"The Man Who Laughs" ("L'Homme qui Rit") was called by its
author "A Romance of English History," and was written during
the period Hugo spent in exile in Guernsey. Like "The Toilers
of the Sea," its immediate predecessor, the main theme of the
story is human heroism, confronted with the superhuman tyranny
of blind chance. As a passionate cry on behalf of the tortured
and deformed, and the despised and oppressed of the world,
"The Man Who Laughs" is irresistible. Of it Hugo himself says
in the preface: "The true title of this book should be
'Aristocracy'"--inasmuch as it was intended as an arraignment
of the nobility for their vices, crimes, and selfishness. "The
Man Who Laughs" was first published in 1869.
_I.--The Child_
Ursus and Homo were old friends. Ursus was a man, Homo a wolf. The two
went about together from town to town, from country-side to
country-side. Ursus lived in a small van upon wheels which Homo drew by
day and guarded by night.
Ursus was a juggler, a ventriloquist, a doctor, and a misanthrope. He
was also something of a poet. The wolf and he had grown old together.
One bitterly cold night in January 1690, when Ursus and his van were at
Weymouth, a small vessel put off from Portland. It contained a dozen
people, and it left behind on the rock, and alone, a small boy.
The people were called Comprachicos. They bought children, and
understood how to mutilate and deform them, thus making them valuable
for exhibition at fairs. But an act of parliament had just been passed
to destroy the trade of the Comprachicos. Hence this flight from
Portland, and the forsaking of the child.
The vessel was wrecked and all on board perished off the coast of
France, but not before one of the passengers had inscribed on a piece of
parchment the name of the child and the name of a certain English
prisoner who could identify the child. This parchment was sealed in a
bottle and left to the waves.
The child watched the disappearance of the boat. He was stupefied at
finding himself alone; the men who had left him were the only people he
had ever known, and they had failed him. He did not know where he was,
but he knew that he must seek food and shelter. It was very cold and
dark, and the boy was barefoot, but he made his way across Portland and
the Chesil bank, and gained the mainland.
He found in the snow a footprint, and set out to follow it. Presently he
heard a groan, and came to the end of the footprints. The woman, a
beggar-woman who had lost her way, had uttered the groan. She had sunk
down in the snow, and was dead when the boy found her. He heard a cry,
and discovered a baby, wretched with cold, but still alive, clinging to
its dead mother's breast.
The boy took the baby in his arms. Forsaken himself, he had heard the
cry of distress, and wrapping the infant in his coat, he pursued his
journey in the teeth of the freezing wind. Four hours had passed since
the boat had sailed away; this baby was the first living person the boy
had met.
Struggling along with his burden, the boy reached Weymouth, then a
hamlet, and a suburb of the town and port of Melcombe Regis. He knocked
at doors and windows; no one stirred. For one thing, everybody was
asleep, and those who were awakened by the knock were afraid of opening
a window, for fear of some sick vagabond being outside.
Suddenly the boy heard in the darkness a grinding of teeth and a growl.
The silence was so dreadful that he was glad of the noise, and moved in
the direction whence it came. He saw a carriage on wheels, with smoke
coming out of the roof through a funnel, and a light within.
Something perceived his approach and growled furiously and tugged at its
chain. At the same time a head was put out of a window in the van.
"Be quiet there!" said the head, and the noise ceased. "Is anyone
there?" said the head again.
"Yes, I," said the child.
"You? Who are you?"
"I am very tired and cold and hungry," said the child.
"We can't all be as happy as a lord. Go away!" said the head, and the
window was shut down.
The child turned away in despair. But no sooner was the window shut than
the door at the top of the steps opened, and the same voice called out
from within the van, "Well, why don't you come in? What sort of a fellow
is this who is cold and hungry, and who stays outside?"
The boy climbed up the three steps with difficulty, carrying the baby,
and hesitated for a moment at the door. On the ceiling was written in
large letters: