The Man Who Laughs

by Victor Hugo

  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.

  * * *

  II

  THE RESEMBLANCE OF A PALACE TO A WOOD

  IN PALACES after the Italian fashion, and Corleone Lodge 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 wainscoting, Eastern silks; nooks and corners, som secret and dark as 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 con vented 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 wed closets, nominally wardrobes. They were called the "little Rooms." It was within them that evil deeds were hatched.

  When a Duke of Guise had to be killed, the pretty Présidente of Sylvecane abducted, or the cries of little girls brought thither by Rebel 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 Charolais hid Madame Courchamp, the wife of the Clerk of the Privy Council; Monsieur de Monthulé, the daughter of Haudry, the farmer of la Croix Saint Lenfroy; the Prince de Conti, the two beautiful baker women of l'Ile Adam; the Duke of Buckingham, poor Pennywell, etc. The deeds done there were such as were designated by the Roman law as committed vi, clam et precario--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, savouring 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 in 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 a labyrinth. 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 madrepore inlaying every palace, from Versailles downward, 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, blindfolded eyes, hands feeling in the dark, suppressed laughter, blind man's buff, hide-and-seek, while, at the same time, they suggested memories of the Atrides, of the Plantagenets, of the Medicis, the brutal knights of Eltz, of Rizzio, of Monaldeschi, 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 has been preserved underground in some sepulchres in Egypt, notably in the tomb of King Psammetichus, discovered by Passalacqua. The ancient poets have recorded the horrors of these suspicious buildings. Error circumflexes. Locus implicitus gyris.

  Gwynplaine was in the "little rooms" of Corleone Lodge.

  He was burning to be off, to get outside, to see Dea 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 toward his starting-point.

  Then, that he saw some one approaching. It was no one. It was only the reflection of himself in a mirror, dressed as a nobleman.

  That he?--Impossible! Then he recognised 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 quainter fittings. Here, a cabinet, painted and carved in 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 relief's of lace-work; tables covered with jet carvings, representing warriors, queens, and tritons armed with the scaly terminations of a hydra. Cut crystals combining prismatic elects 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, where floated a glimmer of ever-varying colours, like those on a pigeon's neck, were miniature mirrors or enormous beryls. 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 Geo. Gwynplaine 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:

  "Ho! Any one there?"

  No one answered.

  The rooms never came to an end. All was deserted, silent, splendid, sinister.

  It realised 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.

  Gwynplaine 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 a 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 Dea! 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 hell-hound, a minotaur, to keep the gates of this enchanted palace, I would annihilate slim. If an army, I would exterminate it. Deal Dea!"

  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.

  * *
*

  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 the 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. Vapour was rising from the water but not sufficient to cause it to hang in drops on the marble. The slender jet of water was like a supple wand of steel, bending at the slightest current of air.

  There was no furniture, except a chair-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, borrow their 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 there glistened a chased and gilt royal crown. Over it, and affixed to the wall, was a bell, silver gilt, if not of pure gold.

  Opposite the entrance of the chamber in which Gwynplaine 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 fairylike tenuity, was transparent, and did not interrupt the view.

  Through the centre of this web, where one might expect a spider, Gwynplaine saw a more formidable object--a naked woman.

  Yet not quite naked; for she was covered--covered from head to foot. 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. More treacherous and more perilous was this covering than naked beauty could have been. History has registered the procession of princesses and of great ladies between files of monks; under pretext of naked feet and of humility, the Duchess de Montpensier showed herself to all Paris in a lace shift, a wax taper in her hand as a corrective.

  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 bedchamber. This tiny dormitory was as a grotto of mirrors. Venetian glasses, close together, mounted with gold moldings, 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.

  She was sleeping with her head thrown back, one foot peeping from its covering, like the Succuba, above whose heads dreams flap their wings.

  Her lace pillow had fallen on the floor.

  Between her nakedness and the eye of the spectator were two obstacles--her chemise and the curtain of silver gauze; two transparencies. The room, rather an alcove than a chamber, was lighted with some reserve by the reflection from the bathroom. Perhaps the light was more modest than the woman.

  The bed had neither columns, nor dais, nor top; so that the woman, when she opened her eyes, could see herself reflected a thousand times in the mirrors above her head.

  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.

  This fashion of sleeping partly undressed came from Italy, and was derived from the Romans. "Sub clara nuda lacerna," says Horace.

  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 gold work were lined with that sparkling material called at Venice thread of glass--i.e. 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: Alcoranus Mahumedis.

  Gwynplaine 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 recognised her.

  Her eyes were closed, but her face was turned toward him. It was the duchess.

  She, the mysterious being in whom all the splendours 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 burned 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 saw her terrible in power.

  A woman naked is a woman armed.

  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 nereid, 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 Jungfrau. That which was represented by that unconscious brow; by that rich, disheveled hair; by the drooping lids; by those blue veins, dimly visible; by the sculptured roundness of her bosom, her hips, and her knees, indicated by delicate pink undulations seen through the folds of her drapery, was the divinity of a queenly sleep. Immodesty was merged in splendour. She was as calm in her nakedness as if she had the right to a godlike effrontery. She felt the security of an Olympian, who knew that she was 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 id her languor, 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.

  Gwynplaine shuddered.

  He admired her with an unhealthy and absorbing admiration, which ended in fear.

  Misfortunes never come singly. Gwynplaine 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, a sleeping 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 tempter tend to inspire him with vague aspirations and confused ideas, and overwhelm him with an 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 p
eer of England expressly for this duchess? Who had brought them together? Who was the dupe? Who 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? Gwynplaine 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, headlong 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.

  Deviations from right exist in man, in a latent state. There is an invisible tracing of vice, ready prepared, in our organisations. Even when we are innocent, and apparently pure, it exists within us. To be stainless is not to be faultless. Love is a law. Desire is a snare. There is a great difference between getting drunk once and habitual drunkenness. To desire a woman is the former; to desire women, the latter.