The Man Who Laughs
Page 32
"Yes," murmured Gwynplaine, sadly; "the paradise of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor."
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XII
URSUS THE POET DRAGS ON URSUS THE PHILOSOPHER
THEN DEA entered. He looked at her, and saw nothing but her. This is love; one may be carried away for a moment by the importunity of some other idea, but the beloved one enters, and all that does not appertain to her presence immediately fades away, without her dreaming that perhaps she is effacing in us a world.
Let us mention a circumstance. In Chaos Vanquished, the word monstro, addressed to Gwynplaine, displeased Dea. Sometimes, with the smattering of Spanish, which every one knew at the period, she took it into her head to replace it by quiero, which signifies I wish it. Ursus tolerated, although not without an expression of impatience, this alteration in his text. He might have said to Dea, as in our day Moessard said to Vissat, Tu manques de respect au repertoire."
"The Laughing Man." Such was the form of Gwynplaine's fame.
His name, Gwynplaine, little known at any time, had disappeared under his nickname, as his face had disappeared under its grin. His popularity was like his visage--a mask.
His name, however, was to be read on a large placard in front of the Green Box, which offered the crowd the following narrative composed by Ursus:
"Here is to be seen Gwynplaine, who was deserted at the age of ten, on the night of the 29th of January, 1690, by the villainous Comprachicos, on the coast of Portland. The little boy has grown up, and is called no--w*cTHE LAUGHING MAN"
The existence of these mountebanks was an existence of lepers in a leper-house, and of the blessed in one of the Pleiades. There was every day a sudden transition from the noisy exhibition outside into the most complete seclusion. Every evening they made their exit from this world. They were like the dead, vanishing on condition of being reborn next day. A comedian is a revolving light, appearing one moment, disappearing the next, and existing for the public but as a phantom or a light, as his life circles round.
To exhibition succeeded isolation. When the performance was finished, while the audience were dispersing, and their murmur of satisfaction was dying away in the streets, the (green Box shut Up its platform, as a fortress does its drawbridge, and all communication with mankind was cut off. On one side the universe; on the other the caravan; and this caravan contained liberty, clear consciences, courage, devotion, innocence, happiness, love--all the constellations.
Blindness having sight and deformity beloved, sat side by side--hand pressing hand, brow touching brow, and whispered to each other, intoxicated with love.
The compartment in the middle served two purposes--for the public it was a stage, for the actors a dining-room.
Ursus, even delighting in comparisons, profited by the diversity of its uses to liken the central compartment in the Green Box to the arradach in an Abyssinian hut.
Ursus counted the receipts, then they supped. In love all is ideal. In love eating and drinking together afford opportunities for many sweet promiscuous touches, by which a mouthful becomes a kiss. They drank ale or wine from the same glass, as they might drink dew out of the same lily. Two souls in love are as full of grace as two birds. Gwynplaine waited on Dea, cut her bread, poured out her drink, approached her too close.
"Hum!" cried Ursus, and he turned away, his scolding melting into a smile.
The wolf supped under the table, heedless of everything which did not actually concern his bone.
Fibi and Vinos shared the repast, but gave little trouble. These vagabonds, half wild and as uncouth as ever, spoke in the gypsy language to each other.
At length Dea re-entered the women's apartment with Fibi and Vinos. Ursus chained up Homo under the Green Box; Gwynplaine looked after the horses, the lover becoming a groom, like a hero of Homer's or a paladin of Charlemagne's. At midnight all were asleep except the wolf, who, alive to his responsibility, now and then opened an eye.
The next morning they met again. They breakfasted together, generally on ham and tea. Tea was introduced into England in 1698. Then Dea, after the Spanish fashion, took a siesta, acting on the advice of Ursus, who considered her delicate, slept some hours, while Gwynplaine and Ursus did all the little jobs of work, without and within, which their wandering life made necessary.
Gwynplaine rarely wandered away from the Green Box, except on unfrequented roads and in solitary places. In cities he went out only at night, disguised in a large slouched hat, so as not to exhibit his face in the street.
His face was to be seen uncovered only on the stage.
The Green Box had frequented cities but little. Gwynplaine at twenty-four had never seen towns larger than the Cinque Ports. His renown, however, was increasing. It began to rise above the populace, and to percolate through higher ground. Among those who were fond of, and ran after, strange foreign curiosities and prodigies, it was known that there was somewhere in existence, leading a wandering life, now here, now there, an extraordinary monster. They talked about him, they sought him, they asked where he was? The laughing man was becoming decidedly famous. A certain lustre was reflected on Chaos Vanquished.
So much so, that, one day, Ursus, being ambitious, said:
"We must go to London."
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BOOK 3
THE BEGINNING OF THE FISSURE
I
THE TADCASTER INN
AT THAT PERIOD London had but one bridge--London Bridge--with houses built upon it. This bridge united London to Southwark, a suburb which was paved with flint pebbles taken from the Thames, divided into small streets and alleys, like the city, with a great number of buildings, houses, dwellings, and wooden huts jammed together, a pell-mell mixture of combustible matter, amid which fire might take its pleasure, as 1666 had proved.
Southwark was then pronounced Soudric, it is now pronounced Sousouorc, or near it; indeed, an excellent way of pronouncing English names is not to pronounce them thus, for Southampton, say, Stpntn.
It was the time when "Chatham" was pronounced je t'aime.
The Southwark of those days resembles the Southwark of to-day about as much as Vaugirard resembles Marseilles. It was a village--it is a city. Nevertheless, a considerable trade was carried on there. The long old Cyclopean wall by the Thames was studded with rings. to which were anchored the river barges.
This wall was called the Effroc Wall, or Effroc Stone. York, in Saxon times, was called Effroc. The legend related that a Duke of Effroc had been drowned at the foot of the wall. Certainly the water there was deep enough to drown a duke. At low water it was six good fathoms. The excellence of this little anchorage attracted sea vessels, and the old Dutch tub, called the Vograat, came to anchor at the Effroc Stone. The Vograat made the crossing from London to Rotterdam, and from Rotterdam to London, punctually once a week. Other barges started twice a day, either for Deptford, Greenwich, or Gravesend, going down with one tide and returning with the next. The voyage to Gravesend, though twenty miles, was performed in six hours.
The Vograat was of a model now no longer to be seen, except in naval museums. It was almost a junk. At that time, while France copied Greece, Holland copied China. The Vograat, a heavy hull with two masts, was partitioned perpendicularly, so as to be water-tight, having a narrow hold in the middle, and two decks, one fore and the other aft. The decks were flush, as in the iron turret-vessels of the present day, the advantage of which is that in foul weather the force of the wave is diminished, and the inconvenience of which is that the crew is exposed to the action of the sea, owing to there being no bulwarks. There was nothing to save any one on board from falling over. Hence the frequent falls overboard and the losses of men, which have caused the model to fall into disuse. The Vograat went to Holland direct, and did not even call at Gravesend.
An old ridge of stones, rock as much as masonry, ran along the bottom of the Effroc Stone, and being passable at all tides, was used as a passage on board the ships moored to the wall. This wall was, at i
ntervals, furnished with steps. It marked the southern point of Southwark. An embankment at the top allowed the passers-by to rest their elbows on the Effroc Stone, as on the parapet of a quay. Thence they could look down on the Thames; on the other side of the water London dwindled away into fields.
Up the river from the Effroc Stone, at the bend of the Thames which is nearly opposite St. James's Palace, behind Lambeth House, not far from the walk then called Foxhall (Vauxhall, probably), there was, between a pottery in which they made porcelain and a glass-blower's where they made ornamental bottles, one of those large uninclosed spaces covered with grass, called formerly in France cultures and mails, and in England bowling-greens. Of bowling-green, a green on which to roll a ball, the French have made boulingrin. Folks have this green inside their houses nowadays, only it is put on the table, is a cloth instead of turf, and is called billiards.
It is difficult to see why, having boulevard (boule-vert), which is the same word as bowling-green, the French should have adopted boulingrin. It is surprising that a person so grave as the Dictionary should indulge in useless luxuries.
The bowling-green of Southwark was called Tarrinzeau Field, because it had belonged to the Barons Hastings, who are also Barons Tarrinzeau and Mauchline From the Lords Hastings the Tarrinzeau Field passed to the Lords Tadcaster, who had made a speculation of it just as at a later date a Duke of Orleans made a speculation of the Palais Royal. Tarrinzeau Field afterward became waste ground and parochial property.
Tarrinzeau Field was a kind of permanent fair ground covered with jugglers, athletes, mountebanks, and music on platforms; and always full of "fools going to look at the devil," as Archbishop Sharpe said. To look at the devil means to go to the play.
Several inns, which harboured the public and sent them to these outlandish exhibitions, were established in this place, which kept holiday all the year round, and thereby prospered. These inns were simply stalls, inhabited only during the day. In the evening the tavern-keeper put into his pocket the key of the tavern and went away. One only of these inns was a house, the only dwelling in the whole bowling-green, the caravans of the fair ground having the power of disappearing at any moment, considering the absence of any ties in the vagabond life of all mountebanks. Mountebanks have no roots to their lives.
This inn, called the Tadcaster, after the former owners of the ground, was an inn rather than a tavern, a hotel rather than an inn, and had a carriage entrance and a large yard.
The carriage entrance, opening from the court on the field, was the legitimate door of the Tadcaster Inn, which had, beside it, a small bastard door, by which people entered. To call it bastard is to mean preferred. This lower door was the only one used. It opened into the tavern, properly so called, which was a large taproom, full of tobacco smoke, furnished with tables, and low in the ceiling. Over it was a window on the first floor, to the iron bars of which was fastened and hung the sign of the inn. The principal door was barred and bolted, and always remained closed.
It was thus necessary to cross the tavern to enter the courtyard.
At the Tadcaster Inn there was a landlord and a boy. The landlord was called Master Nicless, the boy Govicum. Master Nicless--Nicholas, doubtless, which the English habit of contraction had made Nicless--was a miserly widower, and one who respected and feared the laws. As to his appearance, he had bushy eyebrows and hairy hands. The boy, aged fourteen, who poured out drink, and answered to the name of Govicum, wore a merry face and an apron. Iris hair was cropped close, a sign of servitude.