The man who laughs makes sense. "The Man Who Laughs", an artistic analysis of the novel by Victor Hugo
The year 1870, harsh for France, begins. Napoleon III on July 19 declares war on Prussia, which supported the candidacy of one of the German princes for the Spanish throne, which was undesirable to France. Hugo is a principled opponent of war. In his Guernsey garden, he grew the "Oak of the United States of Europe" (it can be seen there to this day). The events in which the homeland is involved cannot leave him indifferent. On August 15, he is on the mainland, in Brussels. Hugo formulated his position in one of the poems: "he wants France for Austerlitz, and the empire for Waterloo." As you know, on September 2, as a result of the Sedan catastrophe, a hundred thousandth French army surrendered, and the "emperor of the French" became a prisoner of William I. This was the collapse of the empire. From September 3, insistent demands for the abolition of the monarchy began to be heard in Paris. On Sunday, September 4, the people fill the Palais des Bourbon, where the Chamber of Deputies sits, and soon in the city hall, the deputy from Paris, Leon Gambetta, proclaims the Republic.
In May 1869, Hugo published the novel The Man Who Laughs, which takes place in England in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. In a letter to the publisher of Lacroix from December 1868, Hugo seems to justify his abuse of historical themes, to which he was accustomed to romantic fashion: “... I have never written a historical drama or a historical novel. ... My style is to write about the authentic through fictional characters. "
In Bordeaux, Hugo rises to the parliamentary rostrum only three times, and each time he is greeted with hooting. After the third speech, in defense of Garibaldi, whom the National Assembly forced to leave its ranks, where he was at the behest of the French people, grateful to him for his participation “Koine against the Germans, Hugo on March 8 demonstratively resigns from his parliamentary powers. On March 13, a terrible blow befalls him: his son, Charles Hugo, suddenly dies. Shocked, Hugo returns to Paris with his son's coffin, where a funeral is to take place on March 18 at the Père Lachaise cemetery. On the morning of the same day, an uprising broke out in Paris: the Commune was proclaimed. The funeral cortege moves through the city covered with barricades. The workers skip the procession, pay their last respects to the deceased, seeing the famous gray-haired fighter against the empire behind the coffin. National guardsmen also salute, instinctively feeling the significance of what is happening.
The philosophy of the Parisian gateways as opposed to the unlimited freedom of those exposed to power. Victor Hugo has written a wonderful book whose themes will pass through the years and will forever remain eternal.
The name of Victor Hugo is rightfully on a par with the names of the best representatives of world culture. An outstanding writer and public figure, Hugo deservedly enjoys the love of millions of people. In his famous novels, he reflected both the dreams of the utopian socialists and the revolutionary storm of the era, showed the strength and weakness of the broad democratic movement that unfolded in France in the 19th century.
The writer treats the people with deep respect and love. He compares it to the ocean that
... full of brute strength and mighty grace.
He sometimes smashes the age-old cliff in the sand,
He spares the epic story. And with gray foam
He whips to the heights, like you, sovereign people ...
But he will not deceive with a wayward wave
The one who, without tearing his eyes from the surface of the waters,
Standing with hope, waiting for the tide.
Hugo believed in this great tide, in a happy future for humanity. He sided with the fighting people, praised their revolutionary heroism, their high moral qualities, hard work and creative talent.
Victor Hugo was born on February 26, 1802 in the city of Besançon, in the eastern part of France. His father, a native of the common people, the son of a carpenter from Nancy, owed his rapid rise to the French Revolution. A participant in the suppression of the counter-revolutionary uprising in the Vendée, Captain Sijisber Hugo, a few years later became a brigadier general and inspector of the Napoleonic army.
Victor Hugo's childhood was spent in constant traveling and wanderings; Sijisber Hugo took his family with him everywhere. Many vivid impressions of childhood remained memorable to the writer for the rest of his life. Subsequently, in his odes, Hugo wrote about the "cradle on the drum", about the nights when he had to fall asleep "to the sound of cannonade."
From Besançon, the Hugo family goes to the Elba, from the Elba to Genoa and Paris, then Rome and Madrid, where Sijisber Hugo receives the high post of governor of the city. In Madrid, Victor Hugo studies at a college for young nobles, in Paris at a noble lyceum he studies philosophy and mathematics. Carried away by literature, he begins to write early and at the age of fifteen he already received an award from the French Academy for his youthful poetry. Back in those years, Victor Hugo came to the firm conviction to devote his life to literature.
The revolution of 1848 had a fruitful impact on the work of V. Hugo.
The revolutionary movement of working people helped to understand Hugo's great duty of the writer - to serve the people.
“The fate of the worker everywhere, in America, as well as in France,” wrote Hugo in 1870, “attracts my deepest attention and excites me. - from now on he worked in the light. " 
The writer longed to see the day when the evil of capitalist society will be destroyed: the worker will live in human conditions, the woman will not go out into the street to sell herself, the children will not die from homelessness.
Pictures of the hard life of ordinary people unfold by the writer in the novel "The Man Who Laughs". With great expressiveness, the novel reproduces the life of England at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th centuries, depicts the misfortunes of the poor classes, luxury and decay at the top of society.
Real people are ordinary people of labor, but their life is hard and hopeless.
Using documents and historical literature, Hugo gives a true portrayal of social inequality. Wealth and all privileges are concentrated in the hands of a small handful of English society, the people are in poverty. State power is a gathering of people who have lost their conscience and honor.
Social inequality must be eliminated - a thought that permeates the entire novel. In Gwynplaine's speech in the House of Lords - this dramatic pinnacle of the work - the voice of popular indignation is heard. The people are as mutilated as Gwynplaine, disfigured by the Comprachikos. Justice, truth, reason in this accursed society are disfigured just like the face of a wandering actor, turned into a monstrous mask of laughter. Gwynplaine talks about a life like death, about workers in the coal mines who chew coal dust to fill their stomachs with something and cheat hunger, about poverty that has no limit, about unemployment, about English cities where there are no beds in huts, where holes are dug in the earthen floor in order to put children in them. The hour of reckoning is near and inexorable, the people will destroy the unjust world.
There is no happy ending in the cult novel. The only beloved woman of the protagonist dies in his arms from the endured mental suffering, the adoptive father is completely ruined, miraculously survived, Gwynplaine commits suicide ... Morality? You will find the answer to this question yourself by reading the book.
Let me briefly recall the plot of the novel:
The heir to a wealthy family was kidnapped as a result of the intrigue of a power struggle by his father's enemies, disfigured beyond recognition and sold to a gang of street criminals. Later, the bandits will throw the boy on the seashore in winter to certain death. But in spite of everything, the main character manages to survive. Moreover, he suddenly finds a family, home and calling. The boy turns into a man and imperceptibly becomes happy.
He has a favorite job, which, due to his rare physical handicap, brings good profit. But the ugliness of our hero is exclusively external. His soul is noble and beautiful. 
Only few can see it. But there is a beautiful girl who can fall in love with the hero, despite her shortcomings. Two lovers seem to be made for each other. She is beautiful - he is ugly. She is blind, he is able to lead.
And then Providence appears on the stage. By chance, it turns out that Gwynplaine is a peer of England, a member of Parliament, a wealthy and powerful man. He is faced with a difficult choice: to devote himself to the struggle for human rights, defending poverty from which he came out, or to continue to enjoy his own happiness.
It is simply impossible to describe Victor Hugo's book "The Man Who Laughs" in a nutshell. How impossible it is to describe two centuries of European history in a couple of sentences, how impossible it is to define the horror of a 10-year-old child who was left completely alone on the threshold of a black, cold world, who met him with a gallows and a blind baby freezing in the snow. Oh, here it is, the wide, skillful brush of the great Hugo!
Critics note that the book "The Man Who Laughs", included in the world classics, opens up completely new horizons of perception of the previously known. What is the reasoning about history:
“… History is the same night. There is no background in it. Everything that is in the foreground immediately disappears from sight and drowns in darkness. When the scenery is removed, the memory of them disappears, oblivion sets in. The past and the unknown are synonymous.
Victor Hugo tries to teach his reader to distinguish between good and evil in the modern world, to see the true faces of people, and not the masks they wear. The immortal work of the French writer is a vivid example of romanticism, like many works of the great master, it still has not lost its relevance and excites the hearts of millions of readers.
The novel "The Man Who Laughs" was filmed several times:
The first time was in 1928, in the USA. The movie was silent, the duration of the movie was 1 hour 51 minutes.
Cast: Konrad Feidt, Olga Baklanova, Mary Philbin, Cesare Gravina
Hugo's personality is striking in its versatility. We can say with confidence that he is one of the most widely read French prose writers in the world. All his work is defined by an incredible love for a person, compassion for the disadvantaged and a call for mercy. Victor Hugo can be called a democrat, an enemy of tyranny and violence against a person, a noble defender of the victims of political and social injustice. It is these themes that are raised throughout the work of the great French writer. It is impossible to forget the one who, even before his death, wrote:
“In my books, dramas, prose and poetry, I stood up for the small and unfortunate, I implored the mighty and unforgiving. I reinstated the jester, lackey, convict and prostitute in human rights. "
And speaking of such a great writer, it is impossible not to remember about his one of the most famous novels. "The Man Who Laughs." Again, I would like to say that this novel was not chosen by chance, since exactly this year marks exactly 145 years since the first publication of this novel, and of course, the second reason is the fact that it is one of the most beloved for me books.
Hugo's work evokes nothing other than admiration and delight. This is truly a Genius, and with a capital letter. In his works, you can find everything that is so valuable in books: in his works, the writer puts forward incredibly deep ideas that with each subsequent reading can be revealed in a new way, incredible depth of characters, realistic descriptions, amazing and rich language that helps in a detailed description the historical background of the works, and of course, the magnificent dramatic denouements of Hugo's works. All this is shocking, touches to the depths of the soul and inspires to read his works over and over again. So, let's talk in more detail about the novel "The Man Who Laughs".
The romantic features of Hugo's work are manifested in his unquenchable interest in history and other countries, and in this novel he takes the reader from his native France to foggy Albion, and from the 19th century to the 17th century. Why is the action taking place in England and not in France, you ask? So, England was not chosen by chance, Hugo, in the preface to the novel, said that nowhere was there such a feudal system as in England. The author wanted to show as clearly as possible all the vices of the English aristocracy of that time. The author tells about all the historical facts of that time, an example here is the story of the comprachikos, who were engaged in child trafficking. They bought and mutilated children and it was done just for fun.
Turning to the historical past, Hugo paints the English aristocracy of the 17th-18th centuries in an unattractive light, wanting to show that the British oligarchy of his day, having inherited all the worst from its past, remains as before a force hostile to the people, civilization, and progress. Thanks to the unsurpassed ability to realistically describe every detail, we can quite clearly imagine the life of England in that historical period.
The plot of the book is great. In the novel "The Man Who Laughs" the writer traces the fate of his hero Gwynplaine, who was stolen and disfigured by bandits in childhood and went from a fairground actor to the seat of lord in parliament. Hugo describes in detail how the main character finds a family, his formation as a person, his first and only love for a blind girl - Dey. Using the example of the main characters, the author shows two worlds in the book "the world of light" - the life of poor people and the "world of darkness" - the life of rich people. I would like to dwell in more detail on the characteristics of the main characters of the novel.
So, Gwynplaine- a poor child, disfigured by komprachikos in childhood, who was "lucky" to face the injustice and troubles of this world. The physically mutilated child symbolizes in this novel the tragedy of oppressed humanity, cruelly crippled by an unjust social order. It is in this character that all the democratic views of Hugo himself are embodied. The very tragedy of this character, in my opinion, is that because of his appearance he was not taken seriously (to be precise, because of his smile, which was a consequence of the actions of the Comprachikos). Neither in the world of the poor, nor in the world of the rich (all the more so) he was not perceived as a person. For those around him, he was just an actor, with a terrible appearance.
Ursus(the man who sheltered Gwynplaine with baby Deia) - is the bearer of protest, the desire for social justice inherent in the people. Sharing the suffering and misery of the people, he reflects their thoughts and aspirations, moral greatness and endurance.
And of course, you should remember about such a light character as Dey... She is beautiful, and she is beautiful not only outwardly (despite her blindness), but her most important advantage is her spiritual beauty and purity. Dei's spiritual wealth and moral greatness is mesmerizing. Their touching and pure love with Gwynplaine cannot leave you indifferent. And the tragic end of their happiness just brings tears (this was the first book that caused such a storm of emotions that I could not hold back the tears).
This novel is truly philosophical. Victor Hugo raises eternal questions such as:
- External ugliness of a person and his internal (mental) beauty - is their harmonious existence possible?
- The opposition of good and evil (an eternal question that worries to this day)
- How many troubles and tragedies, losses and misfortunes the human soul can withstand and much more.
Speaking about the Hugo language, one can agree that it is somewhat complicated. But a more accurate word for Hugo's style is ornate. But, despite this, after reading at least one of his monologues, we understand that thanks to this feature, the author reveals the full depth of the heroes' feelings.
In summary, I would like to mention a few of my favorite quotes from this greatest work:
- If a person, exhausted by a cruel mental storm, convulsively resisting the onslaught of unexpected disasters, not knowing whether he is alive or dead, is still capable of treating his beloved creature with careful care - this is a sure sign of a truly beautiful heart.
- The most difficult task is to constantly suppress in your soul the desire for evil, with which it is so difficult to fight. Almost all of our desires, if properly understood, contain something that cannot be admitted.
- In love, the main thing is habit. All life is concentrated in it. The daily appearance of the sun is a habit of the universe. The universe is a woman in love, and the sun is her lover
The piece is simply magical. Everything is beautiful in this novel: both long lyrical digressions and the ornate language of the author and incredibly deep heroes. But you need to read this creation thoughtfully, because even the smallest details in the descriptions were created by the author so that we can enjoy this masterpiece!
One of the most famous novels by Victor Hugo was created in the 1860s and published in April 1869. In it, the French writer raised several important universal and social issues related to the eternal themes of life and death, spiritual love and bodily passion, truth and lies, an insurmountable chasm that exists between the poor, suffering people and the nobility endowed with wealth and power.
Scene novel - England (Portland, the village of Waymet, the town of Melcombe Regis, other small rural cities of the country, London). Time of action- late 17th - early 18th century. Chronotope the novel is determined by the wandering character of the protagonists - buffoonery, giving performances at the beginning in a tiny carriage, and then in a huge theater on wheels called "The Green Box". The main part of the work takes place in two space-time planes: in the area of the Portland plateau, on the banks of which a ten-year-old ugly boy was left on January 29, 1690, and in London, in the winter-spring of 1705, when twenty-five-year-old Gwynplaine learns the secret of his birth, eternal laughter and meaning life.
All the characters in the novel, both the main ones (the philosopher Ursus who raised Gwynplaine, the blind girl Dey, the half-brother of the “man who laughs” - Lord David Derry-Moir, Duchess Josiana, the former lackey of Jacob II, the ocean bottle opener Barquilfedro), and the minor ones (comprachios from the lessons of "Matutin", the people watching the performances of the artists from the "Green Box", nobility and employees of the House of Lords) are connected with each other through the image of the central character- Gwynplaine / Lord Ferman Clancharly, Peer of England.
"The Man Who Laughs", by his own admission to the English lords, is terrifying symbol of violence, every second committed by the nobility over all the rest of humanity. “I am the people ... I am the reality ... I am the Man. Scary "The Man Who Laughs"- says Gwynplaine about himself. “Laughing at whom? Above you. Above oneself. Above everything ".
Gwynplaine's eternal laughter is of a physical nature. The constant irony of Ursus stems from his internal moral attitudes: familiar with numerous philosophical treatises and the realities of the life around him, the hero only does what he grumbles at the world. He "praises" the lords, whose descriptions of the riches of which his cart is filled, and "scolds" the poor children who decided to deprive him of dinner, the children whom he will accept not for one cold winter evening, but for life, becoming their father, teacher and friend until death itself.
The history of life Gwynplaine is tragic from start to finish. As the legitimate son of his father, Lord Linnaeus Clancharly, after the death of his parents, he, by order of King James II, is stripped of his title and placed in the hands of the Comprachicos - a community of vagabonds involved in the sale of children previously mutilated for fairground performances. After the ascension to the throne of William III, who began the persecution of child traffickers, the boy is abandoned in the harbor of Portland.
By all laws realistic genre, in which, according to many literary critics, the novel "The Man Who Laughs" was written, the child should have died. But here the higher (romantic) providence intervenes, under which Hugo deduces nature (and in fact - God), and the boy not only survives, but also saves a nine-month-old girl from death. On the way to life, the child is accompanied by continuous dangers - cold (the action takes place in one of the coldest European winters), fear (meeting with the corpse of a smuggler), death (crossing the thin Portland isthmus and the constant threat of being either in the sea or in the ocean), hunger, fatigue, human indifference. Gwynplaine overcomes everything, acquiring in the end - a house (not too big, but warm and cozy), a family (someone else's by blood, but kindred in spirit), fame (at the fair level), money (enough so as not to starve yourself and feed Deyu and Ursus with Homo), love.
Love theme in the novel it is revealed in two aspects: romantic - the love of Gwynplaine and Dei (pure, sublime, spiritual) and realistic - the physical attraction that exists between Gwynplaine and Josiana (passionate, bodily, animal). Josiana's image opposed the image of Dei: unlike a blind girl, beautiful, fragile, light, the duchess looks majestic in her beauty, a desirable woman, full of bodily health. She is drawn to Gwynplaine by an inner perversion that is adjacent to physical innocence in Josiana. The girl dreams of giving her virginity to the lowest person in the world, thereby rising above the high society despised by her and ending with satiety and boredom.
The same supreme providence protects Gwynplaine from moral fall, which for fifteen years carried a bottle with the confession of the Comprachicos sealed in it. The exaltation of the hero becomes a turning point and final stage in his life. Having become a lord, Gwynplaine in one day faces all possible temptations - pride, vanity, lust, oblivion (past life), betrayal of his loved ones (fleeting, but no less acute). Having received the opportunity to convey to those in power the truth about the suffering people, he cannot fully realize his status of a peerage because of the physical deformity that makes others laugh, and some tongue-tied language due to the lack of speech practice of communicating with the upper strata of society.
After the debates in the House of Lords, only his half-brother, David, who knows the folk environment in which he turns under the guise of the sailor Tom-Jim-Jack, takes the side of Gwynplaine. At the same time, supporting the ideas put forward by the buffoon, he, in an impulse to defend his good name and the name of his family, challenges not only young lords, but also his newly acquired brother to a duel.
Struck by the baseness of high society, Gwynplaine (in the literal sense of the word) runs down and, not finding the "Green Box" in its former place, immediately realizes that he has lost. His real name and life turned out to be a lie; his ugly smile and buffoonery are true. As Ursus predicted, the true happiness for Gwynplaine has always been Dey alone, seeing his kind heart and loving him for himself. The death of Gwynplaine and Dei puts an end to their relationship - not having bodily development on earth, but endlessly striving into the divine cosmos.
Shot from the film "The Man Who Laughs" (2012)
Prologue
Ursus (Latin for Bear) was a versatile person. It hid a philosopher, a poet, a healer, a street buffoon, and a ventriloquist, capable of accurately reproducing any sound. Ursus traveled throughout England with his faithful wolf Homo (Latin for Man). A small wooden cart made of thin boards, like a box with two doors at the ends, served as a refuge for them. Inside was a large chest, an iron stove, and a small chemical laboratory. Homo served as a horse for the carriage, next to whom Ursus often harnessed. The wolf was not only a draft force, but a full-fledged participant in the performances: he showed various tricks and walked around the audience with a wooden cup in his teeth. One profession of Ursus helped another: a piece written and performed by him gathered people who bought drugs prepared by Ursus.
“He was short in stature, but seemed lanky. He hunched over and was always thoughtful. " Despite his many talents, Ursus was poor and often went to bed without supper. "In his youth, he lived as a philosopher with a certain lord," but when he met Gomo in the forest, he felt a craving for vagrancy and preferred "hunger in the forest to slavery in the palace." Now “the inner state of Ursus was a constant dull rage; his outward condition was grumpiness. " He was a pessimist and saw the world only from the bad side.
Ursus had a dark philosophy about life. This man never smiled, and his laugh was bitter. He considered the power of the aristocracy to be an inevitable evil, with which one should come to terms. These thoughts, however, he kept to himself, pretending to be an ardent admirer of aristocrats. Two long inscriptions on the walls of the carriage were proof of this. One described the most complex rules of etiquette that governed the English aristocrats. The second inscription was a list of all the possessions of dukes, earls and barons. This list was preceded by the inscription: "Consolation with which those who have nothing should be content." Opposite the name of Lord Linnaeus Klencharlia, it was indicated that all his property was under arrest, and the lord himself was a rebel in exile.
Traveling through England, Ursus managed to avoid trouble, although Jacob II had already passed a law against the comprachikos. The persecution against them continued during the reign of William and Mary. Comprachikos were the names of people involved in the production of freaks. In the 17th-18th centuries, at the court of any aristocrat, there was always a dwarf jester, and the public in the fairgrounds was entertained by freaks. The Comprachicos bought children and surgically changed their appearance. They turned beautiful, healthy children into dwarfs and funny freaks. Often the services of the comprachicos were used to remove an unwanted heir. These crooks were of different nationalities and usually huddled in gangs. Oddly enough, the Comprachicos were not pagans, but ardent Catholics and "zealously guarded the purity of their faith."
Part I. Sea and Night
The winter of 1689-1690 was unusually cold. On one of the coldest January evenings in 1690, in one of the bays of Portland Bay, a Biscay was moored - an old ship with a pot-bellied hull fastened. Some people were hastily loaded onto the urk. One of the obscure silhouettes, the smallest, belonged to a child. He was dressed in rags, while his companions covered themselves with long, wide cloaks with hoods. Having plunged, the people boarded. The child wanted to follow them, but the leader of the gang at the last moment threw down the board, which served as a ladder. Urka set sail, leaving the child alone in the desolate and cold wasteland.
The boy had no shoes, and his rags and the sailor's jacket thrown over them did not warm at all. Having hardly got out of a deep bay with steep slopes, the child saw in front of him an endless and deserted plateau, white with snow. He ended up on the Portland Peninsula. The boy was lucky: he turned towards a narrow isthmus connecting the peninsula with the English Isles. On the way, he came across a gallows. The corpse of the hanged smuggler was covered in tar. This was done to keep the body as long as possible and serve as a lesson to others. The hanged man's shoes were lying under the gallows, but the child did not dare to take them.
Fascinated standing in front of the corpse, the boy almost froze. Suddenly, a gust of wind, a harbinger of a blizzard, shook the dead man sharply. This frightened the boy and he ran. Soon he passed the very dangerous Portland Isthmus, which was "a two-sided slope with a rocky ridge in the middle," and saw smoke - a trail of human habitation.
Meanwhile, a blizzard overtook the Urku crossing the Channel. The crew fought with it for a long time, miraculously avoiding a variety of dangers, but the fight was in vain. When the storm subsided, it turned out that almost the entire crew of the shrimps, led by the captain, washed away into the sea, and the ship itself received a hole and is sinking. The passengers were comprachicos. They hired a ship to escape to Spain. Convinced that the land was far away and there was no salvation, the eldest of the comprachikos wrote a confession, which was signed by the rest. The document was placed in a glass jar tied with willow twigs. The name of the owner was knitted on the braid. The flask was closed, the neck was greased, and this fragile vessel was thrown into the sea.
The snowstorm that raged on the sea swept over the land. Having passed the isthmus, the child noticed human footprints in the fresh snow. Quiet and strange sounds coming from the snowy haze helped him not to lose track. In the end, the boy came across a dead woman, next to which a nursing baby was swarming. The boy picked up the crumbs, wrapped them in his jacket, and with a load in his arms moved on.
Some time later, the boy saw "roofs and pipes covered with snow not far from him." He entered the town, deeply asleep, and began knocking on all the doors, but no one was in a hurry to open it. Finally, he came across a vacant lot, where Ursus's cart stopped for the night.
When the boy knocked, Ursus was about to eat his meager supper. He did not want to share, but the philosopher could not leave the child to freeze. Without ceasing to grumble and swear, he let the boy into the house, changed into dry clothes and gave him his supper. To Ursus's amazement, a one-year-old girl was in the package the boy had brought with him. Ursus gave her milk, which he hoped to feed herself. In the morning, the philosopher discovered that the boy's face was disfigured - eternal laughter froze on it. The girl turned out to be blind.
Part II. By order of the king
Lord Linnaeus Klencharly was "a living fragment of the past." He, like many other peers, recognized the republic, but after the execution of Cromwell, he did not go over to the side of the restored monarchy. Remaining a staunch republican, Lord Clencharly retired into exile on the shores of Lake Geneva. In England, he left a mistress with an illegitimate son. The woman was beautiful, noble and very quickly became the mistress of King Charles II, and her son David Derry-Moir began his career at court. Klencharly was forgotten for a while.
The old lord, however, retained the title and peerage. He married in Switzerland and had a legitimate son and heir. Having ascended the throne, Jacob II decided to correct the mistake made by the previous king. Old Klencharly had died by that time, his legitimate son mysteriously disappeared, and David became the Lord Peer. Lord David also got an enviable bride, the beautiful Duchess Josiana, the illegitimate daughter of Jacob II.
Time has passed. Anne, daughter of Jacob II, became Queen of England. Josiana and David liked each other, "the sophistication of their relationship delighted the courtyard." He was slender, tall, handsome, and cheerful. She is beautiful and noble. However, they did not rush the wedding: both the groom and the bride treasured their freedom, although in 1705 she was 23 years old, and he was 44.
Like all aristocrats of the time, David and Josiana were satiated with their wealth. The Duchess, a haughty and sensual woman, considered herself a princess, as she was Queen Anne's bastard sister. She did not have a lover only because Josiana could not find the most worthy, she was protected not by modesty, but by pride. The Duchess could be called a depraved virgin, "the personification of sensual beauty." The queen, an ugly and stupid woman, disliked her beautiful sister.
David, the rake and trendsetter, had much more to enjoy himself. He participated in the cruel pranks of aristocratic youth, but he himself was not cruel. He was the first to start making repairs to the victims of entertainment. David attended boxing matches, participated in cockfighting, and often disguised himself as a commoner to stroll the streets of London, where he was known as Tom-Jim-Jack.
The Queen, David and Josiana watched each other. In this they were assisted by a man named Barquilphedro. He was a confidant of all three, while each of the trinity believed that Barquilphedro served only to him. As a servant of Jacob II, he gained access to Josiana, and through her he entered the royal chambers. After a while, Josiana arranged for her "confidant" to be an "ocean bottle opener" - such a position then existed in the English Admiralty. Now Barquilphedro had the right to open any container thrown ashore by the sea. The outward courtesy and helpfulness of the servant concealed true deceit. Josiana, who patronized him casually, in passing, he hated. All good requires vengeance, and Barquilphedro was waiting for an opportunity to strike Josiana a blow.
Saving the bride from boredom, Lord David showed her Gwynplaine - this is how they began to call the boy who was once saved by Ursus. The blind girl who turned into a beautiful girl, like an angel, was called Deya. Ursus adopted both children. For fifteen years they had traveled the roads of England, amusing the mob. Gwynplaine was incredibly ugly. His face resembled "the head of a laughing Medusa," and his coarse and thick hair was dyed a bright red. His body, on the other hand, was beautiful and flexible. The guy was not stupid: Ursus tried to convey to him everything he knew himself. The youth's ugliness was not natural; his face was reshaped by the comprachikos. Gwynplaine, however, did not complain. Looking at him, the people laughed until colic, and then paid well. Thanks to Gwynplaine's appearance, his companions did not need anything.
Beautiful Deya was sixteen years old, Gwynplaine turned 24, they loved each other and were infinitely happy. Their love was pure - they hardly touched each other. For Dei, Gwynplaine was the most beautiful person in the world, because she saw his soul. The girl did not believe that her beloved was ugly, and people were laughing at him. Gwynplaine idolized Day. Ursus looked at them, rejoiced and grumbled. Over the years, they got hold of a new large van, the Green Box, with the middle section replacing the stage. Homo no longer had to carry the house on himself, the wolf was replaced by a donkey. An old cart, placed in the corner of the van, served as Dee's bedroom. Ursus even hired two gypsies who took part in the performances and helped with the housework. A sign on the side of the van told the story of Gwynplaine.
Having traveled all over England, Ursus decided to go to London. The comedians settled in the Tedcaster Hotel, located in one of the suburbs of London. The square courtyard of the hotel turned into a theater hall, where Ursus performed the play Defeated Chaos, written by him. The most ardent admirer of the play was Tom-Jim-Jack. "The Man Who Laughs" was such a success that he ruined all the surrounding booths. The owners of the booths filed a complaint against Ursus, the priests joined them, but Ursus managed to get out of the water again this time, and the scandal only increased the popularity of the "Green Box".
One day a beautiful and distinguished woman attended Ursus' performance. It was Josiana. Gwynplaine's ugliness startled her. The Duchess decided that only this king of freaks deserves to become her lover. One evening Gwynplaine, as usual, was walking outside the hotel. An elegant page boy approached him and handed a letter from the duchess, in which there was a recognition and appeal. Even at the performance, Gwynplaine was impressed by the beauty of the woman, but he did not cheat on Dee. Without saying anything to anyone, the young man burned the letter.
Meanwhile, Dey, fragile as a reed, grew weaker and weaker. Ursus suspected she had an incurable heart disease. He was afraid that the first violent shock would kill the girl.
On the morning that Gwynplaine burned the Duchess's letter, a rod bearer appeared at the Green Box. In the 18th century, this man performed police functions, arresting criminals, suspects or witnesses. In his hands he held an iron rod. The one to whom the iron rod touches had to silently follow the rod-bearer, without asking questions. That morning, the rod touched Gwynplaine. Deya did not understand that her beloved had left, and Ursus did not say anything to her, fearing for the girl's health.
The old philosopher followed the rod-bearer. He brought Gwynplaine to prison. Ursus spent the entire night outside the prison, but the prison doors did not open. Gwynplaine was taken to an underground cell, where a man was tortured - he was crucified and crushed by a lead slab. Seeing the young man, the man recognized him and "burst out with a terrible laugh." After this, the judge who was present here stood up and named Gwynplaine Lord Ferman Clancharly, Baron, Marquis and Peer of England.
This transformation was due to Barquilphedro. It was he who opened the flask with a confession written by a gang of comprachicos before his death. He learned that the boy, abandoned by them on the shore, was the rightful heir of the exiled Lord Klencharly, who was sold to the comprachikos by order of King James II. The mask of laughter on Gwynplaine's face was created by a certain Hardkwanon. They found him, tortured him, and he confessed. Lady Josiana was engaged to Lord Clencharly, not to a man, but to his title. If the title changed owner, then the duchess had to change the groom. Barkilphedro realized that he had in his hands the long-awaited instrument of revenge. The Queen supported her faithful servant. Together they reinstated Gwynplaine.
Stunned by this news, the young man passed out. He woke up in a beautiful palace, where Barquilphedro brought him. He explained to Gwynplaine that his life had changed dramatically and he should forget the Green Box and its inhabitants. Gwynplaine was eager to inform Ursus about everything, to take him the money, but Barquilfedro did not allow. He undertook to divert a substantial sum himself and left, locking Gwynplaine in the palace.
The young man did not sleep all night. In his soul, there was a "displacement of the greatness of the moral by the thirst for the greatness of the material." He, as in delirium, reveled in his power and wealth all night, but when the sun rose, he remembered Deya.
Ursus did not return home until morning. He did not dare to tell Dea that Gwynplaine was missing, and put on a whole show, imitating Gwynplaine's voice and the noise of the crowd. However, he could not deceive the blind girl - she felt that her beloved was not next to her. Towards evening, a policeman came to the hotel and brought Gwynplaine's clothes. Ursus rushed to the prison gates and saw the coffin being carried out. In it lay a comprachicos who had died from torture, but the philosopher decided that it was his pupil who was being buried. Returning to the hotel, Ursus found Barquilphedro there, accompanied by a bailiff. He confirmed that Gwynplaine was dead and ordered the philosopher to leave England.
Having regained consciousness, Gwynplaine began to look for a way out of the palace, which resembles a labyrinth. He soon found himself in a room with a marble bath. Adjacent to the hall was a small room with mirrored walls, in which a half-naked woman slept. She woke up, and the young man recognized the duchess. She began to seduce Gwynplaine. He almost gave up, but at that moment a letter came from the Queen, from which Josiana learned that Gwynplaine was her future husband. She instantly lost interest in her new toy, declared that her husband had no right to take the place of her lover, and disappeared into the labyrinth of the palace.
On the evening of the same day, Guinnplaine underwent a full peerage of England and found himself at a meeting of the House of Lords. He considered himself a messenger of the lower classes of English society, hoped to reach out to the minds and souls of those who ruled England, to tell about the poverty and lack of rights of the common people. There was already a rumor in London about the rise of the fairground buffoon, and the lords who had gathered for the meeting spoke only about this. They did not notice Gwynplaine until he stood up and made a fiery speech. With an inhuman effort, he managed to get rid of the grimace of eternal laughter from his face. Now he was serious and terrible. For some time, Gwynplaine managed to capture the attention of the lords, but soon returned to his face "a mask of despair petrified in laughter, a mask that captured innumerable calamities and forever doomed to serve for fun and cause laughter." Gwynplaine's laughter personified all the "troubles, all the misfortunes, all the catastrophes, all the diseases, all the ulcers, all the agonies" of the poor people. The lords burst out into Homeric laughter and began throwing insults at Gwynplaine. The meeting had to be closed. To know, who received the buffoon with applause, rejected the lord. Gwynplaine's aspirations were "destroyed by laughter."
In the lobby, the young man met Lord David, whom he knew as Tom-Jim-Jack. He defended Gwynplaine, who turned out to be his half-brother. The young man decided that he had finally found a family, but Lord David challenged him to a duel - in his confused speech Gwynplaine insulted his mother. It was a blow, destroying the last hopes of the young man, "he fled from London." Now he wanted one thing - to see Deya.
Gwynplaine returned to the hotel and found that it was closed and empty: the owner was arrested, and Ursus sold the "green box" and left. The fairground was suddenly empty too. Carried away by the specter of power and wealth, the young man lost everything he had. His feet led him to the banks of the Thames. Now Gwynplaine had no reason to live. He had already undressed, about to throw himself into the water, but suddenly "felt that someone was licking his hands." It was Homo.
Conclusion. Sea and night
The wolf brought Gwynplaine to the Dutch ship Vograat. There the young man found Ursus and Deya. The girl was very weak, and the philosopher could no longer fix anything - Dey was dying of longing for Gwynplaine. The young man rushed to his beloved, and for a moment she came to life, a blush appeared on her pale cheeks. This did not last long. Deya had already come to terms with the death of her beloved, and his sudden return caused a shock, too strong for the girl's sick heart. She died in the arms of Gwynplaine. The young man was terrible in his grief. He jumped to his feet, and, as if following some invisible creature, walked to the edge of the deck. The ship had no boards, and nothing prevented Gwynplaine from throwing himself into the water. When Ursus woke up, there was no one next to him, only Homo "howled plaintively in the dark."
