L'homme qui rit. English

  CHAPTER II.

  BARKILPHEDRO, HAVING AIMED AT THE EAGLE, BRINGS DOWN THE DOVE.

  The step of the little van was down--the door ajar--there was no oneinside. The faint light which broke through the pane in front sketchedthe interior of the caravan vaguely in melancholy chiaroscuro. Theinscriptions of Ursus, gloryifying the grandeur of Lords, showeddistinctly on the worn-out boards, which were both the wall without andthe wainscot within. On a nail, near the door, Gwynplaine saw hisesclavine and his cape hung up, as they hang up the clothes of a corpsein a dead-house. Just then he had neither waistcoat nor coat on.

  Behind the van something was laid out on the deck at the foot of themast, which was lighted by the lantern. It was a mattress, of which hecould make out one corner. On this mattress some one was probably lying,for he could see a shadow move.

  Some one was speaking. Concealed by the van, Gwynplaine listened. It wasUrsus's voice. That voice, so harsh in its upper, so tender in itslower, pitch; that voice, which had so often upbraided Gwynplaine, andwhich had taught him so well, had lost the life and clearness of itstone. It was vague and low, and melted into a sigh at the end of everysentence. It bore but a confused resemblance to his natural and firmvoice of old. It was the voice of one in whom happiness is dead. A voicemay become a ghost.

  He seemed to be engaged in monologue rather than in conversation. We arealready aware, however, that soliloquy was a habit with him. It was forthat reason that he passed for a madman.

  Gwynplaine held his breath, so as not to lose a word of what Ursussaid, and this was what he heard.

  "This is a very dangerous kind of craft, because there are no bulwarksto it. If we were to slip, there is nothing to prevent our goingoverboard. If we have bad weather, we shall have to take her below, andthat will be dreadful. An awkward step, a fright, and we shall have arupture of the aneurism. I have seen instances of it. O my God! what isto become of us? Is she asleep? Yes. She is asleep. Is she in a swoon?No. Her pulse is pretty strong. She is only asleep. Sleep is a reprieve.It is the happy blindness. What can I do to prevent people walking abouthere? Gentlemen, if there be anybody on deck, I beg of you to make nonoise. Do not come near us, if you do not mind. You know a person indelicate health requires a little attention. She is feverish, you see.She is very young. 'Tis a little creature who is rather feverish. I putthis mattress down here so that she may have a little air. I explain allthis so that you should be careful. She fell down exhausted on themattress as if she had fainted. But she is asleep. I do hope that no onewill awake her. I address myself to the ladies, if there are anypresent. A young girl, it is pitiful! We are only poor mountebanks, butI beg a little kindness, and if there is anything to pay for not makinga noise, I will pay it. I thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Is there anyone there? No? I don't think there is. My talk is mere loss of breath.So much the better. Gentlemen, I thank you, if you are there; and Ithank you still more if you are not. Her forehead is all inperspiration. Come, let us take our places in the galleys again. Put onthe chain. Misery is come back. We are sinking again. A hand, thefearful hand which we cannot see, but the weight of which we feel everupon us, has suddenly struck us back towards the dark point of ourdestiny. Be it so. We will bear up. Only I will not have her ill. I mustseem a fool to talk aloud like this, when I am alone; but she must feelshe has some one near her when she awakes. What shall I do if somebodyawakes her suddenly! No noise, in the name of Heaven! A sudden shockwhich would awake her suddenly would be of no use. It will be a pity ifanybody comes by. I believe that every one on board is asleep. Thanks beto Providence for that mercy. Well, and Homo? Where is he, I wonder? Inall this confusion I forgot to tie him up. I do not know what I amdoing. It is more than an hour since I have seen him. I suppose he hasbeen to look for his supper somewhere ashore. I hope nothing hashappened to him. Homo! Homo!"

  Homo struck his tail softly on the planks of the deck.

  "You are there. Oh! you are there! Thank God for that. If Homo had beenlost, it would have been too much to bear. She has moved her arm.Perhaps she is going to awake. Quiet, Homo! The tide is turning. Weshall sail directly. I think it will be a fine night. There is no wind:the flag droops. We shall have a good passage. I do not know what moonit is, but there is scarcely a stir in the clouds. There will be noswell. It will be a fine night. Her cheek is pale; it is only weakness!No, it is flushed; it is only the fever. Stay! It is rosy. She is well!I can no longer see clearly. My poor Homo, I no longer see distinctly.So we must begin life afresh. We must set to work again. There are onlywe two left, you see. We will work for her, both of us! She is ourchild, Ah! the vessel moves! We are off! Good-bye, London! Good evening!good-night! To the devil with horrible London!"

  He was right. He heard the dull sound of the unmooring as the vesselfell away from the wharf. Abaft on the poop a man, the skipper, nodoubt, just come from below, was standing. He had slipped the hawser andwas working the tiller. Looking only to the rudder, as befitted thecombined phlegm of a Dutchman and a sailor, listening to nothing but thewind and the water, bending against the resistance of the tiller, as heworked it to port or starboard, he looked in the gloom of the after-decklike a phantom bearing a beam upon its shoulder. He was alone there. Solong as they were in the river the other sailors were not required. In afew minutes the vessel was in the centre of the current, with which shedrifted without rolling or pitching. The Thames, little disturbed by theebb, was calm. Carried onwards by the tide, the vessel made rapid way.Behind her the black scenery of London was fading in the mist.

  Ursus went on talking.

  "Never mind, I will give her digitalis. I am afraid that delirium willsupervene. She perspires in the palms of her hands. What sin can we havecommitted in the sight of God? How quickly has all this misery come uponus! Hideous rapidity of evil! A stone falls. It has claws. It is thehawk swooping on the lark. It is destiny. There you lie, my sweet child!One comes to London. One says: What a fine city! What fine buildings!Southwark is a magnificent suburb. One settles there. But now they arehorrid places. What would you have me do there? I am going to leave.This is the 30th of April. I always distrusted the month of April. Thereare but two lucky days in April, the 5th and the 27th; and four unluckyones--the 10th, the 20th, the 29th, and the 30th. This has been placedbeyond doubt by the calculations of Cardan. I wish this day were over.Departure is a comfort. At dawn we shall be at Gravesend, and to-morrowevening at Rotterdam. Zounds! I will begin life again in the van. Wewill draw it, won't we, Homo?"

  A light tapping announced the wolf's consent.

  Ursus continued,--

  "If one could only get out of a grief as one gets out of a city! Homo,we must yet be happy. Alas! there must always be the one who is no more.A shadow remains on those who survive. You know whom I mean, Homo. Wewere four, and now we are but three. Life is but a long loss of thosewhom we love. They leave behind them a train of sorrows. Destiny amazesus by a prolixity of unbearable suffering; who then can wonder that theold are garrulous? It is despair that makes the dotard, old fellow!Homo, the wind continues favourable. We can no longer see the dome ofSt. Paul's. We shall pass Greenwich presently. That will be six goodmiles over. Oh! I turn my back for ever on those odious capitals, fullof priests, of magistrates, and of people. I prefer looking at theleaves rustling in the woods. Her forehead is still in perspiration. Idon't like those great violet veins in her arm. There is fever in them.Oh! all this is killing me. Sleep, my child. Yes; she sleeps."

  Here a voice spoke: an ineffable voice, which seemed from afar, andappeared to come at once from the heights and the depths--a voicedivinely fearful, the voice of Dea.

  All that Gwynplaine had hitherto felt seemed nothing. His angel spoke.It seemed as though he heard words spoken from another world in aheaven-like trance.

  The voice said,--

  "He did well to go. This world was not worthy of him. Only I must gowith him. Father! I am not ill; I heard you speak just now. I am verywell, quite well. I was asleep. Father, I am going to be happy."
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  "My child," said Ursus in a voice of anguish, "what do you mean bythat?"

  The answer was,--

  "Father, do not be unhappy."

  There was a pause, as if to take breath, and then these few words,pronounced slowly, reached Gwynplaine.

  "Gwynplaine is no longer here. It is now that I am blind. I knew notwhat night was. Night is absence."

  The voice stopped once more, and then continued,--

  "I always feared that he would fly away. I felt that he belonged toheaven. He has taken flight suddenly. It was natural that it should endthus. The soul flies away like a bird. But the nest of the soul is inthe height, where dwells the Great Loadstone, who draws all towards Him.I know where to find Gwynplaine. I have no doubt about the way. Father,it is yonder. Later on, you will rejoin us, and Homo, too."

  Homo, hearing his name pronounced, wagged his tail softly against thedeck.

  "Father!" resumed the voice, "you understand that once Gwynplaine is nolonger here, all is over. Even if I would remain, I could not, becauseone must breathe. We must not ask for that which is impossible. I waswith Gwynplaine. It was quite natural, I lived. Now Gwynplaine is nomore, I die. The two things are alike: either he must come or I must go.Since he cannot come back, I am going to him. It is good to die. It isnot at all difficult. Father, that which is extinguished here shall berekindled elsewhere. It is a heartache to live in this world. It cannotbe that we shall always be unhappy. When we go to what you call thestars, we shall marry, we shall never part again, and we shall love,love, love; and that is what is God."

  "There, there, do not agitate yourself," said Ursus.

  The voice continued,--

  "Well, for instance; last year. In the spring of last year we weretogether, and we were happy. How different it is now! I forget whatlittle village we were in, but there were trees, and I heard the linnetssinging. We came to London; all was changed. This is no reproach, mind.When one comes to a fresh place, how is one to know anything about it?Father, do you remember that one day there was a woman in the great box;you said: 'It is a duchess.' I felt sad. I think it might have beenbetter had we kept to the little towns. Gwynplaine has done right,withal. Now my turn has come. Besides, you have told me yourself, thatwhen I was very little, my mother died, and that I was lying on theground with the snow falling upon me, and that he, who was also verylittle then, and alone, like myself, picked me up, and that it was thusthat I came to be alive; so you cannot wonder that now I should feel itabsolutely necessary to go and search the grave to see if Gwynplaine bein it. Because the only thing which exists in life is the heart; andafter life, the soul. You take notice of what I say, father, do you not?What is moving? It seems as if we are in something that is moving, yet Ido not hear the sound of the wheels."

  After a pause the voice added,--

  "I cannot exactly make out the difference between yesterday and to-day.I do not complain. I do not know what has occurred, but something musthave happened."

  These words, uttered with deep and inconsolable sweetness, and with asigh which Gwynplaine heard, wound up thus,--

  "I must go, unless he should return."

  Ursus muttered gloomily: "I do not believe in ghosts."

  He went on,--

  "This is a ship. You ask why the house moves; it is because we are onboard a vessel. Be calm; you must not talk so much. Daughter, if youhave any love for me, do not agitate yourself, it will make youfeverish. I am so old, I could not bear it if you were to have anillness. Spare me! do not be ill!"

  Again the voice spoke,--

  "What is the use of searching the earth, when we can only find inheaven?"

  Ursus replied, with a half attempt at authority,--

  "Be calm. There are times when you have no sense at all. I order you torest. After all, you cannot be expected to know what it is to rupture ablood-vessel. I should be easy if you were easy. My child, do somethingfor me as well. If he picked you up, I took you in. You will make meill. That is wrong. You must calm yourself, and go to sleep. All willcome right. I give you my word of honour, all will come right. Besides,it is very fine weather. The night might have been made on purpose.To-morrow we shall be at Rotterdam, which is a city in Holland, at themouth of the Meuse."

  "Father," said the voice, "look here; when two beings have always beentogether from infancy, their state should not be disturbed, or deathmust come, and it cannot be otherwise. I love you all the same, but Ifeel that I am no longer altogether with you, although I am as yet notaltogether with him."

  "Come! try to sleep," repeated Ursus.

  The voice answered,--

  "I shall have sleep enough soon."

  Ursus replied, in trembling tones,--

  "I tell you that we are going to Holland, to Rotterdam, which is acity."

  "Father," continued the voice, "I am not ill; if you are anxious aboutthat, you may rest easy. I have no fever. I am rather hot; it is nothingmore."

  Ursus stammered out,--

  "At the mouth of the Meuse--"

  "I am quite well, father; but look here! I feel that I am going to die!"

  "Do nothing so foolish," said Ursus. And he added, "Above all, Godforbid she should have a shock!"

  There was a silence. Suddenly Ursus cried out,--

  "What are you doing? Why are you getting up? Lie down again, I imploreof you."

  Gwynplaine shivered, and stretched out his head.