The Man Who Laughs - Victor Hugo (best finance books of all time txt) 📗
- Author: Victor Hugo
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Here a voice spoke: an ineffable voice, which seemed from afar, and appeared to come at once from the heights and the depths—a voice divinely 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 a heaven-like trance.
The voice said,—
"He did well to go. This world was not worthy of him. Only I must go with him. Father! I am not ill; I heard you speak just now. I am very well, quite well. I was asleep. Father, I am going to be happy."
"My child," said Ursus in a voice of anguish, "what do you mean by that?"
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 not what 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 to heaven. He has taken flight suddenly. It was natural that it should end thus. The soul flies away like a bird. But the nest of the soul is in the 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 the deck.
"Father!" resumed the voice, "you understand that once Gwynplaine is no longer here, all is over. Even if I would remain, I could not, because one must breathe. We must not ask for that which is impossible. I was with Gwynplaine. It was quite natural, I lived. Now Gwynplaine is no more, 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 is not at all difficult. Father, that which is extinguished here shall be rekindled elsewhere. It is a heartache to live in this world. It cannot be that we shall always be unhappy. When we go to what you call the stars, 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 were together, and we were happy. How different it is now! I forget what little village we were in, but there were trees, and I heard the linnets singing. 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 been better had we kept to the little towns. Gwynplaine has done right, withal. Now my turn has come. Besides, you have told me yourself, that when I was very little, my mother died, and that I was lying on the ground with the snow falling upon me, and that he, who was also very little then, and alone, like myself, picked me up, and that it was thus that I came to be alive; so you cannot wonder that now I should feel it absolutely necessary to go and search the grave to see if Gwynplaine be in it. Because the only thing which exists in life is the heart; and after 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 I do 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 must have happened."
These words, uttered with deep and inconsolable sweetness, and with a sigh 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 on board a vessel. Be calm; you must not talk so much. Daughter, if you have any love for me, do not agitate yourself, it will make you feverish. I am so old, I could not bear it if you were to have an illness. Spare me! do not be ill!"
Again the voice spoke,—
"What is the use of searching the earth, when we can only find in heaven?"
Ursus replied, with a half attempt at authority,—
"Be calm. There are times when you have no sense at all. I order you to rest. After all, you cannot be expected to know what it is to rupture a blood-vessel. I should be easy if you were easy. My child, do something for me as well. If he picked you up, I took you in. You will make me ill. That is wrong. You must calm yourself, and go to sleep. All will come 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 the mouth of the Meuse."
"Father," said the voice, "look here; when two beings have always been together from infancy, their state should not be disturbed, or death must come, and it cannot be otherwise. I love you all the same, but I feel that I am no longer altogether with you, although I am as yet not altogether 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 a city."
"Father," continued the voice, "I am not ill; if you are anxious about that, you may rest easy. I have no fever. I am rather hot; it is nothing more."
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, God forbid 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 implore of you."
Gwynplaine shivered, and stretched out his head.
CHAPTER III. PARADISE REGAINED BELOW.
He saw Dea. She had just raised herself up on the mattress. She had on a long white dress, carefully closed, and showing only the delicate form of her neck. The sleeves covered her arms; the folds, her feet. The branch-like tracery of blue veins, hot and swollen with fever, were visible on her hands. She was shivering and rocking, rather than reeling, to and fro, like a reed. The lantern threw up its glancing light on her beautiful face. Her loosened hair floated over her shoulders. No tears fell on her cheeks. In her eyes there was fire, and darkness. She was pale, with that paleness which is like the transparency of a divine life in an earthly face. Her fragile and exquisite form was, as it were, blended and interfused with the folds of her robe. She wavered like the flicker of a flame, while, at the same time, she was dwindling into shadow. Her eyes, opened wide, were resplendent. She was as one just freed from the sepulchre; a soul standing in the dawn.
Ursus, whose back only was visible to Gwynplaine, raised his arms in terror. "O my child! O heavens! she is delirious. Delirium is what I feared worst of all. She must have no shock, for that might kill her; yet nothing but a shock can prevent her going mad. Dead or mad! what a situation. O God! what can I do? My child, lie down again."
Meanwhile, Dea spoke. Her voice was almost indistinct, as if a cloud already interposed between her and earth.
"Father, you are wrong. I am not in the least delirious. I hear all you say to me, distinctly. You tell me that there is a great crowd of people, that they are waiting, and that I must play to-night. I am quite willing. You see that I have my reason; but I do not know what to do, since I am dead, and Gwynplaine is dead. I am coming all the same. I am ready to play. Here I am; but Gwynplaine is no longer here."
"Come, my child," said Ursus, "do as I bid you. Lie down again."
"He is no longer here, no longer here. Oh! how dark it is!"
"Dark!" muttered Ursus. "This is the first time she has ever uttered that word!"
Gwynplaine, with as little noise as he could help making as he crept, mounted the step of the caravan, entered it, took from the nail the cape and the esclavine, put the esclavine round his neck, and redescended from the van, still concealed by the projection of the cabin, the rigging, and the mast.
Dea continued murmuring. She moved her lips, and by degrees the murmur became a melody. In broken pauses, and with the interrupted cadences of delirium, her voice broke into the mysterious appeal she had so often addressed to Gwynplaine in Chaos Vanquished. She sang, and her voice was low and uncertain as the murmur of the bee,—
"Noche, quita te de allí.
El alba canta...."[23]
She stopped. "No, it is not true. I am not dead. What was I saying? Alas! I am alive. I am alive. He is dead. I am below. He is above. He is gone. I remain. I shall hear his voice no more, nor his footstep. God, who had given us a little Paradise on earth, has taken it away. Gwynplaine, it is over. I shall never feel you near me again. Never! And his voice! I shall never hear his voice again. And she sang:—
"Es menester a cielos ir—
Deja, quiero,
A tu negro
Caparazon."
"We must go to heaven.
Take off, I entreat thee,
Thy black cloak."
She stretched out her hand, as if she sought something in space on which she might rest.
Gwynplaine, rising by the side of Ursus, who had suddenly become as though petrified, knelt down before her.
"Never," said Dea, "never shall I hear him again."
She began, wandering, to sing again:—
"Deja, quiero,
A tu negro
Caparazon."
Then she heard a voice—even the beloved voice—answering:—
"O ven! ama!
Eres alma,
Soy corazon."
"O come and love
Thou art the soul,
I am the heart."
And at the same instant Dea felt under her hand the head of Gwynplaine. She uttered an indescribable cry.
"Gwynplaine!"
A light, as of a star, shone over her pale face, and she tottered. Gwynplaine received her in his arms.
"Alive!" cried Ursus.
Dea repeated "Gwynplaine;" and with her head bowed against Gwynplaine's cheek, she whispered faintly,—
"You have come down to me again. I thank you, Gwynplaine."
And seated on his knee, she lifted up her head. Wrapt in his embrace, she turned her sweet face towards him, and fixed on him
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