The Man Who Laughs

by Victor Hugo

  Therefore they watch for it, and summon it suddenly, authoritatively, on the spot. No plan, no sketch, no rough model; no ready-made shoe ill-fitting the unexpected. They plunge headlong into the dark. To turn to immediate and rapid profit any circumstance that can aid him is the quality which distinguishes the able scoundrel, and elevates the villain into the demon. To strike suddenly at fortune, that is true genius.

  The true scoundrel strikes you from a sling with the first stone he can pick up.

  Clever malefactors count on the unexpected, that senseless accomplice of so many crimes.

  They grasp the incident and leap on it; there is no better Ars poetica for this species of talent.

  Meanwhile be sure with whom you have to deal. Survey the ground.

  With Barkilphedro the ground was Queen Anne.

  Barkilphedro approached the queen, and so close that sometimes he fancied he heard the monologues of her Majesty.

  Sometimes he was present unheeded at conversations between the sisters. Neither did they forbid his sliding in a word. He profited by this to lessen himself--a way of inspiring confidence.

  Thus, one day in the garden at Hampton Court, being behind the duchess, who was behind the queen, he heard Anne, following the fashion, awkwardly enunciating sentiments.

  "Animals are happy," said the queen. "They run no risk of going to hell."

  "They are there already," replied Josiana.

  This answer, which bluntly substituted philosophy for religion, displeased the queen. If, perchance, there was depth in the observation, Anne felt shocked.

  "My dear," said she to Josiana, "we talk of hell like a couple of fools. Ask Barkilphedro all about it. He ought to know such things."

  "As a devil?" said Josiana.

  "As a beast," replied Barkilphedro, with a bow.

  "Madame," said the queen to Josiana, "he is cleverer than we."

  For a man like Barkilphedro to approach the queen was to obtain a hold on her. He could say, I hold her. Now, he wanted a means of taking advantage of his power for his own benefit.

  He had his foothold in the court. To be settled there was a fine thing. No chance could now escape him. More than once he had made the queen smile maliciously. This was having a licence to shoot.

  But was there any preserved game? Did this licence to shoot permit him to break the wing or the leg of one like the sister of her Majesty?

  The first point to make clear was, did the queen love her sister?

  One false step would lose all. Barkilphedro watched.

  Before he plays, the player looks at the cards. What trumps has he? Barkilphedro began by examining the age of the two women. Josiana, twenty-three; Anne, forty-one. So far so good. He held trumps.

  The moment that woman ceases to count by springs, and begins to count by winters, she becomes cross. A dull rancour possesses her against the time of which she carries the proofs. Fresh-blown beauties, perfume for others, are to such a one but thorns. Of the roses she feels but the prick. It seems as if all the freshness is stolen from her, and that beauty decreases in her because it increases in others.

  To profit by this secret ill-humour, to dive into the wrinkle on the face of this woman of forty, who was a queen, seemed a good game for Barkilphedro.

  Envy excels in exciting jealousy, as a rat draws the crocodile from its hole.

  Barkilphedro fixed his wise gaze on Anne. He saw into the queen, as one sees into a stagnant pool. The marsh has its transparency. In dirty water we see vices, in muddy water we see stupidity; Anne was muddy water. Embryos of sentiments and larvæ of ideas moved in her thick brain. They were not distinct; they had scarcely any outline. But they were realities, however shapeless. The queen thought this; the queen desired that. To decide what was the difficulty. The confused transformations which work in stagnant water are difficult to study.

  The queen, habitually obscure, sometimes made sudden and stupid revelations. It was on these that it was necessary to seize. He must take advantage of them on the moment. How did the queen feel toward the Duchess Josiana? Did she wish her good or evil?

  Here was the problem. Barkilphedro set himself to solve it.

  This problem solved, he might go further.

  Divers chances served Barkilphedro; his tenacity at the watch above all.

  Anne was, on her husband's side, slightly related to the new Queen of Prussia, wife of the king with the hundred chamberlains. She had her portrait painted on enamel, after the process of Turquet of Mayerne. The Queen of Prussia had also a younger illegitimate sister, the Baroness Drika.

  One day, in the presence of Barkilphedro, Anne asked the Russian ambassador some question about this Drika.

  "They say she is rich?"

  "Very rich."

  "She has palaces?"

  "More magnificent than those of her sister, the queen."

  "Whom will she marry?"

  "A great lord, the Count Gormo."

  "Pretty?"

  "Charming."

  "Is she young?"

  "Very young."

  "As beautiful as the queen?"

  The ambassador lowered his voice, and replied: "More beautiful."

  "That is insolent," murmured Barkilphedro.

  The queen was silent then she exclaimed: "Those bastards!"

  Barkilphedro noticed the plural.

  Another time, when the queen was leaving the chapel, Barkilphedro kept pretty close to her Majesty, behind the two grooms of the almonry. Lord David Dirry-Moir, crossing the ranks of women, made a sensation by his handsome appearance. As he passed there was an explosion of feminine exclamations: "How elegant! How gallant! What a noble air! How handsome!"

  "How disagreeable!" grumbled the queen.

  Barkilphedro overheard this.

  It decided him.

  He could hurt the duchess without displeasing the queen.

  The first problem was solved; but now the second presented itself.

  What could he do to harm the duchess? What means did his wretched appointment offer to attain so difficult an object?

  Evidently none.

  * * *

  XII

  SCOTLAND, IRELAND, AND ENGLAND

  LET US NOTE a circumstance. Josiana had le tour.

  This is easy to understand when we reflect that she was, although illegitimate, the queen's sister--that is to say, a princely personage.

  To have le tour; what does it mean?

  Viscount St. John, otherwise Bolingbroke, wrote as follows to Thomas Leonard, Earl of Sussex: "Two things mark the great--in England, they have le tour; in France, le pour."

  When the King of France traveled, the courier of the court stopped at the halting place in the evening, and assigned lodgings to his Majesty's suite.

  Among the gentlemen some had an immense privilege. "They have le pour," says the Journal Historique, for the year 1694, page 6; "which means that the courier who marks the billets puts 'Pour' before their names--as 'Pour M. le Prince de Soubise'; instead of which, when he marks the lodging of one who is not royal, he does not put pour, but simply the name--as 'Le Due de Gesvres, le Due de Mazarin.'" This pour on a door indicated a prince or a favourite. A favourite is worse than a prince. The king granted le pour like a blue ribbon or a peerage.

  Avoir le tour in England was less glorious, but more real. It was a sign of intimate communication with the sovereign. Whoever might be, by birth or favour, in a position to receive direct communications from majesty, had in the wall of their bedchamber a shaft, in which was adjusted a bell. The bell sounded, the shaft opened, a royal missive appeared on a gold plate or on a cushion of velvet, and the shaft closed. This was intimate and solemn, the mysterious in the familiar. The shaft was used for no other purpose. The sound of the bell announced a royal message. No one saw who brought it. It was of course merely the page of the king or the queen. Leicester avait le tour under Elizabeth; Buckingham under James I. Josiana had it under Anne, though not much in favour. Never was a privilege more envie
d. This privilege entailed additional servility. The recipient was more of a servant. At court that which elevates degrades. Avoir le tour was said in French, this circumstance of English etiquette having, probably, been borrowed from some old French folly.

  Lady Josiana, a virgin peeress as Elizabeth had been a virgin queen, led--sometimes in the city, and sometimes in the country, according to the season--an almost princely life, and kept nearly a court at which Lord David was courtier, with many others. Not being married, Lord David and Lady Josiana could show themselves together in public without exciting ridicule, and they did so frequently. They often went to plays and racecourses in the same carriage, and sat together in the same box. They were chilled by the impending marriage, which was not only permitted to them, but imposed upon them; but they felt an attraction for each other's society. The privacy permitted to the engaged has a frontier easily passed. From this they abstained; that which is easy is in bad taste.

  The best pugilistic encounters then took place at Lambeth, a parish in which the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury has a palace, though the air there is unhealthy, and a rich library open at certain hours to decent people.

  One evening in winter there was in a meadow there, the gates of which were locked, a fight, at which Josiana, escorted by Lord David, was present. She had asked: "Are women admitted?" And David had responded: "Sunt fæminæ magnates!" Liberal translation, "Not shopkeepers." Literal translation, "Great ladies exist": A duchess goes everywhere!

  This is why Lady Josiana saw a boxing match.

  Lady Josiana made only this concession to propriety--she dressed as a man, a very common custom at that period. Women seldom traveled otherwise. Out of every six persons who traveled by the coach from Windsor, it was rare that there were not one or two among them who were women in male attire; a certain sign of high birth.

  Lord David, being in company with a woman, could not take any part in the match himself, and merely assisted as one of the audience.

  Lady Josiana betrayed her quality in one way; she had an opera glass, then used by gentlemen only.

  This encounter in the noble science was presided over by Lord Germaine, great-grandfather, or granduncle, of that Lord Germaine who, toward the end of the eighteenth century, was colonel, ran away in a battle, was afterward made Minister of War, and only escaped from the bolts of the enemy, to fall by a worse fate, shot through and through by the sarcasm of Sheridan. Many gentlemen were betting. Harry Bellew, of Carleton, who had claims to the extinct peerage of Bella-aqua, with Henry, Lord Hyde, member of Parliament for the borough of Dunhivid, which is also called Launceston; the Honourable Peregrine Betrie, member for the borough of Truro, with Sir Thomas Colpepper, member for Maidstone; the Laird of Lamyrbau, which is on the borders of Lothian, with Samuel Trefusis, of the borough of Penrhyn; Sir Bartholomew Gracedieu, of the borough of Saint Ives, with the Honourable Charles Bodville, who was called Lord Robartes, and who was Custos Rotulorum of the county of Cornwall; besides many others.

  Of the two combatants, one was an Irishman, named after his native mountain in Tipperary, Phelem-ghe-Madone, and the other a Scot, named Helmsgail. They represented the national pride of each country. Ireland and Scotland were about to set to; Erin was going to fisticuff Gajothel. So that the bets amounted to over forty thousand guineas, besides the stakes.

  The two champions were naked, excepting short breeches buckled over the hips, and spiked boots laced as high as the ankles.

  Helmsgail, the Scot, was a youth scarcely nineteen, but he had already had his forehead sewn up, for which reason they laid two and one-third to one on him. The month before he had broken the ribs and gouged out the eyes of a pugilist named Sixmileswater. This explained the enthusiasm he created. He had won his backers twelve thousand pounds. Besides having his forehead sewn up Helmsgail's jaw had been broken. He was neatly made and active. He was about the height of a small woman, upright, thick set, and of a stature low and threatening. And nothing had been lost of the advantages given him by nature; not a muscle which was not trained to its object, pugilism. His firm chest was compact, and brown and shining like brass. He smiled, and three teeth which he had lost added to this smile. His adversary was tall and overgrown--that is to say, weak.

  He was a man forty years of age, six feet high, with the chest of a hippopotamus, and a mild expression of face. The blow of his fist would break in the deck of a vessel, but he did not know how to use it. The Irishman, Phelem-ghe-Madone, was all surface, and seemed to have entered the ring to receive, rather than to give, blows. Only it was felt that he would take a deal of punishment. Like underdone beef, tough to chew, and impossible to swallow. He was what was termed, in local slang, raw meat. He squinted. He seemed resigned.

  The two men had passed the preceding night in the same bed, and had slept together. They had each drunk port wine from the same glass, to the three-inch mark.

  Each had his group of seconds-men of savage expression, threatening the umpires when it suited their side. Among Helmsgail's supporters was to be seen John Gromane, celebrated for having carried an ox on his back; and one called John Bray, who had once carried on his back ten bushels of flour, at fifteen pecks to the bushel, besides the miller himself, and had walked over two hundred paces under the weight. On the side of Phelem-ghe-Madone, Lord Hyde had brought from Launceston a certain Kilter, who lived at Green castle, and could throw a stone weighing twenty pounds to a greater height than the highest tower of the castle. These three men, Kilter, Bray, and Gromane, were Cornishmen by birth, and did honour to their county.

  The other seconds were brutal fellows, with broad backs, bowed legs, knotted fists, dull faces; ragged, fearing nothing, nearly all jail-birds. Many of them understood admirably how to make the police drunk. Each profession should have its peculiar talents.

  The field chosen was further off than the bear garden, where they formerly baited bears, bulls, and dogs; it was beyond the line of the furthest houses, by the side of the ruins of the Priory of Saint Mary Overy, dismantled by Henry VIII. The wind was northerly, and biting; a small rain fell, which was instantly frozen into ice. Some gentlemen present were evidently fathers of families, recognised as such by their putting up their umbrellas.

  On the side of Phelem-ghe-Madone was Colonel Moncreif, as umpire; and Kilter, as second, to support him on his knee.

  On the side of Helmsgail the Honourable Pughe Beaumaris was umpire, with Lord Desertum, from Kilcarry, as bottle-holder, to support him on his knee.

  The two combatants stood for a few seconds motionless in the ring, while the watches were being compared. They then approached each other and shook hands.

  Phelem-ghe-Madone said to Helmsgail: "I should prefer going home.

  Helmsgail answered, handsomely: "The gentlemen must not be disappointed on any account."

  Naked as they were, they felt the cold. Phelem-ghe-Madone shook. His teeth chattered.

  Doctor Eleanor Sharpe, nephew of the Archbishop of York, cried out to them: "Set to, boys; it will warm you."

  Those friendly words thawed them. They set to.

  But neither one nor the other was angry. There were three ineffectual rounds. The Rev. Dr.Gumdraith, one of the forty Fellows of All Souls' College, cried: "Spirit them up with gin."

  But the two umpires and the two seconds adhered to the rule. Yet it was exceedingly cold.

  First blood was claimed. They were again set face to face.

  They looked at each other, approached, stretched their arms, touched each other's fists, and then drew back. All at once, Helmsgail, the little man, sprang forward. The real fight had begun.

  Phelem-ghe-Madone was struck in the face, between the eyes. His whole face streamed with blood. The crowd cried: "Helmsgail has tapped his claret!" There was applause. Phelem-ghe-Madone, turning his arms like the sails of a windmill, struck out at random.

  The Honourable Peregrine Bertie said, "Blinded"; but lie was not blind yet.

  Then Helmsgail heard on all sides these encou
raging words: "Bung up his peepers!"

  On the whole, the two champions were really well matched; and, notwithstanding the unfavourable weather, it was seen that the fight would be a success. The great giant, Phelem-ghe-Madone, had to bear the inconveniences of his advantages; he moved heavily. His arms were massive as clubs; but his chest was a mass. His little opponent ran, struck, sprung, gnashed his teeth; redoubling vigour by quickness, from knowledge of the science. On the one side was the primitive blow of the fist--savage, uncultivated, in a state of ignorance; on the other side, the civilised blow of the fist. Helmsgail fought as much with his nerves as with his muscles, and with as much intention as force. Phelem-ghe-Madone was a kind of sluggish mauler--somewhat mauled himself, to begin with. It was art against nature. It was cultivated ferocity against barbarism.

  It was clear that the barbarian would be beaten, but not very quickly. Hence the interest.

  A little man against a big one, and the chances are in favour of the little one. The cat has the best of it with a dog. Goliath are always vanquished by Davids.

  A hail of exclamations followed the combatants.

  "Bravo, Helmsgail! Good! Well done, Highlander! Now, Phelem!"

  And the friends of Helmsgail repeated their benevolent exhortation: "Bung up his peepers!"

  Helmsgail did better. Rapidly bending down and back again, with the undulation of a serpent, he struck Phelem-ghe-Madone in the sternum. The colossus staggered.