 Section 84 of The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo Ursus smoothed the felt of the hat, touched the cloth of the cloak, the surge of the coat, the leather of the esclavine, and no longer able to doubt whose garments they were, with a gesture at once brief and imperative, and without saying a word, pointed to the door of the inn. Master Nicholas opened it. Ursus rushed out of the tavern. Master Nicholas looked after him, and saw Ursus run as fast as his old legs would allow in the direction taken that morning by the weapon-take who carried off Gwyn Plain. A quarter of an hour afterwards, Ursus, out of breath, reached the little street in which stood the back wicket of the Southwick Jail which he had already watched so many hours. This alley was lonely enough at all hours, but if dreary during the day it was portentious in the night, no one ventured through it after a certain hour, it seemed as though people feared that the walls should close in, and that if the prison or the cemetery took a fancy to embrace, they should be crushed in their clasp. Such are the effects of darkness. The Pollard Willows of the Ruelle Volvers in Paris were thus ill-famed. It was said that during the night the stumps of those trees changed into great hands and caught hold of the passers-by. By instinct the Southwick folks shunned, as we have already mentioned, this alley between a prison and a churchyard. Formerly it had been barricaded during the night by an iron chain. Very uselessly, because the strongest chain which guarded the street was the terror it inspired. Ursus entered it resolutely. What intention possessed him? None. He came into the alley to seek intelligence. Was he going to knock at the gate of the jail? Certainly not. Such an expedient had once fearful and vain had no place in his brain. To attempt to introduce himself to demand an explanation. What folly! Prisons do not open to those who wish to enter any more than to those who desire to get out. Their hinges never turn except by law. Ursus knew this. Why then had he come there? To see. To see what? Nothing. Who can tell? Even to be opposite the gate through which Gwynn Plain had disappeared was something. Sometimes the blackest and most rugged of walls whispers, and some light escapes through a cranny. A vague glimmering is now and then to be perceived through solid and somber piles of building. Even to examine the envelope of a fact may be to some purpose. The instinct of us all is to leave between the fact which interests us and ourselves but the thinnest possible cover. Therefore it was that Ursus returned to the alley in which the lower entrance to the prison was situated. Just as he entered it he heard one stroke of the clock, then a second. Hold! thought he. Can it be midnight already? Mechanically he set himself to count. Three, four, five. He mused. At what long intervals this clock strikes? How slowly? Six. Seven. Then he remarked. What a melancholy sound. Eight. Nine. Ah! Nothing can be more natural. It's dull work for a clock to live in a prison. Ten. Besides there is the cemetery. This clock sounds the hour to the living and eternity to the dead. Eleven. Alas! to strike the hour to him who is not free is also to chronicle and eternity. Twelve. He paused. Yes, it is midnight. The clock struck a thirteenth stroke. Ursus shattered. Thirteen. Then followed a fourteenth. Then a fifteenth. What can this mean? The strokes continued at long intervals. Ursus listened. It is not the striking of a clock. It is the bell-muter. No wonder I said how long it takes to strike midnight. This clock does not strike it tolls. What fearful thing is about to take place! Formerly all prisons and all monasteries had a bell called Muter, reserved for melancholy occasions. La Muter, the mute, was a bell which struck very low, as if doing its best not to be heard. Ursus had reached the corner which he had found so convenient for his watch and whence he had been able during a great part of the day to keep his eye on the prison. The strokes followed each other at legubrious intervals. A knell makes an ugly punctuation in space. It breaks the preoccupation of the mind into funereal paragraphs. A knell, like a man's death-rattle, notifies an agony. If in the houses about the neighbourhood, where a knell is told, there are reveries straying in doubt, its sound cuts them into frigid fragments. A vague reverie is a sort of refuge, some indefinable defuseness in anguish allows now and then a ray of hope to pierce through it. A knell is precise and desolating. It concentrates this diffusion of thought and precipitates the vapours in which anxiety seeks to remain in suspense. A knell speaks to each one in the sense of his own grief or of his own fear. Tragic bell, it concerns you. It is a warning to you. There is nothing so dreary as a monologue on which its cadence falls, the even returns of sound seem to show a purpose. What is it that this hammer, the bell, forges on the anvil of thought? Ursus counted vaguely and without motive the tolling of the knell, feeling that his thoughts were sliding from him he made an effort not to let them slip into conjecture. Conjecture is an inclined plane on which we slip too far to be to our own advantage. Still, what was the meaning of the bell? He looked through the darkness in the direction in which he knew the gate of the prison to be. Suddenly, in that very spot which looked like a dark hole, a redness showed. The redness grew larger and became a light. There was no uncertainty about it. It soon took a form and angles. The gate of the jail had just turned on its hinges. The glow painted the arch and the jams of the door. It was a yawning rather than an opening, a prison does not open. It yawns, perhaps, from ennui. Through the gate passed a man with a torch in his hand. The bell rang on. Ursus felt his attention fascinated by two objects. He watched, his ear, the knell, his eye, the torch. Behind the first man the gate which had been a jar enlarged the opening suddenly and allowed egress to two other men. Then to a fourth. This fourth was the weapon take clearly visible in the light of the torch. In his grasp was his eye and staff. Following the weapon take, they're filed and opened up below the gateway in order two by two with the rigidity of a series of walking posts, ranks of silent men. This nocturnal procession stepped through the wicked infile like a procession of penitence, without any solution of continuity, with a funerial care to make no noise, gravely, almost gently. A serpent issues from its hole with similar precautions. The torch threw out their profiles and attitudes into relief. Fierce looks, sullen attitudes. Ursus recognized the faces of the police who had that morning carried off Gwynn Plain. There was no doubt about it. They were the same. They were reappearing. Of course Gwynn Plain would also reappear. They had led him to that place. They would bring him back. It was all quite clear. Ursus strained his eyes to the utmost. Would they set Gwynn Plain at liberty? The files of police flowed from the low arch very slowly, and as it were, drop by drop. The toll of the bell was uninterrupted and seemed to mark their steps. On leaving the prison the procession turned their backs on Ursus, went to the right, into the bend of the street opposite to that in which he was posted. A second torch shone under the gateway announcing the end of the procession. Ursus was now about to see what they were bringing with them. The prisoner, the man. Ursus was soon, he thought, to see Gwynn Plain. That which they carried appeared. It was a beer. Four men carried a beer covered with black cloth. Behind them came a man with a shovel on his shoulder. A third lighted torch held by a man reading a book. Probably the chaplain closed the procession. The beer followed the ranks of the police who had turned to the right. Just at that moment the head of the procession stopped. Ursus heard the grating of a key. Opposite the prison in the low wall which ran along the other side of the street, another opening was illuminated by a torch passing beneath it. This gate over which a death's head was placed was that of the cemetery. The weapon-take passed through it, then the men, then the second torch. The procession decreased therein like a reptile entering his retreat. The files of police penetrated into that other darkness which was beyond the gate, then the beer, then the man with the spade, then the chaplain with his torch and his book, and the gate closed. There was nothing left but a haze of light above the wall. A muttering was heard, then some dull sounds. Doubtless the chaplain and the grave-digger, the one throwing on the coffin some verses of scripture, the other some clods of earth. The muttering ceased, the heavy sounds ceased. A movement was made, the torches shone. The weapon-take reappeared holding high his weapon under the reopened gate of the cemetery, then the chaplain with his book and the grave-digger with his spade. The courtage reappeared without the coffin. The files of men crossed over in the same order with the same tessiturnity and in the opposite direction. The gate of the cemetery closed, that of the prison opened. Its sepulchral architecture stood out against the light. The obscurity of the passage became vaguely visible. The solid and deep night of the jail was revealed to sight, then the whole vision disappeared in the depths of shadow. The knell ceased. All was locked in silence. A sinister incarceration of shadows, a vanished vision, nothing more. A passage of spectres which had disappeared. The logical arrangement of surmises builds up something which at least resembles evidence. To the arrest of Gwynn Plain, to the secret mode of his capture, to the return of his garments by the police officer, to the death-bell of the prison to which he had been conducted, was now added, or rather adjusted, potential circumstance, a coffin carried to the grave. He is dead, cried Ursus. He sank down upon a stone. Dead! They have killed him! Gwynn Plain! My child! My son! And he burst into passionate sobs. End of Section 84, Recording by John Trevithic Section 85 of The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo Part II Book VI Chapter V State policy deals with little matters as well as with great. Ursus Alas had boasted that he had never wept. His reservoir of tears was full. Such plentitude as his accumulated drop-on-drop sorrow on sorrow through a long existence is not to be poured out in a moment. Ursus wept alone. The first tear is a letting out of waters. He wept for Gwynn Plain, for Dea, for himself Ursus, for Homo. He wept like a child, he wept like an old man. He wept for everything at which he had ever laughed. He paid off arrears. Man is never non-suited when he pleads his right to tears. The corpse they had just buried was hard to know, but Ursus could not know that. The hours crept on. Day began to break. The pale clothing of the morning was spread out, dimly creased with shadow, over the bowling-green. The dawn lighted up the front of the Tadcaster Inn. Master Nicholas had not gone to bed, because sometimes the same occurrence produces sleeplessness in many. Troubles radiate in every direction. Throw a stone in the water, and count the splashes. Master Nicholas felt himself impeached. It is very disagreeable that such things should happen in one's house. Master Nicholas, uneasy and foreseeing misfortunes, meditated. He regretted having received such people into his house, had he but known that they would end by getting him into mischief. But the question was how to get rid of them. He had given Ursus a lease. What a blessing if he could free himself from it! How should he set to work to drive them out? Suddenly the door of the Inn resounded with one of those tumultuous knocks which in England announces some body. The gamut of knocking corresponds with the letter of hierarchy. It was not quite the knock of a lord, but it was the knock of a justice. The trembling innkeeper half opened his window. There was indeed the magistrate. Master Nicholas perceived at the door a body of police, from the head of which two men detached themselves, one of whom was the justice of the quorum. Master Nicholas had seen the justice of the quorum that morning and recognised him. He did not know the other, who was a fat gentleman with a waxen coloured face, a fashionable wig, and a travelling cloak. Nicholas was much afraid of the first of these persons, the justice of the quorum. Had he been of the court he would have feared the other most because it was Bacchal Phaedro. One of the subordinates knocked at the door again violently. The innkeeper, with great drops of perspiration on his brow from anxiety, opened it. The justice of the quorum, in the tone of a man who is employed in matters of police, and who is well acquainted with various shades of vagrancy, raised his voice and asked severely for Master Ursus. The host kept in hand, replied, Your Honor, he lives here. I know it, said the justice. No doubt, Your Honor, tell him to come down. Your Honor, he is not here. Where is he? I do not know. How is that? He has not come in. Then he must have gone out very early. No, but he went out very late. What vagabonds! replied the justice. Your Honor, said Master Nicholas softly. Here he comes. Ursus indeed had just come in sight round a turn of the wall. He was returning to the inn. He had passed nearly the whole night between the jail, where at midday he had seen Gwynn Plain and the cemetery, where at midnight he had heard the grave filled up. He was palloured with two pallours, that of sorrow and of twilight. Dawn, which is light in a chrysalis state, leaves even those forms which are in movement in the uncertainty of night. Ursus, one and indistinct, walked slowly like a man in a dream. In the wild distraction produced by agony of mind he had left the inn with his head-bear, he had not even found out that he had no hat on. His spare grey locks fluttered in the wind, his open eyes appeared sightless. Often when awake we are asleep, and as often when asleep we are awake. Ursus looked like a lunatic. Master Ursus, cried the innkeeper, come there on his desire to speak to you. Master Nicholas, in his endeavour to soften matters down, let slip, although he would gladly have omitted this plural, their honours, respectful to the group, but mortifying perhaps to the chief, confounded therein to some degree with his subordinates. Ursus started like a man falling off a bed on which he was sound asleep. What is the matter? said he. He saw the police, and at the head of the police the justice, a fresh and rude shock. But a short time ago the whoppentake, now the justice of the quorum. He seemed to have been cast from one to the other as ships by some reefs of which we have read in old stories. The justice of the quorum made him a sign to enter the tavern. Ursus obeyed. Dovercum, who had just got up and who was sweeping the room, stopped his work, got into a corner behind the tables, put down his broom, and held his breath. He plunged his fingertips into his hair and scratched his head, a symptom which indicated attention to what was about to occur. The justice of the quorum sat down on a form before a table. Baklfadro took a chair. Ursus and Master Nicholas remained standing. The police officers, left outside, grouped themselves in front of the closed door. The justice of the quorum fixed his eye full of the law upon Ursus. He said, You have our wolf. Ursus answered, Not exactly. You have our wolf, continued the justice, emphasizing wolf with a decided accent. Ursus answered, You see. And he was silent. A misdemeanor replied the justice. Ursus hazarded an excuse. He is my servant. The justice placed his hand flat on the table with his fingers spread out, which is a very fine gesture of authority. Mary Andrew, tomorrow by this hour you and your wolf must have left England. If not, the wolf will be seized, carried to the register office, and killed. Ursus thought more murder, but he breathed not a syllable, and was satisfied with trembling in every limb. You hear, said the justice. Ursus nodded. The justice persisted. Killed. There was silence. Strangled or drowned, the justice of the quorum watched Ursus. And yourself in prison, Ursus murmured, Your worship. Be off before tomorrow morning, if not, such is the order. Your worship? What? Must we leave England, he and I? Yes. Today? Today. What is to be done? Master Nicholas was happy. The magistrate whom he had feared had come to his aid. The police had acted as auxiliary to him, Nicholas. They had delivered him from such people. The means he had sought were brought to him. Ursus, whom he wanted to get rid of, was being driven away by the police, a superior authority. Nothing to object to. He was delighted. He interrupted. Your honour, that man? He pointed to Ursus with his finger. That man wants to know how he is to leave England today. Nothing can be easier. There are night and day at anchor on the Thames, both on this and on the other side of London Bridge, vessels that sail to the continent. They go from England to Denmark to Holland to Spain, not to France on account of the war, but everywhere else. Tonight several ships will sail, about one o'clock in the morning, which is the hour of high tide, and, amongst others, the Vograt of Rotterdam. The justice of the quorum made a movement of his shoulder towards Ursus. Be it so, leave by the first ship, by the Vograt. Your worship, said Ursus. Well, your worship, if I had as formally only my little box on wheels, it might be done. A boat would contain that, but... But what? But now I have got the green box, which is a great caravan drawn by two horses, and however wide the ship might be, we could not get it into her. What is that to me? said the justice. The wolf will be killed. Ursus shuddered as if he were grasped by a hand of ice. Monsters, he thought, murdering people is their way of settling matters. The innkeeper smiled and addressed Ursus. Master Ursus, you can sell the green box. Ursus looked at Nicholas. Master Ursus, you have the offer. From whom? An offer for the caravan, an offer for the two horses, an offer for the two gypsy women, an offer from whom? repeated Ursus. From the proprietor of the neighbouring circus. Ursus remembered it. It is true. Master Nicholas turned to the justice of the quorum. Your honour, the bargain can be completed today. The proprietor of the circus close by wishes to buy the caravan and the horses. The proprietor of the circus is right, said the justice, because he will soon require them. A caravan and horses will be useful to him. He too will depart today. The reverend gentleman of the parish of Southwick have complained of the indecent riot in Tarenzo Field. The sheriff has taken his measures. Tonight there will not be a single juggler's booth in the place. There must be an end of all these scandals. The honourable gentleman who deigns to be here present. The justice of the quorum interrupted his speech to salute Bacchal Phaedro, who returned the bow. The honourable gentleman who deigns to be present has just arrived from Windsor. He brings orders. Her Majesty has said it must be swept away. Ursus during his long meditation all night had not failed to put himself some questions. After all, he had only seen a buyer. Could he be sure that it contained Gwynplain? Other people might have died besides Gwynplain. A coffin does not announce the name of the corpse as it passes by. A funeral had followed the arrest of Gwynplain. That proved nothing. Post-hoc, non-proctor-hoc, etc., Ursus had begun to doubt. Hope burns and glimmers over misery like naffa over water. Its hovering flame ever floats over human sorrow. Ursus had come to this conclusion. It is probable that it was Gwynplain whom they buried, but it is not certain. Who knows? Perhaps Gwynplain is still alive. Ursus bowed to the justice. Honourable Judge, I will go away. I will go away. We will go away. All will go away by the vograt of Rotterdam today. I will sell the green box, the horses, the trumpets, the gypsies. But I have a comrade whom I cannot leave behind. Gwynplain. Gwynplain is dead, said a voice. Ursus felt a cold sensation such as is produced by a reptile crawling over the skin. It was Barkel Phaedro who had just spoken. The last gleam was extinguished. No more doubt now. Gwynplain was dead. A person and authority must know. This one looked ill-favoured enough to do so. Ursus bowed to him. Master Nicholas was a good-hearted man enough but a dreadful coward. Once terrified he became a brute. The greatest cruelty is that inspired by fear. He growled out their simplified matters. And he indulged, standing behind Ursus in rubbing his hands, a peculiarity of the selfish, signifying I am well out of it, and suggestive of Pontius Pilate washing his hands. Ursus overwhelmed, bent down his head. The sentence on Gwynplain had been executed. Death. His sentence was pronounced. Exile. Nothing remained but to obey. He felt as in a dream. Someone touched his arm. It was the other person who was with the justice of the quorum. Ursus shuddered. The voice which had said, Gwynplain is dead, whispered in his ear, Here are ten guineas sent you by one who wishes you well. And Barcl Fadrow placed a little purse on a table before Ursus. We must not forget the casket that Barcl Fadrow had taken with him. Ten guineas out of two thousand. It was all that Barcl Fadrow could make up his mind to part with. In all conscience it was enough. If he had given more he would have lost. He had taken the trouble of finding out a lord, and having sunk the shaft, it was but fair that the first proceeds of the mind should belong to him. Those who see meanness in the act are right, but they would be wrong to feel astonished. Barcl Fadrow loved money, especially money which was stolen. An envious man is an avaricious one. Barcl Fadrow was not without his faults. The commission of crimes does not preclude the possession of vices. Tigers have their lice. Besides, he belonged to the school of Bacon. Barcl Fadrow turned towards the justice of the quorum and said to him, Sir, be so good as to conclude this matter. I am in haste. A carriage and horses belonging to Her Majesty await me. I must go full gallop to Windsor, for I must be there within two hours' time. I have intelligence to give and orders to take. The justice of the quorum arose. He went to the door, which was only latched, opened it, and, looking silently towards the police, beckoned to them authoritatively. They entered with that silence which heralds severity of action. Master Nicholas, satisfied with the rapid denouement which cut short his difficulties, charmed to be out of the entangled scheme, was afraid when he saw the muster of officers that they were going to apprehend Ursus in his house. Two arrests, one after the other, made in his house, first that of Gwynn Plain, then that of Ursus, might be injurious to the inn. Customers dislike police raids. Here, then, was of time for a respectful appeal, suppliant and generous. Master Nicholas turned toward the justice of the quorum a smiling face in which confidence was tempered by respect. Your honour, I venture to observe to your honour that these honourable gentlemen, the police officers, might be dispensed with, now that the wolf is about to be carried away from England, and that this man Ursus makes no resistance. And since your honour's orders are being punctually carried out, your honour will consider that the respectable business of the police, so necessary to the good of the kingdom, does great harm to an establishment, and that my house is innocent. The merry Andrews of the green box, having been swept away, as Her Majesty says, there is no longer any criminal here, as I do not suppose that the blind girl and the two women are criminals. Therefore I implore your honour to deign to shorten your august visit, and to dismiss these worthy gentlemen who have just entered, because there is nothing for them to do in my house, and if your honour will permit me to prove the justice of my speech under the form of a humble question, I will prove the inutility of these revered gentlemen's presence by asking your honour, if the man Ursus obeys orders and departs, who can there be to arrest here? Yourself, said the Justice. A man does not argue with a sword that runs him through and through. Master Nicholas subsided, he cared not on what, on a table, on a form, on anything that happened to be there, prostrate. The Justice raised his voice so that if there were people outside they might hear. Master Nicholas Plump Tree, keeper of this tavern, this is the last point to be settled. This Mounted Bank and the Wolf are vagabonds. They are driven away. But the person most in fault is yourself. It is in your house and with your consent that the law has been violated, and you, a man licensed, invested with a public responsibility, have established a scandal here. Master Nicholas, your license is taken away. You must pay the penalty and go to prison. The policemen surrounded the innkeeper. The Justice continued, pointing out Govacom, arrest that boy as an accomplice. The hand of an officer fell upon the collar of Govacom, who looked at him inquisitively. The boy was not much alarmed, scarcely understanding the occurrence. Having already observed many things out of the way, he wondered of this with the end of the comedy. The Justice of the Quorum forced his hat down on his head, crossed his hands on his stomach, which is the height of majesty, and added, It is decided, Master Nicholas, you are to be taken to prison and put into jail, you and the boy. And this house, the tadcaster in, is to remain shut up, condemned and closed, for the sake of example. Upon which you will follow us. End of Section 85 Recording by John Trivedic Section 86 of The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Novella Serena The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo Part II Book VII Chapter I The Awakening And dare! It seemed to Gwynn Plain, as he watched the break of day at Corleone Lodge, where the things we have related were occurring at the tadcaster in, that the call came from without. But it came from within. Who has not heard the deep clamours of the soul? Moreover, the morning was dawning. Aurora is a voice. Of what use is the sun if not to reawaken that dark sleeper, the conscience, light, and virtue are akin? Whether the God be called Christ or Love, there is at times an hour when he is forgotten, even by the best. All of us, even the saints, require a voice to remind us, and the dawn speaks to us like a sublime monitor. Conscience calls out before duty as the cock crows before the dawn of day. That chaos, the human heart hears the fiat lukes. Gwynn Plain. We will continue thus to call him, Clan Charlie as a Lord, Gwynn Plain as a man. Gwynn Plain felt, as if brought back to life, it was time that the artery was bound up. For a while his virtue had spread its wings and flown away, and dare, he said. Then he felt through his veins a generous transfusion, something healthy and tumultuous rushed upon him. The violent eruption of good thoughts is like the return home of a man who was not his key and who forces his own look honestly. It is an escalade, but an escalade of good. It is a burglary, but a burglary of evil. Dare, dare, dare, I repeated he. He strove to assure himself of his heart's strength, and he put the question with a loud voice. Where are you? He almost wondered that no one answered him. Then again, gazing on the walls and the ceiling with wandering thoughts through which reason returned. Where are you? Where am I? And in the chamber which was his cage he began to walk again to and fro like a wild beast in captivity. Where am I? At Windsor. And you? In south work. Alas! This is the first time that there has been distance between us. Who has dug this gulf? I hear thou there. Oh, it cannot be. It shall not be. What is this that they have done to me? He stopped. Who talked to me of the queen? What do I know of such things? I changed. Why? Because I am a lord. Do you know what has happened here? You are a lady. What has come to pass is astounding. My business now is to get back into my right road. Who is it who led me astray? There's a man who spoke to me mysteriously. I remember the words which he addressed to me. My lord, when one door opens another is shut. That which you have left behind is no longer yours. In other words, you are a coward. That man, the miserable wretch, said that to me before I was well awake. He took advantage of my first moment of astonishment. I was, as it were, prey to him. Where is he that I may insult him? He spoke to me with the evil smile of a demon. But see, I am myself again. That as well. They deceive themselves if they think that they can do what they like with Lord clan Charlie, a peer of England. Yes, with a peeress who is dare. Conditions. Shall I accept them? The queen. What is the queen to me? I never saw her. I am not a lord to be made a slave. I enter my position unfettered. Did they think they had unchained me for nothing? They have un-muzzled me. That is all. Dare! Ursus, we are together. That which you were I was. That which I am you are. Come. No. I will go to you directly. Directly. I've already waited too long. What can they think, not seeing me return? That money. When I think I sent them that money, it was myself that they wanted. I remember the man said that I could not leave this place. We shall see that. Come. A carriage. A carriage. Put to the horses I am going to look for them. Where are the servants? I ought to have servants here since I am a lord. I am master here. This is my house. I will twist off the bolts. I will break the locks. I will kick down the doors. I will run my sword through the body of anyone who bars my passage. I should like to see who shall stop me. I have a wife and she is Dare. I have a father who was Ursus. My house is a palace and I give it to Ursus. My name is a diadem and I give it to Dare. Quick. Directly. Dare, I am coming. Yes, you may be sure that I shall soon stride across the intervening space. And raising the first piece of tapestry he came to, he rushed from the chamber impetuously. He found himself in a corridor. He went straight forward. A second corridor opened out before him. All the doors were open. He walked on at random, from chamber to chamber, from passage to passage, seeking an exit. End of Section 86. Recording by Novella Serena. Section 87 of The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Novella Serena. The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo. Part II Book VII. Chapter II. The Resemblance of a Palace to a Wood. In palaces after the Italian fashion, and Corleone Large was one, there were very few doors, but abundance of tapestry screens and curtained doorways. In every palace of that date there was a wonderful labyrinth of chambers and corridors, where luxury ran riot, gilding, marble, carved wainscotting, eastern silks, nooks and corners, some secret and darkest night, others light and pleasant as the day. There were attics, richly and brightly furnished, burnished recesses shining with Dutch tiles and Portuguese azulejos. The tops of the high windows were converted into small rooms and glass attics, forming pretty habitable lanterns. The thickness of the walls was such that there were rooms within them. Here and there were closets, nominally wardrobes. They were called the little rooms. It was within them that evil deeds were hatched. When a duke of geese had to be killed, the pretty president of Silvacan abducted, or the cries of little girls brought thither by label smothered. Such places were convenient for the purpose. They were labyrinthine chambers, impracticable to a stranger, scenes of abductions, unknown depths, receptacles of mysterious disappearances. In those elegant caverns, princes and lords stored their plunder. In such a place, the Count de Chaleuré hid Madame Corshan, the wife of the clerk of the Privy Council, Monsieur de Montuelet, the daughter of the Haudry, the farm of le Croissant de la Croix, the prince de Conti, the two beautiful baker-women of Lille-Adam, the Duke of Buckingham, poor Pennywell, etc. The deeds done there were such, as were designated by the Roman law, as commited, by force, in secret, and for a short time. Once in, an occupant remained there till the master of the house decreed his or her release. They were gilded oubliettes, savoring both of the cloister and the harem. Their staircases twisted, turned, ascended, and descended, a zig-zag of rooms, one running into another, led back to the starting-point, a gallery terminated into an oratory, a confessional was grafted on to an alcove. Perhaps the architects of the little rooms, building for royalty and aristocracy, took as models the ramifications of coral beds and the openings in a sponge. The branches became elaborate. Pictures, turning on false panels, were exits and entrances. They were full of stage contrivances, and no wonder, considering the dramas that were played there. The floors of these hives reached from the cellars to the attics. Quaint madreport inlaying every palace from Versailles downwards, like cells of pygmies in dwelling places of titans, passages, niches, alcoves, and secret recesses, all sorts of holes and corners in which was stored away the meanness of the great. These winding and narrow passages recalled games, blind-folded eyes, hands feeling in the dark, suppressed laughter, blind man's bluff hide and seek while, at the same time, they suggested memories of the atreads of the plantagenets, of the Medici's, the brutal knights of Elz, of Rizio, of Maldesci, of naked swords pursuing the fugitive flying from room to room. The ancients, too, had mysterious retreats of the same kind in which luxury was adapted to enormities. The pattern had been preserved underground in some sepulchres in Egypt, notably the tomb of King Sematicus, discovered by Pasalacqua. The ancient poets have recorded the horrors of these suspicious buildings. Error circumflexis locus implicitus gyrus. Gwyn Plain was in the little rooms of Corleone Lodge. He was burning to be off, to get outside, to see Daia again. The maze of passages and alcoves with secret and bewildering doors checked and retarded his progress. He strove to run. He was obliged to wander. He thought that he had but one door to thrust open, while he had a skein of doors to unravel. To one room succeeded another, then a crossway, with rooms on every side. Not a living creature was to be seen, he listened, not a sound. At times he thought that he must be returning towards his starting point, then that he saw someone approaching. It was no one. It was only the reflection of himself in a mirror, dressed as a nobleman. That he? Impossible. Then he recognized himself, but not at once. He explored every passage that he came to. He examined the quaint arrangements of the rambling building, and their yet quaintur fittings. Here a cabinet, painted and carved in a sentimental but vicious style, there an equivocal looking chapel, studded with enamels and mother of pearl, with miniatures on ivory wrought out in relief, like those on old fashioned snuff boxes. There one of those pretty florentine retreats adapted to the hypochondriasis of women, and even then called boudoirs. Everywhere on the ceilings on the walls and on the very floors were representations in velvet or in metal, of birds, of trees, of luxuriant vegetation, picked out in reliefs of life's work. Tables covered with jet carvings, representing warriors, queens, and tritons armed with the scaly terminations of a hydra, cut crystals combining prismatic effects with those of reflection, mirrors repeated the light of precious stones, and sparkles glittered in the darkest corners. It was impossible to guess whether those many-sided shining surfaces where emerald green mingled with the golden hues of the rising sun were floated a glimmer of ever-varying colors, like those on a pigeon's neck, were miniature mirrors or enormous barrels. Everywhere was magnificence at once refined and stupendous. If it was not the most diminutive of palaces, it was the most gigantic of jewel cases, a house for Mab or a jewel for Gio. Gwyn Plain sought an exit. He could not find one. Impossible to make out his way. There is nothing so confusing as wealth seen for the first time. Moreover, this was a labyrinth. At each step he was stopped by some magnificent object which appeared to retard his exit, and to be unwilling to let him pass. He was encompassed by a net of wonders. He felt himself bound and held back. What a horrible palace he thought, restless. He wandered through the maze, asking himself what it all meant. Whether he was in prison, chafing, thirsting for the fresh air, he repeated, dea, dea as if that word was the thread of the labyrinth, and must be held unbroken to guide him out of it. Now and then he shouted, Oh, any one there? No one answered. The rooms never came to an end, all was deserted, silent, splendid, sinister. It realized the fables of enchanted castles, hidden pipes of hot air maintained a summer temperature in the building. It was as if some magician had caught up the month of June and imprisoned it in a labyrinth. There were pleasant odours now and then, and he crossed currents of perfume as though passing by invisible flowers. It was warm, carpets everywhere. One might have walked about there, unclothed. Gwynn Plain looked out of the windows. The view from each one was different. From one he beheld gardens, sparkling with the freshness of a spring morning. From another a plot decked with statues. From the third a patio in the Spanish style, a little square, flagged, mouldy, and cold. At times he saw a river. It was the Thames. Sometimes a great tower. It was Windsor. It was still so early that there were no signs of life without. He stood still and listened. Oh, I will get out of this place, said he. I will return to Daye. They shall not keep me here by force. Woe to him who bars my exit. What is that great tower yonder? If there was a giant, a hellhound, a minotaur to keep the gate of this enchanted palace, I would annihilate him. If an army, I would exterminate it. Daye, Daye! Suddenly he heard a gentle noise. Very faint. It was like dropping water. He was in a dark, narrow passage, closed some few paces further on by a curtain. He advanced to the curtain, pushed it aside, entered. He leaped before he looked. End of Section 87, Recording by Novella Serena. Section 88 of The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Novella Serena. The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo. Part II Book VII Chapter III Eve An octagon room with a vaulted ceiling, without windows, but lighted by a skylight, walls, ceiling, and floors faced with peach-coloured marble, a black marble canopy like a pall, with twisted columns in a solid but pleasing Elizabethan style, overshadowing a vase-like bath of the same black marble. This was what he saw before him. In the centre of the bath arose a slender jet of tepid and perfumed water, which, softly and slowly, was filling the tank. The bath was black to augment fairness into brilliancy. It was the water which he had heard. A waste pipe, placed at a certain height in the bath, prevented it from overflowing. Vapor was rising from the water, but not sufficient to cause it to hang and drop on the marble. The slender jet of water was like a sepal wand of steel, bending at the slightest current of air. There was no furniture, except a chair-like bed with pillows, long enough for a woman to lie on at full length, and yet have room for a dog at her feet. The French, indeed, borrowed the word canapé from can al pie. This sofa was of Spanish manufacture. In it, silver took the place of woodwork. The cushions and coverings were of rich white silk. On the other side of the bath, by the wall, was a lofty dressing table of solid silver, furnished with every requisite for the table, having in its centre, and in imitation of a window, eight small Venetian mirrors set in a silver frame. In a panel on the wall was a square opening, like a little window, which was closed by a door of solid silver. This door was fitted with hinges, like a shutter. On the shutter they glistened a chastened gilt royal crown, over it, and affixed to the wall was a bell, silver gilt, if not pure gold. Opposite the entrance of the chamber, in which Gwyn Plain stood, as if transfixed, there was an opening in the marble wall, extending to the ceiling, and closed by a high and broad curtain of silver tissue. This curtain, of fairy-like tenuity, was transparent and did not interrupt the view. Through the centre of this web, where one might expect a spider, Gwyn Plain saw a more formidable object, a woman. Her dress was a long chemise, so long that it floated over her feet, like the dresses of angels in holy pictures, but so fine that it seemed liquid. The silver tissue, transparent as glass and fastened only at the ceiling, could be lifted aside. It separated the marble chamber, which was a bathroom, from the adjoining apartment, which was a bed chamber. This tiny dormitory was a grotto of mirrors. Venetian glasses, close together, mounted with gold mouldings, reflected on every side the bed in the centre of the room, on the bed, which, like the toilet-table, was of silver, lay the woman. She was asleep. The crumpled clothes bore evidence of troubled sleep. The beauty of the folds was proof of the quality of the material. It was a period when a queen, thinking that she should be damned, pictured hell to herself as a bed with coarse sheets. A dressing-gown of curious silk was thrown over the foot of the couch. It was apparently Chinese, for a great golden lizard was partly visible in between the folds. Beyond the couch, and probably masking a door, was a large mirror, on which were painted peacocks and swans. Shadow seemed to lose its nature in this apartment, and glistened. The spaces between the mirrors and the goldwork were lined with that sparkling material called at Venice thread of glass, that is, spun glass. At the head of the couch stood a reading desk, on a movable pivot, with candles and a book lying open, bearing this title in large red letters. Gwynn Plains saw none of these details. He had eyes only for the woman. He was at once stupefied and filled with tumultuous emotions, states apparently incompatible, yet sometimes co-existent. He recognized her. Her eyes were closed, but her face was turned towards him. It was the Duchess, she, the mysterious being in whom all the splendors of the unknown were united, she who had occasioned him so many unavowable dreams, she who had written him so strange a letter, the only woman in the world of whom he could say, She has seen me, and she desires me. He had dismissed the dreams from his mind. He had burnt the letter. He had, as far as lay in his power, banished the remembrance of her from his thoughts and dreams. He no longer thought of her. He had forgotten her. Again he saw her, and he saw her terrible in power. His breath came in short catches. He felt as if he were in a storm-driven cloud. He looked. This woman before him. Was it possible? At the theatre, a Duchess, here, a Nairid, a Nymph, a Fairy, always an apparition. He tried to fly, but felt the futility of the attempt. His eyes were riveted on the vision, as though he were bound. Was she a woman? Was she a maiden? Both. Messalina was perhaps present, though invisible, and smiled while Diana kept watch. Over all her beauty was the radiance of inaccessibility. No purity could compare with her chaste and haughty form. Certain snows, which have never been touched, give an idea of it, such as the sacred whiteness of the young frow. Immodesty was merged into splendour. She felt the security of an Olympian, who knew that she was the daughter of the depths, and might say to the ocean, Father, and she exposed herself, unattainable and proud, to everything that should pass, to looks, to desires, to ravings, to dreams, as proud in her langer, on her Boudoir couch, as Venus in the immensity of the sea foam. She had slept all night, and was prolonging her sleep into the daylight. Her boldness begun in shadow, continued in light. Gwyn Plain shuddered. He admired her with an unhealthy and absorbing admiration, which ended in fear. Misfortunes never come singly. Gwyn Plain thought he had drained to the dregs the cup of his ill luck. Now it was refilled. Who was it who was hurling all those unremitting thunderbolts on his devoted head, and who had now thrown against him, as he stood trembling there asleep in goddess? What, was the dangerous and desirable object of his dream lurking all the while behind these successive glimpses of heaven? Did these favours of the mysterious temper tend to inspire him with vague aspirations and confused ideas, and overwhelm him with the intoxicating series of realities proceeding from apparent impossibilities? Wherefore did all the shadows conspire against him? A wretched man, and what would become of him, with all those evil smiles of fortune beaming on him, was his temptation prearranged? This woman, how and why was she there? No explanation. Why him? Why her? Was he made a peer of England expressly for this Duchess? Who had brought them together? Who was the dupe? Who was the victim? Whose simplicity was being abused? Was it God who was being deceived? All these undefined thoughts passed confusedly, like a flight of dark shadows through his brain, that magical and malevolent abode, that strange and prison-like palace. Was it also in the plot? Gwyn Plane suffered a partial unconsciousness, suppressed emotions threatened to strangle him. He was weighed down by an overwhelming force. His will became powerless. How could he resist? He was incoherent and entranced. This time he felt he was becoming irremediably insane. His dark, head-long fall over the precipice of stupefaction continued. But the woman slept on. What aggravated the storm within him was that he saw not the princess, not the Duchess, not the lady, but the woman. Gwyn Plane, losing all self-command, trembled. What could he do against such a temptation? Were no skillful effects of dress, no silken folds, no complex and coquettish adornments, no affected exaggeration of concealment or of exhibition, no cloud. It was fearful simplicity, a sort of mysterious summons, the shameless audacity of Eden. The whole of the dark side of human nature was there, Eve, worse than Satan. The human and the superhuman commingled, a perplexing ecstasy winding up in a brutal triumph of instinct over duty. The sovereign conser of beauty is imperious. When it leaves the ideal and condescends to be real, its proximity is fatal to man. Now and then the Duchess moved softly on the bed, with the vague movement of a cloud in the heavens, changing as a vapor changes its form, absurd as it may appear, though he saw her present in a flesh before him, yet she seemed shimmery and palpable as she was, she seemed to him a far off. Scared and livid, he gazed on. He listened to her breathing, and fancied he heard only a phantom's respiration. He was attracted, though against his will. How arm himself against her, or against himself? He had been prepared for everything except this danger, a savage doorkeeper, a raging monster of a jailer. Such were his expected antagonists. He looked for Cerberus, he saw Heavey, a sleeping woman, what an opponent! He closed his eyes, too bright a dawn blinds the eyes, but through his closed eyelids they're penetrated at once the woman's form, not so distinct, but beautiful as ever. Fly, easier said than done, he had already tried and failed. He was rooted to the ground as if in a dream. When we try to draw back, temptation clogs our feet and glues them to the earth. We can still advance, but to retire is impossible. The invisible arms of sin rise from below and drag us down. There is a commonplace idea, accepted by everyone, that feelings become blunted by experience. Nothing can be more untrue. You might as well say that by dropping nitric acid slowly on a sore it would heal and become sound, and that torture dulled the sufferings of Damians. The truth is that each fresh application intensifies the pain. From one surprise after another, Gwynn Plain had become desperate. That cup, his reason, under this new stupor was overflowing. He felt within him a terrible awakening, compass he no longer possessed. One idea only was before him, the woman. An indescribable happiness appeared which threatened to overwhelm him. He could no longer decide for himself. There was an irresistible current and a reef. The reef was not a rock, but a siren, a magnet at the bottom of the abyss. He wished to tear himself away from this magnet, but how was he to carry out his wish? He had ceased to feel any basis of support. Who can foresee the fluctuations of the human mind? A man may be wrecked, as is a ship. Conscience is an anchor. It is a terrible thing, but, like the anchor, conscience may be carried away. He had not even the chance of being repulsed on account of his terrible disfigurement. The woman had written to say that she loved him. In every crisis, there is a moment when the scale hesitates before kicking the beam, when we lean to the worst side of our nature. Instead of strengthening our better qualities, the moral force which has been preserving the balance gives way, and down we go. Had this critical moment in Gwyn Plain's life arrived, how could he escape? So it is she, the Duchess, the woman. There she was in that lonely room, asleep, far from succor, helpless, alone, at his mercy. Yet he was in her power, the Duchess. We have, perchance, observed a star in the distant firmament. We have admired it. It is so far off. What can there be to make us shudder on a fixed star? Well, one day, one night, rather, it moves. We perceive a trembling gleam around it. The star which we imagine to be immovable is in motion. It is no longer a star, but a comet, the incendiary giant of the skies. The luminary moves on, grows bigger, shakes off a shower of sparks and fire, and becomes enormous. It advances toward us. Oh, horror! It is coming our way. The comet recognizes us, marks us for its own, and will not be turned aside. Irresistible attack of the heavens! What is it which is bearing down on us? An excess of light which blinds us? An excess of life which kills us? That proposal which the heavens make, we refuse? That unfathomable love we reject? We close our eyes. We hide. We tear ourselves away. We imagine the dangerous past. We open our eyes. The formidable star still before us, but no longer a star. It has become a world. A world unknown. A world of lava and ashes. The devastating prodigy of space. It fills the sky, allowing no peers. The carbuncle of the firmament's depths. A diamond in the distance. When drawn close to us becomes a furnace. You are caught in its flames. And the first sensation of burning is that of a heavenly warmth. End of section 88. Recording by Novella Serena. Section 89 of The Man Who Laughs, by Victor Hugo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Novella Serena. The Man Who Laughs, by Victor Hugo. Part 2. Book VII. Chapter 4. Satan. Suddenly the sleeper awoke. She sat up with a sudden and gracious dignity of movement, her fair silken tresses falling in soft disorder. Then, stretching herself, she yawned like a Tigris in the rising sun. Perhaps Gwyn Plain breathed heavily, as we do when we endeavor to restrain our respiration. Is anyone there? said she. She yawned as she spoke, and her very yawn was graceful. Gwyn Plain listened to the unfamiliar voice, the voice of a charmer, its accents exquisitely haughty, its caressing intonation softening its native arrogance. Then, rising on her knees, there is an antique statue kneeling thus in the midst of a thousand transparent folds. She drew the dressing gown towards her, and springing from the couch stood upright. In the twinkling of an eye the silken robe was around her. The trailing sleeve concealed her hands, only the tips of her toes, with little pink nails like those of an infant were left visible. Having drawn from underneath the dressing gown a mass of hair which had been imprisoned by it, she crossed behind the couch to the end of the room, and placed her ear to the painted mirror. Which was, apparently, a door. Tapping the glass with her finger she called, Is anyone there? Lord David, are you come already? What time is it then? Is that you, Bacchio Fedro? She turned from the glass. No, it was not there. Is there anyone in the bathroom? Will you answer? Of course not, no one could come that way. Going to the silver lace curtain she raised with her foot, thrust it aside with her shoulder, and entered the marble room. An agonized numbness fell upon Gwynn Plain, no possibility of concealment. It was too late to fly. Moreover, he was no longer equal to the exertion. He wished that the earth might open and swallow him up, anything to hide him. She saw him. She stared, immensely astonished, but without the slightest nervousness. Then, in a tone of mingled pleasure and contempt, she said, Why, it is Gwynn Plain. Suddenly, with the rapid spring for this cat was a panther, she flung herself on his neck. Suddenly, pushing him back, and holding him by both shoulders with her small claw-like hands, she stood up face to face with him, and began to gaze at him with a strange expression. It was a fatal glance she gave him with her alderbaran-like eyes, a glance at once equivocal and star-like. Gwynn Plain watched the blue eye and the black eye, distracted by the double ray of heaven, and of hell that shone in the orbs thus fixed on him. The man and the woman threw him a line, dazzling reflection, one on the other. Both were fascinated. He, by her beauty. She, by his deformity. Both were in a measure awe-stricken, pressed down as by an overwhelming weight. He was speechless. Oh, she cried. How clever you are! You are calm. You found out that I was obliged to leave London. You followed me. That was right. Your being here proves you to be a wonder. The simultaneous return of self-possession acts like a flash of lightning. Gwynn Plain, indistinctly warned by a vague, rude, but honest misgiving, drew back. But the pink nails clung to his shoulders and restrained him. Some inexorable power proclaimed its sway over him. He himself, a wild beast, was caged in a wild beast's den. She continued, Anne the Fool. You know whom I mean. The Queen ordered me to Windsor without giving any reason. When I arrived she was closeted with her idiot of a chancellor. But how did you contrive to obtain access to me? That's what I call being a man. Obstacles indeed. There are no such things. You come at a call. You found things out. My name, the Duchess Josiana, you knew, I fancy. Who was it brought you in? No doubt it was the Page. Oh, he is clever. I will give him a hundred guineas. Which way did you get in? Tell me. No. Don't tell me. I don't want to know. Explanations diminish interest. I prefer the marvellous, and you are hideous enough to be wonderful. You've fallen from the highest heavens, or you've risen from the depths of hell through the devil's trap door. Nothing can be more natural. The ceiling opened, where the floor yawned. A descent in a cloud, or an ascent in a mass of fire and brimstone. That is how you have travelled. You have a right to enter like the gods. Agreed. You are my lover. Gwyn Plaine was scared, and listened, his mind growing more irresolute every moment. Now all was certain, impossible to have any further doubt, that letter. The woman confirmed its meaning. Gwyn Plaine the lover, and the beloved of a duchess. Mighty pride with its thousand baleful heads stirred his wretched heart. Vanity, that powerful agent within us, works us measureless evil. The duchess went on. Since you are here it is so decreed. I ask nothing more. There is someone on high, or in hell, who brings us together. The patrol of sticks and aurora. Unbridled ceremonies beyond all laws. The very day I first saw you, I said, it is he. I recognise him. He is the monster of my dreams. He shall be mine. We should give destiny a helping hand. Therefore I wrote to you. One question, Gwyn Plaine. Do you believe in predestination? For my part I've believed in it since I read in Cicero, Shepio's dream. Ah! I did not observe it. Dressed like a gentleman. You in fine clothes. Why not? You are a mountain bank. All the more reason, but juggler is as good as a lord. Moreover, what are lords? Clowns. You have a noble figure. You are magnificently made. It is wonderful that you should be here. When did you arrive? How long have you been here? Did you see me naked? I am beautiful, am I not? I was going to take my bath. Oh, how I love you! You read my letter. Did you read it yourself? Did anyone read it to you? Can you read? Probably you are ignorant. I ask questions, but don't answer them. I don't like the sound of your voice. It is soft. An extraordinary thing like you should snarl and not speak. You sing harmoniously. I hate it. It is the only thing about you that I do not like. All the rest is terrible, is grand. In India you would be a god. Were you born with that frightful laugh on your face? No. No doubt it is a penal brand. I do hope you have committed some crime. Come to my arms. She sank on the couch and made him sit beside her. They found themselves close together unconsciously. What she had said passed over Gwynn Plain like a mighty storm. He hardly understood the meaning of her whirlwind of words. Her eyes were full of admiration. She spoke tumultuously, frantically, and with a voice broken and tender. Her words were music. But their music was to Gwynn Plain as a hurricane. Again she fixed her gaze upon him and continued, I feel degraded in your presence. And oh, what happiness that is! How insipid it is to be a grandee! I am noble, what can be more tiresome. This grace is a comfort. I am so satiated with respects that I long for contempt. We are all a little erratic from Venus, Cleopatra, Madame de Chevreuse, and de Longvie. Down to myself. I will make a display of you, I declare. Here's a love affair which will be a blow to my family, the stewards. I breathe again. I have discovered a secret. I am clear of royalty. To be free from its troubles is indeed deliverance. To break down, defy, make, and destroy at will. That is true enjoyment. Listen. I love you. She paused. Then with a frightful smile went on. I love you. Not only because you are deformed, but because you are low. I love monsters, and I love mountabanks. A lover despised, mocked, grotesque, hideous, exposed to laughter on that pillory called a theatre, has for me an extraordinary attraction. It is tasting the fruit of hell. An infamous lover, how exquisite to taste the apple. Not of paradise, but of hell, such is my temptation. It is for that I hunger and thirst. I am that eve, the eve of the depths. Probably you are, unknown to yourself, a devil. I am in love with the nightmare. You are a moving puppet, of which the strings are pulled by a spectre. You are the incarnation of infernal mirth. You are the master I require. I wanted a lover such as those of Medea and Canidia. I felt sure that some night would bring me such a one. You are all that I want. I am talking of the heap of things of which you probably know nothing. Gwynplaine, hitherto I have remained untouched. I give myself to you, pure as a burning ember. You evidently do not believe me, but if only you knew how little I care. Her words flowed like a volcanic eruption. Pierce Mount Etna, and you may contain some idea of that jet of fiery eloquence. Gwynplaine stammered, Madam. She placed her hand on his mouth, silence. She said, I am studying you. I am unbridled desire, immaculate. I am a vestal backhand. No man has known me, and I might be the virgin pythoness at Delphis, and have under my inacid foot the bronze tripod, where the priests lean their elbows on the skin of the python, whispering questions to the invisible god. My heart is of stone, but it is like those mysterious pebbles which the sea washes to the foot of the rock called Huntlynab at the mouth of the tees, and which have broken are found to contain a serpent. That serpent is my love, a love which is all powerful, for it has brought you to me. An impossible distance was between us. I was in Sirius, and you were in Allioth. You have crossed the immeasurable space, and here you are. Tiswell, be silent. Take me. She ceased. He trembled. Then she went on, smiling. You see, Gwyn Plain, to dream is to create. To desire is to summon. To build up the shimmery eyes to provoke the reality. The all-powerful and terrible mystery will not be defied. It produces results. You are here. Do I dare to go to cast? Yes. Do I dare to be your mistress, your concubine, your slave, your chattel? Joyfully. Gwyn Plain, I am woman. Woman is clay longing to become mire. I want to despise myself. That lends a zest to pride. The alloy of greatness is baseness. They combine in perfection. Dispise me, you who are despised. Nothing can be better. Degradation on degradation. What joy! I pluck the double blossom of ignonomy. Trample me underfoot. You will only love me the more. I am sure of it. Do you understand why I idolise you? Because I despise you. You are so immeasurably below me that I place you on an altar. Bring the highest and lowest depths together, and you have chaos. And I delight in chaos. Chaos. The beginning and end of everything. What is chaos? A huge blot. Out of that blot God made light, and out of that sink the world. You don't know how perverse I can be. Net a star in mud, and you will have my likeness. She went on. A wolf to all beside. A faithful dog to you. How astonished they will all be. The astonishment of fools is amusing. I understand myself. Am I a goddess? Amphitrite gave herself to the Cyclops. Fluctivoma Amphitrite. Am I a fairy? Urgally gave herself to Boogrix, a winged man with eight wept hands. Am I a princess? Marie Stuart Hadrizio. Three beauties. Three monsters. I am greater than they, for you are lower than they. Gwyn Plaine, we were made for one another. The monster that you are outwardly, I am within. Then smile up for you. A Caprice? Just so. What is a hurricane but a Caprice? Our stars have a certain affinity. Together we are things of night. You in your face, I in my mind. As your countenance is defaced, so is my mind. You in your turn create me. You come and my real soul shows itself. I did not know it. It is astonishing. Your coming has evoked the hydra in me, who am a goddess. You reveal my real nature. See how I resemble you. Look at me as if I were a mirror. Your face is my mind. I did not know I was so terrible. I am also, then, a monster. Oh, Gwyn Plaine, do you amuse me? She laughed. A strange and childlike laugh, and putting her mouth close to his ear, whispered, Do you want to see a madwoman? Look at me. She poured her searching look into Gwyn Plaine. A look is a filter. Her loosened row provoked a thousand dangerous feelings. Blind animal ecstasy was invading his mind. Ecstasy combined with agony. Whilst she spoke, though he felt her words like burning coals, his blood froze within his veins. He had not strength to utter a word. She stopped, and looked at him. Oh, monster! She cried. She grew wild. Suddenly she seized his hands. Gwyn Plaine, I am the throne. You are the footstool. Let us join on the same level. Oh, how happy I am in my fall. I wish all the world could know how abject I am become. It would bow down all the lower. The more man abores, the more does he cringe. It is human nature. Hostile, but reptile. Dragon, but worm. Oh, I am as depraved as are the gods. They can never say that I am not a king's bastard. I act like a queen. Who is Rhodope but a queen, loving B'tay, a man with a crocodile's head? She raised the third pyramid in his honour. Pentheselia loved the centre. Who, being now a star, is named Sagittarius? And what do you say about Anne of Austria? Mazarin was ugly enough. Now, you are not only ugly, you are deformed. Ugliness is mean. Deformity is grand. Ugliness is the devil's grin behind beauty. Deformity is the reverse of sublimity. It is the back view. Olympus has two aspects. One by day shows Apollo. The other by night shows Polyphemus. You, you are a titan. You would be behemoth in the forests, leviathan in the deep, and typhon in the sewer. You surpass everything. There is the trace of lightning in your deformity. Your face has been battered by the thunderbolt. The jagged contortion of forked lightning has imprinted its mark on your face. It struck you and passed on. A mighty and mysterious wrath has, in a fit of passion, cemented your spirit in a terrible and superhuman form. Hell is a penal furnace, where the iron-called fatality is raised to a white heat. You have been branded with it. To love you is to understand grandeur. I enjoy that triumph. To be in love with Apollo. A fine effort for Seuth. Glory is to be measured by the astonishment it creates. I love you. I have drummed of you night after night. This is my palace. You shall see my gardens. There are fresh springs under the shrubs, arbors for lovers, and beautiful groups of marble statuary by Bernini. Flowers. There are too many. During the spring the place is on fire with roses. Did I tell you that the queen is my sister? Do what you like with me. I am made for Jupiter to kiss my feet, and for Satan to spit in my face. Are you of any religion? I am a Papist. My father, James II, died in France, surrounded by Jesuits. I have never felt before as I feel now that I am near you. Oh, how I should like to pass the evening with you, in the midst of music, both reclining on the same cushion, under a purple awning, and a gilded gondola on the soft expanse of ocean. Insult me. Beat me. Kick me. Cuff me. Treat me like a brute. I adore you. Caresses can roar. If you doubt it, observe the lions. The woman was horrible, and yet full of grace. The effect was tragic. First he felt the claw, then the velvet of the paw. A feline attack made up of advances and retreats. There was death as well as sport in this game of come and go. She idolized him, but arrogantly. The result was contagious frenzy, fatal language, at once inexpressible, violent, and sweet. The insulter did not insult. The adore outraged the object of adoration. She who buffeted deified him. Her tones imparted to her violent yet amorous words an indescribable Promethean grandeur. According to Escalus, in the orgies in honor of the great goddess, the women were smitten by this evil frenzy when they pursued the satyrs under the stars. Such paroxysms raged in the mysterious dances in the grove of Dodona. This woman was as if transfigured, if indeed we can term that transfiguration which is the antithesis of heaven. Her hair quivered like a mane, her robe opened and closed. The sunshine of the blue eye mingled with the fire of the black one. She was unearthly. Gwyn Plain, giving way, felt himself vanquished by the deep subtlety of this attack. I love you, she cried, and she bit him with a kiss. Homeric clouds were perhaps about to be required to encompass Gwyn Plain and Josiana, as they did Jupiter and Juno, for Gwyn Plain to be loved by a woman who could see and who saw him to feel on his deformed mouth the pressure of divine lips was exquisite and maddening. Before this woman, full of enigmas, all else faded away in his mind. The remembrance of Dea struggled in the shadows with weak cries. There is an antique bass relief representing the sphinx devouring a cupid. The wings of the sweet celestial are bleeding between the fierce grinning fangs. Did Gwyn Plain love this woman? Has man, like the globe, two poles? Are we, on our inflexible axis, a moving sphere, a star when seen from afar, mud when seen more closely, in which night alternates with day? Has the heart two aspects, one on which its love is poured forth in light, the other in darkness? Here a woman of light, there a woman of the sewer, angels are necessary. Is it possible that demons are also essential? Has the soul the wings of the bat? Does twilight fall fatally for all? Is sin an integral and inevitable part of our destiny? Must we accept evil as part and portion of our whole? Do we inherit sin as debt? What awful subjects for thought! Yet a voice tells us that weakness is a crime. Gwyn Plain's feelings are not to be described, the flesh, life, terror, lust, an overwhelming intoxication of spirits, and all the shame possible to pride. Was he about to succumb? She repeated, I love you, and flung her frenzied arms about him. Gwyn Plain panted. Suddenly, close at hand there rang, clear and distinct, a little bell. It was the little bell inside the wall. The duchess turning her head said, What does she want of me? Quickly, with the noise of spring door, the silver panel with the golden crown chased on it opened, a compartment of a shaft lined with royal blue velvet appeared, and on a golden salver a letter. The letter, broad and weighty, was placed so as to exhibit the seal, which was a large impression in red wax. The bell continued to tinkle. The open panel almost touched the couch where the duchess and Gwyn Plain were sitting, leaning over, but still keeping her arm round his neck. She took the letter from the plate, and touched the panel. The compartment closed in, and the bell ceased ringing. The duchess broke the seal, and opening the envelope drew out two documents contained therein, and flung it on the floor at Gwyn Plain's feet. The impression of the broken seal was still decipherable, and Gwyn Plain could distinguish her royal crown over the initial A. The torn envelope lay open before him, so that he could read, To her grace, the duchess Josiana. The envelope had contained both vellum and parchment. The former was a small, the latter a large document. On the parchment was a large chancery seal in green wax, called Lord's Ceiling Wax. The face of the duchess, whose bosom was palpitating, and whose eyes were swimming with passion, became overspread with a slight expression of dissatisfaction. Ah, she said! What does she send me? A lot of papers! What a spoil sport that woman is! Pushing aside the parchment, she opened the vellum. It is her handwriting. It is my sister's hand. It is quite provoking. Gwyn Plain, I asked you if you could read. Can you? Gwyn Plain nodded ascent. She stretched herself at full length on the couch, carefully drew her feet and arms under her robe, with a whimsical affectation of modesty, and, giving Gwyn Plain the vellum, watched him with an impassioned look. Well, you are mine. Begin your duties, my beloved. Read me what the queen writes. Gwyn Plain took the vellum, unfolded it, and, in a voice tremulous with many emotions, began to read. Madam, we are graciously pleased to send to you herewith, sealed and signed by our trusty and well-beloved William Cowper, Lord High Chancellor of England, a copy of a report showing forth the very important fact that the legitimate son of Linnaeus Lord Clan-Charlie has just been discovered and recognised, bearing the name of Gwyn Plain, in the lowest rank of a wandering and vagabond life, among strollers and mountain banks. His false position dates from his earliest days, in accordance with the laws of the country, and in virtue of his hereditary rights, Lord Vermein Clan-Charlie, son of Lord Linnaeus, will be this day admitted and installed in his position in the House of Lords. Therefore, having regard to your welfare and wishing to preserve for your use the property and estates of Lord Clan-Charlie of Hunkerville, we substitute him in the place of Lord David Deereymore, and recommend him to your good graces. We have caused Lord Vermein to be conducted to Corleone Lodge. We will, and command, as sister and as queen, that the said Vermein Lord Clan-Charlie, hitherto calls Gwyn Plain, shall be your husband, and that you shall marry him. Such is our royal pleasure. While Gwyn Plain, in tremulous tones which varied at almost every word, was reading the document, the Duchess, half risen from the couch, listened with fixed attention. When Gwyn Plain finished, she snatched the letter from his hands. Anne R. She murmured in a tone of abstraction. Then picking up from the floor the parchment she had thrown down, she ran her eye over it. It was the confession of the shipwrecked crew of the Matatina embodied in a report signed by the Sheriff of Southwick and by the Lord Chancellor. Having perused the report, she read the Queen's letter over again. Then she said, Be it so. And calmly pointing with her finger to the door of the gallery through which he had entered, she added, Be gone. Gwyn Plain was petrified and remained immovable. She repeated in icy tones, Since you are my husband, be gone. Gwyn Plain speechless and with eyes down cast like a criminal remained motionless. She added, You have no right to be here. It is my lover's place. Gwyn Plain was like a man transfixed. Very well, said she, I must go myself. So you are my husband. Nothing can be better. I hate you. She rose, and with an indescribably haughty gesture of adieu, left the room. The curtain in the doorway of the gallery fell behind her. End of Section 89, Recording by Novella Serena. Section 90 of The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Novella Serena. The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo Part 2 Book VII Chapter V They recognize but do not know each other. Gwyn Plain was alone, alone, and in the presence of the tepid bath and the deserted couch. The confusion in his mind had reached its culminating point. His thoughts no longer resembled thoughts. They overflowed and ran riot. It was the anguish of a creature wrestling with perplexity. He felt as if he were awaking from a horrid nightmare. The entrance into unknown spheres is no simple matter. From the time he had received the Duchess's letter, brought by the page, a series of surprising adventures had befallen Gwyn Plain. Each one less intelligible than the other. Up to this time, though in a dream, he had seen things clearly. Now he could only grope his way. He no longer thought, nor even dreamed. He collapsed. He sank down upon the couch which the Duchess had vacated. Suddenly he heard a sound of footsteps and those of a man. The noise came from the opposite side of the gallery to that by which the Duchess had departed. The man approached and his footsteps, though deadened by the carpet, were clear and distinct. Gwyn Plain, in spite of his abstraction, listened. Suddenly, beyond the silver web of curtain, which the Duchess had left partly open, a door evidently concealed by the painted glass opened wide and there came floating into the room the refrain of an old French song, caroled at the top of a manly and joyous voice. Trois pétiquerets sur leur fumier jurait comme des porteurs de chesse, and a man entered. He wore a sword by his side, a magnificent naval uniform covered with gold lace, and held in his hand a plumed hat with loops and cockade. Gwyn Plain sprang up erect as if moved by springs. He recognized the man and was in turn recognized by him. From their astonished lips came, simultaneously, this double exclamation. Gwyn Plain! Tom Jim Jack! The man with the plumed hat advanced towards Gwyn Plain, who stood with folded arms. What are you doing here, Gwyn Plain? And you, Tom Jim Jack? What are you doing here? Oh, I understand. Josiana, a Caprice, a Mountabank and a Monster. The double attraction is too powerful to be resisted. You disguised yourself in order to get here, Gwyn Plain. And you, too, Tom Jim Jack? Gwyn Plain! What does this gentleman's dress mean? Tom Jim Jack! What does that officer's uniform mean? Gwyn Plain! I answer no questions. Neither do I, Tom Jim Jack. Gwyn Plain! My name is not Tom Jim Jack. Tom Jim Jack! My name is not Gwyn Plain. Gwyn Plain! I am here in my own house. I am here in my own house, Tom Jim Jack. I will not have you echo my words. You are ironical, but I have got a cane and end to your jokes, you wretched fool. Gwyn Plain became ashy pale. You are a fool yourself, and you shall give me satisfaction for this insult. In your booth as much as you like with fisticuffs. Here, and with swords? My friend Gwyn Plain. The sword is a weapon for gentlemen. With it I can only fight my equals. At fisticuffs we are equal, but not so with swords. At the Tadcaster in Tom Jim Jack could box with Gwyn Plain. At Windsor the case is altered. Understand this. I am a rear admiral. And I am a peer of England. The man whom Gwyn Plain recognized as Tom Jim Jack burst out laughing. Why not a king? Indeed you are right. An actor plays every part. You'll tell me next that you are a thesius Duke of Athens. I am a peer of England, and we are going to fight. Gwyn Plain, this becomes tiresome. Don't play with one who can order you to be flogged. I am Lord David Deary Moore. And I am Lord Clan Charlie. Again Lord David burst out laughing. Well said! Gwyn Plain is Lord Clan Charlie. That is indeed the name the man must bear who is to win Josiana. Listen, I forgive you. And do you know the reason? It's because we are both lovers of the same woman. The curtain in the door was lifted, and a voice exclaimed, You are the two husbands, my lords. They turned. Parcafedro cried Lord David. It was indeed he. He bowed low to the two lords with a smile on his face. Some few paces behind him was a gentleman with a stern and dignified countenance who carried in his hand a black wand. This gentleman advanced, and bowing three times to Gwyn Plain said, I am the usher of the black rod. I come to fetch your lordship in obedience to her majesty's commands.