. This apparition was a light. This light was a woman. This woman was a spirit. Daya, calm, fair, beautiful, formidable in her serenity and sweetness, appeared in the center of a luminous mist. A profile of brightness in a dawn. She was a voice. A voice light, deep, indescribable. She sang in the newborn light. She, invisible, made visible. They thought they heard the hymn of an angel or the song of a bird. At this apparition the man, starting up in his ecstasy, struck the beast with his fist and overthrew them. Then the vision, gliding along in a manner difficult to understand, and therefore the more admired, sang these words in Spanish, sufficiently pure for the English sailors who were present. Ora, yora, de palabra nacerasón, de luz, el son. Then looking down, as if she saw a gulf beneath, she went on. Noche, quita te de allí, el alba canta, hayali. As she sang, the man raised himself by degrees. Instead of lying, he was now kneeling, his hands elevated toward the vision, his knees resting on the beasts, which lay motionless, and as if thunder-stricken. She continued, turning towards him. Es menester a cielo cír, y tú que llorabas reír. And approaching him with the majesty of a star she added, quebra barzón, deja, monstruó, a tú negro, caparazón. And she put hot hand on his brow. Then another voice arose, deeper and consequently still sweeter, a voice broken and enwrapped with the gravity both tender and wild. It was the human chant responding to the chant of the stars. Gwyn plane, still in obscurity, his head under Dea's hand, and kneeling on the vanquished bear and wolf sang, o ven, amá, eres alma, soy corazón. And suddenly from the shadow a ray of light fell full upon Gwyn plane. Then, through the darkness, was a monster full exposed. To describe the commotion of the crowd is impossible. A sun of laughter rising, such was the effect. Laughter springs from unexpected causes, and nothing could be more unexpected than this termination. Never was sensation comparable to that produced by the ray of light striking on that mask. At once ludicrous and terrible, they laughed all around his laugh. Everywhere, above, below, behind, before, at the uttermost distance. Men, women, old gray heads, rosy-faced children. The good, the wicked, the gay, the sad, everybody. And even in the streets, the passerbys who could see nothing, hearing the laughter, laughed also. The laughter ended in clapping of hands and stamping of feet, the curtain dropped. Gwyn plane was recalled with frenzy. Hence an immense success. Have you seen chaos vanquished? Gwyn plane was run after. The listless came to laugh. The melancholy came to laugh. Evil consciences came to laugh. A laugh so irresistible that it seemed almost an epidemic. But there is a pestilence from which men do not fly, and that is the contagion of joy. The success, it must be admitted, did not rise higher than the populace. A great crowd means a crowd of nobodies. Chaos vanquished could be seen for a penny. Fashionable people never go where the price of admission is a penny. Ursus thought a good deal of his work, which he brooded over for a long time. It is in the style of one Shakespeare, he said modestly. The juxtaposition of Dea added to the indescribable effect produced by Gwyn plane. Her white face by the side of the gnome represented what might have been called divine astonishment. The audience regarded Dea with the sort of mysterious anxiety. She had, in her aspect, the dignity of a virgin and of a priestess, not knowing man and knowing God. They saw that she was blind and 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 mourning. Finding a hydra, she formed a soul. She seemed like a creative power, satisfied but astonished at the result of her creation, and the audience fancy that they could see in the divine surprise of that face desire of the cause and wonder at the result. They felt that she loved this monster. Did she know that he was one? Yes, since she touched him. No, since she accepted him. This depth of night and this glory of day united. Formed in the mind of the spectator Echiascuro, and which appeared endless perspectives. How much divinity exists in the germ? In what manner the penetration of the soul into matter is accomplished? How the solar ray is an umbilical cord? How the disfigured is transfigured? How the deformed becomes heavenly? All these glimpses of mysteries added an almost cosmical emotion to the convulsive hilarity produced by Gwynn Plain. Without going too deep, for spectators do not like the fatigue of seeking below the surface. Something more was understood than was perceived. And this strange spectacle had the transparency of an avatar. As to Dea, what she felt cannot be expressed by human words. She knew that she was in the midst of a crowd, and 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 that crowd Dea felt herself alone, and shuddering as one hanging over a precipice. Suddenly, in this trouble of innocence and distress, prompt to accuse the unknown, in her dread of a possible fall, Dea, serene not withstanding, and superior to the vague agonies of peril, but inwardly shuddering at her isolation, found confidence and support. She had seized her threat of safety in the universe of shadows. She put her hand on the powerful head of Gwynn Plain. Joy unspeakable. She placed her rosy fingers on his forest of crisp hair. Wool, when touched, gives an impression of softness. Dea touched a lamb, which she knew to be a lion. Her whole heart poured out in ineffable love. She felt out of danger. She had found her saviour. The public believed that they saw the contrary. To the spectators the being loved was Gwynn Plain, and the saviour was Dea. What matters, thought Ursus to whom the heart of Dea was visible. And Dea, reassured, consoled and delighted, adored the angel, whilst the people contemplated the monster, and endured, fascinated herself as well, though in the opposite sense. That dread Promethean left. True love is never weary. Being all soul it cannot cool. Abrasier comes to be full of cinders. Not so a star. Her exquisite impressions were renewed every evening for Dea, and she was ready to weep with tenderness, whilst the audience was in convulsions of laughter. Those around her were but joyful. She was happy. The sensation of gaiety due to the sudden shock caused by the rictus of Gwynn Plain was evidently not intended by Ursus. He would have preferred more smiles and less laughter, and more of a literary triumph. But success consoles. He reconciled himself every evening to his excessive triumph, as he counted how many shillings the piles of farthings made, and how many pounds the piles of shillings. And besides, he said, after all, when the laugh had passed, chaos vanquished would be found in the depths of their minds, and something of it would remain there. Perhaps he was not altogether wrong. The foundations of a work settled down in the mind of the public. The truth is that the populace, attentive to the wolf, the bear, to the man, then to the music, to the howlings governed by harmony, to the night dissipated 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, the victory of spirit over matter ending with the joy of man. Such were the vulgar pleasures of the people. They sufficed them. The people had not the means of going to the noble matches of the gentry, and could not, like lords and gentlemen, bet a thousand guineas on helm scale against Felham Gay Madone. End of Section 55 Book II Man has a notion of revanging himself on that which pleases him. Hence the contempt felt for the comedian. This being charms me, diverts, distracts, teaches, enchants, consoles me, flings me into an ideal world, is agreeable and useful to me. What evil can I do him in return? Humiliate him. This day is a blow from afar. Let us strike the blow. He pleases 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. Boss Yue excommunicate him. Rousseau insult him. Orator, spit the pebbles from your mouth at him. Bear, fling your stone. Let us cast stones at the tree, heat the fruit and eat it. Bravo, and down with him. To repeat poetry is to be infected with the plague. Raged 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 create a solitude. Thus it is that the wealthy, termed the higher classes, have invented for the actor that form of isolation. Applause. The crowd is less brutal. They neither hated nor despised green plain. Only the meanest cocker of the meanest crew of the meanest merchant man, anchored in the meanest English seaport, considered himself immeasurably superior to this amuser of the scum and believed that a cocker is as superior to an actor as a lord is to a cocker. Green plain was, therefore, like all comedians, uploaded and kept at a distance. Truly all success in this world is a crime and must be expiated. He who obtains the medal has to take its reverse side as well. For green plain there was no reverse. In this 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 in his low estate means to be no longer rigidly poor. To have neither hold in his clothes, nor cold at his hearth, nor emptiness in his stomach. It is to eat when hungry and drink when thirsty. It is to have everything necessary, including a penny for a beggar. This indigent wealth enough for liberty was possessed by green plain. So far as his soul was concerned, he was opulent. He had love. What more could he want? Nothing. You may think that had the offer been made to him to remove his deformity, he would have grasped at it. Yet he would have refused it emphatically. What? To throw off his mask and have his former face restored? To be the creature he had per chance been created. Handsome and charming. No, he would never have consented to it. For what would he have to support Dia? What would have become of that poor child the sweet blind girl who loved him? Without his rictus, which made him a clown without parallel, he would have been a mountain bank like any other. A common athlete, a picker up of pants from the chinks in the pavement. And Dia would perhaps not have had bread every day. It was with deep and tender pride that he felt himself the protector of the helpless and heavenly creature. Night, solitude, nakedness, weakness, ignorance, hunger and thirst, seven yearning joys of misery were raised around her. And he was the same George fighting the dragon. He triumphed over poverty. How? By his deformity. By his 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 everything for Dia. Her wants he foresaw. Her desires, her tastes, her fancies. In the limited sphere in which wishes are possible to the blind, he fulfilled. Green plane and Dia were, as we have already shown, 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? Green plane possessed this supreme happiness, and he owed it to his deformity. His deformity had raised him above all. By it he had gained the means of life for himself and others. By it he had gained independence, liberty, celebrity, internal satisfaction and pride. In his deformity he was inaccessible. The fates could do nothing beyond this blow in which they had spent their whole force and which he had turned into a triumph. This lowest depth of misfortune had become the summit of Elysium. Green plane was imprisoned in his deformity. But with Dia. And this was, as we have already said, to live in a dungeon of paradise. A wall stood between them and the living world. So much the better. This wall protected as well as enclosed them. What could affect Dia? What could affect Green plane with such a fortress around them? To take from him his success was impossible. They would have had to deprive him of his face. Take from him his love? Impossible. Dia could not see him. The blindness of Dia was divinely incurable. What harm did his deformity do Green plane? None. What advantage did it give him? Every advantage. To be beloved. Not withstanding its horror and perhaps for that very cause. Infirmity and deformity had by instinct been drawn towards and coupled with each other. To be beloved is not that everything. Green plane 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 highways and fair grounds and journeys to take the people below and the sky above they would be sure to live. Dia would want nothing and they should have love. Green plane would not have changed faces with Apollo. To be a monster was his form of happiness. Thus, as we said before Destiny had given him all even to overflowing. He who had been rejected had been preferred. And that he felt compassion for the men around him. He pitied the rest of the world. It was besides his instinct to look about him. Because no one is always consistent and the man's nature is not always theoretic. He was delighted to live within an enclosure but from time to time he lifted his head above the wall. Then he reiterated again with more joy into his loneliness with Dia having drawn his comparisons. What did he see around him? Those living creatures of which he's wondering life showed him so many specimens changed every day. Always new crowds. Always the same multitude. Ever new faces. Ever the same miseries. A jumble of ruins. Every evening every face of social misfortune came and encircled his happiness. The green box was popular. Low prices attract the low classes. Those who came were the weak, the poor, the little. They rushed to Greenplane as they rushed to Jinn. They came to buy a penny worth of forgetfulness. From the height of his platform Greenplane passed those raged people in review. His spirit was enrapt in the contemplation of every succeeding apparition of widespread misery. The physiognomy of man is modeled by conscience and by the tenor of life result of a crowd of mysterious excavations. There was never a suffering, not an anger, not a shame, not a despair of which Greenplane did not see the wrinkle. The mouths of those children had not eaten. That man was a father, that woman a mother, and behind them their families might be guessed to be on the road to ruin. There was a face already marked and the reasons were plain ignorance and indigence. Another showed the stamp of original goodness obliterated by social pressure and turned to hate. 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 the crowd were arms without arms. The workers asked only for work but the work was wanting. Sometimes a soldier came and seated himself by the workman sometimes a wounded pensioner and Greenplane saw the specter of war. Here Greenplane read want of work their men farming slavery. On certain brows he saw an indescribable ebbing back towards animalism and produced on those below by the dull pressure of the happiness of those above. There was a break in the gloom for Greenplane. He and Dia had a loophole of happiness. The rest was damnation. Greenplane felt above him the thoughtless trampling of the powerful the rich, the magnificent, the great, the elect of chance. Below he saw the pale faces of the disinherited. With their little happiness so great to themselves between two worlds. That which was above went and came free joyous dancing, trampling under food above him the world which treads below the world which is trodden upon. It is a fatal fact and one indicating a profound social evil that light should crush the shadow. Greenplane thoroughly grasped this dark evil. What a destiny so reptile shall a man drag himself thus along with such adherents to dust and corruption with such vicious tastes such an abdication of right or such abjectness that one feels inclined to crush him under food. Of what butterfly is then this earthly life the grub? What in the crowd which hungers and which denies everywhere and before all the questions of crime and shame and the ability of the law-producing laxity of conscience is there no child that grows but to be stunted no virgin but matures for sin no rose that blooms but for the slime of the snail. His eyes at times sought everywhere with the curiosity of emotion to probe the depths of that darkness in which there died away so many useless efforts and in which there struggled devoured by society morals tortured by the laws wounds gangrened by penalties poverty not by taxes wrecked intelligence swallowed up by ignorance roughed sin distress alive with the famished feuds, dearth death rattles, cries, disappearances he felt the vague operation of a keen universal suffering he saw the vision of the foaming wave of misery dashing over the crowd of humanity he was safe in port himself as he watched the wreck around him sometimes he laid his disfigured head in his hands and dreamed what folly to be happy how one dreams ideas were born within him absurd notions crossed his brain because formerly he had suckered an infant he felt a ridiculous desire to sucker the whole world the mists of rivery sometimes obscured his individuality and he lost his ideas of proportion so far as to ask himself the question what can be done for the poor sometimes he was so absorbed in his subject as to express it aloud then Ursus shrugged his shoulders and looked at him fixedly green plain continued his rivery oh very powerful would I not hate the wretched but what am I an 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 to make people laugh is to make them forget what a benefactor on earth is he who can bestow forgetfulness end of section 56 of The Man Who Loves by Victor Hugo Part 2 Book II Chapter 11 Gwynn Plain Thinks Justice and Ursus Talks Truth A philosopher is a spy Ursus, a watcher of dreams studied his pupil and he was able to make them forgetfulness and he was able to make them forgetfulness and he was able to Two years later MilesTST Armonologs leave on our brows a faint reflection distinguishable to the eye f imminent hence what occurred to Gwynn Plain did not escape Ursus one day as Gwynn Plain was meditating Ursus pulled him by his jacket exclaimed you strike me as being an observer you fool To love Daa. You have two causes of happiness. The first is that the crowd sees your muzzle. The second is that Daa does not. You have no right to the happiness you possess. For no woman who saw your mouth would consent to your kiss. And that mouth which has made your fortune, and that face which has given you riches, are not your own. You were not born with that countenance. It was borrowed from the grimace which is at the bottom of the infinite. You have stolen your mask from the devil. You are hideous. Be satisfied with having drawn that prize in the lottery. There are in this world, and a very good thing, too, the happy by right and the happy by luck. You are happy by luck. You are in a cave where in 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 in your web the carbuncle, Venus. 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 Daa eat beef steaks 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 children. A long string of children. This is what I call philosophy. Moreover, it is happiness, which is no folly. To have children is a glimpse of heaven. Have brats. Wipe them, blow their noses, dirt 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. To cry is to live. 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 advantage. And that is the reason why I am a brute. God, a composer of beautiful poems and the first of men of letters, said to his fellow workmen, Moses, increase and multiply. Such is the text. Multiply, you beast. As to the world it is as it is. You cannot make nor mar it. Do not trouble yourself about it. Pay no attention to what goes on outside. Leave the horizon alone. 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 the happy by chance. You are the pickpocket of the happiness of which they are the proprietors. They are the legitimate possessors. You are the intruder. You live in concubinage with luck. What do you want that you have not already? Shibboleth, help me. This fellow is a rascal. To multiply himself by day it would be pleasant all the same. Such happiness is like a swindle. Those above who possess happiness by privilege do not like folks below them to have so much enjoyment. 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, Vishnu, Sibboleth, it does not matter who, has given them the passport to happiness. Bear them. Do not meddle with them, lest they should meddle with you. Wretch, do you know what the man is who was happy by right? He is a terrible being. He is a Lord. A Lord! He must have intrigued pretty well in the devil's unknown 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. By just heavens, what a one! To obtain from destiny the blind blockhead to mark him in his cradle a master of men? To bribe the boxkeeper to give him the best place at the show? Read the memoranda in the old hut, which I have placed on half-pay. Read that brevery of my 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 exists above his own nature. A Lord is one who has one young the rites 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 admiration of poets, if ugly the smiles of women, if a Thercetis the helm of Achilles, if a hare the skin of a lion, do not misunderstand my words. I do not say that a Lord must necessarily be ignorant, a coward, ugly, stupid or old. I only mean that he may be all those things without any detriment 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 England, was spoken to by St. Telus Faunus as my Lord Lucius. The Lords are peers. That is to say, equals, of whom? Of the King. I do not commit the mistake of confounding the Lords with Parliament. The assembly of the people which the Saxons before the conquest called with Ténagémote, the Normans after the conquest entitled Parliamentum. By degrees the people were turned out. The King's letters clause convoking the Commons, addressed formally ad concilium impendendum, are now addressed ad consentiendum. To say yes is their liberty. The peers can 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 encroachment, 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 riches. Who has turned over the leaves of the Doomsday Book? It is the proof that the Lords possess England. It is the registry of the estates of subjects, compiled under William the Conqueror. And it is in the charge of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. To copy anything in it you have to pay two pence a line. It is a proud book. Do you know that I was domestic doctor to a Lord, who was called Marmaduke, and who had thirty-six thousand a year? Think of that, you hideous idiot! Do you know that with rabbits only from the warrants of Earl Lindsay they could feed all the riffraff of the Sinka ports? And the good order kept. Every poacher is hung. For two long furry ears sticking out of a game-bag, I saw the father of six children hanging on the gibbet. Such is the peerage. The rabbit of a great Lord is of more importance than God's image in a man. Lords exist, you trespasser. Do you see? And we must think it good that they do. And even if we do not, what harm will it do to them? The people object indeed. Why? Plautus himself would never have attained the comicality of such an idea. A philosopher would be jesting if he advised the poor devil of the masses to cry out against the size and weight of the lords. Just as well might the gnat dispute with the foot of an elephant. One day I saw a hippopotamus tread upon a mole hill. He crushed it utterly. He was innocent. The great, soft-headed fool of a mastodon did not even know of the existence of moles. My son, the moles that are trodden on are the human race. To crush is a law. And do you think that the mole himself crushes nothing? Why, it is the mastodon of the flesh-worm, who 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 to myself, I love lords and shun them. I lived with one. The beauty of my recollections suffices me. I remember his country house, like a glory in the cloud. My dreams are all retrospective. Nothing could be more admirable than Marmaduke Lodge in grandeur, beautiful symmetry, rich avenues, and the ornaments and surroundings of the edifice. The houses, country seats, and palaces of the lords present a selection of all that is greatest and most magnificent in this flourishing kingdom. I love our lords. I thank them for being opulent, powerful, and prosperous. I myself am clothed in shadow, and 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 ballast-trade. 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 openwork, elevated on six columns. It was there that I knew a learned Frenchman, Monsieur Le Heb de Croix, who belonged to the Jacobin monastery in the Rue Saint-Jacques. Half the library of Erpenius is at Marmaduke Lodge, the other half being at the Theological Gallery at Cambridge. I used to read the books seated under the ornamented portal. These things are only shown to a select number of curious travelers. Do you know, you ridiculous boy, that William North, who was Lord Grey of Rolestown, and sits fourteenth on the bench of Barons, has more forest trees on his mountains than you have hares on your horrible noodle? Do you know that Lord Norris of Rycote, who is Earl of Abingdon, has a square keep a hundred feet high, having this device, Virtus Ariete Fortuere, 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, work to procure and preserve the advantages of the nation. Their consummate wisdom shines in intricate junctures. Their precedent over others I wish they had not, but they have it. What is called principality in Germany, grandyship in Spain, is called peerage in England, and France. There being a fair show of reason for considering the world a wretched place enough, 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, affording 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 qualifies the peer consanguine nostri. The peers have made a multitude of wise laws. Amongst others, one which condemns to death anyone 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 Saturn for princes and diamond for peers. Diamond dust, a night thick with stars, such is the night of the happy. Even amongst themselves these high and mighty lords have their own distinctions. A baron cannot wash with a viscount without his permission. These are indeed excellent things, and safeguards to the nation. But a fine thing it is for the people to have twenty-five dukes, five marquises, seventy-six earls, nine viscounts, and sixty-one barons, making altogether a hundred and seventy-six peers, of which some are your grace, and some my lord. What matter a few rags here and there with all? Everybody cannot be dressed in gold. Let the rags be. Cannot you see the purple? One balances the other. A thing must be built of something. Yes, of course there are the poor. What of them? They line the happiness of the wealthy. Devil take it. Our lords are our glory. The pack of hounds belonging to Charles Barron Mohun cost him as much as the hospital for lepers in Moorgate, and for 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 their ruining themselves. That is cowardly. Our lords are extravagant and magnificent. I esteem them for it. Let us not abuse them like envious folks. I feel happy when a beautiful vision passes. I have not the light, but I have the reflection. Our reflection thrown on my ulcer, you will say. Go to the devil. I am a Job, delighted in the contemplation of Trimalsion. Oh, that beautiful and radiant planet up there. But the moonlight is something. To suppress the lords was an idea which Orestes, mad as he was, would not have dared to entertain. To say that the lords are mischievous or useless is as much as to say that the state should be revolutionized and that men are not made to live like cattle, browsing the grass and bitten by the dog. The field is shorned by the sheep, the sheep by the shepherd. It is all one to me. I am a philosopher and I care about life as much as a fly. Life is but a lodging. When I think that Henry Bows 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 has not got twenty-four state carriages. But there is no need to complain for all that. Because you were cold one night, what was that to him? It concerns you only. Others, besides you, suffer cold and hunger. Don't you know that without that cold, Daa would not have been blind? And if Daa were not blind, she would not love you? Think of that, you fool! And besides, if all the people who were lost 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 itself would be punished by their everlasting cry. The happiness of Olympus is bought by the silence of Kokittus. Then people be silent. I do better myself. I approve and admire. Just now I was enumerating the lords, and I ought to add to the list two archbishops and twenty-four bishops. Truly I am quite affected when I think of it. I remember to have seen at the tithe gathering of the Reverend Dean of Raphot, who combined the peerage with the church a great tithe of beautiful wheat taken from the peasants in the neighborhood, in which the dean had not been at the trouble of growing. This left him time to say his prayers. Do you know that Lord Marmaduke my master was Lord Grand Treasurer of Ireland, and High Sineshal of the Sovereignty of Nersburgo in the county of York? Do you know that the Lord High Chamberlain, which is an office hereditary in the family of the dukes of Ancaster, 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 England 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 admirable is the right which they have to tax others, and to levy for instance, four shillings in the pound sterling income tax, which has just been continued for another year, and all the time taxes on distilled spirits, on the excise of wine and beer, on tonnage and poundage, on cider, on peri, on mum, malt, and prepared barley, on coals, and on a hundred things besides. Let us venerate things as they are. The clergy themselves depend on the lords. The bishop of man is subject to the Earl of Derby. The lords have wild beasts of their own, which they place in their armorial bearings. God not having made enough, they have invented others. They have created the heraldic wild-bore, who is as much above the wild-bore as the wild-bore is above the domestic pig, and the Lord is above the priest. They have created the griffin, which is an eagle to lions, and a lion to eagles, terrifying lions by his wings, and eagles by his mane. They have the guvray, the unicorn, the serpent, the salamander, the terrasque, the dreay, the dragon, and the hippogriff. All these things, terrible to us, are to them but an ornament and an embellishment. They have a menagerie, which they call the blazon, in which unknown beasts roar. The prodigies of the forest are nothing compared to the inventions of their pride. Their vanity is full of phantoms, which move as in a sublime night, armed with helm and cuirass, spurs on their heels and the sceptres in their hands, saying in a gray voice, we are the ancestors. The canker worms eat the roots, and the panoplies eat the people. Why not? Are we to change the laws? The peerage is part of the order of society. Do you know that there is a duke in Scotland who can ride ninety miles without leaving his own estate? Do you know that the Archbishop of Canterbury has a revenue of forty thousand pounds a year? Do you know that Her Majesty has seven hundred thousand pounds sterling from the civilist, besides castles, forests, domains, thiefs, tenancies, freeholes, probanderies, tithes, rent, confiscations, and fines, which bring in over a million sterling? Those who are not satisfied are hard to please. Yes, murmured Gwyn Plain sadly, the paradigm size of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor. Book the second. Gwyn Plain and Dia. Chapter twelve, Ursus the poet, drags on Ursus the philosopher. Then Dia entered. He looked at her, and saw nothing but her. This is love. One may be carried away for a moment by the importunity of some other idea. But the beloved one enters, and all that does not appertain to her presence immediately fades away. Without her dreaming that perhaps she is facing in us a world. Let us mention a circumstance. In chaos vanquished, the word monstero addressed to Gwyn Plain displeased Dia. Sometimes, with this mattering of Spanish which everyone knew at the period, she took it into her head to replace it by quiro, which signifies, I wish it. Ursus tolerated, although not without an expression of impatience, this alteration in his text. He might have said to Dia, as in our day, Massar said to Visseu, to man d'respir aux répertoires. The laughing man, such was the form of Gwyn Plain's fame. His name, Gwyn Plain, little known at any time, had disappeared under his nickname, as his face had disappeared under its green. His popularity was like his visage, a mask. His name, however, was to be read on a large placard in front of the green box, which offered the crowd the following narrative composed by Ursus. Here is to be seen Gwyn Plain, deserted at the age of 10, on the night of the 29th of January, 1690, by the villainous Compreciacus on the coast of Portland. The little boy has grown up, and is called now the laughing man. The existence of these mountie banks was as an existence of lepers in a leper house, and of the blessed in one of the Pleiades. There was every day a sudden transition from the noisy exhibition outside into the most complete seclusion. Every evening they made their exit from this world. They were like the dead, vanishing on condition of being reborn next day. A comedian is a revolving light, appearing one moment, disappearing the next, and existing for the public but as a phantom or a light, as his life circles round. To exhibition succeeded isolation. When the performance was finished, whilst the audience were dispersing and their murmur of satisfaction was dying away in the streets, the green box shut up 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 caravan, and this caravan contained liberty, clear consciences, courage, devotion, innocence, happiness, love, all the constellations, blindness having sight and deformity, beloved, set side by side, hand pressing hand, brow touching brow, and whispered to each other intoxicated with love. The compartment in the middle served two purposes. For the public it was a stage, for the actors a dining room. Ursus, ever delighting in comparisons, profited by the diversity of its uses to liken the central compartment and the green box to the ariduck in an Abyssinian hut. Ursus counted the receipts, then they sapped. In love all is ideal, in love eating and drinking together affords opportunities for many sweet promiscuous touches by which a mouthful becomes a kiss. They 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. Green plain waited on deer, cut her bread, poured out her drink, approached her two clothes. Hum! cried Ursus, and he turned away, his cold ink melting into a smile. The wolf sapped under the table, heedless of everything which did actually not concern his bone. Phoebe and Vino's shared their repast, but gave little trouble. These vagabonds, half wild and ezenkuth, as ever, spoke in the gypsy language to each other. At length, Deary entered the women's apartment with Phoebe and Vino's. Ursus chained up homo under the green box. Green plain looked after the horses, the lover becoming a groom, like a hero of Homer's or a paladin of Charlemagne's. At midnight, all were asleep except the wolf, who, alive to his responsibility, now and then opened an eye. The next morning they met again. They breakfasted together, generally on ham and tea. Tea was introduced into England in 1678. Then Deary, after the Spanish fashion, took a siesta acting on the advice of Ursus, who considered her delicate, and slept some hours. While Green plain and Ursus did all the little jobs of work, without and within, which their wandering life made necessary. Green plain rarely wandered away from the green box, except on unfrequent roads and in solitary places. In cities he went out only at night, disguised in a large, slouched head, so as not to exhibit his face in the street. His face was to be seen uncovered only on the stage. The green box had frequented cities but little. Green plain at 24 had never seen towns larger than the sink ports. His renown, however, was increasing. It began to rise above the populace and to percolate through higher ground. Amongst those who were fond of and ran after strange 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 asked where he was. The laughing man was becoming decidedly famous. A certain luster was reflected on chaos vanquished. How much so, that one day, Ursus, being ambitious, said, We must go to London. At that period London had but one bridge, London Bridge, with houses built upon it. This bridge united London to south work, a suburb which was paved with flint pebbles taken from the Thames, divided into small streets and alleys like the city, with a great number of buildings, houses, dwellings, and wooden huts jammed together, a pale mill mixture of combustible matter amidst which fire might take its pleasure, as 1666 had proved. South work was then pronounced Sudrik. It is now pronounced Sosork or Neret. Indeed, an excellent way of pronouncing English names is not to pronounce them. Thus, for Southampton, say Stumpton. It was the time when Chatham was pronounced Jethame. The south work of those days resembles the south work of today, about as much as Vagerard resembles Marseille. It was a village, it is a city. Nevertheless, a considerable trade was carried on there. The long, old, cyclopean wall by the Thames was studded with rings to which were anchored the river barges. This wall was called the Ephraic Wall, or Ephraic Stone. York, in Saxon times, was called Ephraic. The legend related that a duke of Ephraic had been drowned at the foot of the wall. Certainly the water there was deep enough to drown a duke. At low water it was six good fathoms. The excellence of this little anchorage attracted sea vessels, and the old Dutch tub, called the Vagrat, came to anchor at the Ephraic Stone. The Vagrat made the crossing from London to Rotterdam and from Rotterdam to London punctually once a week. Other barges started twice a day, either for Depford, Greenwich, or Gravesend, going down with one tide and returning with the next. The voyage to Gravesend, though twenty miles was performed in six hours. The Vagrat was of a model now no longer to be seen except in naval museums. It was almost a junk. At that time, while France copied Greece, Holland copied China. The Vagrat, a heavy hull with two masts, was partitioned perpendicularly so as to be watertight, having a narrow hold in the middle and two decks, one for 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 wave is diminished, and the inconvenience of which is that the crew is exposed to the action of the sea, owing to there being no bulkworks. There was nothing to save anyone on board from falling over, hence the frequent falls overboard and the losses of men, which have caused the model to fall into disuse. The Vagrat went to Holland Direct and did not even call at Gravesend. An old ridge of stones, rock as much as masonry, ran along the bottom of the Ephraic stone, and being passable at all tides, was used as a passage on board the ships moored to the wall. This wall was, at intervals, furnished with steps. It marked the southern point of south work. An embankment at the top allowed the passersby to rest their elbows on the Ephraic stone, as on the parapet of a quay. Thence they could look down on the Thames, on the other side of the water London dwindled away into fields. Up the river from the Ephraic stone, at the bend of the Thames, which is nearly opposite St. James Palace, behind Lambeth House, not far from the walk then called Fox Hall, Vox Hall, probably. There was between a pottery in which they made porcelain, and a glassblowers where they made ornamental bottles. One of those large, unenclosed spaces covered with grass, called formally in France, Cultures and Males, and in England Bolingreens. Of Bolingreen, a green on which to roll a ball, the French have made Bolingreen. Bolingreens have this green inside their houses nowadays, only it is put on the table. It 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 Bolingreen, the French should have adopted Bolingreen. It is surprising that a person so grave as the dictionary should indulge in useless luxuries. The Bolingreen of south work was called Terenzaux Field, because it had belonged to the Barrens Hastings, who are also Barrens Terenzaux and Mauchlien. From the Lord's Hastings the Terenzaux Field passed to the Lord's Tadcaster, who had made a speculation of it, just as at a later date a Duke of Orleans made a speculation of the Palais Royale. Terenzaux Field afterwards became waste-ground and parochial property. Terenzaux Field was a kind of permanent fair-ground, covered with jugglers, athletes, mount-to-banks, and music on platforms, and always full of fools going to look at the devil, as Archbishop Sharp said, to look at the devil means to go to the play. Several ends, which harbored the public and sent them to these outlandish exhibitions, were established in this place, which kept holiday all the year round, and thereby prospered. These ends were simply stalls, inhabited only during the day. In the evening the tavern-keeper put into his pocket the key of the tavern and went away. One only of these ends was a house, the only dwelling in the whole Bolingreen, the caravans of the fair-ground having the power of disappearing at any moment, considering the absence of any ties in the vagabond life of the mount-to-banks. Mount-to-banks 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, and 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 beside it a small bastard door by which people entered. To call it bastard is to mean preferred. This lower door was the only one used. It opened into the tavern properly so called, which was a large tap-room full of tobacco smoke furnished with tables and low in the ceiling. Over it was a window on the first floor 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 Nicholas, the boy Gavacom. Master Nicholas, Nicholas, doubtless, which the English habit of contraction had made Nicholas, was a miserly widower and 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 Gavacom, 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 window a bullseye looking on the bowling-green. CHAPTER II OPEN AIR ELEQUENCE One very cold and windy evening, on which there was every reason why folks should hasten on their way along the street, a man who was walking in Tarenzo Field close under the walls of the tavern, stopped suddenly. It was during the last months of winter between 1704 and 1705. This man, whose dress indicated a sailor, was of good mean and fine figure, things imperative to courtiers, and not forbidden to common folk. Why did he stop? To listen. What to? To a voice apparently speaking in the court on the other side of the wall, a voice a little weakened by age, but so powerful, notwithstanding, 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, Men and women of London, here I am. I cordially wish you joy of being English. You are a great people. I say more. You are a great populace. Your fisticuffs are even better than your sword-thrusts. You have an appetite. You are the nation which eats other nations, a magnificent function. This suction of the world makes England preeminent. As politicians and philosophers in the management of colonies, nations and industry. And in the desire to do others any harm which may turn to your own good, you stand alone. The hour will come when two boards will be put up on earth, inscribed on one side, men, on the other, English men. 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. I teach, what? Two kinds of things. Things which I know and things which I do not. 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 Sudoxia Epidemica. 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 the rectifier of popular errors. I take upon myself the task of cleaning your intellects. They require it. Heaven permits people to deceive themselves and to be deceived. It is useless to be absurdly modest. I frankly avow that I believe in providence, even where it is wrong. Only when I see filth, errors are filth, I sweep them away. How am I sure of what I know? That concerns only myself. Everyone catches wisdom as he can. Lectantius asked questions of, and received answers from, a bronze head a Virgil. Sylvester II conversed with birds. Did the birds speak? Did the Pope Twitter? That is a question. The dead child of the rabbi Elkazir, talk to St. Augustine. 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 deceived people. The fact explains itself. You see my moderation. I separate the true from the false. See? Here are other errors in which no doubt you partake, poor ignorant folks that you are, and from which I wish to free you. Diascorides believed that there was a god in the Hembane. Crecipus in the Sinopaste. Josephus in the Root Boris. Homer in the Plant Moli. They were all wrong. The spirits in herbs are not gods, but devils. I have tested this fact. It is not true that the serpent, which tempted Eve, had a human face, as Cadmus relates. Garcius de Horto, Cadamosto, and John Hugo, Archbishop of Trevis, deny that it is sufficient to saw 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 heirs and of perdition should arise. My friends, Claudius Pulture 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 Pulture, took care to prevent the birds feeding. That Beelzebub gave the emperor Vespasian the virtue of curing the lame and giving sight to the blind by his touch was an act praiseworthy in itself, but of which the motive was culpable. Gentlemen, distrust those false doctors who sell the root of the bryony and the white snake, and who make washes with honey and the blood of Avacac. See clearly through that which is false. It is not quite true that Orion was a result of a natural function of Jupiter. The truth is that it was Mercury who produced this star in that way. It is not true that Adam had a navel. When St. George killed a dragon he had not the daughter of a saint standing by his side. St. Jeremy 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 chimney-piece. Thirdly because clocks were not yet invented. Let us put these things right. Put them right. Oh, gentle folks who listen to me, if anyone tells you that a lizard will be born in your head if you smell the herb Valyrian, that the rotting carcass of the ox changes into bees, and that of the horse into hornets, that a man weighs more when dead than when alive, that the blood of the he goat dissolves emeralds, that a caterpillar, a fly, and a spider, seen on the same tree, announces famine, war, and pestilence, that the falling sickness is to be cured by a worm found in the head of a buck. Do not believe him. These things are heirs. But now listen to truths. The skin of a sea calf is a safeguard against thunder. The toad feeds upon earth, which causes a stone to come into his head. The rows of Jericho blooms on Christmas Eve. Serpents cannot endure the shadow of the ash tree. The elephant has no joints, and sleeps resting upright against a tree. Make a toad sit upon a coxeg, and he will hatch a scorpion which will become a salamander. A blind person will recover sight by putting one hand on the left side of the altar, and the other on his eyes. Virginity does not hinder maternity. Honest people, lay these truths to heart. Above all, you can believe in providence in either of two ways, either as thirst believes in the orange, or as the ash 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 yin, which stood detached. It was like a prolonged murmur of the sky. The orator paused a moment, and then resumed. An interruption. Very good. Speak north wind. Gentlemen, I am not angry. The wind is loquacious, like all solitary creatures. There is no one to keep in company up there, so he jabbers. I resumed the thread of my discourse. Here you see associated artists. We are four. A lupo principium. I begin by my friend, who is a wolf. He does not conceal it. See him. He is educated, grave, and sagacious. Providence, perhaps, entertained 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. He chats sometimes with bitches. He who, by right, should consort only with she-wolves. His heirs, if he have any, will no doubt gracefully combine the yap of their mother with the howl of their father. Because he does howl. He howls in sympathy with men. He barks as well, in condescension to civilization. A magnanimous concession. 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 hairless wolf of Mexico, the wonderful Solasanisky. I may add that he is humble. He has the modesty of a wolf who is useful 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 one word to say. He is a monster. You will admire him. He was formerly abandoned by pirates on the shores of the wild ocean. The third one is blind. Is she an exception? No. We are all blind. The miser is blind. He sees gold and he does not see riches. The prodigal is blind. He sees the beginning and does not see the end. The coquette is blind. She does not see her 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 that he created the world he did not see the devil managed to creep into it. I myself am blind. I speak and do not see that you are deaf. This blind girl who accompanies us is a mysterious priestess. Vesta has confided to her her torch. 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 the attribute of wisdom. For my own part I reason and I doctor. I think and I heal. Chururga sum. I cure fevers, miasmas, and plagues. Almost all our melancholy and sufferings are issues, which have carefully treated relievers quietly from other evils which might be worse. All the same I do not recommend you to have an anthrax, otherwise called carbuncle. It is a stupid melody and serves no good end. One dies of it, that is all. I am neither uncultivated nor rustic. I honor eloquence and poetry and live in an innocent union with these goddesses. I conclude by a piece of advice. Ladies and gentlemen, on the sunny side of your dispositions, cultivate virtue, modesty, honesty, probity, 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 who was apparently a sailor, and who had been listening outside entered the lower room of the inn, crossed it, paid the necessary entrance money, reached the courtyard which was full of people, saw at the bottom of it a caravan on wheels, wide open and on the platform an old man dressed in a bearskin, a young man looking like a mask, a blind girl and a wolf. Gracious heaven, he cried, what delightful people! CHAPTER III. WHERE THE PASSERBY REAPEARS. The green box, as we have just seen, had arrived in London. It was established at Southwick. Urses had been tempted by the bowling green, which had one great recommendation, that it was always fair day there, even in winter. The dome of St. Paul's was a delight to Urses. London, take it all in all, has some good in it. It was a brave thing to dedicate a cathedral to St. Paul. The real cathedral saint is St. Peter. St. Paul is suspected of imagination. In matters ecclesiastical imagination means heresy. St. Paul is a saint only with extenuating circumstances. He entered heaven only by the artist's door. A cathedral is a sign. St. Peter is the sign of Rome. The city of the dogma. St. Paul, that of London, the city of schism. Urses, whose philosophy had armed so long that it embraced everything, was a man who appreciated these shades of difference, and his attraction towards London arose, perhaps from a certain taste of his for St. Paul. The yard of the Tadcaster Inn had taken the fancy of Urses. It might have been ordered for the green box. It was a theater ready-made. It was a square with three sides built round and a wall forming the fourth. Against this wall was placed the green box, which they were able to draw into the yard owing to the height of the gate. A large wooden balcony, roofed over and supported on posts on which the rooms of the first story opened, ran round the three fronts of the interior façade 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, reared against the wall, was thus in front of a theater. It was very like the globe where they played Othello, King Lear, and The Tempest. In a corner behind the green box was a stable. Urses had made his arrangements with the tavernkeeper, Master Nicholas, who owing to his respect for the law, would not admit the wolf without charging him extra. The placard, when plain 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 side of the door was constructed, offhand, by means of an empty barrel, a box for the money taker, who was sometimes feeby and sometimes finous. This was managed much as at present. Pay and pass in. Under the placard, announcing the laughing man, was a piece of wood, painted white, hung on two nails, on which was written in charcoal in large letters the title of Urses' grand piece, Chaos vanquished. In the centre of the balcony, precisely opposite the green box, and in a compartment having for entrance a window reaching to the ground, there had been partitioned off a space for the nobility. It was large enough to hold, in two rows, ten spectators. We are in London, said Urses, 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 grand armchair of yellow, Utrecht velvet, with a cherry-coloured pattern, in case some alderman's wife should come. They began their performances. The crowd immediately flocked to them, but the compartment for the nobility remained empty. With that exception their success became so great that no Mountabank memory could recall its parallel. All south work ran in crowds to admire the laughing man. The merry Andrews and Mountabanks of Tarinzo Field were aghast at Gwynplain. The effect he caused was as that of a sparrow-hawk flapping his wings in a cage of gold finches, and feeding in their seed trough. Gwynplain ate up their public. Besides the small fry, the swallowers of Swords and the grimace-makers, real performances took place on the green. There was a circus of women, ringing from morning till night with a magnificent peel of all sorts of instruments—saltries, drums, rebecks, micamonds, timbrels, reeds, dulcimers, gongs, chevrets, bagpipes, German horns, English-esque chaquelles, pipes, flutes, and flageolets. In a large round tent were some tumblers, who could not have equaled our present climbers of the Pyrenees—Dulma, Bordenevi, and Melonga—who from the peak of Pierre-Fait descend to the plateau of Limacon, an almost perpendicular height. There was a traveling menagerie, where it was to be seen a performing tiger, who, lashed by the keeper, snapped at the whip and tried to swallow the lash. Even this comedian of jaws and claws was eclipsed in success. Curiosity, applause, receipts, crowds, the laughing man monopolized everything. It happened in the twinkling of an eye. Nothing was thought of but the green box. Chaos vanquished is Chaos Victor, said Ursus, appropriating half-wind plane success, and taking the wind out of his sails as they say it see. That 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 Shakespeare to penetrate from England into France. The sea is a wall, and if Voltaire, a thing which he very much regretted when it was too late, had not thrown a bridge over to Shakespeare, Shakespeare might still be in England, on the other side of the wall, a captive in insular glory. The glory of wind-plane had not passed London Bridge. It was not great enough yet to re-echo throughout the city. At least not at first. But south work ought to have surfaced to satisfy the ambition of a clown. Ursus said, the money-bag grows palpably bigger. They played Ursus, Rousus, and Chaos vanquished. Between the acts Ursus exhibited his power as an angastomist and executed marvels of ventriloquism. He imitated every cry which occurred in the audience. A song, a cry, enough to startle, so exact the imitation, the singer or the crier himself. And now and then he copied the hub above the public, and whistled as if there were a crowd of people within him. These were remarkable talents. Besides this he harangued like Cicero, as we have just seen, sold his drugs, attended sickness, and even healed the sick. South work was enthralled. Ursus was satisfied with the applause of south work, but by no means astonished. They are the ancient Trinobontes, he said. Then he added, I must not mistake them for delicacy of taste, for the Atrobotis, who people Berkshire or the Belgians, who inhabited Somersetshire, nor for 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 bargemen, and sailors, just ashore, spending their wages in feasting and women. In it there were felons, ruffians, and black guards, who were soldiers condemned for some crime against discipline to wear their red coats, which were lined with black inside out, and from thence the name of black guard, which the French turned into blaggers. All these flowed from the street into the theatre, and poured back from the theatre into the tap. The emptying of tankards did not decrease their success. Amidst what is usual 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 everything to the skies, clearing his way with his fists, wearing a disordered periwig, swearing, shouting, joking, never dirty, and at need ready to blacken an eye or pay for the bottle. This frequenter was the passerby whose cheer of enthusiasm had been recorded. This connoisseur was suddenly fascinated, and had adopted the laughing man. He did not come every evening, but when he came he led the public. Applause grew into acclamation. Success rose 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 remark this man and Gwyn Plain to observe him. They had a great friend in this unknown visitor. Ursus and Gwyn Plain wanted to know him, at least to know who he was. One evening Ursus was in the side scene, which was the kitchen door of the green box. Seeing Master Nicola standing by him, showed him this man in the crowd and asked him, Do you know that man? Of course I do! Who is he? A sailor. What is his name, said Gwyn Plain interrupting. Tom Jim Jack, replied the innkeeper. Then as he redescended the steps at the back of the green box to enter the inn, Master Nicholas let fall this profound reflection so deep as to be unintelligible. What a pity that he should not be 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 held to their isolated habits, except a few words exchanged now and then with the tavernkeeper. They held no communication with any of those who were living, either permanently or temporarily in the inn, and continued to keep to themselves. Since they had been at south work, Gwyn Plain 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 compartments, to breathe a little the fresh air of the bowling-green between eleven o'clock and midnight. A certain vagrancy in our spirits impels us to take walks at night and to saunter under the stars. There is a mysterious expectation in youth. Therefore, it is that we are prone to wander out in the night without an object. At that hour there was no one in the fairground except perhaps some reeling drunkard making staggering 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 reveler. An indistinct glow gleamed through the window shutters of the half closed tavern is Gwyn Plain, pensive, content, and dreaming, happy in a haze of divine joy, passed backwards and forwards in front of the half-open door. Of what was he thinking? Of Dea? Of nothing? Of everything? Of the depths? He never wondered far from the green box, being held as by a thread to Dea. A few steps away from it was far enough for him. Then he returned, found the whole green box asleep, and went to bed himself. And of section 61. The beginning of the Fisher Chapter 4 Contraries fraternize in hate Success is hateful, especially to those whom it overthrows. It is rare that the eaten adore the eaters. The laughing man had decidedly made a hit. The mountain banks around were indignant. A theatrical success is a siphon. It pumps in the crowd and creates emptiness all round. The shop opposite is done for. The increased resets of the green box caused a corresponding decrease in the resets of the surrounding shows. Those entertainments, 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. Theatres experience the effect of tides. They rise in one, only on condition of falling in another. The swarming foreigners who exhibited their talents and their trumpettings on the neighboring platforms, seeing themselves ruined by the laughing man, were despairing, yet dazzled. All the grimacers, all the clowns, all the merry andrews envied Greenplane. How happy he must be with the snout of a wild beast. The buffoon mothers and dancers on the tight rope with pretty children, looked at them in anger and pointing out Greenplane would say, What a pity you have not a face like that. Some beat their babes savagely for being pretty. More than one had she known the secret, would have fashioned her son's face in the Greenplane style. The head of an angel, which brings no money in, is not as good as that of a lucrative devil. One day the mother of a little child, who was a marvel of beauty and who acted acupid, exclaimed, Our children are failures. They only succeeded with Greenplane. And shaking her fists at her son, she added, If I only knew your father, wouldn't he catch it? Greenplane was the goose with the golden eggs. What a marvelous phenomenon. There was an uproar through all the caravans. The mountybanks, enthusiastic and exasperated, looked at Greenplane and gnashed their teeth. Admiring anger is called envy. Then it howls. They tried to disturb chaos vanquished, made a cabal, hissed, scolded, shouted. This was an excuse for Ursus to make out-of-door horengs to the populace and for his friend Tom Jimjack 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 Greenplane. At a distance, however, for the group in the Greenbox sufficed to themselves and held aloof from the rest of the world. And because Tom Jimjack, this leader of the mob, seemed a sort of supreme bully without a tie, without a friend, a smusher of windows, a manager of men. Now here, now gone. Hail fellow well met with everyone, companion of none. This raging envy against Greenplane did not give in for a few friendly hits from Tom Jimjack. The outcries having miscarried, the mountain banks of Tarinzo Field fell back on a petition. They addressed to the authorities. This is the usual course. Against an unpleasant success, we first try to stir up the crowd and then we petition the magistrate. With the Mary Andrews, the reverence allied themselves. The laughing man had inflicted a blow on the preachers. There empty places, not only in the caravans, but in the churches. The congregations in the churches of the five parishes in south work had dwindled away. People left before the sermon to go to Greenplane. Chaos vanquished. The Greenbox, the laughing man. All the abominations of bail eclipsed the eloquence of the pulpit. The voice crying in the desert, Vox clamantis in deserto, is discontented and is prone to call for the aid of the authorities. The clergy of the five parishes complained to the bishop of London, who complained to her majesty. The complaint of the Mary Andrews was based on religion. They declared it to be insulted. They described Greenplane as a sorcerer and Ursus as an atheist. The reverent gentleman invoked social order. Setting orthodoxy aside, they took action on the fact that acts of parliament were violated. It was clever, because it was the period of Mr. Locke, who had died but six months previously, 28th October 1704. And when skepticism, which bullying broke, had imbibed from Voltaire, was taking root. Later on, Wesley came and restored the Bible, as Loyola restored the papacy. Thus the Greenbox was battered on both sides, by the Mary Andrews in the name of the Pentateuch and by Chaplains in the name of the police. In the name of heaven and of the inspectors of nuisances, the Greenbox was denounced by the priests as an obstruction, and by the jugglers as sacrilegious. Had they any pretext? Was there any excuse? Yes. What was the crime? This. There was the wolf. A dog was allowable. A wolf forbidden. In England, the wolf is an outlaw. England admits the dog which barks, but not the dog which howls. A shade of difference between the yard and the woods. Directors and vickers of the five parishes of south work 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 Greenplain and the execution 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 faculty. They cited the opinion of the 80 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 being amenable to their jurisdiction, which has the right to imprison those who infringe its law and contravene its ordinances, and which, amongst other useful regulations for the health of the citizens, put beyond doubt this fact acquired by science, that if a wolf sees a man first, the man becomes horse for life. Besides, he may be beaten. Homo then was a pretext. Ursus heard of these designs through the innkeeper. He was uneasy. He was afraid of two clothes, the police and the justices. To be afraid of the magistracy, it is sufficient to be afraid. 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 heirs 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 the proverb was ill-considered. I was wrong. Stupid truths are true truths. Against the coalition of powers, Mary Andrews taking in hand the cause of religion, and chaplains indignant in the name of medicine, the poor green box suspected of sorcery in Green Plain and of hydrophobia in Homo had only one thing in its favor, but a thing of great power in England, municipal inactivity. It is to the local authorities letting things take their own course, that Englishmen owe their liberty. Liberty in England behaves very much as they see around England. It is a tide. Little by little manners 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 universal liberty. Such is England. The laughing man, chaos vanquished and Homo, might have mountie banks, 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 Southward permitted. The green box was the favorit amusement of the suburb, and the local authorities seemed disinclined to interfere. In England indifference is protection, so long as the sheriff of the county of Surrey to the jurisdiction of which Southward belongs did not move in the matter, Ursus breathed freely, and Homo could sleep on his wolf's ears. So long as the hatred which it excited did not occasion acts of violence, it increased success. The green box was none the worse for it, for the time. On the contrary, hints were scattered that it contained something mysterious, hence the laughing man became more and more popular. The public followed with gusto the scent of anything contraband. To be suspected is a recommendation. The people adopt by instinct that at which the finger is pointed. The thing which is denounced is like the savor of forbidden fruit. We rush to eat it. Besides applause which irritates someone, especially if that someone is in authority, is sweet. To perform whilst passing a pleasant evening, both an act of kindness to the oppressed and of opposition to the oppressor is agreeable. You are protecting at the same time that you are being amused. So the theatrical caravans on the bowling green continued to howl and took a bow against the laughing man. Nothing could be better calculated to enhance his success. The shouts of one's enemies are useful and give point and vitality to one's triumph. A friend wear is sooner in praise than an enemy in abuse. To abuse does not hurt. Enemies are ignorant of this fact. They cannot help insulting us. And this constitutes their use. They cannot hold their tongues and thus keep the public awake. The crowds which flocked to chaos vanquished increase daily. Orsus kept what Master Nichols had said of intrigues and complaints in high places to himself and did not tell Greenplane lest it should trouble the ease of his acting by creating anxiety. If evil was to come, he would be sure to know it soon enough. End of section 62