Victor Hugo - The Man Who Laughs - Cosmopolitan University 2

Lord David stopped, looked at Josiana, shut his mouth, and inflated his
cheeks, whilst he nodded his head, which signified attention, and said
to the duchess,--
"For spleen there is but one remedy."
"What is it?"
"Gwynplaine."
The duchess asked,--
"And who is Gwynplaine?"
BOOK THE SECOND.
_GWYNPLAINE AND DEA._
CHAPTER I.
WHEREIN WE SEE THE FACE OF HIM OF WHOM WE HAVE HITHERTO SEEN ONLY THE
ACTS.
Nature had been prodigal of her kindness to Gwynplaine. She had bestowed
on him a mouth opening to his ears, ears folding over to his eyes, a
shapeless nose to support the spectacles of the grimace maker, and a
face that no one could look upon without laughing.
We have just said that nature had loaded Gwynplaine with her gifts. But
was it nature? Had she not been assisted?
Two slits for eyes, a hiatus for a mouth, a snub protuberance with two
holes for nostrils, a flattened face, all having for the result an
appearance of laughter; it is certain that nature never produces such
perfection single-handed.
But is laughter a synonym of joy?
If, in the presence of this mountebank--for he was one--the first
impression of gaiety wore off, and the man were observed with attention,
traces of art were to be recognized. Such a face could never have been
created by chance; it must have resulted from intention. Such perfect
completeness is not in nature. Man can do nothing to create beauty, but
everything to produce ugliness. A Hottentot profile cannot be changed
into a Roman outline, but out of a Grecian nose you may make a
Calmuck's. It only requires to obliterate the root of the nose and to
flatten the nostrils. The dog Latin of the Middle Ages had a reason for
its creation of the verb _denasare_. Had Gwynplaine when a child been
so worthy of attention that his face had been subjected to