Victor Hugo - The Man Who Laughs - Cosmopolitan University 2

have neither holes in his clothes, nor cold at his hearth, nor emptiness
in his stomach. It is to eat when hungry and drink when thirsty. It is
to have everything necessary, including a penny for a beggar. This
indigent wealth, enough for liberty, was possessed by Gwynplaine. So far
as his soul was concerned, he was opulent. He had love. What more could
he want? Nothing.
You may think that had the offer been made to him to remove his
deformity he would have grasped at it. Yet he would have refused it
emphatically. What! to throw off his mask and have his former face
restored; to be the creature he had perchance been created, handsome and
charming? No, he would never have consented to it. For what would he
have to support Dea? What would have become of that poor child, the
sweet blind girl who loved him? Without his rictus, which made him a
clown without parallel, he would have been a mountebank, like any other;
a common athlete, a picker up of pence from the chinks in the pavement,
and Dea would perhaps not have had bread every day. It was with deep and
tender pride that he felt himself the protector of the helpless and
heavenly creature. Night, solitude, nakedness, weakness, ignorance,
hunger, and thirst--seven yawning jaws of misery--were raised around
her, and he was the St. George fighting the dragon. He triumphed over
poverty. How? By his deformity. By his deformity he was useful, helpful,
victorious, great. He had but to show himself, and money poured in. He
was a master of crowds, the sovereign of the mob. He could do everything
for Dea. Her wants he foresaw; her desires, her tastes, her fancies, in
the limited sphere in which wishes are possible to the blind, he
fulfilled. Gwynplaine and Dea were, as we have already shown, Providence
to each other. He felt himself raised on her wings; she felt herself
carried in his arms. To protect the being who loves you, to give what
she requires to her who shines on you as your star, can anything be
sweeter? Gwynplaine possessed this supreme happiness, and he owed it to
his deformity. His deformity had raised him above all. By it he had
gained the means of life for himself and others; by it he had gained
independence, liberty, celebrity, internal satisfaction and pride. In
his deformity he was inaccessible. The Fates could do nothing beyond
this blow in which they had spent their whole force, and which he had
turned into a triumph. This lowest depth of misfortune had become the
summit of Elysium. Gwynplaine was imprisoned in his deformity, but with
Dea. And this was, as we have already said, to live in a dungeon of
paradise. A wall stood between them and the living world. So much the
better. This wall protected as well as enclosed them. What could affect
Dea, what could affect Gwynplaine, with such a fortress around them? To
take from him his success was impossible. They would have had to deprive
him of his face. Take from him his love. Impossible. Dea could not see
him. The blindness of Dea was divinely incurable. What harm did his
deformity do Gwynplaine? None. What advantage did it give him? Every
advantage. He was beloved, notwithstanding its horror, and perhaps for
that very cause. Infirmity and deformity had by instinct been drawn
towards and coupled with each other. To be beloved, is not that
everything? Gwynplaine thought of his disfigurement only with gratitude.
He was blessed in the stigma. With joy he felt that it was irremediable
and eternal. What a blessing that it was so! While there were highways
and fairgrounds, and journeys to take, the people below and the sky
above, they would be sure to live, Dea would want nothing, and they
should have love. Gwynplaine would not have changed faces with Apollo.
To be a monster was his form of happiness.