The Man Who Laughs

by Victor Hugo

  "Which sum," insisted the sheriff, "shall be paid in doitkins, suskins, and galihalpens, the only case in which this money is to pass, according to the terms of the statute of abolition, in the third of Henry V, and you will have the right and enjoyment of scortum ante mortem, and then be hanged on the gibbet. Such are the advantages of confession. Does it please you to answer to justice?"

  The sheriff ceased and waited.

  The prisoner lay motionless.

  The sheriff resumed:

  "Man, silence is a refuge in which there is more risk than safety. The obstinate man is damnable and vicious. He who is silent before justice is a felon to the crown. Do not persist in this unfilial disobedience. Think of her Majesty. Do not oppose our gracious queen. When I speak to you, answer her; be a loyal subject."

  The patient rattled in the throat.

  The sheriff continued:

  "So, after the seventy-two hours of the proof, here we are at the fourth day. Man, this is the decisive day. The fourth day has been fixed by the law for the confrontation."

  "Quarta die, frontem ad frontem adduce," growled the sergeant.

  "The wisdom of the law," continued the sheriff, "has chosen this last hour to hold what our ancestors called 'judgment by mortal cold,' seeing that it is the moment when men are believed on their yes or their no."

  The sergeant on the right confirmed his words:

  "Judicium pro frodmortell, quod homines credendi sint per suum ya et per suum na. Charter of King Adelstan, volume the first, page one hundred and sixty-three."

  There was a moment's pause; then the sheriff bent his stern face toward the prisoner.

  "Man, who art lying there on the ground----"

  He paused.

  "Man," he cried, "do you hear me?"

  The man did not move.

  "In the name of the law," said the sheriff, "open your eyes."

  The man's lids remained closed.

  The sheriff turned to the doctor, who was standing on his left.

  "Doctor, give your diagnostic."

  "Probe, da diagnosticum," said the sergeant.

  The doctor came down with magisterial stiffness, approached the man, leaned over him, put his ear close to the mouth of the sufferer, felt the pulse at the wrist, the armpit, and the thigh, then rose again.

  "Well?" said the sheriff.

  "He can still hear," said the doctor.

  "Can he see?" inquired the sheriff.

  The doctor answered, "He can see."

  On a sign from the sheriff, the justice of the quorum and the wapentake advanced. The wapentake placed himself near the head of the patient. The justice of the quorum stood behind Gwynplaine.

  The doctor retired a step behind the pillars.

  Then the sheriff, raising the bunch of roses as a priest about to sprinkle holy water, called to the prisoner in a loud voice, and became awful.

  "Oh, wretched man, speak! The law supplicates before she exterminates you. You, who feign to be mute, remember how mute is the tomb. You, who appear deaf, remember that damnation is more deaf. Think of the death which is worse than your present state. Repent: you are about to be left alone in this cell. Listen! you who are my likeness; for I am a man! Listen, my brother, because I am a Christian! Listen, my son, because I am an old man! Look at me; for I am the master of your sufferings, and I am about to become terrible. The terrors of the law make up the majesty of the judge. Believe that I myself tremble before myself. My own power alarms me. Do not drive me to extremities. I am filled by the holy malice of chastisement. Feel, then, wretched man, the salutary and honest fear of justice, and obey me. The hour of confrontation is come, and you must answer. Do not harden yourself in resistance. Do not that which will be irrevocable. Think that your end belongs to me. Half man, half corpse, listen! At least, let it not be your determination to expire here, exhausted for hours, days, and weeks, by frightful agonies of hunger and foulness, under the weight of those stones, alone in this cell, deserted, forgotten, annihilated, left as food for the rats and the weasels, gnawed by creatures of darkness while the world comes and goes, buys and sells, while carriages roll in the streets above your head. Unless you would continue to draw painful breath without remission in the depths of this despair--grinding your teeth, weeping, blaspheming--without a doctor to appease the anguish of your wounds, without a priest to offer a divine draught of water to your soul. Oh! if only that you may not feel the frightful froth of the sepulchre ooze slowly from your lips, I adjure and conjure you to hear me. I call you to your own aid. Have pity on yourself. Do what is asked of you. Give way to justice. Open your eyes, and see if you recognise this man!"

  The prisoner neither turned his head nor lifted his eyelids.

  The sheriff cast a glance first at the justice of the quorum and then at the wapentake.

  The justice of the quorum, taking Gwynplaine's hat and mantle, put his hands on his shoulders and placed him in the light by the side of the chained man. The face of Gwynplaine stood out clearly from the surrounding shadow in its strange relief.

  At the same time the wapentake bent down, took the man's temples between his hands, turned the inert head toward Gwynplaine, and with his thumbs and his first fingers lifted the closed eyelids.

  The prisoner saw Gwynplaine.

  Then, raising his head voluntarily, and opening his eyes wide, he looked at him.

  He quivered as much as a man can quiver with a mountain on his breast, and then cried out: "'Tis he! Yes; 'tis he!"

  And he burst into a horrible laugh.

  "'Tis he!" he repeated.

  Then his head fell back on the ground, and he closed his eyes again.

  "Registrar, take that down," said the justice.

  Gwynplaine, though terrified, had, up to that moment, preserved a calm exterior. The cry of the prisoner--"'Tis he!" overwhelmed him completely. The words "Registrar, take that down!" froze him. It seemed to him that a scoundrel had dragged him to his fate without his being able to guess why, and that the man's unintelligible confession was closing round him like the clasp of an iron collar. He fancied himself side by side with him in the posts of the same pillory. Gwynplaine lost his footing in his terror and protested. He began to stammer incoherent words in the deep distress of an innocent man, and quivering, terrified, lost, uttered the first random outcries that rose to his mind, and words of agony like aimless projectiles.

  "It is not true. It was not me. I do not know the man. He can not know me, since I do not know him. I have my part to play this evening. What do you want of me? I demand my liberty. Nor is that all. Why have I been brought into this dungeon? Are there laws no longer? You may as well say at once that there are no laws. My Lord Judge, I repeat that it is not I. I am innocent of all that can be said. I know I am. I wish to go away. This is not justice. There is nothing between this man and me. You can find out. My life is not hidden up. They came and took me away like a thief. Why did they come like that? How could I know the man? I am a traveling mountebank, who plays farces at fairs and mullets. I am the Laughing Man. Plenty of people have been to see me. We are staying in Tarrinzeau Field. I have been earning an honest livelihood these fifteen years. I am five-and-twenty. I lodge at the Tadcaster Inn. I am called Gwynplaine. My lord, let me out. You should not take advantage of the low estate of the unfortunate. Have compassion on a man who has done no harm, who is without protection, and without defence. You have before you a poor mountebank."

  "I have before me," said the sheriff, "Lord Fermain Clancharlie, Baron Clancharlie and Hunkerville, Marquis of Corleone in Sicily, and a peer of England."

  Rising, and offering his chair to Gwynplaine, the sheriff added:

  "My lord, will your lordship deign to seat yourself?"

  * * *

  BOOK 5

  THE SEA AND FATE ARE MOVED BY THE SAME BREATH

  I

  THE DURABILITY OF FRAGILE THINGS

  DESTINY SOMETIMES proffers us a glass of madness to drink. A hand is thrust out of the mist
, and suddenly hands us the mysterious cup in which is contained the latent intoxication.

  Gwynplaine did not understand.

  He looked behind him to see who it was who had been addressed.

  A sound may be too sharp to be perceptible to the ear; an emotion too acute conveys no meaning to the mind. There is a limit to comprehension as well as to hearing.

  The wapentake and the justice of the quorum approached Gwynplaine, and took him by the arms. He felt himself placed in the chair which the sheriff had just vacated. He let it be done without seeking an explanation.

  When Gwynplaine was seated, the justice of the quorum and the wapentake retired a few steps, and stood upright and motionless behind the seat.

  Then the sheriff placed his bunch of roses on the stone table, put on spectacles which the secretary gave him, drew from the bundles of papers which covered the table a sheet of parchment, yellow, green, torn, and jagged in places, which seemed to have been folded in very small folds, and of which one side was covered with writing; standing under the light of the lamp, he held the sheet close to his eyes, and in his most solemn tone read as follows:

  "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

  "This present day, the twenty-ninth of January, one thousand six hundred and ninetieth year of Our Lord.

  "Has been wickedly deserted on the desert coast of Portland, with the intention of allowing him to perish of hunger, of cold, and of solitude, a child ten years old.

  "That child was sold at the age of two years, by order of his most gracious Majesty, King James the Second.

  "That child is Lord Fermain Clancharlie, the only legitimate son of Lord Linnæus Clancharlie, Baron Clancharlie and Hunkerville, Marquis of Corleone in Sicily, a peer of England, and of Ann Bradshaw, his wife, both deceased. That child is the inheritor of the estates and titles of his father. For this reason he was sold, mutilated, disfigured, and put out of the way by desire of his most gracious Majesty.

  "That child was brought up and trained to be a mountebank at markets and fairs.

  "He was sold at the age of two, after the death of the peer, his father, and ten pounds sterling were given to the king as his purchase-money, as well as for divers concessions, tolerations, and immunities.

  "Lord Fermain Clancharlie, at the age of two years, was bought by me, the undersigned, who write these lines, and mutilated and disfigured by a Fleming of Flanders, called Hardquanonne, who alone is acquainted with the secrets and modes of treatment of Doctor Conquest.

  "The child was destined by us to be a laughing mask, masca ridens.

  "With this intention Hardquanonne performed on him the operation, Bucca fissa usque ad aures, which stamps an everlasting laugh upon the face.

  "The child, by means known only to Hardquanonne, was put to sleep and made insensible during its performance, knowing nothing of the operation which he underwent.

  "He does not know that he is Lord Clancharlie.

  "He answers to the name of Gwynplaine.

  "This fact is the result of his youth, and the slight powers of memory he could have had when he was bought and sold, being then barely two years old.

  "Hardquanonne is the only person who knows how to perform the operation Bucca fissa, and the said child is the only living subject upon which it has been essayed.

  "The operation is so unique and singular that, though after long years this child should have come to be an old man instead of a child, and his black locks should have turned white, he would be immediately recognised by Hardquanonne.

  "At the time that I am writing this, Hardquanonne, who has perfect knowledge of all the facts, and participated as principal therein, is detained in the prisons of his highness the Prince of Orange, commonly called King William III. Hardquanonne was apprehended and seized as being one of the band of Comprachicos or Cheylas. He is imprisoned in the dungeon of Chatham.

  "It was in Switzerland, near the Lake of Geneva, between Lausanne and Vevey, in the very house in which his father and mother died, that the child was, in obedience with the orders of the king, sold and given up by the last servant of the deceased Lord Linnæus, which servant died soon after his master, so that this secret and delicate matter is now unknown to any one on earth, excepting Hardquanonne, who is in the dungeon of Chatham, and ourselves, now about to perish.

  "We, the undersigned, brought up and kept, for eight years, for professional purposes the little lord bought by us of the king.

  "To-day, flying from England to avoid Hardquanonne's ill fortune, our fear of the penal indictments prohibitions, and fulminations of Parliament has induced us to desert, at nightfall, on the coast of Portland, the said child Gwynplaine, who is Lord Fermain Clancharlie.

  "Now, we have sworn secrecy to the king, but not to God.

  "To-night, at sea, overtaken by a violent tempest by the will of Providence, full of despair and distress, kneeling before Him who could save our lives, and may, per haps, be willing to save our souls, having nothing more to hope from men, but everything to fear from God, having for only anchor and resource repentance of our bad actions, resigned to death, and content if Divine justice be satisfied, humble, penitent, and beating our breasts, we make this declaration, and confide and deliver it to the furious ocean to use as it best may according to the will of God. And may the Holy Virgin aid us, Amen. And we attach our signatures."

  The sheriff interrupted, saying: "Here are the signatures. All in different handwritings." And he resumed.

  "Doctor Gernardus Geestemunde.--Asuncion.--A cross, and at the side of it,

  Barbara Fermoy, from Tyrryf Isle, in the Hebrides.--Gaïzdorra, Captain.--Giangirate.--Jacques Quartourze, alias le Narbonnais.--Luc-Pierre Capgaroupe, from the galleys of Mahon."

  The sheriff, after a pause, resumed:

  "A note written in the same hand as the text and the first signature."

  And he read:

  "Of the three men comprising the crew, the skipper having been swept off by a wave, there remain but two, and we have signed. Galdeazun.--Ave Maria, Thief." The sheriff, interspersing his reading with his own observations, continued:

  "At the bottom of the sheet is written:

  "At sea, on board of the Matutina, Biscay hooker, from the Gulf de Pasages."

  "This sheet," added the sheriff, "is a legal document, bearing the mark of King James the Second. On the margin of the declaration, and in the same handwriting, there is this note:

  "The present declaration is written by us on the back of the royal order, which was given us as our receipt when we bought the child. Turn the leaf and the order will be seen."

  The sheriff turned the parchment, and raised it in his right hand to expose it to the light.

  A blank page was seen, if the word blank can be applied to a thing so mouldy, and in the middle of the page three words were written, two Latin words, Jussu regis, and a signature, Jeffreys.

  "Jussu regis, Jeffreys," said the sheriff, passing from a grave voice to a clear one.

  Gwynplaine was as a man on whose head a tile falls from the palace of dreams.

  He began to speak like one who speaks unconsciously.

  "Gernardus, yes, the doctor. An old, sad-looking man. I was afraid of him. Gaïzdorra, Captain, that means chief. There were women, Asuncion, and the other. And then the Provençal. His name was Capgaroupe. He used to drink out of a flat bottle on which there was a name written in red."

  "Behold it," said the sheriff.

  He placed on the table something which the secretary had just taken out of the bag.

  It was a gourd, with handles like ears, covered with wicker. This bottle had evidently seen service and had sojourned in the water. Shells and seaweed adhered to it. It was incrusted and damascened over with the rust of the ocean. There was a ring of tar round its neck, showing that it had been hermetically sealed. Now it was unsealed and open. They had, however, replaced in the flask a sort of bung made of tarred oakum, which had been used to cork it.

  "It
was in this bottle," said the sheriff, "that the men about to perish placed the declaration which I have just read. This message addressed to justice has been faithfully delivered by the sea."

  The sheriff increased the majesty of his tones, and continued:

  "In the same way that Harrow Hill produces excellent wheat, which is turned into fine flour for the royal table, so the sea renders every service in its power to England, and when a nobleman is lost finds and restores him."

  Then he resumed:

  "On this flask, as you say, there is a name written in red.

  He raised his voice, turning to the motionless prisoner:

  "Your name, malefactor, is here. Such are the hidden channels by which truth, swallowed up in the gulf of human actions, floats to the surface."

  The sheriff took the gourd, and turned to the light one of its sides, which had, no doubt, been cleaned for the ends of justice. Between the interstices of wicker was a narrow line of red reed, blackened here and there by the action of the water and of time.

  The reed, notwithstanding some breakages, traced distinctly in the wicker-work these twelve letters--Hardquanonne.

  Then the sheriff, resuming that monotonous tone of voice which resembles nothing else, and which may be termed a judicial accent, turned toward the sufferer.

  "Hardquanonne! when by us, the sheriff, this bottle on which is your name, was for the first time shown, exhibited, and presented to you, you at once, and willingly, recognised it as having belonged to you. Then, the parchment being read to you which was contained, folded and enclosed with in it, you would say no more; and in the hope, doubtless, that the lost child would never be recovered, and that you would escape punishment, you refused to answer. As the result of your refusal, you have had applied to you the peine forte et dure; and the second reading of the said parchment, on which is written the declaration and confession of your accomplices, was made to you--but in vain.

  "This is the fourth day, and that which is legally set apart for the confrontation, and he who was deserted on the twenty-ninth of January, one thousand six hundred and ninety, having been brought into your presence, your devilish hope has vanished, you have broken silence, and recognised your victim."